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.

When All Else Fails Read the Instructions

Commenter 7817 at Dalrock’s (and sometimes here) brought to my attention a newsletter from (I believe) Bnonn and Michael Foster which argues the case that Christians are to order their homes in either recognition–or avoidance–of things like: “the locus of control”, “masculine hypoagency”, “toxic matriarchy”, “gyneolatry”, and several other strange terms which normal men should mock.

What all those words have in common is that they are set within a nearly 3,000 word screed which never actually quotes the Biblical instructions we Christians are given for the ordering of our households.  I will list below, again, the instructions with which God blessed us, through his apostles, in the order they appear in the Bible.

1 Corinthians 11:8-10

⁸ For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. ⁹ Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. ¹⁰ That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.

1 Corinthians 14:33-35

³³ For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.

As in all the churches of the saints, ³⁴ the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. ³⁵ If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

Ephesians 5:22-24

²² Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. ²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Colossians 3:18-19

¹⁸ Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.¹⁹ Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.

1 Timothy 2:11-12

¹¹ Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness.¹² I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.

Titus 2:3-5

³ Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good,⁴ and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, ⁵ to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

1 Peter 3:1-7

3 Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives,² when they see your respectful and pure conduct. ³ Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— ⁴ but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. ⁵ For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, ⁶ as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening.

What the Word of God  says–if we trouble to read it– is that men are the heads. There is a distinction. I wrote last year in Though the Best Retort is to Live It:

“Husbands are not called to ALWAYS lead, but wives are called to ALWAYS obey. Sometimes the head may give a subordinate the lead because that is the prudent thing to do. He does not give up the rule. He may take back the lead at his pleasure, and the subordinate is only right if she gives it up in submission. A wife is to submit and obey her husband.”

 Men are to love, care for, instruct, provision, and protect our wives and children. You will not find one single verse which explicitly says that a wife’s or child’s obedience is dependent on the goodness of the husband’s or father’s leadership. 1 Peter 3 says the opposite is possible, in fact.

There is in the Scriptures the strong implication of the goodness of leadership skills for husbands and fathers; certainly for the selection of elders and deacons from among the men of the church in 1 Timothy 3. We should consider it soberly, and that means we consider that good leadership or good submission may win over apathetic husbands or rebellious wives. Sober consideration also shows that the great emphasis of ordering Christian households is for husbands is to love their wives, and for wives to obey their husbands. We are both to follow Christ: Men are to love women while they follow, and women obey men while they follow. I encourage the writers of the newsletter and everyone else to go dig into the surrounding passages of the verses I quoted above; verses which the authors of the newsletter eschewed in favor of long-winded theories of “gyneolatry” and “masculine hypoagency” that interest no normal man, and which–if they did interest him–would not do him good.

One more thing: The newsletter never mentions headcovers except in a quote of my words and they never address that point. It was utterly disregarded.

Sin Named Among Us, or, Sin Without Borders

Lexet writes:

Good point on authority. I have not found an answer as to why Christians should, in this age, file civil marriage certificates

Christians should file civil marriage certificates for many reasons. For one thing it is the law and we are bound as Christians to be obedient to civil authorities unless it is against the commandments of God. There is nothing against marriage licenses in the Bible.

Romans 13

1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

Second, it is the God-appointed duty of the civil government to punish evil and approve good, and when done lawfully marriage is a good; about as good as anything on Earth gets. When a marriage is unlawful–such as in a case of bigamy or incest–then the practitioners are duly punished. The churches don’t do that. We may want churches to do that and we may even think they should, but they don’t. They cannot verify to us that Susan and Bob aren’t close relations. They don’t know whether Bob is already married. They cannot even verify that Susan is who she says she is. Nor do they want to.

Some will be tempted to bring up in the comments some failures of civil government such as so-called “homosexual marriage”, or the institution of no-fault divorce. Those are failures, to be sure. The trouble for would-be defenders of the churches is that these points of failure are not points of success for churches. They don’t claim authority over these abominations either. A pastor or priest might mouth something against these sins, but they let them in the doors all the same; even though we are instructed:

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.”

 

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.

Her Submission is Her Glory

In the previous post on wives and women to be in submission I noted that there is much more instruction in the Bible about the order of Christian households than there is about the administration of baptism or the Lord’s Supper. Six passages were listed within the post, but I left out one in particular; a bit of “meat on the bone” that I hoped a commenter might gnaw off.

1 Corinthians 11:2-16 [1]

² Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. ³ But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. ⁴ Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, ⁵ but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven.⁶ For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. ⁷ For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. ⁸ For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. ⁹ Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.¹⁰ That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. ¹¹ Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; ¹² for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God. ¹³ Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? ¹⁴ Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, ¹⁵ but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering. ¹⁶ If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God.

With this passage St. Paul blows out of the water the nonsense idea of “mutual submission” that so many pretend to glean from Ephesians 5:21.

My next post will probably be about my own error in applying 1 Cor. 11:15, but what is important in this post is:

1. Understand that there is no excuse for the supposed “confusion” about who is supposed to submit to whom, and how.[2]
2. Understand that a wife’s submission to God through Christ and through her husband (“³ But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.”) is supposed to be conspicuous–utterly obvious; not just a so-called “matter of the heart”. The sign and evidence of her submission is her glory! Without it, she has no glory.
3. If your church teaches Biblical Inerrancy, but it does not teach overt wifely submission and head coverings, why–in light of 1 Cor. 11:16–would you believe it is a church of God?

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[1] The ESV translators footnote that the words wife and husband used in the passage could be translated as woman and man, depending on the context, and that that word for angels could be translated as messengers or observers. 

