What I would like to do, Lord willing and the crik don’t rise, is respond to Karen Swallow Prior’s objection to my pretty women post in a bit more detail, and then take a moment to respond to Rachel Held Evans’ objection to the fact that Prior even engaged with me.
First, I want to commend Karen for her post because she took care to get my position right. She checked with me before publishing to ensure that she had understood my position correctly. Her care in double-checking was highly admirable.
And then she went on to appeal to a standard I accept and want to live by. Paul tells Timothy to treat the younger women as sisters in absolute purity (1 Tim. 5:2). My customs in this regard very much line up with what she urges — when I have been criticized here in the past, it is usually because I am too cautious, too conservative, too up tight. Window in office door, not real huggy, keep personal compliments right where they ought to be, i.e. directed at my wife, and so on. In short, we agree on the principle.
Her objection was that my post was an unfortunate example of the offensive behavior writ large, applied to a demographic group instead of simply to Suzy Q. Her critique saw my post as simply a larger version of the problematic behavior. Now if what I wrote made women of my acquaintance think that I spent a good portion of my time silently checking all the ladies out, she would be quite correct. That would be bad.
I was aware of that possible reaction, and tried to head it off in my original post by saying, “I make these observations, not as some kind of creepy journalist, but simply as someone with eyes in his head.” To this admirable sentiment of mine, one editor at CT retorted by saying, in effect, that in her mind nothing is creepier than saying “I am not being creepy right now.”
And actually, I think that this might be a fair cop. Show, don’t tell. Instead of “I am not being creepy,” it should have been something more like “I am not being creepy. 
,” Just kidding. Just a little humor to lighten things a bit. Stultum iocum. I really did need to put more in there than just one sentence to head off the implication that I was doing on a large scale what would be unsettling on a small scale. I was writing as an observer of the human condition. Not creepy eyes in my head, but as I said, just eyes in my head.
,” Just kidding. Just a little humor to lighten things a bit. Stultum iocum. I really did need to put more in there than just one sentence to head off the implication that I was doing on a large scale what would be unsettling on a small scale. I was writing as an observer of the human condition. Not creepy eyes in my head, but as I said, just eyes in my head.And what I was doing, as I trust my two posts on the subject together made clear, was not evaluating who was hot and who was not, but rather talking about what the apostle Peter enjoins all Christian women to cultivate, and which I think they largely do. We are talking about inner beauty, valued by God, but which works its way out and can be seen by men. This is the other reason I appreciated Karen’s riposte — she actually agreed with the central point I was making, and had made that same observation herself. There really is a difference that Christ makes, and I have no objection to including Karen’s qualifiers and variables. I had included some of my own. At the center, I don’t think there is a disagreement.
And to the extent any disagreement remains, I really appreciate the way she brought it.
But now, let us turn to faux-compassion of Rachel Held Evans’ language mangling. I can’t confirm the exact wording because RHE blocks me from following her tweeteries, but I did see this somehow a few days ago. In effect, RHE was remonstrating with KSP because my reference to lumberjack dykes was an attack on women. This is really remarkable. If someone has access to the exact wording of the tweet, I would be happy to post it here.
@LoveLifeLitGod @Jamesmcadams82 @douglaswils The issue isn’t the flannel shirts! The issue is calling women “dykes”!
Now this captures the demolition job that is being run on Western civilization, and it does so in a nutshell. How so? There are two things to remember here. One is the legitimacy of generalizations, and how generalizations are not falsified by a smattering of counterexamples. But the second thing — quite apart from the generalization — is what exactly is being said.
Let me flip it around. Go back and look at my statement about lumberjack dykes, and I will now make a comparable statement about men.
The unbelieving world is at war with the concept of a biblical masculinity, a masculinity which gladly sacrifices for others. But when this option is rejected, two remaining options offered by the world are either that of the metrosexual pantywaist or the testosteronic rapist.
Okay. So first there is the issue of generalizations. Do I really believe that there are no examples of unbelieving men who are not effeminate or beastie boy thugs? No, I don’t believe that. It is a generalization, and a pretty good one too.
