When Christian Morality is a forgotten discipline.
Readership: All; Men; Single Men;
Theme: Faux-Masculine Archetypes
Reader’s Note: Excerpts from J. M. Smith’s essay are in quotes.
Length: 1,400 words
Reading Time: 5 minutes
Foreword
Upon first tackling a study of this archetype, I found it very difficult to describe in plain concise words. Although the outward behaviors are rather clearly self-evident, the deeper nature, mental cognitions, and motivations of this archetype are not.
Then I came across an incisive description of the Decadent Christian written by J. M. Smith over at The Orthosphere, The Disease of Decadent Christianity (2022-4-29), in which he identifies two kinds of Decadent Christianity.
“…history has shown that Christianity is subject to two fatal perversions, antinomianism and what Nietzsche called ressentiment.”
To clearly articulate the decadent Christian, Smith uses the concepts of antinomianism and ressentiment (to be explained later). Upon further examination of these descriptions, and pondering on my own experiences, I’ve found that there are three different types of decadent Christians.
- The Hedonist (described by antinomianism).
- The Anarchist (described by ressentimentalism*).
- The Legalist (described by legalism)
So this post will describe the antinomianist* / hedonist, and the next post will cover the ressentimentalist* / anarchist. Later I’ll study the Pharisaical legalist. I’ll cite key excerpts of J. M. Smith’s article in this description.
* Suffixes are used to form different inflexions.
Antinomianism
The Antinomian is a type of nominal Christian who hardly lives any differently from his worldly peers, and therefore engages in casual drug use, consuming pornography, drunkenness, engaging in fornication, extramarital sex, hard partying and carousing, and other forms of licentious dissipation.
It should be noted that Antinomians who call themselves Christians would hardly ever identify themselves as Antinomians or even hedonists. They even might be hesitant to call themselves Christians outside of church.
However, church-going Antimonianists who are familiar with the scriptures have been known to distort the meaning of “Christian freedom” and “spiritual liberty” to justify such a lifestyle. J. M. Smith describes this concisely as follows.
“Antinomianism is, of course, the false doctrine that the blood of Christ effectively abolishes the moral law for those who are saved, and that “Christian freedom” is therefore a boundless license to do just as the born again please. This doctrine especially prospers among passionate peoples in whom the moral law is weak or altogether absent, but one must admit that it is powerfully fertilized by such Christian notions as election, assurance, and the conviction that one is “saved.”
J. M. Smith quotes two classical authors to describe the internal motivations of the Antinomianist.
[In Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter’s Son (1941), the author, William Alexander Percy,] explains the antinomianism of many American Christians by relating a conversation he had with a clergyman in Mississippi.
“I asked a clergyman recently why it was that so many prominent church-goers were crooks in business and hypocrites in private life. He replied: ‘They have been born again.’
This clarified nothing for me and I told him as much. He explained sadly: “When they are born again, they are certain of salvation, and when you are certain of salvation you may do as you like.’
But I urged horrified, ‘People don’t really believe that!’
‘Hundreds of thousands of them,’ he rejoined, obviously as grieved as I. ‘The ethics of Jesus do not interest them when their rebirth guarantees them salvation.’”
One of the ironies of the Christian experience is that coming closer to God opens the innermost places in one’s heart, thereby revealing one’s sin and other destructive and unethical behaviors (viz. transgressions). In fact, this is a fundamental element of the full confession of sin and salvation. After this spiritual awakening, it takes time for a person to learn and grow into a mature and ethical Christ-like Christian who is capable of discernment and exercising moral agency.
However, what we often see is that many Christians prefer to indulge themselves in the grace of God for as long as they can get away with it, and do not take the command to be obedient very seriously. This of course, leads others to doubt the eternal value of God’s love and grace, and to even blaspheme the Gospel, Christianity, and/or the nature of salvation.
“Antinomianism is a doctrine of decadent Christianity — [In A Sketch of the Denominations of the Christian World (1808), the perceptive author, John Evans,] says it is “nothing more than Calvinism run to seed” — and I will be the first to admit that it is by such means that decadent Christianity accelerates decadence in the wider culture.”
In summary, the emotional liberation of living by faith, combined with the rational justification of being “saved”, empowers one to approach life with liberal ethics and laissez faire morality. This potent cocktail of faith and fun has the strong effect of encouraging rampant sin in the wider community and culture.
Epilogue
Among non-Christians, hedonism is the norm, especially for younger people. Motivations include…
- FOMO and YOLO
- Avoiding responsibilities
- Building rapport among peers
- The excitement and fun of it all
- Being socially accepted and included
- Evading a deeper awareness of one’s self which is often painful
In addition to the above motivations, I will venture to guess that the preponderant cause of antinomian sentiments among Christians is because of spiritual immaturity. More precisely, it is because of an incomplete and/or unbalanced discernment. There is a discernment of life, joy, and social relevancy, and even grace and mercy for one’s self, but yet, there is no discernment of any of the following.
- One’s purpose for living.
- The need for self-discipline.
- That poor choices carry consequences.
- How one’s sin affects others who are weaker in faith.
- How every choice carries a cost of opportunity in life.
- That one is not only accountable to one’s self, but also to God.
- How one’s choices and behaviors affect one’s spiritual condition.
J. M. Smith notes that this the difference between fear-obedience and love-obedience.
“An antinomian is like a child who outgrows fear-obedience without growing into love-obedience.”
Conclusions
In summary, Antinomianism has several major confounding issues.
- Freewheeling faith augments and exacerbates the rip-roaring rollicking of the surrounding social group.
- Sin and dissipation is encouraged and perpetuated by the wider secular culture which promotes and never censures certain sins and therefore never presents an opportunity for repentance.
- The Antimonianist is blind to all of this. The continual indulgences in self-gratifying sinful behaviors promulgate a lack of discernment, thereby preventing one from becoming further aware of the incongruencies between sin and faith.
- This lenient and permissive attitude towards sin and dissipation creates a spiritual state in which one’s spiritual growth, and that of others too, is hampered by said sin.
- The combination of the above issues, in conjunction with the added opportunities provided by faith and the psychological support offered by an errant scriptural justification, then leads to a condition in which the Antimonian lifestyle becomes a self-reinforcing cycle or stronghold.
