“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19).
Repentance is a gift that can be given to individuals, but it is not limited to that. When reformation and revival break out, and it the genuine article, it is because that same gift is being given to crowds. John the Baptist preached a message of repentance, and all of Judea turned out to hear him (Matt. 3:5). Jesus was exalted to the highest place in order that repentance might be given to Israel (Acts 5:31). In short, what God does in and for an individual heart is something He is fully capable of doing for an entire generation.
There are two enemies of such repentance. One is the insolence that wants to continue to pursue the wickedness in question, whatever it is. Think Planned Parenthood, NAMBLA, and so on. The other is a disapproval of the open forms of wickedness, a disapproval that wants to manage its way away from the cliff edge by means of reasonable reforms. This is the approach that laments having to choose between Hillary and Trump in the coming election, but it never dawns on such a person to consider that we should repent of being the kind of nation that deserves to be saddled with such a choice.
But true repentance is a root and branch affair, and it is either happening or it isn’t. And when it happens, the “tell” is that the name of Jesus is being preached and exalted. There is no such thing as secular salvation. So for those who long to see true repentance given to our nation, both forms of avoiding it are equally problematic.
An unrepentant America necessarily has to see repentance as the adversary. But in order to see repentance as an adversary, it must be cast as some awful thing, some sort of wicked thing. Repentance itself must be made vile.
What could be more obviously good than repentance? How could it possibly be made vile? Let us not underestimate our adversaries. When lying is your native tongue, the sky appears to be the limit.
“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).
When a generation has gotten to the point where they are willing to call evil good, they do not back down simply because someone points it out. They double down. They lie. They twist everything completely around and say that you are the one calling evil good. And they will continue to do this unless and until God gives His sovereign, inexorable, unstoppable, tsunami-like gift of repentance. This will happen when God takes up the little burning embers of their lies, has an angelic helicopter pilot fly them a couple hundred miles out over the Pacific Ocean of watery truth, and tells him to drop them all in.
Let me give just two examples of how repentance can be made vile. Obviously many more things could be said about both examples, and might need to be, but the outline of both instances is clear to me.
First, our congregation here in Moscow contains a registered sex offender, for whose sake we have taken a pounding over the years. Maybe you’ve read about it somewhere, and some of what you have read is even true. But the reason we have taken that pounding is because—like every other member of our church—he has professed repentance. All he would need to do to make all the intoleristas lay off him completely is to start wearing a dress and lipstick, denounce Christ Church for its pharisaism, blame his repressive Christian upbringing for his crimes, and announce the formation of a political action organization devoted to opening up Idaho’s bathrooms to every kind of perversion. If he were to do that, there would be a statue to his heroism in Friendship Square, and a gig on the Today show.
Here is another example, this one broader and more cultural. In the experience of mankind, slavery has been a ubiquitous and constant institution, everywhere present—Asia, Africa, Europe, China, everywhere. I am painting with a broad brush here, but that is all right—for I am painting the side of a barn. During the course of the 19th century, one civilization developed a moral revulsion against slavery and eliminated it, all over the world. Sometimes this was done in wisdom, and in other times and places it was not. But it was nevertheless done. That one civilization was Western civilization, the only civilization ever to declare a universal war on slavery as such. The reward for this liberating activity is that Western civilization is now held to be uniquely responsible for slavery, and it is held to be a distinctively white crime.
File this under the heading of “no good deed goes unpunished.”
But such inversions are just temporary. In line with what I outlined above, the contradictory and insane attempts to marginalize repentance as the real wickedness are vanity itself. For repentance is the gift of God, and the gifts of God are irrevocable.
I see Sowell has had an effect on you. I appreciate his ability to frame slavery in the big picture, and I appreciate your application of that as well.
The attack seems to be that our repentance is not good enough. It’s true that it’s not good enough–only Jesus who doesn’t need to repent can do it right. But it sure beats not repenting.
Has anyone noticed that the Secular Man has his own version of repentance going on?
It’s part of the standard PeeCee shtick to blurt out something embarrassingly honest on a forbidden subject, and then to immediately disavow the truth by saying “that’s not who I am.”
I have seen Christians show a disdain for repentance as well. For instance with the man in your congregation. Repentance is not enough for them because they want “Jesus plus…” Either Jesus is enough or He isn’t.
I think in the example Pastor Doug gave, the stakes are quite a bit higher than if the man repenting were just your ordinary run of the mill sinner, not to mention there’s a lot of false repentance in the world. How could they know if he was truly repenting or just repenting to gain their trust and find opportunities for molesting children? It takes a strong faith in the work of the Holy Spirit to do what his congregation did. The work of the Holy Spirit is two-fold here, too. It works on the man who has repented, and… Read more »
I think that in the example given, there would be no chance of anyone’s letting down their guard and offering access to children. Even if anyone were that trusting, there are court orders in place. But you raise a valid point in general. I am sure that many congregations contain child molesters who have never been suspected, let alone convicted. Some may come in the hope of quelling their demons; some may come with the hope of finding prey. I think that every church should be conscious of this risk and take necessary precautions. Nobody, not even the priest (or… Read more »
Yes, it is a fine balance for sure. Most people wouldn’t even try to find it.
