We needs solutions and I have top-notch commentors on Christian family life. I have an idea.
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.
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.
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.
MKT pointed out a video celebration of J.D. Greear’s election as president of the SBC.
In his comment, MKT noted Russell Moore’s cameo, but Beth Moore is in there as well. If you watch both videos you’ll see that it’s a who’s-who of the SBC’s ascendant politburo.
But today I want to talk about the animating spirit behind J.D. Greear’s ascendence, and I want to do that by examining the message put out by one of his biggest fans, the producer of this video. Her name is Ashley Unzicker. [1] She is a member of The Summit Churches in NC where her husband Todd Unzicker[1] is a sort of pastor of the 10,000 plus church, according to this McClatchy article about how evil Trump is.
It turns out that the celebration video is a follow-up to this video from March 14, 2016 in which she pimps big for Greear to be president. [2]
The lyrics point out that Greear is accomplished, smart, well-travelled, has a full head of greying hair, runs a successful and growing corporation, pushes diversity, and handles loads of cash. She literally puts her whole being into service to joyfully sing and dance Greear’s praises.
Two and a half months after (May 30, 2016) “J.D. Greear for SBC President Rap”, Ashley released another video.
The video is titled “Husbands say ‘No’ to Cleaning”, but in the song it’s the wife saying no to her husband. It mocks her husband as a slobby and irresponsible man-child who isn’t allowed to go play until he finishes his chores, or else she will shame him on Facebook.
Her husband Todd helped her make the video by starring as one pathetic boob representative of all husbands. (It’s called “HusbandS say ‘No’ to Cleaning”.) Perhaps that’s not a fair reading of her intent. After all, this is a diversity-loving woman. Maybe she meant Todd to only represent boring, unsexy, white husbands.
With whom should we assume Ashley is infatuated? J.D. Greear at whose feet Ashley devotes herself body and soul, or Todd whom she mothers, dominates, and shames online?
[1] Check out Ashley and Todd’s profile tags.
Hers: Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
His: Follower of One, husband of one @AshleyUnzicker , dad of three, sender of many @Summitrdu
[2] Here’s a video of J.D. Greear withdrawing his 2016 candidacy for SBC president. If that looks familiar, it might be because you read Greear’s January 30, 2018 post “Why I’m Accepting the Nomination for SBC’s president”. The post’s header image is taken from that 2016 withdrawal announcement. It was posted five months previous to the SBC women’s letter which led to the ignoble ouster of Paige Patterson; a political assassination which would frighten the sheep right into Greear’s woman-shaped arms. Spooky? Nah. That’s just good plans.
I’ve been following the recent events in the SBC since Paige Patterson’s ouster (for his efforts to be faithful to Scripture’s instruction). Yesterday ended the SBC’s annual convention. There they elected a new President, JD Greear from a church group in North Carolina called “The Summit”. If you’ve heard of that church before, it may be because they’re a super-hip church in super-hip Raleigh-Durham.
Or it may be because you read this post and looked at this spreadsheet and noticed that 80 of the 331 (24%) NC signatures were from one of Greear’s churches.