- The overall message of J. M. Smith’s article is that Antinomian / hedonistic types of nominal Christians give Christianity a bad name and reputation. I’ll add that it also detracts from the message of the Gospel and repels those with a moral conscience. In the extreme, it can lead others to blaspheme the name of Christ and Christianity as evil and immoral.
Masculinity Rating
Strength: 4-8 and decreases with age
Honor: 0-4
Authority: Varies by individual
Respect: Depends on peer group
Purpose: 0-4
Average Score: 4
Related
Although it has not been labeled as antinomianism, we’ve covered the problem of poor discernment many times before here on Σ Frame with an emphasis on sexual sin (adultery, fornication, lust, masturbation, p0rn, withholding, etc.), since these are, by far, the most prevalent and damaging sins. The theme for September 2021, The Maturity of Faith, covered discernment and spiritual growth in detail.
- Σ Frame (Jack): Why is illicit sex so enticing, and so prevalent? (2019-5-25)
- Σ Frame (Jack): The Parable of the Pressure Cooker (2019-6-7)
- Σ Frame (Jack): On the Concept of Sin and the need for Marriage (2020-4-24)
- Σ Frame (NovaSeeker): Viewpoints on Man’s Confusion about How God Works in the Life of a Believer (2021-3-29)
- Σ Frame (NovaSeeker): The Noetic Nose Knows (2021-9-6)
- Σ Frame (Jack): Elements of Spiritual Maturity (2021-9-15)
- Σ Frame (Jack): Dealing with Discernment (2021-9-17)
- Σ Frame (Jack): On the Discernment of Desire (2021-9-24)
- Σ Frame (Jack): Developing Discernment (2021-9-27)
- Σ Frame (Jack): Knowing One’s Self (2021-10-30)
- Σ Frame (Jack): Women have sex to influence men (2021-11-10)
- Σ Frame (Red Pill Apostle): Denying sex to one’s spouse is porneia. (2022-1-26)
- Σ Frame (Jack): The Young Man’s Problem (2022-2-4)
- Σ Frame (Jack): Unlucky in Love? (2022-3-9)
- Σ Frame (Jack): A Clarification on Fornication (2022-4-16)
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Boy, this one’s gonna spark some lively debate LoL!
We knew a pastor’s wife who said, “if you’re REALLY saved then you won’t WANT to sin.”
The other common explanation: “God allowed Josh Duggar to fondle his sisters and download child p0rnography to chastise him.”
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This statement summarizes one of the bigger common falsehoods about grace and salvation. Every Christian still wants to sin and will continue to want to sin until they are dead. Once God calls someone their sin nature is ultimately defeated, but it fights one he!! of a battle of attrition.
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It depends on what’s meant by that statement. I would agree with it in the sense that a person that’s follows Christ and has been baptized by the Holy Spirit will not want to commit sinful acts in general. I know I don’t want to be sinful. We even see this in Scripture with Paul discussing this very topic.
However, that doesn’t mean we don’t want to do things that are sinful. Sometimes the desire not to sin generally is enough to keep us from sinning in a specific way, but sometimes it’s not. Again Paul describes this struggle in Romans 7.
I’ve also never understood the attitude that being saved is a blank check because of grace. Scripture specifically addresses this issue and calls that mindset wrong. Just another example of how most do not actually read Scripture except in ways to validate what they want.
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Just start talking about David and Solomon and watch them melt down.
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The atonement of the Cross frees us from having to be perfect 100% all of the time as Jesus himself was able to achieve.
As James the brother of Jesus said:
“10Whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. 11For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.” (James 2:10-11)
As Paul himself said: “10 All who rely on works of the law are under a curse. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”(Galatians 3:10).
This is what is meant by why we are saved by Faith rather than “Works of the Law”. Therefore Faith in God’s son and the atonement of the Cross as well as the 2nd birth of the Holy Spirit where the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in our hearts. Is there salvation.
Through Faith we can be imperfect but wanting to do God’s will and also producing good fruit improving under the New Covenant by the work of the Holy Ghost without the requirement to be 100% perfect for our entire lives.
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I know men whom God delivered miraculously of addictions to alcohol, gambling, etc. at the moment of salvation. I also know men who continued to struggle with those sins for years, and I have my own besetting sins with which I continue to struggle.
I don’t know why God chooses to deliver some miraculously, and not others, and I’d rather not speculate.
Not wanting to sin is, in fact, evidence of salvation.
Salvation only regenerates our spirit. The body (the flesh) remains cursed, and the mind is stuck in between the two.
A war begins between the regenerate spirit, and the cursed flesh. As we mature in Christ, the process of sanctification, and the renewing of our mind should align our mind and spirit more closely with the will of God. The flesh loses more often, and we begin to conquer one sin after another.
It’s an oversimplification to say that “if you’re saved, you won’t want to sin”, but it’s not wrong.
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We just don’t need to be 100% perfect. Unlike under the Law anymore. Since we can confess our sins and ask for forgiveness from God.
In this way Abraham whilst doing good deeds in obedience to God under faith was still a sinner yet saved. Because of the future work of Jesus Christ.
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Apparently they missed the part where obedience is evidence of salvation. It’s not doctrines like election, or grace, or the assurance of salvation that encourage antinomianism. It’s reading only the parts of the Bible one likes, and misinterpreting them for ones hedonistic advantage.
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Evidence to who? Not trolling you – seriously asking. Do you mean evidence to yourself or evidence to others?
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Both. Primarily to yourself.
But Jesus said “by their fruit you will know them” for a reason (Matthew 7:16).
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Jesus:
“Christian” Left: “Woo-hoo! Jesus laid down his life for me and I can sin with impunity!”
Jesus:
“Christian” Left: “The Gospels are unreliable… blah blah blah . . .”
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Interesting. I’d not heard of “Born again, assured of salvation, therefore I can do whatever I want.”
What I’d always heard as a young man is what Catholics call the sin of presumption, which is “I’ll sin now and repent later and God will forgive me.”
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Few people make it that explicit deti. It’s not so much a formal doctrinal position as a folk Christian belief in contemporary Evangelism. Luther taught explicitly against antinomianism.
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Luther taught explicitely against it AND for it. In his catechism, you gotta keep the 10 commandments. In his table top, “let your sins be strong.” But he was probably drunk in that second one. Who am I kidding? He was always drunk.