I think another part of the equation is that while sex offenders may deceive kids, trick them, we should be raising kids that are somewhat impervious to deception. So while it is never a child’s fault, sex offenders tend to target those who are vulnerable. It’s the lambs that are lost and separated from the flock that the wolves target. So one way to help prevent child abuse, is to make sure there are no little lost sheep in our congregations.
Thank you, ME. That’s a point that is extremely important and that I hadn’t thought of.
Another way is to not marry them to impressionable young parishioners and encourage offspring.
How do you know the young parishioner was impressionable?
Hmm… We have a young girl in an authoritarian community that devalues female independence and puts a premium on a woman’s role as wife and mother (and spiritual rehabilitator for a pedophile) above her possibly physical and certainly psychological safety (and that of any offspring?) Encouraged by an elder male church member and the pastor himself into a relationship with a repeat child rapist? I think it likely she was impressionable. But sure, you make a really important and relevant point christopher. So let’s remove ‘impressionable’ from the discussion so we can address the actual concern of child molestation and… Read more »
“So let’s remove ‘impressionable’ from the discussion so we can address the actual concern of child molestation and hubristic, irresponsible leadership and move past getting off on empty apologetic moves.”
That’s better.
Well Rand, it seems far wiser to have them within your parish and watched over and cared for, than left outside and isolated. Where I live we have sex offenders in the secular world doing just that, marrying the impressionable, having children families. Outside the church there is no one to guide them, no one to lead them, and any potential victims are also isolated, which makes them more vulnerable. The law, the legal system, is an inadequate system when it comes to sexual abuse, because it can only address crimes after the fact.
It is unacceptable to knowingly marry a pedophile to a young parishioner because you believe that marriage is ‘the spiritual cure’ for the ‘sin’ of child rape. Religious hubris. Your point that the church is safer is destroyed by the facts. The church is as riddled as the secular world with pedophilia and it’s hierarchical and authoritarian nature might even exacerbate the problem,. The catholic church’s problem and cover up is well documented and there is no shortage of stats about other denominations and religions (as well as similarly structured organizations like the Boy Scouts and sports teams.) I would… Read more »
Rand, I wonder if you have studied Hollywood? Roman Polanski? Woody Allen? Child sexual abuse isn’t just the norm, it is a way of doing business in a myriad of different places, from public schools, Hollywood, to the halls of congress. That’s ugly, that’s horrifying, but it is what it is, and what it often is, is completely unrepentant and operating in the shadows of the secular world, everywhere. You don’t cure the problem by trying to relentlessly shame those who are actually trying to address the problem. Say what you will about the Catholic church they have shined a… Read more »
Too much ridiculous in there ME. Child sexual abuse is a way of ‘doing business’ in the secular world? Public schools? The halls of congress? That’s just too dumb to respond to. It ridicules itself. The catholic church had to be deeply publicly shamed and legally attacked to come clean about it’s complicity in sexual abuse. And arguably it hasn’t fully done so. You’ve no leg to stand on there. Please be honest and/or do some research. Nambla is an ugly disreputable organization that no one other than christians trying to make an argumentative point take seriously. By the grace… Read more »
“Child sexual abuse is a way of ‘doing business’ in the secular world? Public schools? The halls of congress? That’s just too dumb to respond to. It ridicules itself.”
Don’t you know these things, Rand? Did you miss the congresssional page scandal, Roman Polanski or Woody Allen, Elijah Wood speaking of sexual abuse in Hollywood as being beyond an epidemic? Than there are the thousands of victims of public schools, the teachers simply transfered to other districts?
You provide outlier examples as a ‘way of doing business’. Even so, I am not arguing that there is not sexual abuse of children in Hollywood or anywhere else for that matter. It is certainly not condoned or institutionalized. Post-conviction Roman Polanski has not set foot back in the US for a reason. Woody Allen has never been charged with a crime but is nonetheless reviled in Hollywood and his legacy has suffered from his actions. And fyi, Elijah Wood was commenting apparently from intuition. He himself walked his statement back in Vanity Fair: “I had just seen a powerful… Read more »
I am never quite sure what people mean by “Hollywood” in this context. If they mean that young runaways get off the bus in Hollywood and are lured in to prostitution and pornography, I am sure that it happens. If they mean that fly-by-night agents are inviting teenagers to a round of sofa soccer on a casting couch, maybe. But if they mean that the major studios are sexually abusing children, I find that most unlikely. Any time my underage daughter was on a movie set, I was required to be near her every minute of the day. If I… Read more »
Yes jilly, your story mirrors every experience I have had, and that of my working friends. I think that people who have not spent time in LA have a really warped idea of what it is really like. In reality it’s a hard-hat town for entertainment with a gig economy where people do what they can to further their careers- just like anywhere else. I think people imagine some non-stop party with a cabal of perverse entertainment characters offering a little doe-eyed girl just in from Tulsa a cookie in a back room somewhere, or at some loaded pool party… Read more »
“…a cabal of perverse entertainment characters offering a little doe-eyed girl just in from Tulsa a cookie in a back room somewhere, or at some loaded pool party in the valley! Just silly.”