But suppose we get past that, and suppose a male equivalent of RHE objects to the language itself, saying that I demean men by calling them rapists. To use the term rapist like that is an attack on men. Wait a minute. To be a rapist is an attack on women, and an assault on masculinity. The rapist is at war with masculinity, not the person who calls the rapist a rapist. To call a rapist a rapist says nothing about men generally, one way or the other.
In the same way, to say that a dyke is a dyke is not to attack women. Being a dyke is an attack on women. And this is why RHE’s approach to these things is so toxic. “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; That put darkness for light, and light for darkness; That put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Is. 5:20).
In our new order, women must be allowed to insult the very concept of femininity, and they must be allowed to do so ad libitum. They must have complete freedom to do this, and if anyone comes to the defense of women, RHE will summarily describe it as an attack on women.
And this is why if I call her a feminist, it needs to be an Orwellian one.
Who’s that gentleman on the motorcycle?
you win the internet today
You are using the term “gentleman” loosely, I presume?
Methinks that’s my uncle…..
So, Doug is an overweight white person who doesn’t disapprove of a cigar now and then (http://www.canonwired.com/ask-doug/cigars/) though I understand he doesn’t smoke himself. What is his point with this picture? To prove that dykes on bikes exist? He could as easily have posted a picture of Portia de Rossi as his image of lesbianism. The prune-faced church lady, forever railing against fun, is just as durable a stereotype as the lumberjack dyke; she endures because she exists too. Why not put her on the next post about women in the church? I get it that Doug appreciates satire, but… Read more »
I wonder if part of the controversy of this blog is due to a lack of contextual understanding of DW’s opponents. For example, when I read the first post, I understood the the “easy lay/dyke” statement to be one of worldview. I understood the intention of the line of reasoning to be that if one rejects the biblical model for beauty working its way outward, then the world offers two options: 1) attract all men at all cost or 2) love no man ever. That any particularly unbelieving woman represents the hyperbolic caricature of these two options was not the… Read more »
Timothy, it is definitely a lack of contextual understanding (by DW’s opponents) that leads to these knock-down, drag-out brawls over the Sitler situation. They typically aren’t regular readers of this blog, whereby they would understand the body of his writing in no way corroborates their accusations. They just take a statement out of context and run with it until their feet bleed. And then they run some more.
I suppose that’s the benefit/danger of writing on a blog. You have the opportunity to learn where your ideas can be misunderstood so that you might clarify them. But it’s so much more public than working in the realms of peer-reviewed journal (I work in academia) or even with a book editor. In those forms, you get the chance to be misunderstood in a far less public way, so when your work finds a general audience the opportunities for misunderstanding are greatly reduced.
Of course there are also those of us who grew up in Doug’s church, reading Doug’s books, and absorbing Doug’s way of thinking who later decided that it was not the godly standard he held it up to be but a mockery of biblical grace. I think the issue lies more in Doug’s fans who in agreeing with his premise, gloss over the ugliness of the specific ways Doug presents his philosophies. And it doesn’t take that many Lordship classes with his son Nate to learn that “the devil is in the details.” If you don’t understand that quote you… Read more »
I agree with the claim that a “lack of contextual understanding” to excuse poor communication is not acceptable. But one of the reasons I like reading the Wilsons (and Chesterton, Lewis, Owen, Edwards and Luther) is that there is an attempt to target the mind and affections of the reader. Much Christian literature coming out today is so full of caveats that the reader doesn’t feel anything about the subject. I’d much rather spend time reading something that the author is passionate about than read something technically accurate but completely lacking in creativity. Furthermore, I’d much rather have a visceral… Read more »
It really is possible for one’s point to suffer the death of a thousand qualifications. I find that Jesus often used ambiguity to actually reveal and draw out the heart of those in His audience. When you say something like, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you have no life in you”, there is a patient heart that will perk up to hear more, and there is another heart that will hastily react and reject and say it was a careless, unqualified remark. We see that many departed from Jesus because of… Read more »
For a man who’s supposed to be proclaiming Christ, Doug sure talks about himself a lot. I’ve given up trying to count the references to himself in the last several posts.
And that has got to be in the top 10% of most irrelevant comments made on DW’s blog in recorded history . . .