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He was German — the beer never stops flowing!
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I wish I agreed with your assessment that few people make it that explicit.
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You could be right. Maybe what I’m thinking of is formal, written doctrine for specific church groups, “statement’s of faith”, “treatises”, etc.
Many individual Christians probably say it. The batchelorette woman that Dalrock profiled who said she was a Christian but was going to continue to fornicate and that she’s forgiven.
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Jorgen,
No, he didn’t.
You’re taking things out of context again.
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It’s as if those people never read the Bible nor take it seriously.
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I heard the same, but with this caveat, “What would happen if later never comes because you die before you can repent?” Thus the presumption is there will be both a later and God’s forgiveness.
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Yes, by God’s grace one could repent on your deathbed and be saved. But as you point out, that is highly presumptuous. You might die suddenly. And more to the point, that isn’t the kind of faith that saves you. And it perpetuates the lie that a Christian life is something to avoid. I spent decades on both sides and wouldn’t trade being a believer for anything.
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Sin is perfectly “okay” in the church depending on who you are in the peer group / structure and hierachy in the church. How many times have I heard “Oh, God knows thy heart” and “We cannot judge” concerning the few people with “respect” or authority in a church versus the guy who helps out in the parking lot on Sundays. “He needs to repent, and get right with God and stop sinning!”
I opened my mouth once during morning tea and I learned quickly how the pecking order works. A woman, who was a member of the church got pregnant out of wedlock. The church ladies were giving her a baby shower and making such a fuss over her. I just mentioned, “Where is her husband?” Boy, oh boy…….
“We cannot judge her. The world does that. We are about love!!”
“Funny a recovering drug addict talking about sin!”
“Her baby might be the one who leads the world in the next revival!!!”
“If the man who fathered that child actually manned up she wouldn’t be in this situation, we cannot punish a baby for that!!!”
…and many others. In fact, I remember I kinda had to apologize for MY judgment of her.
I was still a newer Christian at that time, and on that day, I learned to shut my mouth.
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lastmod, I think the interaction you’re describing is the privileged position of women in the church that the Christian manosphere has described so many times. And that some sins are more fashionable than others.
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I was on my church board a number of years ago, and saw this first hand. The beloved Pastor of 16 years at that time, was having or on the verge of having an affair with one of the church secretaries. She was in the process of getting divorced and they had a thing for one another, so one thing led to another and they were either doing the deed, or they were working their way in that direction, i.e. spending alone time together, maybe working their way up to getting it on.
Now, one thing about my Pastor that drew me to the church was his masculinity. He’d been a fighter pilot in Vietnam, had a really good personality; the kind men can be around, not the blue pill, beta like Pastor. I can see why the church secretaries would be drawn toward him. Just applying a red pill lens to his situation as a church leader, yep, makes perfect sense to me why the women would be drawn to him.
The Pastor’s family covered for him because apparently it wasn’t the first time. Heck even his direct superior in the denomination was covering and trying to work it out, “For the better of the church, the better of the denomination.” Some of the older Board members were aware of some past indiscretions, not sex, but overtly flirting with the good looking secretaries on staff. So there was some history there. I didn’t know it because I was new to all the behind the scenes things that can go on in a church. I was a fairly new Board member and a bit idealistic.
I know, this is the classic Pastoral trope, right? The thing that got my attention was how the rest of the staff knew about it, obviously, and they were trying to either ignore it (head in the sand approach), or keep it discreet, just a staff issue or something. I could see why the family would go along with it, but the staff? I concluded they obviously wanted to protect their jobs.
Anyways, the Pastor eventually resigned and the new Pastor came in and things gradually got back to normal. It was fairly common knowledge among the church members about their former Pastor, not widespread, but enough knew or were suspicious, that the Board new it couldn’t continue and try to make it “work out for the best of all, for the best of the church.” Fortunately the Pastor got ticked off at “how he was being treated” and left before the hammer fell.
Back to what Lastmod stated,
I experienced this directly. Sad, but true, at least in the case I was involved in. I had to take a year off. My wife and I left the church (my Board term completed), and we went to another church for a year and just sat in the pews recovering. Then we moved to a new state the next year as a part of a job transfer and found a very solid church that we’re part of to this day (ten years later).
It took me about five years or so to completely get over it, that’s the kind of impact that crap inside a church had on me.
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I hate the term antinomian because it has become weaponized by Calvinists to slander their opponents. Ironically many people throwing the term around will then make exceptions for themselves on certain moral laws as those are now abrogated, etc.
But there is an admonition against those who become a law unto themselves, reject NT commands, and disregard OT morality.
Unfortunately that group is growing.
A big problem in modern Christianity is the Calvinist takeover of nondenominational churches and the Southern Baptist Convention. It’s a problem because traditionally, Calvinist churches had many theological debates/wars over the last 100 years on important issues that are just hitting these newcomers, and the new comers have no institutional knowledge or frame of reference for how to handle the controversies.
Something I started to see before I dipped out of the Baptist world altogether is the development of “New Covenant Theology,” which is antinomian in all senses. Some of its proponents argue polygamy is acceptable and are actually in those types of relationships.
What’s ironic about this is that many people in this crowd are friendly and cooperative towards the Federal Vision crowd, which tries to come off as a continuation of OT priesthood.
But wolf attracts wolf.
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We must pray for the false shepherds to come down.
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Good discussion.
What occurs to me is Jesus’ rebukes.
Do I love the Lord with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength? Do I love my neighbor as myself? Do I trust God? Do I obey God? (“If you love Me, keep My commandments.”) Do I pray? What fruit is it bearing?
That’s how I’m trying to go at it and fixing where I’m falling short.
And no, “loving your neighbor” is not “condoning and tacitly approving of and never judging anything your neighbor does or says.” That is not love. The Lord disciplines whom He loves. We are to correct and rebuke in loving ways.
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I get the “Don’t judge!” line from my family every time I see them. Every time I have to give the “You are wrong and have never read the verse you are trying to quote” spiel. To no effect.
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Lexet,
Try changing “judge” with “condemn”. We are absolutely to judge and to do so using God’s rules and teachings as our standards. This is wisdom. Condemnation on the other hand is for God alone. At some point along the way we began confusing the two concepts, and the “Don’t judge me!” refrain became a go to deflection for questionable behavior.