I spent a year on the streets of Hollywood working with the collateral damage you call the doe-eyed girls from Tulsa. You’re right about one thing however, those who host the pool parties in the valley usually prefer the doe-eyed boys.
LA, a swarming pit of vice and sodomites! Of course.
So, you are saying that you have evidence of ubiquitous ‘valley pool parties’ an they are hosted by predatory homosexuals, possibly pedophiles? Please correct me if I am missing something- if so, I must have slept through it all during my suburban three years in Studio City. And Jilly… call the police!
RandMan said: “Show me ANY organization (other than nambla [sic]) that is trying to ‘have pedophila [sic] declared just another lifestyle choice.’ Also ridiculous.” How about Salon.com? Todd Nickerson: “I’m a pedophile, but not a monster.” How about the New York Times? Margo Kaplan: “Pedophilia: A Disorder, Not a Crime.” How about the Los Angeles Times? “Many researchers taking a different view of pedophilia.” The money quote: “‘These people felt they could snuff out the desire, or shame me into denying it existed,’ he [Paul Christiano] said. ‘But it’s as intrinsic as the next person’s heterosexuality.’ In the laboratory, researchers… Read more »
“That is a massive failure of leadership and shows only Wilson’s hubristic desire to implement his ideas about what constitutes rehabilitation.”
What would constitute rehabilitation?
RandMan preached: It is unacceptable to knowingly marry a pedophile to a young parishioner because you believe that marriage is ‘the spiritual cure’ for the ‘sin’ of child rape. Unacceptable to who? God? Remember that RandMan believes in a purposeless, accidental universe. His indignation about rape has the same moral significance as heartburn. Material reactions proceed without regard for morality. RandMan’s worldview disqualifications aside, as a factual matter, Wilson has never said that marriage is a spiritual cure for sin. That is just another lie by RandMan. Wilson consistently preaches the need for repentance and reconciliation as the only solution… Read more »
Unacceptable to any moral being who isn’t infatuated with themselves and/or their fever dreams of an omnipotent something who reads their minds, answers intercessory requests via telepathy, and helps them stave of their fear of death. Just because you need to presuppose a god to understand anything and stop your shivering does not mean we all do. But please continue as you must with your usual straw man, TAG and presuppositional positions. What Sitler did repeatedly is a criminal matter and he should not be allowed access to children or the means of making any. At the very very least… Read more »
All he would need to do to make all the intoleristas lay off him completely is to start wearing a dress and lipstick, denounce Christ Church for its pharisaism, blame his repressive Christian upbringing for his crimes, and announce the formation of a political action organization devoted to opening up Idaho’s bathrooms to every kind of perversion. If he were to do that, there would be a statue to his heroism in Friendship Square, and a gig on the Today show.
And he would no doubt be the subject of a sympathetic NYT op-ed by Russell Moore.
I’m just sayin’…
I’m not sure I agree about the first “what if.” The reason the intoleristas are after that particular gentleman is not because he repented. They are (in my experience) perfectly okay with his repentance. What they deny is the effectiveness of repentance. To them, once a sex offender, always a sex offender. In their minds, hearts can never change, even after repentance and forgiveness.
Edit: basically, those who protest this man’s freedom are denying that trust can ever be earned – which I think leads to a pretty messed-up world.
Hi Carson, do you believe in the efficacy of repentance to the extent that you would withdraw supervision from a penitent child molester?
Do you believe that Jesus changes people’s hearts? Do you believe that the struggle against sin is affected by Jesus’ death on the cross? See, you can make the same argument with any criminal. Recidivism is always a risk, but at what point do you trust someone to leave the penal system and not return to crime? If we never trust anyone who has once sinned, then the world would fall apart. We have to believe that people can change – while not forgetting that all of us are prone to sin. There is a distinction between forgiveness and trust.… Read more »
I largely agree with you on the specific issue. My concern is that, of all sinful addictions, a sexual appetite for children is apparently the hardest to break. Some acts of recidivism do not destroy the life of a child, but some do. For that reason, I would not be willing ever to relax the supervision.
I think any anybody who has a distorted focus finds it particularly hard to break. I am not convinced that a pre-pubertal focus is harder than a male male one in general.
And the supervision has not been relaxed. So what’s your point?
I was agreeing with you on that point. We both see the need of constant supervision.
I’ve always found it amusing that pastors on the one hand love to speak of repentance, but on the other hand are the ones seemingly least likely to be introspective in the least; much less repent of anything. Planned Parenthood (abortion) and NAMBLA (homosexuality/pedophilia) are without question great sins; but the precursor to all of this is the emasculation of men; which conservative evangelical pastors have been complicit in for decades.
“which conservative evangelical pastors have been complicit in for decades.”
This is a viewpoint I haven’t ever heard before. Could you explain it a little more?
You will likely have a good answer to that by filling in the blank to the following: My pastor’s name is ____________________.