It is more relevant than you may think. ” it is no longer I that live, but Chrust who lives in me”. It is not about Doug, but about Christ.
Yes, if only he could be more like you, so well known for proclaiming the gospel with every word you write. …BTW, where can we read those?
This is perhaps my favorite. “Doug sure talks about himself a lot.” Which, if he remained silent on these criticisms would become, “Doug does not even deign to deal with his accusers.” Life would sure be easier if I could somehow pull this dodge off in real life. “Here’s the deal: I want to attack you, and I expect you to respond to those attacks without referencing the attacks or yourself. Got it? Good.”
To paraphrase Chesterton, “It looked…as if any stick was good enough to beat Doug Wilson with.”
#AnyStick
Trending strong whenever Doug writes.
July Churches,
If one writes in the first person, then one will appear to be speaking of oneself a great deal. (Would the post have been better written in a gloopy style like that?)
And besides, the whole topic is about a couple disputes over Bro. Doug’s post. It’s going to be impossible to discuss that without saying things like, “She said,” and then, “I said.”
That’s the point, Steve. For a man who ostensibly preaches Christ and him crucified, Doug nearly always manages to find a way to bring the conversation around to himself. Narcissism that bites back?
Wow. You are something else. “The complainant, though he claims to be a bank teller, still somehow managed to find a way to have his wallet stolen by thugs. Very suspicious indeed.”
Did you happen to read the many posts on the Lord’s Table, Christian books, Scriptural views of abortion, racism, and other cultural issues? Or are you just doing a word-count of first-person pronouns?
Well, in all fairness, it is his blog and when someone authors a blog, it’s about what THEY think of a given circumstance….just say’n
You referenced your self in 50%of you two sentences! ;-)
“Stereotype:” a behavior pattern you don’t want to think about–Thomas Sowell.
“A ‘bigot’ can be defined as a guy that gets caught practicing sociology without a license” –Joe Sobran
I have no opinion on whether Christian women, as a group, are prettier than non-Christian women as a group, but I’m having trouble understanding the relevance of it even if it’s true. Is the truth or falsity of doctrine measured by the attractiveness of its adherents? Satan masquerades as an angel of light; he’s probably very handsome when he does, so if physical attractiveness is the standard, then everything he says must be gospel truth, right? Sorry, but this whole subject is essentially ad hominem. The gospel is either true or it’s not, and which set of women is uglier… Read more »
Valid question K2. Here’s the point, put as succinctly as I can muster: –>the Christian faith speaks to every facet of life, not just salvation and not just on Sunday. What you believe matters, and impacts everything you represent. As it turns out, those who reject Christ will tend toward more and more deviance from the Standard of grace, truth, and beauty found in God’s Word, which, if carried to the logical end, will cause women either to pervert their femininity (strumpets) or to reject it altogether (dykes). And men who reject Christ, if they hold fast to their unbelief,… Read more »
Sounds like a bad case of confirmation bias to me. You expect certain results, so those are the results you notice. Kind of like the racist who, whenever he encounters a black person who is lazy, stupid, or criminal, says to himself, “Yup, they’re all alike,” without noticing all the others who aren’t like that. “Data” is not the plural of “anecdote.”
In order to validate your theory, you’d need to do an actual statistical study. I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that such a study has not been done.
Every generalization is subject to the same complaint – the eye of the beholder and all. But consider what it would take to do such a study on “Christian women tend on the whole to be more beautiful than unbelievers”. Now find me statistical data on a study confirming or refuting a similar nonreligious generalization.
If you’re telling me a study can’t be done, and i may agree, that strongly suggests the premise is flawed
No, all it means is that we we may not be able objectively to determine the truth or falsehood of the premise. Some premises (like “God answers prayer”) could not even be subjected to a test by right-minded Christians. (OK – You in group A pray for this half of the hospital, and those in group B think about the patients in your half, but DO NOT pray). BTW, I do not completely disagree with you as far as confirmation bias goes – we do tend to see what we expect to see. And maybe Christians self-select for the beautiful.… Read more »
In order to do any kind of a study, we would first have to make sure the terms were well-defined. As any parent knows, when a child asks for something, the answer isn’t always yes, but a no answer is still an answer. So I don’t see how it would be possible to determine, if you have people praying for a patient who ends up dying anyway, if that means prayer doesn’t work or if it means that this time God said no. Either conclusion might be the correct one, based on the limited data that’s available. And I think… Read more »
Actually, the point is that because Godthinks we should be something different than what we are, he makes us into what we are not. Doug and his critic, KSB, agree (without needing a statistical study) that God is both capable and active in doing it.