Name
Church
City
State
Julie Rougeux
Summit Church
Apex
NC
Caroline Barnhill
The Summit Church
Apex
NC
Stephanie Creasman
The Summit Church
Apex
NC
Elizabeth Carter
Summit Church
Cary
NC
Glynis Moinet
Sumitt
Durham
NC
Michelle Key
Summit
Durham
NC
Yolanda Reed
Summit
Durham
NC
Elizabeth Ashford
Summit Church
Durham
NC
Bryce Batts
Summit Church
Durham
NC
Kellan Dickens
Summit Church
Durham
NC
Lauren Ellis
Summit Church
Durham
NC
Jennifer Falco
Summit church
Durham
NC
Eva Leung
Summit church
Durham
NC
Samantha Linton
Summit church
Durham
NC
Melissa Mosby
Summit Church
Durham
NC
Jessica Thommarson
Summit Church
Durham
NC
Stephanie Oyler
The Summit
Durham
NC
Amber Pearson
The Summit
Durham
NC
Lori AdamsBrown
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Nan Beaty
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Sharon Beavers
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Katie Berger
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Jillian Boland
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Daniel Bonar
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Emily Bonar
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Ashley Dickens
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Jonathan Dickerson
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Allison Dolbeer
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Ginger Gooch
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Rebecca Hankins
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Audra Hodges
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Scott Hodges
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Jordan Kohman
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Parker McGoldrick
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Reema Nasrallah
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Matt Oettinger
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Tiffany Oettinger
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Landon Pauley
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Kat Robertson
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Rebecca Shrader
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Alexis Sponaugle
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Haley Warren
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Kate Williams
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Amanda Winter
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Justin Winter
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Aaron Coalson
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Stefanie Golden
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Christina Kelly
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Cindy Peterson
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Sarah Weddle
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Taylor Weddle
The Summit Church
Durham
NC
Danielle Wilson
Summit
Raleigh
NC
Jason Adams-Brown
Summit Church
Raleigh
NC
Amanda Brown
Summit Church
Raleigh
NC
Laura Brown
Summit Church
Raleigh
NC
Debbie Derbyshire
Summit Church
Raleigh
NC
Yolanda Finney
Summit Church
Raleigh
NC
Kate Hughes
Summit Church
Raleigh
NC
Sarah Davidson
The Summit
Raleigh
NC
Patti Taylor
The Summit
Raleigh
NC
Becca DeLucia
The Summit Church
Raleigh
NC
Kelsey Hamilton
The Summit Church
Raleigh
NC
Caitlin Hooks
The Summit Church
Raleigh
NC
Morgan Jeffreys
The Summit Church
Raleigh
NC
Sarah Krivsky
The Summit Church
Raleigh
NC
Alex Lewis
The Summit Church
Raleigh
NC
Jessica Locklear
The Summit Church
Raleigh
NC
Zack Locklear
The Summit Church
Raleigh
NC
Scott McWhirter
The Summit Church
Raleigh
NC
Mackenzie Morris
The Summit Church
RALEIGH
NC
Doug Porter
The Summit Church
Raleigh
NC
Kristen Porter
The Summit Church
Raleigh
NC
Makayla Riggs
The Summit Church
Raleigh
NC
Nicole Shields
The Summit Church
Raleigh
NC
Amanda Springer
The Summit Church
Raleigh
NC
Katelyn Watkins
The Summit Church
Raleigh
NC
Jeremy Robertson
The Summit Church
Raleigh Durham
NC
Gardner Pippin
The Summit Church
RDU
NC
Hillary Pippin
The Summit Church
RDU
NC
Ray Gardestig
The Summit
NC
The next largest batch of signatures from one church organization in NC is from Imago Dei, with 30.[1] Between these groups, that’s almost exactly 1/3rd (110/331) of all the NC signatures.
Why did JD Greear stand for nomination? He writes:
Keep the gospel above all as the foundation of our unity and the focus of our mission
Continue growing in cultural and racial diversity
Turn up the temperature in our churches with more intentional, personal evangelism
Plant and revitalize hundreds of churches
Mobilize college students and recent graduates into the mission, and
Engage the next generation in cooperative mission.
The correct way to read this list is to recognize that the first point is The Given. It’s the thing you must say to unite or avoid alienating your constituents right off the bat, as he says. These are Southern Baptists Protestants so he leads with “the gospel above all”.[2] If you were in consideration for janitor at Second Baptist Church Nowhere, your application should start with, “The foundation of clean toilets is The Gospel above all.”
It’s the second point which reveals a candidates actual priority and passion, and which will be forwarded under the cover of The Given: “Continue growing in cultural and racial diversity”. This is where Paige Patterson posed a problem as president; not because he had been racist, but because his anti-racism had got tangled up with sexual predation when–way back in the benighted late 80s and early 90s–he defended Darrell Gilyard, a black pastor who had committed several acts of adultery and later was convicted of molesting teenage girls from one of his several churches.
For the moment I count on the reader’s Google-Fu to combat his possible ignorance on that debacle, but from what I have read it seems that Patterson initially took the radical stance that “no charge should be admitted against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses”; not even charges admitted by a woman! The scoundrel!
I have more to say about Patterson and Gilyard in a future post, but for now I’ll just close by passing on the understanding that Patterson’s early defense of his former student Gilyard is some seriously convoluted history from which to virtue signal about the gospel of multiculturalism, and that’s what the new SBC leadership desperately wants to do.
[1] Hilarious and illuminating text from Imago Dei’s bulletin: “Please note that our Lord’s Supper elements are all gluten-free.”