If you are talking about the move of putting women in positions of authority designed for men, then I totally agree.
Otherwise, I’m not understanding, although I would like to.
Are you referring to spiritual authority or in the temporal realm as well?
You know, jillybean, that is an awesome question that I have wrestled with a lot. It’s difficult for personal reasons, and so I have trouble really seeing the depth of what Scripture says. In the body of the Church, I do see that Scripture is clear about levels of authority, and I see it as a repeating pattern from the home, to church, to nation, to world, with Christ as the head. God has established this pattern of male headship for a much deeper and symbolic reason than just man versus woman, but I can’t yet see it in fullness.… Read more »
My faith teaches a complementarian relationship between husband and wife. Each contributes gifts and qualities the other lacks and needs. Although my church allows women to preach, to give spiritual direction, and to read the lessons, it does not allow women to celebrate the sacraments. However, these restrictions on women are understood to refer to the church. Catholics don’t talk a lot about male headship. Complementarianism is sometimes, but not necessarily, understood to mean that the wife is the homemaker and the husband is the breadwinner. There is really not a sense in Catholic teaching that women are intellectually or… Read more »
Thanks, jillybean. I’m still working out how this should be reflected in the secular world. That’s very helpful. I disagree with a woman heading a nation because I do believe that the nation is a magnified layer of the household or should be. The problem that I’m working out still, which is the same one I have with theonomy, is that there’s the ideal world and then there’s the world we live in. I keep going back to Daniel and also to Esther who had to deal with this in a larger than life way, and yet they were able… Read more »
You need to consider the individual and the nation separately. There was nothing wrong with Deborah judging. She was righteous. But that she was judge and no men were, could possibly say something about Israel at the time.
Thank you, bethyada. That’s a good point I hadn’t thought of.
Deborah may have been a good judge. In fact, it seems like she was a lot stronger than the men around her.
What does it say about God’s authority structure? That it’s okay for women to judge or that the State of Israel had gotten off track, therefore God raised up a woman to be a judge. I’m not sure how Isaiah 3:5 fits in here, although it is a judgment passage. I wonder about this a lot.
Yes, that’s kind of my argument against women leading in the church or becoming pastors. It isn’t that we aren’t capable, it is what has happened to all the men? What is going on within the culture that has allegedly sent all the men off chasing other priorities? When that happens something is usually wrong with us collectively, not necessarily as individuals.
I went back to Judges and studied the story of Deborah last night. I was surprised at the parallels to the Edenic story, and it answered a lot for me about the role of a faithful woman. In the story of Eden, Adam failed to protect the garden. Eve failed to submit to the authority of her husband. God’s judgment against Adam, in part, was that the one who crushes the head of the serpent would be from woman’s seed, not man’s. In Deborah’s story, man has failed to protect Israel, and even worse has asked a woman to lead… Read more »
JL, the idea that Adam failed to rid the garden of the snake, or protect Eve from him is popular teaching but not one that is clearly taught in Genesis. It may well be true but I would be cautious about how much doctrine to build from it. What seems more clearly taught is that Eve was deceived in the situation but Adam’s choice to eat was him knowingly sinning. I think that they both sinned but his was a more deliberate one. That said, I think your conclusion in the last paragraph is reasonable. It just that it is… Read more »
Thank you very much for the correction, bethyada. I think there is good reason for believing that Adam was to guard the garden, but I also don’t want to read into the text what isn’t there. I will spend some more time on this to re-evaluate whether my understanding has merit. I agree with women in the household, and male leadership in the church. I especially appreciated this line: ” Further, it can be difficult because leading is masculine therefore women leaders may have to suppress their femininity, or they feminise leadership structures which is generally destructive to leadership.” An… Read more »
JL, this is my, somewhat speculative, take on this issue in more detail.
Thank you, bethyada. I replied on your blog.
I tend to focus pretty exclusively in the world in which we find ourselves. Perhaps in an ideal world the question of women holding political authority would never arise. But not being Reformed, I don’t hold many of its assumptions about the proper roles of men and women. I think that women, because they give birth to children, have a special obligation to them. I don’t think a woman should abandon her young children to run for a political office (or to chair a corporation). I think that many women want to be keepers at home, and that is a… Read more »
Good morning, jillybean. I am coming at this from a radically different perspective. My husband and I moved to a remote area of the Rockies about seven years ago as pagan survivalists. Did you know there was such a thing? About two years in, Christ called us through a little church that’s set even farther back in the mountains than we are. For the last four years or so we have been delving deeply into Scripture, learning everything we can about everything, including Biblical living as man and wife. It has been a blessing in that we have had lots… Read more »
Do you have a blog? It would be fascinating to read more about your journey from pagan survivalism to where you are now. It must be both exhilarating and very difficult for you on so many levels. God bless you both!