Although, the story about the woman brought to Jesus by the Pharisees in John 8 is more about Jesus dealing with the evil in their hearts, it applies. Jesus absolutely judges her and tells her not to continue in sin but does not condemn her for her sin.
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No no no. It happened so that glory could come from the evil, obviously. Jk jk. But seriously: for all the tradcon morons who think running to the Ozarks to find a good wife is a good thing, just realize the Duggar mindset is normal in those parts and abuse is rampant.
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I do suspect something was stinking in Josh Duggars upbringing. I think one of the commentators I read suspected that the “State Trooper” he hung out with when growing up was probably a predator.
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The state trooper in question is currently in federal prison for possession of csam. He was the guy Jim bob brought in initially, before sending Josh to Little Rock to work/live with his future in laws
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Possession of that is disproportionately high in the ozarks, especially among the church population. “Familial” relations is disproportionate as well. Tons of cults and rogue home churches/stand alone “denominations” In that region of the country.
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A lot of people here like to say the Ozarks are a great bastion of cultural Christianity when in reality it’s a demonstrative of why mixing politics with religion is a disaster.
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With respect to premarital sex, I really don’t think the viewpoint I am hearing is “I am saved, therefore, I can do anything I want.”
The viewpoint I hear is “Premarital sex is not immoral. Premarital sex is not sexual sin. If we have to say that premarital sex is sin, then we are making virginity into an idol. We’re worshipping virginity. We’re also saying that women who have had premarital sex are worthless.”
It’s all about the fact that women are losing their minds over this. I could do a whole post on this.
This video by Sheila Gregoire’s daughter Katie has to be seen to be believed. She’s reacting to Lori Alexander’s simple and true statement that men prefer debt free virgins with no tattoos. Watch this if you dare.
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For the record:
No one is saying that virginity is an idol or that nonvirgins are worthless. No one is saying that you can’t repent of premarital sex, getting tats, or having debt. No one is saying these women cannot be saved.
All that was said was that men prefer those women for marriage. That’s all that was said.
The larger point, of course, was that premarital sex is sin. The fact that lots of unmarried people have it and it’s become “normalized” doesn’t remove its sin nature. It’s still sin.
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I’m becoming more and more convinced over time that a majority of Christians — especially Christian WOMEN — have convinced themselves either that sin doesn’t really exist, or that if it does exist, it’s something so terrible that God will punish them for it by striking them down on the spot immediately after they commit it. Otherwise, if there is no immediate and palpable repercussion for it, then it’s not sin.
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Women interpret the Pericope Adulterae (not in the earlist mss, check your NIV) as saying (literally I saw a tweet daying this yesterday) “The dudes seeking to punish the woman were the bad guys”, implying that any punishment of a woman is bad, period. But men must be punished! This is what happens when all the men are silent about a fake paragraph being added to the Bible because their wife will get mad if they speak up. And it’s proven it’s fake, but men still can’t speak up! Check your NIV — it’s proven.
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During my first run-through of the Bible, the issue of premarital sex was one of the biggest hurdles to get over. Not because I was having premarital sex, but because it’s all my friends at the time were talking about. (I was 27 at the time.) Even before I read the Bible, I simply took sex seriously because I didn’t want to bring children into this world with a woman I couldn’t see spending the rest of my life with. I didn’t want to do to my children what my parents did to me (broken home).
But when I came to terms with the fact that the whole Hook Up Culture is in fact sinful according to the Scriptures, I had to start distancing myself from my old friends. I tried telling them that I wasn’t judging (condemning) them, and I still liked other facets of their personalities, but the conversations were always about sex and who was smashing who, and I was like… “Enough.”
The tipping point came one day in the parking lot. Two of my best friends back then were talking, and I swear it was like Satan was talking through them. They were like, “Dude! You’re not really a man till you have sex! It just changes you! The older you get, the harder it’s going to be to have it! Women won’t respect you unless you’re having sex! Time is running out! You need to go out and get laid! Now. Now! NOW!”
…that’s why I smirk and fume through the nose whenever people call Christians “brainless lapdogs who don’t think for themselves and will blindly do whatever they’re told.” I am a rebel. Defiant against this wicked system till the day I die.
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Also about Katie Gregoire’s video:
This is why Paul says, “I suffer not a woman to teach.” (1 Timothy 2:12)
You want THIS preaching in your pulpit?
You want THIS having charge over your congregation?
You want THIS responsible for teaching and exegesing the Word?
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If the “you” are women, of course they want it.
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It is telling that she has to turn Lori’s simple truths into a giant straw man before attacking it. On Gregoire’s logic, these women are so swell that they don’t even need to repent.
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Do Gregoire et al seriously think that most men would choose option B?
A. Debt-free, tattoo-free virgin
B. Deeply indebted, heavily tatted girl with a high notch count
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That was one of the most ridiculous aspects of the whole kerfuffle.
Not one person ever said that debt laden tattooed nonvirgins were unworthy of salvation, of love, of Christ’s love, or even of dating men or of marriage.
Lots of debt laden tattooed sluts get married. Some of them are really nice people.
All that was said was that men don’t prefer to marry debt laden tattooed sluts. That’s a true statement, and that’s all that was said.
Women really object to any kind of judgment – even the mildest form of judgment like “hey, um, maybe it might not be the best idea to have premarital sex, go into debt, or get tats, because, well, we’re hearing from guys that they don’t like it.” And women lose their minds.
Women are going to have to accept that men have standards and men have things they like and don’t like. Women are going to have to start listening to men about this.
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No, and that’s exactly the problem. They know beyond a shadow of a doubt that any man worth his salt will prefer option A, and that is unacceptable to them. That’s why they’re accusing men who hold women to that standard of being pharisees.
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They are triggered by the three things in that list in the following order: virgin >> tattooed > debt.
The first two are permanent (tattoos are mostly permanent). The first one really makes them go insane because of the implication that they are used, damaged, permanently. They can’t recover that lost value — ever. Doesn’t mean their worthless. “It’s not fair! This doesn’t happen to men!!” = “It’s not fair that men can’t get pregnant so shut up and give me my abortion.”