[2] I note that he does not capitalize Gospel. Which gospel does Greear have in mind? I think he wants us to assume that he means The Gospel of Jesus Christ, and it fits the Southern Baptist tradition so we’ll go with that for now.
For a long time I maintained that men should continue to go to church. I still believe that for men in churches that aren’t hostile to men, who support and encourage him to take authority over his family, and who encourage wives and children to obey their husbands and fathers. Churches and pastors are bound to do and say silly things now and then. They will say things that you won’t like, or give different interpretations to Biblical text than you see.
But undermining a father’s authority–his right and responsibility to lead–by deed (example) and by voice (command)–is destructive of the whole organization.
You can’t fight the leadership of an organization. Even if you win, the organization will probably die when its leaders are gone. You see this in families. After a divorce families altogether fall apart. That’s why so many parents tell the lie to their kids that “The divorce isn’t about them (the children), and that Mommy and Daddy both still love them very much.” Children discover the lie when Mommy and/or Daddy remarry and have new children with their new spouse. The children of the new marriage are loved more. There’s simply more love to give because that fountain still flows. Or when the new couple go off to have fun together without the children from the old marriage. Or when unknown and untrusted adults are brought into the home of children to go off and make strange noises in the parent’s bedroom, and later sit, frighteningly, at the breakfast table. That is, if they don’t come and go in the night like a thief.
It can be a good thing for an organization to die, but you don’t want to be in it when it happens. And you don’t want to be a traitor. Treason hurts the traitor as much or more than the betrayed in the long run. No one should trust a traitor even if he claims to have acted for the right cause. It’s a worse thing to act in bad faith than it is make a wrong choice. That is disrespect and contempt for yourself, those around you, and those above you; for everyone. Those who make bad decisions can be convinced and even repent. They can change their minds and heal their souls. Those who act in bad faith lose both.
So if you find yourself at odds with the leadership, and they undermine your authority, and they don’t defend you as you carry out your God-appointed duty to have charge over your family: Leave.
Driving Miss Crazy demonstrates (I hope) the unfairness of our situation. A woman does sometimes try to grab the wheel of the car we’re to drive; yet it is his car, and he is in the driver’s seat. When that happens, the only wise thing to do is stop the car, right then, and tell her that his car goes where he wants and it is literally in his hands. She is welcome to come along. She is encouraged to come along. But she should never try to steer the car.
Sometimes he might ask her to hold the wheel on course for moment while he digs something out of his pocket, but that it will never happen while he needs to make a change in direction.
A wise man won’t give up the wheel too often because his wife will being to wonder who is driving this thing? And if she can do it well this far, maybe better progress will be made. Why, if she’s competent to steer with one hand for a moment, how much better could the trip go if she used both as much as she wanted?
If that happens: Stop the car. Don’t wrestle over control. Don’t try to fight her. Don’t wait until the car crashes to prove you were right. Stop the damn car. You go no further until she agrees to keep her hands off the wheel.
What do I mean by “stop the car”? It means nothing else gets done before the steering conflict is resolved. It means don’t talk about anything else until the conflict is resolved: No bills, no budget, no extra-curricular activities, no lawn, no trash, no in-laws, no Daddy Time with the kids. All those things are “driving the car” of a father’s life, and none of them are safe while the wrong person thinks she’s driving the car.
She may get out. Tell her she should get back in. Do not start driving until she agrees to keep her hands off the wheel.
She may not get back in. Roll on, slowly at first, but after a time she either will or won’t and you have to keep moving.
If she grabs the wheel again, stop the damn car again. Never allow the car to go while she fights for control of the car. After you die, then she can drive.
Recently, Chasity Dawn Carey, a 42-year old bail bondswoman in Oklahoma was acquitted of first degree murder. Last year she lured her client Brandon Williams back to her office by offering to buy his car for her son. Here’s what happened.
Woman sets up shop to attract lawbreaking men. She gives them time and money in an attempt to extract the same at a later date, but with interest. This lawless man didn’t giver her what she wanted so under false pretenses she lured him into another agreement. Then she springs the trap to get him do surrender to her. She wants her child to actually put on the cuffs–to be the restraining factor–while she scolds away.
The lawless man, which she repeatedly set out to attract, was much bigger and stronger than her, but he didn’t use his superiority. Instead he tried to escape without harming her. While the man was utterly defenseless the woman shot him in the back and he died. Her son was the most traumatized by the violence, but the woman was convinced the justice system would hold her guiltless.