Hi jillybean, We don’t have anything documenting that. I think some day when the dust settles I’ll write a book along the lines of “Eat Pray Love”, only it will be “Buddha Guns Beer – The unlikely journey from pagan to survivalist to Calvinist”. I should be able to sell at least 2 copies. :) (I still don’t quite understand why so many Reformers talk about beer so much. I did often wax eloquent about Bavarian Dunkelweizen when I lived in that part of the world, but I have long since given up hope of finding anything that good in… Read more »
I don’t know. I don’t usually drink (not for religious reasons but because I take migraine medication, and I don’t want to pull a Karen Ann Quinlan, poor soul), but I have noticed that some people here seem to like their beer and their single malt! I can see why people who live in the Pacific Northwest like beer because it is very good up there. To me Scotch tastes like medicine. As for wine, my brother-in-law once poured me a small glass of some rare and very expensive vintage red, and he caught me in the kitchen putting some… Read more »
If you and your husband are both white, you might be surprised at how much the culture has changed in only seven years. It might be too much of a shock to move to LA or some other large city.
Maybe you should consider moving to Moscow, Idaho. You could attend Christ Church, which is virtually all white.
You might feel a lot more at home there, and the culture shock would be a lot less severe.
Los Angeles is indeed very multi-racial but I think it has a fairly mellow vibe these days. Other than the race riots (which were not personal), I have never felt racial hostility directed toward me. You might be surprised at how pleasant and friendly everyone is.
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You would love it. The palm trees swaying in the gentle breeze. The bougainvillea growing on the Spanish tile. The sound of the surf crashing on the Malibu shores. The police choppers roaring overhead day and night. The Sig-Alerts at rush hour at the Orange Crush. What’s not to love?
Steve Sailer says that the climate and scenery of southern California is too valuable for liberals to allow Mexicans to just take it over, and eventually some program(s) will be created that gradually make it too expensive for them, allowing white people to once again rule this highly desirable area. He says that much of what passes as “environmentalism” is actually rich people in places like Malibu and San Francisco preserving their scenic views and lifestyles by keeping the riffraff out by making it illegal or too expensive to develop the land or buildings. That’s why Obama is making a… Read more »
Gentrification. I work in Birmingham, and while it’s not so much of an issue city-wide just yet, there are pockets where it’s creating friction, and the black residents who harangue the rich (at least relatively) black city councilmen are by no means blind to what’s going on. I grant that moving in white hipster millennials who have a desire for “authenticity” does actually increase property values, but I also don’t get offended or worry about “racism” when the black residents who have lived and worked there for generations get angry about being sold out for those white guys who want… Read more »
He is right about the environmentalism. Every now and then we get another episode of some “liberal” movie star trying to block public access to the beaches. However, they are trying to block white people as well, which I guess shows a certain commendable color blindness. Non-Hispanic whites are around 29% of the population for the city itself, so that ship has already sailed. Most desirable places are too expensive for anyone other than rich people or DINKS. I don’t know what house prices are like elsewhere in the U.S. (compared to Vancouver, LA is cheap), but a 1500 square… Read more »
I should have added below that the problems with the homeless are nowhere near as bad as in the Bay Area. I can’t stand San Francisco anymore which is too bad because it is such a beautiful city.
I can’t stand San Francisco anymore which is too bad because it is such a beautiful city. It’s funny you bring up SFO. A few months ago, I started wondering how it was that homosexuals, who were quite recently despised by the vast majority of Americans, who regarded them and often spoke of them as fags, faggots, poofters, bulldykes, queers, sick perverts, etc. (and a whole host of other names that can’t be printed here) can now marry each other, and are regarded as basically normal by most Americans, and adored and fawned over by a substantial portion of the… Read more »
That was very interesting. I have no idea when the gays replaced the hippies in San Francisco, but it sounds as if there was a strong gay culture there all along. I was also very startled at the speed at which gay marriage became legal in the U.S. I thought that the process would be slow, with states gradually adopting civil unions. Even the gays I know in LA were surprised as many I have talked to thought it would be more prudent to wait until the public acceptance of gays increased. I was curious, so I looked up the… Read more »
And it seems that SFO is no longer the gay Mecca it was 35 years ago. Since it’s fine to be gay pretty much everywhere these days, and rents are incredibly high in SFO, gays no longer need to move there to live as openly gay people, and even if they wanted to, most can’t afford to. So, while SFO is still about three times gayer than most big cities (by percent of the population that identify as gay/lesbian), it’s not nearly as gay as it used to be. Here’s a long blog post by a gay Hispanic SFO resident… Read more »
Isn’t the cost of living absorbently higher though (even with the higher-than-elsewhere salaries)?
It is hard for me to tell because this is the only place I have lived during my time in America. I would say that housing costs are very high, but food and clothing are cheap. My air conditioning bill runs $250 a month during the summer, but I never put the furnace on all winter so I figure it evens it out. Water (the kind that comes out of the tap) is very expensive, and car insurance is prohibitive. But my husband supported my daughter and me on a teacher’s salary, and although we lived kind of frugally, we… Read more »
The really strange part is we moved here from NYC, so it’s not like we were culturally isolated before the move to nowhere. 40, when Paul talks about a renewing of the mind and being a new creation, it’s not just symbolic or metaphoric language. Something real happens that changes how you perceive everything. This change was so dramatic for us because we live in isolation. I expect people from your city who moved here would also have a difficult time adjusting as well, but it would be of a different nature. Things like bears trying to break into your… Read more »
No kidding! I used to live at Mile 300 of the Alaska Highway, and there were black bears and grizzly bears. But we did have indoor plumbing, although the insulation in the teacherages was so lousy that I would wake up in the morning with my nightgown frozen to the wall. And now I will endure riots, quakes, fires, and floods just to stay warm.