Tattoos are strongly associated with promiscuity (as Oscar has said in Latin America it means prostitute flat out) so that triggers some pretty strong emotions too.
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Debt is also rather permanent for women, unless a willing beta bux steps up and foots the tab. Getting out of debt is a challenge for men, but it’s doubly hard for women.
All in all, Lori’s diatribe was a call for women to stop playing around and become responsible. It was a call for women to repent of female antinomianism and adhere to Christian standards. As I mentioned in the OP, antinomianism is a stronghold that people (especially women) really don’t want to come out of.
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Only if men actually start adhering to their standards.
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By “their” do you mean men adhering to their own standards, or men adhering to women’s standards?
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It starts with her parents. You can’t control them until they’re menopausal but the lifestyle promoted by parents, including worldly success, doesn’t encourage tattoo, debt free virgins. Mom is to blame but dad too for being a weak wuss and encouraging the daughter to play the harlot.
That said if men started holding women to those standards today as opposed to in a generation or two when things could be (theoretically) fixed, 95+% of men better go MGTOW. Virgin with no tats = unicorn. So I get where deti is coming from. Both sexes have their role to play in fixing things.
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Jack,
Yes. If men keep doing the typical thing (of which I’ve been guilty) of making exceptions for a woman because she’s hot, then women have no incentive to “start listening to men” about what men “like and don’t like”, as deti said.
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When my daughters were around 10-12 I asked if they remembered how much they liked Barney the Dinosaur. They sheepishly acknowledged it. Then I asked if they would have been glad if they had gotten Barney tattoos when they were younger. They got the point that what seems cool at one age might be unbelievably stupid when you are older. They are 30-ish now and never bought into the tattoo scene.
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Who is this chick? She seems like the church’s version of Tomi Lahren, the “PSA for Boyish Men” Youtube rant fame.
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“This chick” is the love child of Sheila Gregoire and Mr. Sheila Gregoire. She’d be hilariously funny if she weren’t so dementedly serious.
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For those who are wondering what this emotionally incontinent female is excreting all over the internet about, here’s Lori Alexander’s original post.
https://thetransformedwife.com/men-prefer-debt-free-virgins-without-tattoos/
And her follow-up.
https://thetransformedwife.com/godly-men-prefer-debt-free-virgins-without-tattoos/
Say what you will about Lori Alexander (no one is above criticism), but the lady has a spine of steel. It’s amazing how such a soft-spoken lady can drive feminists to such displays of histrionic rage.
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Yes, she gets props for that. And even secular folks are intrigued by her. Either the Better Bachelor or Taylor the Fiend posted a YouTube video linked to Lori’s video (or perhaps another one of hers) with nothing but positive things to say. It got the Gospel out to a crowd who might normally never hear it.
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I liked Donovan Sharpe’s takedown of her video.
Right at the beginning she said she didn’t have to listen to that, she only listened to Jesus.
My initial visceral reaction to that was to think, “Then let Jeeeeeezus pay the eFFing mortgage.”
It was also telling that she did not put on her wedding ring until half way through the video.
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It’s really something that pastors can hear women argue against the earthly consequences of fornication, but remain unshaken in their conclusion that women are more spiritual than men. Do women flock to your church because they are more spiritual, or because you never call out their sins?
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I posted an entire exposition on Churchian false theology.
If women fornicate it’s because evil men tricked and duped them into it. If women fornicate, it’s only because they want to be wives and mommies, and they believe that the men having sex with them will marry them.
If women fornicate, it’s not really immoral, because they’re trying to achieve moral ends and purposes through immoral means. When women fornicate, it’s merely an immoral means to a moral end; ergo, it is moral. Or at least it is not immoral. It’s women just trying to get the marriage and babies we all know they want and that evil men are denying to them.
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Our current church fired the women’s director after an affair from a decade ago came to light. She knew the rules at the time, and they rightly discerned that keeping it hidden for a long time wasn’t a legitimate reason to avoid the consequences.
Another church we attended (we only left because we moved to a different state) did church discipline on a woman divorcing her husband for unbiblical reasons. It was great to see.
For what it is worth, both churches (different denominations) are Reformed (I prefer that term over “Calvinist.”).
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Because… she lied about it at the time. And she continued lying about it after the affair ended, by not bringing it to the attention of her superiors at the church. Because, well, adherence to Christian sexual morality is kinda important when you work for a church.
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EM –
Did she repent or did she go through with the divorce? My parent’s go to a PCA church outside of Columbia, SC, and they did the same thing (this is where Oscar needs to chime in and write that these communities/churches do exist 🙂 ) with a woman who refused to break off her affair. She’d found her Chad and tossed her husband and 3 kids for him.
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We moved at that time, so I’m not sure. The church had done a spotless Matthew 18 process, and at a church meeting, they described the situation. If she didn’t repent, they were going to remove her from fellowship. The husband was in the meeting and seemed to appreciate the support. The wife wasn’t there.
They also did church discipline on a guy leaving his wife for unbiblical reasons. He went on to be the worship leader at another church, even though the elders at our church warned the new church of his issues. The wife in that case deeply appreciated how the elders stood by her and did the right thing.
So many people misconstrue Matthew 18:19-20. “Where two or three are gathered . . .” doesn’t mean Jesus leaves the room when one of two Christians departs. It means that if you follow his instructions for church discipline, it is as if He is there. The system works, but most churches are too cowardly to do it. It honors him to believe what He said, and it is the best way to love your neighbors.
At a Methodist church that we left for doctrinal and many other reasons, a guy had an emotional affair and was divorcing his wife for unbiblical reasons. The female associate pastor (one of the reasons to leave) heard about it but did and said nothing. And the guy had taught the youth for many years. Zero church leadership involvement or discipline.
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Good for that church! We are in a PCA now. Maybe this denomination takes church discipline more seriously than average. We’ll never be on board with infant baptism, but we don’t divide over it, either. But the pastors are really sound on everything else. They aren’t afraid to disagree with the world.
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These communities/churches do exist, I tell you! And so does Nessie, and Bigfoot, and Champ!
No, I won’t put on the jacket, and go with the nice men in their white van! I don’t care how comfortable it is!
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EM – I grew up very, very conservative Baptist and in college found RUF. The teaching I heard there made the gospel make sense and changed my life. That is what God had for me.