“There isn’t enough makeup, or frilly dresses, or Adkins diets in the world to turn her into what Doug considers feminine; she is what she is.” And God loves her. And because God loves her, I love her. If you can’t love your sister, whom you’ve seen, how can you love God, whom you have not seen?
So, are we at the point where all the qualifications and outlying exceptions swallow the rule? Can we say that a woman who makes every effort to look, act, and present herself as a man is no less feminine than any other – simply by virtue of the fact that some *other* person with messed-up proclivities and standards is turned on by her? Is a run-down trailer park no less nice than an upscale suburb simply b/c there might be a former third-world refugee living there who appreciates the stability and relative safety of the trailer park? Is poorly behaved… Read more »
I haven’t said there are no standards. What I have said that in this particular case, what Doug is passing off as a standard is little more than personal taste and theological bent. Ayn Rand did the same thing; she tried making it a moral issue for men to not have facial hair (she hated beards), when in fact what she was really doing was taking her own personal preference and making a doctrine out of it. She also claimed that it was immoral not to smoke (though I think she made an exception for people with tobacco allergies). Same… Read more »
I didn’t claim that you said, explicitly, that there are not standards, but rather, that that’s where your logic leads. You reduced the assessment of the femininity of a bull dyke in such a way as to offer a “you say to-may-tow, I say to-mah-tow” Approach. You may still acknowledge standards in theory, but if when someone dares to make a distinction in pointing out an egregious rejection of such standards, you respond by suggesting it’s all in the eye of the beholder, even with an uber-butch woman, then you’re practice is belying your claim to recognize standards. The examples… Read more »
“Can we say that a woman who makes every effort to look, act, and present herself as a man is no less feminine than any other ”
I’d like to back up a little bit and ask what “feminine” means, and why we care how feminine any particular woman is.
If no one wants to engage, let me offer this: I think “feminine” can mean one of two things, and we ought to be clear which we mean. 1 – It can mean typical of the female. 2 – It can mean appropriate for the female. And these differ from one place to another and from one time period to another. It may or may not be thought typical for a woman to be drawn to science and math, or to athletics. Differently, it may or may not be thought appropriate for women to do these things. For the Taliban… Read more »
There’s a lot of truth in what you said, but the problem is that rather than stopping at the point of offering caution and judiciousness in judgment of “close,” or difficult cases, you veer off into surrendering the whole matter fully unto pure, unadulterated subjectivism. In a culture in which so many are unwilling/unable to acknowledge the *most* basic distinctions related to sex – whether or not there is a meaningful, static, fundamental difference between man and woman, it’s not our task to use the hard cases to obliterate the principles in such a way as to throw a big… Read more »
haha — “surgeries” – not surgerys — haha, my mistake
Another thing – your citation of the Taliban is laughable. The standards which result from a degenerate culture which bases their standards on an abuse and rejection of God’s law does not make the case for the legitimacy of nearly fully subjective standards, rather, it indicates that when God’s law is eschewed, the cultural standards will fly off the rails.
“Laughable”. OK, Matt.
Krychek_2 wrote: And this notion that you can make people into what they’re not, just because you think they should be something different than what they are, is frankly silly. But, evolution. But, Bruce Jenner. Seriously though, Krychek_2 is basically affirming and restating his own unbelief in God’s power to transform from the inside out. Krychek_2 seems to have forgotten that it was a visiting atheist who commented on the beauty of the women in Moscow. Whether Krychek_2 thinks that beauty is subjective or not, the remark was from someone who had no ulterior motive to hand out such a… Read more »
Well, there’s this:
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/09/study-republican-congresswomen-look-twice-as-feminine-as-democrats/262973/
While I’m very reluctant to use “Republican” as a proxy for “Christian”, at least it’s a statistical study. And I don’t think that you can accuse either the Atlantic or UCLA of “confirmation bias” in favor of Doug Wilson’s perspective.