Ha! I remember our first winter we woke up to find that our cabin door had frozen shut, and we couldn’t get outside to go to the outhouse. I feel your pain!
I’m not sure what you mean. Are you thinking of something like the division between soul and spirit; as in Hebrews 4? And what specifically are you directing the question at?
No, I was asking if he believed that the doctrine that women should not hold authority over men applied only in the church and home, or in the larger society as well.
I was thinking of this as it applies to husbands and wives.
Thanks, I understand now. Oh, that villain named equality. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately in terms of voting. Biblically, the picture is one of men being the representative for the household. These days, women can say, “We are equal. You have your say, and I have mine,” which absolutely undermines the husband’s authority. If the husband is keeping faith to the covenant, then his say should be enough for her in the public square. That’s probably not going to be a popular view. In truth, I don’t always like it myself, but it’s what I understand that… Read more »
One historical root of the current situation can be found in the Victorian attitude that women were naturally more virtuous than men.
I think the rabbis beat the Victorians by many centuries on that understanding.
Seems that Matthew Henry had the same view a century earlier. I remember him saying something about women being “dust twice refined,” which I take to mean something like what you are saying about the Victorian attitude; though I may not remember it accurately. I’ve tended to think that way myself, likely because of the example my mother set; who exemplified everything it says in Proverbs 31 about the virtuous woman.
“which conservative evangelical pastors have been complicit in for decades..”
I’ve heard that argument, but I disagree. Our entire culture has been working on the emasculation of men, but the one place you are far more likely to find men resisting those cultural influences is within evangelical Christianity.
Maybe, but most of evangelical culture (implicitly or explicitly) exalts wives over husbands.
I think that is a false perception some men on the internet like to promote, mostly men who are divorced and don’t attend church at all. Are there evangelical churches that have sometimes made husbands feel inferior? Perhaps, but that is not the norm to be found in most churches.
Does being divorced and not attending church make men incapable of accurately perceiving the way churches are run?
My church is a conservative evangelical congregation in the South, and in the ten years my wife and I have attended, I don’t think I’ve once heard any teaching on how wives are to obey their husbands.
“Does being divorced and not attending church make men incapable of accurately perceiving the way churches are run?”
It makes them morally inclined to be unjust to churches. Rationally incapable, perhaps not, but Proverbs is full of the idea that one’s moral position is essential to correct judgment.
Perhaps so. But it doesn’t make them wrong. The easiest alternative to refuting an idea is to claim that bad people agree with it.
Hitler was a vegetarian. I rest my case
Wow! That was the best use of Godwin’s law that I’ve ever heard!????????
It was not an attempt to refute the claim, it was to point out that the judgment of someone who is morally compromised is, biblically speaking, not to be trusted. If a trustworthy person says the same thing, then it’s worth listening to. This isn’t something I just made up last week, it’s basic biblical epistemology.
As Barnabas wrote, perspective is important. It isn’t necessarily easy to see things from outside of them. To a husband/former husband in a problematic situation, the church has become like the contentious woman of Proverbs; a continual dripping on a very rainy day.
I am talking about a man in the persistent disobedience of not attending church. There’s no “out” clause about the church not being sufficiently good at what it’s doing. I can have sympathy for the man for whom being in a difficult situation makes churchgoing difficult, but that doesn’t change the fact that refusing to attend church is overt rebellion, which calls his judgment of spiritual things seriously into question.
I was essentially disagreeing with your comment that not going to church “makes [men] morally inclined to be unjust to churches,” rather than justifying lack of attendance. Given the way churches typically handle these types of situations, though, I would not be quick to call his spiritual judgement into question.
Yes, I must disagree with that, too. I am not inclined to call a man’s spiritual judgment into question because he doesn’t go to church. My comment about the divorced men who never go to church was specifically about the bitterness that now colors their judgment and the way they criticize the church based only on what they have heard from others.
Indeed, there are even some men who show good spiritual judgment by NOT going to church.
Although it may often be the case, it is not a requirement for a divorced man who never attends church to be bitter. Indeed, their reason for avoiding church may well be based on their own negative, personal experience with a church or its leaders before, during, or after divorce. I suspect there are few experiences that more directly influences an individual’s perception of a church than when the rubber meets the road in a divorce. “Indeed, there are even some men who show good spiritual judgment by NOT going to church.” Perhaps, but maybe that’s an excuse that others… Read more »
I avoided my own church for a while when my husband left our marriage. I don’t think I was bitter, but the advice I was given was untimely and sometimes unwise. It is not church doctrine that you have to agree to share a spouse with his girlfriend, or that you have to be willing to socialize with that girlfriend. I never expressed anger or resentment to my husband, but further than that, I could not go!