I was staunch in my Armenian views and through a conversation with a classmate, in which all he did was ask questions, I was led to change my mind on the concept that God chooses. Infant baptism is merely a recognition within reformed theology that God tends to work through families to fulfill His covenant.. It is God who chooses and God who has known from the beginning who He would choose and because of this infant baptism is an extension of our faith that God is working in our children’s lives. It’s not because of anything we did as parents, but solely due to his goodness to us (mercy).
I have found that PCA churches tend to be quite good when it comes to following biblical teachings. Often they do this dogmatically even if it leads to culturally unpopular ends.
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Thanks for sharing that. I follow the arguments that the PCA makes on baptism, and they definitely don’t think it is salvific in any way.
I didn’t even know what Reformed theology was until I had been a Christian for 10-15 years. No one talked about it. Then I started hearing about it and was a bit unnerved and defensive over it. But as I listened to a few debates on it, I kept thinking, “That’s not fair – they have a strong person pushing the Reformed side and a weak one defending Arminianism.” I eventually concluded that the debaters were equally “experts,” but that the Reformed arguments were more compelling to me, and that the alleged liabilities of the “mean Calvinist God” would fall on the “Arminian God” as well – if only they took their beliefs to their logical conclusion. And many of the passages I found confusing as an Arminian made complete sense once I was Reformed. That doesn’t make me right; that’s just how I arrived there. I’m not evangelical about Reformed Theology, just about the Gospel. Though I do wish I had learned about it earlier.
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@ EM & RPA,
I grew up staunchly free will. Starting in my 20s, I engaged in a bunch of debates with Calvinist friends, and although I found a lot of their arguments compelling, I kept running into two problems with their theology.
First, none of them believe what they say the believe. When the rubber meets the road in personal action, they all behave as though free will exists, and I’d be willing to bet that you do too.
Second, the Bible does teach free will. My Calvinist friends helped me see teachings on predestination that I was blind to, but I noticed they were blind to teachings on free will.
So, here’s where I ended up. The Bible teaches both free will and predestination, oftentimes in the same passage. That seems like a contradiction, because we don’t know how to resolve it, but it isn’t. It’s a paradox. And I have yet to hear a satisfying resolution to the paradox. So, I’ll just have to wait until I know as I am known. And I’m okay with that.
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They didn’t defend Reformed theology very well. We don’t deny free will, we just define it properly. We know we have the freedom to choose within our natures. But just as we can’t “choose” to fly like a bird, we can’t choose to repent and believe until God makes us spiritually alive (a la John 3:8). No contradiction at all.
My question for Arminians, for which I’ve never gotten an answer, is whether God couldn’t save those bound for Hell, or that He wouldn’t save them.
On Arminians’ definitions of predestination, election, and free will, God knew who wouldn’t choose to believe, but He couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything to change their minds. If their natures were such that nothing He could do would persuade them, how is that different than Reformed Theology? If He could have persuaded them but elected not to, wouldn’t that be as “unjust” — on their terms — as God electing them as outlined in Reformed Theology?
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Yes, there is definitely a tension between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. I’ve yet to hear a Reformed pastor say anything but that. They don’t contradict, yet it is hard to integrate them precisely. I’m sure it will all be cleared up in Heaven Orientation.
One of my favorite passages containing both is Philippians 2:12–13.
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Seriously? I’ll answer that question. Nobody knows.
Now, what do I think? I think God chooses to not force anyone into heaven. As C.S. Lewis said, there are those who say to God “Thy will be done”, and there are those to whom God says, “thy will be done.” Is that unjust? Why would you even ask that question? The definition of justice is to let people keep what they earned. How could it be unjust to give someone the eternity they earned?
Your question is now answered, and it wasn’t even difficult.
Now, please answer mine. Have you ever shared the gospel with someone? If so, did you tell them that God had already predestined them for Heaven or Hell while you were sharing the gospel with them?
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Thanks for proving my point. You conceded that there are no other alternatives than that God couldn’t or wouldn’t change people, which is all I was trying to demonstrate. I don’t care which people pick — or if they don’t pick at all. The point is that there are no other alternatives. The “Reformed God” isn’t unjust at all. No one deserves salvation. Our default destination is Hell, and it is only by his grace that we can be saved. Is there a mystery to it? Sure, but don’t pretend that God is unfair by electing some and not others.
I’ve never heard a Reformed person say that God forces anyone into Heaven, so that’s a straw man. I appreciate Lewis on many levels, but his soteriology was off (uh, no, Jesus does not give you credit for worshiping false gods as if you were really worshiping him).
I’ve had the blessing to share the gospel multiple times with people of every major religion and cult, and with countless atheists and agnostics. As I said elsewhere, I’m evangelistic about the gospel, not about Reformed theology. First things first. If they want to know about Reformed theology I’d be glad to discuss it, but I wouldn’t let it sidetrack things. I shared the gospel with a gay guy once who obviously considered that a barrier to belief. I could have my limited time with him on why the Bible does say homosexual behavior is a sin, but instead I kept my focus on the broader gospel (i.e., even if homosexual behavior wasn’t a sin then he was still a sinner in need of a savior).
I just keep it simple and conditional for all, though every conversation is different. They are sinners in need of a savior and if they repent and believe they will be saved. I’d never use the “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” bit. (I’m not saying that you are advocating for that.) I know people who are passionate about evangelism and use that, but it isn’t true. If you don’t repent and believe then God’s plan is that you spend an eternity in Hell because of your sins against a perfect and Holy God.
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Boy, it’s a good thing I never argued that the “Reformed God” is unjust, isn’t it?
It’s a good thing I never pretended that God is unfair by electing some and not others, isn’t it?
It’s a good thing I never argued that Reformed people say that God forces anyone into Heaven. Who’s actually making straw man arguments.
Thank you for proving my point.
Sidetrack what? If they’re elect, they’re elect, and if they’re Hell bound, they’re Hell bound. Telling them so won’t change anything, and therefore won’t sidetrack anything.
Why would that be a barrier if he was elect? And, if he was Hell bound, why would it matter?
I’ll tell you why.
Because you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, whether you admit to it or not, that he had a choice to make, free will to exercise in following, or rejecting Christ, and you didn’t want to influence his free will negatively (for which I commend you). Otherwise, it wouldn’t have mattered what you said to him, or how you said it.