Well put sir.
My eyes! Oh, the pain in my eyes! Please say that’s not a picture of a WOMAN!! Gah!!!
Was that CTs second choice for KSP’s article?
Perhaps it’s the use of the word “dyke”.
Could be. Calling things by their names upsets some folks.
I don’t know about that but considering that all women are created in God’s image, I do get upset when they are called names that are intended to offend and hurt.
Yes, all women are created in God’s image, but some of them actively try to destroy that image. And for that, they receive the just reward of a variety of useful monikers.
They are not “intended” to hurt.
They hurt because they hit the mark and they are used by God and man to wake people up from their slumber.
The Christian is commanded to name things according to their kind, something that got Jesus in to quite a bit of trouble.
We are not called to name things according to the latest sensitivity test.
Your casual use of the word, “women”, would no doubt be a trigger to many womyn out there…
You really must be more careful, James… :-)
David and Katecho, of course you are right. Our Lord did not hesitate to excoriate some of the Philistines. But, in studying our Lord’s words, do we find that an attitude of brutal condemnation is found much more often than an attitude of patience and understanding for the lost? My problem is that calling out vice, evil, and hypocrisy is a natural pleasure for most people. It becomes habitual, and in the words of the cliché, if I have only a hammer, then everything looks like a nail. I have spent a lifetime curbing the impulse to sarcasm and overly… Read more »
Was Jesus intending to offend anyone by calling Pharisees names like, “brood of vipers”, or “whitewashed tombs”? How about Elijah taunting the Baal worshippers? Apparently it is possible to intend to offend (even those who bear the image of God) and still be righteous. It may not be easy to do, and it may call for wisdom and prudence, but it clearly can be done, in principle. I’ve found Wilson to be about as good at it as anyone else that I know. I think he has a genuine gift for worldview confrontation that not everyone is suited to. It… Read more »
Would you mind clarifying your use of quotation marks around dyke?
Because it was a quote?
Do you not consider it a legitimate term?
Ironical emphasis?
Other?
I got interested in this so did some reading. It used to be considered very derogatory, but has latterly been reclaimed by some lesbians. In 2005 the US Patent and Trademark Office refused to give recognition to the name of the lesbian motorcycle group Dykes on Bikes on the grounds that the word dyke is offensive. This ruling was overturned by a court case.
I
Lumberjack dyke is also an attack on lumberjacks, the most exploited and marginalised of all subcultures. Lumberjacks were forced to maintain full beards to differentiate themselves from lesbians, but that only made matters worse. They were then forced to carry their axes everywhere to differentiate themselves from gay hipsters, but RHE rightly claimed this was an attack upon the culture of true ax murderers.
I will now go laughing through the day. Thanks Mike.
Nice “HOG”, in Canadian lingo, “She’s a Beauty EH”
Good post Doug, it appears RHE doesn’t really add to the discussion with the exception of stirring the death in the pot.
Well Doug, the pic at the end of the post succinctly makes your point…..and just think, she/it had to WORK and making that ‘look’….or maybe not…. :)
Yes, definitely. Sleeve tats and biweekly haircuts don’t happen naturally.
Biweekly haircuts huh? I’m envious…
“It”?
Yes, you read that correctly….
So you don’t consider her to be a person?
I think you miss Mike’s point. I suspect Mike knows it’s a person but is driving home the fact that this person is actually destroying what they are.
Let’s not get hooked by such tiny bait. “it”.
His point is well made. And it is sad, and undoubtley she is sad.
He could give this person the dignity of a human pronoun.
She could give herself the dignity of a human pronoun. But she labors mightily to not do so.
You know all about her, based on one photograph.
Because God said the outward appearance tells you everything important about a person and it’s all you need to know.