“It is not church doctrine that you have to agree to share a spouse with his girlfriend”
Wouldn’t that be antithetical to church doctrine?
Yes, it is. Even when the spouse is willing to take the adulterous person back (as I was), there has to be some indication of a renewed commitment to honoring the vows. Typically, this would include breaking off the affair and engaging in counseling of some kind before the person is welcomed home again. I think that when people are eager to save a very long marriage (as mine was), they can lose sight of doctrine and good sense.
I’m married, never divorced, I attend church regularly, and exalting wives over husbands is the norm to be found in most American churches.
Do you attend “most churches?” How many churches have you attended? Because in order to get enough data to declare a “norm” we would have to be doing some serious church shopping and studying each one.
The problem I have with this line of thinking is that it is simply the reverse of the feminist meme, “churches are all patriarchal cesspools of misogyny that protect and defend pedophiles.”
These are all perceptions, projections, not necessarily facts.
The first point was that the idea we are talking about a perception (even if it were only that) held by “mostly men who are divorced and don’t attend church at all” is an incorrect idea. I stand as Exhibit A. Secondly, How many churches have I attended? I’ve kind of lost track. In my lifetime I’ve been a member of eight so far. That’s just the ones I’ve ever formally joined, it doesn’t count others I’ve attended long term. It also doesn’t count ones I’ve visited a time or two. I’ve moved around a lot, among other things. It… Read more »
Well, one issue we have is that when women are lifted up, thriving in the Lord, some men can become envious, as if that is somehow a slight on them. Men can be very competitive. As exhibit A, we’ll use that Babylon Bee spoof. You call this exalting wives over husbands? The solution to too many women feeling good about themselves and exalting in the Lord is simply for men to rise up and out exalt us. There’s an unpleasant concept within some that suggests the only way for men to feel good about themselves is for women to become… Read more »
“As exhibit A, we’ll use that Babylon Bee spoof. You call this exalting wives over husbands?” I call it what a lot of women’s conferences and other “ministries” and sermons aimed toward women are really all about, satire aside. I call it a lie that damages the church and leads women away from God. When women (or men) truly want to exalt in the Lord, the place they start is to cease from exalting in themselves. I call what you are doing turning the case upside down. Evangelical culture bends over backward to make women, not men, feel good about… Read more »
They must have learned that from network TV.
It is news to me that the role of the church is to make anyone feel good about themselves.
Well,if you are saying that evangelical culture needs to invest in men, to “help them feel good about themselves,” than I am totally with you. The thing is, we can’t do that by tearing women down. We have to make men feel bigger,not women feel smaller. I do see the memo in our culture, “Mom is awesome. Dad’s an idiot,” but I see it a whole lot less in our churches. In fact, our churches are kind of a refuge from that way of thinking. Also, women can’t fix this problem so much. To elevate men, you need men. We… Read more »
Thanks for the consideration, however Jilly got it right, it is not the role of the church to make anyone, man or woman, feel good about themselves. Rather than teaching people to feel good about themselves we should be teaching people to be good. When people learn to see the difference between good and what they actually are they might feel bad, which is a good thing.
Has your reading of the articles at Art of Manliness (whose authors are married and seem to attend church regularly) changed your perception of the truth of the claim that evangelical churches exalt wives over husbands? If it’s true that the church has been feminized over the past 1000 years, isn’t it likely that men who are more masculine would feel they were treated as inferior spiritually? Put another way, will husbands who are in touch with their feminine side feel inferior in churches today? As to your claim that it is not “the norm” to be found in most… Read more »
I think that the Alan Alda-types would be preening themselves, and the more traditional men would be silently resentful. At least, if I were a man, I would be.
I haven’t looked at the Art of Manliness. But I do like men who can hail taxicabs, summon waiters, and calculate a tip without asking me to check their math! In return, I will sew on buttons, iron dress shirts, and address the company Christmas cards in neat, flowing script. I quite liked the old days.
I suspect the more masculine men quickly decide to quit attending rather than being resentful. The process may be faster if they are not silent.
The first of a series is Christianity’s Manhood Problem: An Introduction. There have been two more articles (and I think there is one more to come).
That, plus getting tired of singing Kum Bai Yah.
If you haven’t seen it, this article (The Feminization of Christianity) seems relevant. The author, Roman Catholic scholar Dr. Leon J. Podles, believes the idea of “Christian-as-Bride-of-Christ” began in the Roman Catholic church in about the 13th Century, and migrated to Protestantism, including evangelicals. The result has been an emphasis on feminine traits being considered more godly than masculine traits.
If you are referring to men in general, as opposed to pastors in particular, I agree with you. But when you are speaking of conservative evangelical pastors in particular, it’s a different story. They are in a tough spot. They want to affirm the authority of scripture, but they are also at the forefront of the fight; bombarded at every turn. The end result is that they invert the scriptures in order to avoid the fight; they do this unwittingly, and in so doing become worse than the radical feminism that they say they hate. Conservative churches are hostile places… Read more »
Emasculation, real, non-metaphorical emasculation, would go a long way toward addressing the sins you mention.