I said earlier that Calvinists behave as though they believe in free will, and you just proved me right, because that’s exactly what you did, even if you won’t admit to it.
I’m willing to admit that election, and God’s sovereignty are involved in each individual’s salvation, and that I don’t know how.
Are you willing to admit that human free will is also involved in each individual’s salvation, and that you don’t know how?
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Hi Oscar,
Thanks for the response. I’ll try to clarify a couple things.
First, I usually avoid using the term free will because people read different things into it, but it was unavoidable here. But as I think I noted on this thread, I firmly believe that we have the freedom to make all sorts of choices within our nature. But I can’t use my free will to fly like a bird, and when I was spiritually dead I would never have used my free will to choose to trust in Jesus.
“It’s a good thing I never pretended that God is unfair by electing some and not others, isn’t it?”
If you think the Reformed position of election is just and fair (even if you don’t hold to it), that’s great. We agree.
“It’s a good thing I never argued that Reformed people say that God forces anyone into Heaven.”
You did say, “I think God chooses to not force anyone into heaven” while we were discussing soteriology, and you were obviously disagreeing with me. Therefore, I inferred that you thought the “Reformed God” was forcing people to believe. Since you say that wasn’t your intent, I’ll take that at face value and concede that I have no idea what you must have meant (and since it was apparently off-topic, I have no need to know what you did mean).
“Sidetrack what? If they’re elect, they’re elect, and if they’re Hell bound, they’re Hell bound. Telling them so won’t change anything, and therefore won’t sidetrack anything.”
On your logic, there is a discrete message I must give every time I share the gospel, but I seriously doubt that’s how you share it. Every person and situation is different. I had a literal 40-second gospel presentation to a Hare Krishna in an airport once that actually seemed to make an imprint on the guy, and I’ve had discussions with others that went on for years. Gospel presentations in the Bible varied widely.
And again, on Arminian logic, they are either elect or Hell-bound as well. Arminians believe that God already assessed whether they will choose him or not, so it wouldn’t matter what you say to them, right? Again, my broader point is being proved out: The same alleged liability and inconsistency of Reformed folks would fall on Arminians as well.
One thing I love about Reformed theology being true is that it takes all the pressure off. Sure, I know that God knows whether they are elect or not, but I don’t have to know their status. Even if they never believe, it is always a great day to extol the virtues of Jesus.
“Because you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, whether you admit to it or not, that he had a choice to make, free will to exercise in following, or rejecting Christ, and you didn’t want to influence his free will negatively (for which I commend you). Otherwise, it wouldn’t have mattered what you said to him, or how you said it.”
False. I’m sharing the truth with him, and if God uses his word to make him spiritually alive, that’s great. If not, perhaps God will do it later. Either way, both Arminians and Reformed folks know that God has already elected the person you are talking to, or He hasn’t. There is no reason not to be winsome (but always truthful) when sharing the gospel, and it is unlikely that you can say everything about God in one sitting. Yes, he has a choice to make. If God has made him spiritually alive, he’ll have the ability to choose to repent and believe. If not, nothing I say or do will persuade him. But that doesn’t mean I’m blase or jerky to him.
And again, even on your “God chose those who He knew would choose him via their free will” model, they are either elect or not. Nothing you do now will change that. So on your own terms, it wouldn’t matter what you say to people or how you say it, because they are elect or they or not. But I doubt that you use that strategy when sharing the gospel.
“I said earlier that Calvinists behave as though they believe in free will, and you just proved me right, because that’s exactly what you did, even if you won’t admit to it.”
Again, you are ignoring how I’ve defined free will and that I know people make choices.
And your sample size is vastly different than mine. I’ve known plenty of Arminians who sure talk like Calvinists when it comes to evangelism. They don’t want to do the hard work of preparation and/or they are afraid to share the gospel, so they excuse their lack of effort by saying that it is all up to the Holy Spirit. Well, yes it is in a great sense, but God ordains the ends and the means, and the means are for us to share the gospel with people. Lots of Arminians are very evangelistic, of course, as I assume you are.
“Are you willing to admit that human free will is also involved in each individual’s salvation, and that you don’t know how?”
I’m not sure why I need to admit something that I’ve already noted. Earlier in the thread, I said We don’t deny free will, we just define it properly. We know we have the freedom to choose within our natures. But just as we can’t “choose” to fly like a bird, we can’t choose to repent and believe until God makes us spiritually alive (a la John 3:8). No contradiction at all.
And what I meant by “We don’t deny free will” is that “We don’t deny free will.” 🙂
And when someone said, ““The Bible teaches both free will and predestination, oftentimes in the same passage,” I not only agreed but posted a verse that points to man’s free will in working out his salvation.
I can’t make it any plainer than that, so I’m not going to try.
All the best,
EM
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I know that. There was no need to clarify. I know that you meant that you had no free will to choose or trust in Jesus. I’m telling you that you behaved as though the homosexual man you shared the gospel with did have free will to choose to trust in Jesus, because you avoided influencing him to reject Jesus.
No matter what your words say you believe, your actions say you believe that there is an element of free will in choosing to trust in Jesus.
Not even close.
Wrong. Knowing what is going to happen is no where near the same thing as making it happen. Furthermore, God also knows what we will say to the unregenerate, and how much it’ll matter. And yet, the unregenerate still get to choose whether or not to follow Christ.
I heard one former atheist say, “I kept noticing that all the best people I knew were Christians.” That influenced him. It mattered.
Again, my broader point is being proved out: The same alleged liability and inconsistency of Reformed folks would fall on Arminians as well.
Why not? If they’re already elect, it doesn’t matter if you’re “winsome” or not. And if they’re not, then it doesn’t matter either.
If God has made him spiritually alive, will he have the ability to choose to reject Christ?
No, I’m not. Read what I wrote again, and answer the question. If God has made him spiritually alive, will he have the ability to choose to reject Christ?
I’m not asking if you can choose to fly like a bird. I’m asking you if we can choose to follow Christ, or reject Christ. I’ve made that clear multiple times.
I got it the first time you wrote it, dude. You keep evading the question I’m actually asking, and answering a question I never asked. But hey, it’s cool bro. You keep behaving as though the people you witness to have free will to choose, or reject Christ, and that the way you treat them can influence them one way or the other.