No
I was reading this today and it reminded me of your defense of the lumberjack dyke in question, maybe because of the pronoun. “The modern method of thought control involves forcing us to think solely in terms of the human individual and its preferences, which enables those in power to categorize anything other than what they desire as hostile to the individual. That produces the usual laundry list of -isms, like sexism, classism, racism, homophobia, etc. which are all basically the same crime, which is violating the taboo on the individual having a preference to put desires, judgments and feelings… Read more »
Pardon the formatting. It’s like a modern poem
Because Christians are nothing if not judgmental.
A very true judgment.
Wow, do I “observe” here, a judgement of a judgement? ; – )
You do! Well spotted.
Nice dehumanizing you’ve got going there, so *Christian.*
–Deana M. Holmes
I can’t speak for Mike, but for myself, it’s precisely the fact that she’s human that makes it sad. Only humans can choose to take natural beauty and render it ugly.
“De-humanizing”…..is it any less “de-humanizing” trying to change the way God made you?
If I never tried to change the way God made me, I would never get a haircut, never trim my nails, never brush my teeth, and never bathe. You sure you want to go there?
There is a difference there Krycheck, between maintenance, oil changes, new tires, and even swapping out an engine to turning a Sports Car into a Stump Jumping SUV.
non-sequitur…You know what I was saying. God either made you a man or a woman…body parts are the “proof in the pudding”.
So people you think are ugly are not human and not welcome in your church. I think Christ will have some hard words for you about that.
She’s welcome to come and repent of her defiance against God, as we all are.
And such repentance would bear fruit, would include actually turning away from her defiance against having been made a woman by God.
You can’t claim to be offering Christ’s welcome to someone you refer to as “it.”
1. She tries to actually make herself into an “it”, as much as is possible.
2. You “celebrate” her doing so, and try to force everyone else to as well.
3. We notice all this.
And we are the ones who are wrong and in defiance of God on the matter? For noticing it? Seriously?
Justifying your own sin by blaming someone else? Typical.
No, I don’t think that at all….I just think women should look like women…not try to change the way God made them.
Also: If this is a woman, then the way she looks is the way a woman looks. Your view of “how a woman looks” is caricature.
Doug: As a woman, I don’t need your “defense.” I think you’re appalling. Of course, you would think I am appalling, as I’m everything you dislike (except for the dyke part, I’m heterosexual). *shrug*
-Deana M. Holmes
That photo holding up for ridicule someone whose looks Doug finds unattractive makes it clear what’s actually going on here. Doug’s church isn’t full of women he’s attracted to because Jesus make them attractive, it’s full of women he’s attracted to because unattractive people aren’t welcome in his church.
Next he’s gonna claim his church has so few non-white people because accepting Jesus makes people white.
If you don’t understand the distinction between “someone whose looks Doug finds unattractive” and “someone who has deliberately disfigured herself because she hates the way God made her look naturally,” then you’re not getting any of this.
You don’t know anything about how that woman sees herself. There are women who hate the way God make them look, and it usually has a lot to do with unsolicited opinions of dudes like Doug, unbiblically judging them by their looks.
Urthman, God judges appearances and we are commanded to do the same.
It seems you object to the criteria Doug is using.
What would be your definition of beauty?
Not a very biblical perspective there. Maybe you should re-read 1 Samuel 16.
Ah, you beat me to it.
Hmm. I thought God told Samuel that man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. I guess I’ve been reading it wrong all these years.
No, I think you are reading that verse correctly. Unless you think that it means God can’t see or is indifferent to the outside of anything.
The verse is making a comparison wirth regard to capabilities.
FYI, to see the tweets of someone who has blocked your account, use Incognito mode on Google.
I just realized for the first time that “joke” comes from Latin, even though I could have told you “jocular” does as well. What.
Karen Swallow is just another faux christian who believes in encouraging women to work and men to servant lead by running the home….
why you engage with a woman who lives in a gender fluid marriage with her husband and encourages women to be men ,I do not understand…
The lie that Christian women are ugly prudes is a potentially damaging one, and NOT speaking the truth of how much better people look when they become Christians and why is dangerous to any young impressionable girls or older, less confident women (or men) – so well done to the author for putting in words what is known and has been known for a long time. Christian woman – and men, that I know are radiantly more beautiful, and in fact this brings with it a kind of nakedness – people can see that beauty fade if you are growing… Read more »