Ahh, this is really well said. Thanks for putting to words what I cannot quite quite verbalize. As to the repentant, including sex offenders, you’ve made an excellent point. I would not put an alcoholic in a bar or hand a sex offender a youth ministry, but beyond some basic common sense, we are called to believe in repentance, to trust in the blood of the Lamb. That is not always so easy, I’m sure many were a bit queasy about welcoming the Apostle Paul into their ranks after he likely killed and tortured a few people. And so the… Read more »
I don’t know ME. I thought you said that really well. :)
Those examples are terrible. The pedophile uproar had nothing to do with him repenting, and even now a significant portion of America doesn’t actually repent of slavery. As we all know, the abolitionists were the real villains.
Not enough hate mail Doug?
In America the ones I need to repent are those that would do it last
I think concern can be valid. Is saying sorry enough? We need to look at the heart. And true repentance is mortified at the evil. Wisdom dictates we should be careful not to be led into further temptation. But the problem I have is that because society approves of so many vices there are few sins left. Secularism repents by making vices virtues. Sodomy no longer needs to repent. So instead of Jesus blood covering sins we get approval of some sins and other sins too horrendous to repent from. While paedophilia is s gastly sin, I am cautious of… Read more »
Good post. More needs to be said on the issue of repentance being vile so please keep talking.
I just come back from 3 months in the Gambia, by the way, where the slave trade is alive and well.
Africans selling Africans is ongoing.
Let me quote Rod Dreher: “This is extraordinary. Yes, he should have refused to perform the wedding. I don’t even see that this is a close call. About excommunication, who knows? I don’t know how his church handles such matters, and anyway, it’s a secondary issue. It is clear to me that a morally responsible pastor cannot give the church’s blessing to such a union. He knew that the Sitlers were going to try to have children, and knew that the courts would likely force them to live apart if the couple succeeded in that goal. How would this disordered… Read more »
And yet we let child murders marry in abundance with nary a word.
While agreeing with you about the awfulness of child murder, I don’t quite see an equivalence. Even the most callous of women can’t be described as being sexually addicted to aborting their young, whereas most people agree that the urge to have sex with young children is in fact a sexual addiction (as well as a sin). It is the strength of that urge that makes me uneasy about giving the convicted offender any liberty at all, let alone the liberty to grow his own victims. I am not blaming Doug or his church here; I think the fault belongs… Read more »
We have talked about this before and the likelihood of reoffending. I think this is relevant. And there may not be a full equivalence. However I note that many who kill their children are not even repentant, many are repeat offenders, and often the issue is not even dealt with. So we have a situation where a man knows he has a sexual deviancy that he does not want to have. He is focusing his sexuality rightly toward his wife. He is under supervision of others. And we have all these moralists demanding he never be married nor have children… Read more »
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/97/Faulty-Comparison
You think the comparison is unwarranted. You need to show that it is unwarranted, not just claim that it is.
I claim that killing children is worse than molesting them. So why the more stringent restrictions for the lesser crime?
I think the difficulty comes only if we say, “Killing children is worse than molesting them. So until we punish people who kill children, we should not excessively punish people who merely molest them.”
I am not talking about legality here. Obviously we need to have good laws even if some laws are lacking (though this is complex). I was responding to the logical fallacy claim by CJ. The church can have its own policies regardless of the law
Your argument makes me feel like someone slipped some LSD into my water and I woke up in The Twilight Zone.
That I think raping a 2 year old warrants capital punishment, or that abortion is murder?
Hi Bethyada. I think that here we are running up against legality versus morality. A woman who makes a habit of murdering her post-birth children will certainly have any others removed from her care, no matter how repentant she is. If Andrea Yates ever gets out of the mental hospital, she will not be allowed to retain custody of any child she may have in the future–and rightly so. Not in a spirit of vengeance but out of an abundance of caution. Knowing nothing about the Sitler situation, I would rather make this general. I feel sorry for a child… Read more »
And that is part of the problem, the legality of abortion means that many don’t get uptight about it. Yet your example (whoever she is) would be banned from keeping more children. So the law is inconsistent in forbidding her and allowing those who kill in utero. But it is the morality which concerns me, and the inconsistency. What should we do and promote regardless of the law? I think we should protect children, but we are now adverse to any risk. And our assessment is based on our emotional reaction over actual risk. No one wants their child to… Read more »
“Repentance Made Vile”. What exactly does that mean? Say what you mean and mean what you say. This pseudo intellectual garbage does not impress.
An unrepentant America necessarily has to see repentance as the
adversary. But in order to see repentance as an adversary, it must be
cast as some awful thing, some sort of wicked thing. Repentance itself
must be made vile.
Sorry, it still doesn’t make sense
What Douglas is saying by “Repentance made vile,” or “Repentance itself must be made vile” is that:
In order for non-Christians to condemn certain things, to oppose repenting, to oppose those who turn away from their sins; is to make the act of repentance appear hideous, vile, horrendous; instead of what repentance really is which is beautiful.