[2] The linked post of Sheila Gregoire’s blog would be hilarious if she represented only a fringe element of Christian culture. She actually writes of those who quote 1 Peter 3 on the submission of women that they are ignoring the entire rest of the Bible, and that Peter’s instruction that wives act like Sarah is only in reference to Sarah when she followed Abraham out of Ur!

My drive-by commenters believe this verse clearly says that women should always obey their husbands no matter what. However, the readers of Peter’s letter would never have thought that. First, they would have known that Peter didn’t think this; but second, even if Peter had wanted to tell his readers to do so, he would not have used Sarah as the example. Sarah’s life was hardly the picture of a wife obeying her husband in everything!

Instead, when contemporary Jewish readers encountered Peter’s command that women emulate Sarah, who obeyed Abraham “rather than giving way to fear”, that last part would have given them the context of what Peter meant. They would have known that it was not a command to obey in all circumstances. Instead, they would take that bit of the verse–“rather than giving way to fear”–and hearken back to to the time that Sarah DID obey, even when it was scary.

And that was the time that Sarah followed Abraham out of Ur, because God called him. That was a pivotal time in Jewish history (really the beginning of Jewish history). It would make sense that Peter would remind his readers of it. And the message they would take? When God is speaking, you follow by faith. It’s that simple.

They would never think that it meant that women should not confront their husbands’ sin, or that women should forget God’s will and only follow their husband’s will, because that would go against everything they knew of Sarah, and everything they knew of Peter. [Emphasis in original text]

 

CoE V: I Am Not Called to “Lead” in the Bible

Our age’s focus on a husband’s leadership is a clever redirect away from the Biblical command for wives to submit and obey. Every instance of Biblical instruction to husbands and wives say the same thing: Wives submit to and obey your husbands. Husbands love and care for your wives. That’s the instruction in 1 Peter 3, Titus 2, Ephesians 5, and Colossians 3; in every instance where the Christian home life is addressed.

The wisdom here is simple, but deep and powerful. If she follows then she is able to fulfill her God-given design. Through Christ she is empowered to be godly even if her husband is a fool; even if he tries to lose her. Likewise, a husband cannot be thwarted from loving his wife. Even if she does not obey him that is no bar to his God-given ability to love and care her despite her wickedness. If he loves and cares for her, and she refuses to obey he is clean. He did not fail to lead.

I’ve written many posts and comments about a husband leading his wife, and I was fundamentally wrong. Over the years it has come to be that the liberal progressives proclaim the right thing for the wrong reasons and the traditionalists fight back with nonsense, and I fell into it also. Christian Feminists (both overt and those undeclared and unwitting) are quick to point out that it is a wife’s duty to obey and not a husbands right to force her to submit. Traditionalists have tried to fight this by demanding husbands lead better, and by stealing the glory of obedient women for themselves; such as when a man says his wife follows him because of his good leadership.

And all of it–the progressive tactics and the traditionalist response–is meant to tangle us up so that a wife’s temptation to rebel and abandon is never the topic of discussion; so that no one says, “Wives, obey your husbands.”

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Of course there are times where a spouse’s behavior is so wicked and odious that individuals should take prudential action under the guidance of secular and religious authorities. That’s not the topic today.

Treading While Muzzled

Superorganism’s page on Wikipedia[1] has this quote from 17 year old Japanese lead singer Orono Noguchi:

“Ever since I was little I had two big goals,” says Noguchi, “One of them was to be a musician or an artist of some sort, and the other was to go to college in the States. That’s why I made the decision to go to Maine by myself when I was fourteen.”

Pretty impressive, right? I thought so.

I mean: A nation whose men made themselves so safe that girls from countries on its periphery can move here alone as children to do pretty much whatever they want unmolested. That’s who you thought were impressive, right? Especially when you consider that they did it for no profit to themselves.

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[1] Infogalactic has no page on the band Superorganism.

The History of Cheerleaders, the Future of America

Originally, cheerleaders were men.

That’s Jimmy Stewart and his cheer squad, third from the right. Notice the terms: “leader”, and, “team”, and “squad”. These are manly terms. Notice the dress: pants, shirts, sweaters, ties.  Manly dress.

In 1923, at the University of Minnesota, women were admitted into cheerleading. I’m sure they asked themselves, “What could be the harm? Technically, women can cheer… I’m sure it will be fine.”

Then, in the 1940s, women came to dominate cheerleading because the men were away being toxic. When they came back, efforts were made to restore order to cheerleading, but women protested.

By 1960, cheerleading was seen as predominantly a girl thing, and for effeminate men. At the same time, the uniforms began to become less formal…and to shrink. Today, the “far-right moral position” on cheerleading is that it should be reserved for girls (who  only pretend to be sluts) as nature intended. In the future, conservative won’t even notice this.

Symptoms of the Clout-ture

Over on the Fabius Maximus website[1], editor Larry Kummer has the tagline “Reigniting the spirit of a nation grown cold.” It has a nice ring to it, but it’s just wrongheaded. The spirit of the nation was embodied in an electorate of men, but our electorate is embodied by the hermaphroditic, and woofully cuckoo.

[1] Worth reading on occasion.

The Cuckoo’s Egg of Courtly Love

In English, the only word for “marriage sorting and arranging ritual” we have is courtship; even though the act is as old as people. That’s because the cuckoo’s egg of Courtly Love has hatched, and the nest of Christianity is overtaken with its progeny; the assumption of women’s moral superiority, Feminism, egalitarianism, and complementarianism.