A jury of her peers (society) excused the killing as self-defense because the woman lied that she had been attacked, and because the man was bigger and stronger and so he could have hurt her. It seemed better to them that she shot him even though he didn’t actually abuse her.
(Updated to better reflect the son’s role in this interpretive drama.)
(UPDATE II This post might be confusing. Hopefully this helps unlock the metaphor I mean to convey: I interpret the bail-jumper as a husband who sins in a typical, low-level, way; sinful, but he’s not “jumped bail” on murder charges before returning to his wife (a bail-bondswoman.))
First, the title: “When Homes are Heartless”. It is the beginning of an incomplete statement, the second half of which is, “then Divorce”. That sounds non-Christian, doesn’t it?
Throughout the essay a little game is played where divorce is equated to violence on the strength of Malachi 2:16. That is true: divorce is violence. But what the author(s) do is errantly reverse this truth to say that violence is divorce. That is not true in the same way that “2” is “a number” but “a number” is not “2”. But if one falsely says that violence is divorce, then he can blame the violent for the divorce instead of blaming the divorcer–the one who files for divorce–of committing violence.
This is made explicit when the author(s) writes: “Just as sin can kill a human person, it can also kill a marriage or permanently damage or destroy a family.” No! Divorce kills marriages. The knife in the heart of a marriage is the divorce decreed and nothing else. In the real world, you can punch the spouse, kick the magistrate, run over the bailiff’s dog and still not get married again until the divorce is decreed. In America more than 70% of the time it is the wife who murders her marriage. That’s just reality. Domestic violence is vicious and indefensible, but as despicable as domestic violence is, it does not kill marriage. It does no violence to marriage unless the violence actually stops a physical heart. To say that it does is to judge senselessly. Anyone who doubts this is living in a fantasy. They can test it by trying to marry another before the divorce is decreed.
Heartlessness in the essay is specifically epitomized as domestic violence, but heartlessness comes in many forms; often from women. In fact my observation of the churched (not just people, and not just Christians, but regular attenders) is that the wife is considerably more likely to be heartless towards her husband. Christian husbands I know have suffered through bouts, sometimes years long, when his wife denies him intercourse. I have heard wives publicly berate and shame their husbands for the smallest failures or infractions. I have known no husbands who have beat their wives for years, or even once. I’m sure they exist, but I will believe my eyes and say that whoever wrote “When the Home is Heartless” has acted foolishly and cowardly by wasting time on something that the “Left-hand Kingdom” goes out of its way to punish, but he ignores the weightier sins of fraud by wives within churches.
“But, but Cane! We haven’t stamped out every instance of domestic violence by every Christian husband. Therefore it is desirable that we focus on this irregular problem of domestic violence in the LCMS, and leave repentance for the common sins later. Besides, we will gain favor with the worldly; even the Feminists! They will see God’s glory in protecting women!”
“Their condemnation is just.” I mean: We do know that the general consensus of the worldly is that Christian men are pansies whose own ugly and cold wives don’t care to touch them, don’t we? Except they be hardcore Feminists or something else like San Francisco liberals–who live their lives without a white Christian (They indulge the non-whites with their “superstitions”) ever in physical sight–they do not believe Christian husbands beat their wives.
As far as I can tell there is really only one acceptable way to punish women, and that is exclusion. All mankind are social creatures and will suffer from exclusion, but because women are more sociable and more dependent they will more keenly suffer when left out. This makes exclusion more deterring, and thus more instructive, for women. In addition, most people (including myself) just aren’t going to stomach any more than the minimum violence necessary to stop a woman either from a dangerous or criminal activity, or move her away from the same.
This is our biggest problem as a democratic, atomized, consumerist, and faddish society. Nobody can exclude anybody when everybody is already alone, here in Babylon. And we really are. This is compounded by the fact that entry into–and affiliation with–another superficial social group is a trite and silly affair which can be accomplished by the purchase of a tee shirt. If a man kicks out his belligerent wife, she’ll just get a new shirt, a new church, and a new husband. No one cares. Everyone acts as if these acts were not superficial.
Immigration, minority criminality, and white male apathy really are serious troubles right now. They are problems which are too big to be ignored in the meantime, and we each need to do our best to combat them as we can. But none of them will be resolved–or even meaningfully combated–unless and until men band together into significant, genuine, geographical, and exclusive communities.
Things that We have Heard and Known 