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That’s false, and the same concept would apply to your worldview. Once again, the elect are predestined under both Arminianism and Calvinism. The difference is how they got that way. Once you grasp that you may see how hypocritical your charges against me are.
Reformed people have shared the gospel widely and broadly for centuries, and I’ve listened to and read many of them extensively. I’ve yet to find one who goes in with a ho-hum, “You’re elect or you’re not, take it or leave it” approach. And again, even on Arminianism the guy would have either been elect or not, so once again your argument falls on you. My point with that example is that I focused on sharing the gospel with him. I quickly made it clear that the Bible does say homosexual behavior is a sin, but noted that even if it didn’t, he is separated from God because of his other sins. The point is that I wasn’t trying to make him straight before sharing the gospel with him, just as I don’t try to make people Reformed before sharing the gospel with them.
Yep, God ordains the ends and the means. That doesn’t contradict anything I believe or have said. Once you grasp that concept things will make more sense to you.
Again, on your view, every person you talk to is elect or not, because God already knows what he will choose of his own “free will.” Remember, under Arminianism there are still elect and non-elect. There are differences of opinion on how they became that way. So if you were consistent, you’d also say to every Arminian as well, “Why not? If they are already elect, it doesn’t matter if you’re “winsome” or not . . .”
So again, your false accusation falls on you. On your logic, it wouldn’t matter how you shared the gospel or if you shared it at all, because under Arminianism, God already “looked down the corridors of time”, or whatever, and saw whether the guy would believe or not. You shouldn’t be so hard on your worldview.
And again, God ordains the ends and the means. As Jesus and others showed, there are times to be more direct and times to be more gentle. 1 Peter 3 says to share the truth with gentleness and respect. I’m not sure why that is so complicated.
At that moment, he could accept or reject him. Not everyone comes to faith on the first hearing. But ultimately, he will choose Christ because his new nature will compel him to. And once again, that’s the same thing for your worldview if the guy is among the elect. Whether it is prevenient grace, or whatever God uses in your take on Arminianism, the guy will ultimately believe because he is already elect, right?
This has become too repetitive for my tastes, so my new Outlook rule will delete future messages from you. I was predestined to do that. When we meet in Heaven I promise not to say I told you so.
All the best.
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Thanks for proving my point again. Like I said, every Reformed person believes that the unregenerate they witness to have the ability to choose, or reject Christ. That’s why all of you avoid telling them that they’re either predestined for Heaven or Hell, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. All of you know that saying what you claim to believe would repel the unregenerate, and influence them to reject Christ.
But none of you will admit to it.
And if that’s false, then prove it. Next time you witness to an unregenerate person, tell him/her that they’re predestined for Heaven or Hell, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
Put your actions where your mouth is.
We both know you won’t do it, because you don’t really believe what you claim to believe.
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Oscar,
None of what you wrote above about Reformed theology is true.
God commands us to tell people about him, so we do. That God and God alone is the one who saves and that he does not need us at all for this means that God has chosen to use his children to tell others about him for his purposes. One of those reasons is for the sanctifying benefit of the one doing the telling. There are others, but simply because God tells us to is enough.
That reformed believers don’t lead with the idea of predestination is due to timidity on our part but also due to mercy. We don’t know who God has chosen to redeem and who he hasn’t. We can tell people about God while warning about an eternity separated from God without pronouncing our own condemnation of them, which would be foolish to do. This does not invalidate the truth of God’s choice, but it is acknowledgement that it is not our call to make. In John 10:22-30 Jesus clearly says the people who hear his voice are those who the Father gave him. He does not tell those people who don’t hear his voice that they are eternally screwed, even though being one with the Father, Jesus knew who were his.
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@ RPA
You either don’t understand what I actually wrote, or you’re deliberately misrepresenting what I actually wrote, because none of your objections address anything I actually wrote.
What are you talking about? He told people they were eternally screwed multiple times. See the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, the Parable of the Minas, the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, Matthew 23, and many more examples.
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Oscar,
You are saying that what people who are Reformed in theology say they believe and what they actually do are not in alignment because they witness to people as if there is a choice to believe in Christ or not. So Reformed theology folks really do believe in people’s ability to choose God. Unless in your comments you meant something completely different than that, I have a pretty firm grasp on your position.
My point, which I believe I made quite clear, is that God instructs us to tell others about him even though he is the one ultimately doing the choosing. That our apparent contradiction between belief and action is the only option you see is myopic in light of what I wrote about why we tell others about God.
I’m not going to convince you of my position, nor is it up to me, but I have a pretty good grasp of both sides of the argument having defended both at different times in my life. What I will say, and Eternity Matters has mentioned before, is that the gospel came alive and made more sense to me when understood it from the Reformed viewpoint. Viewing the gospel from the standpoint of God choosing removed the arrogance that came from believing I somehow was better than other people because I had chosen God of my own will. The reality is that I didn’t deserve to be saved and there was nothing I could do to be saved including choosing God. That I was unable to do anything and that God gave me both the faith and the means of salvation is what made the gospel so alive and beautiful.
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Eternity Matters,
Not a theologian – not even close. I assume it has to do with what (I think) C.S. Lewis described as the principle of non-contradiction/nonsense. God is love. God created man as an act of love. God created man with free will (it’s a mystery how something created could have free will – I accept mysteries as part of the Christian religion). God cannot force a man to genuinely love Him any more than God can create a rock so large that God can’t lift it. It has nothing to do with God’s abilities or limitations. It is a nonsensical abstraction of the mind, something that cannot be, a null set (empty set? – any mathematicians here?).
We know God created man, that man has free will, that coerced or programmed or deterministic love isn’t love. Man can choose.
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Hi Cameron,
Yes, God is love, and also a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29), among other things. And the context of the “God is love” passage is that God showed his love by sending Jesus to satisfy his wrath (thank God for propitiation!) (1 John 4:8-10).
In his spiritually dead state, man will never choose to repent and believe any more than a drowned man could reach for a life preserver. Once God makes them spiritually alive (again, John 3:8) and they are born again, they can choose to repent and believe. And they will, because that is their new nature. We aren’t forced to love him, but in our new nature we will love him because we know him and who He really is.
If “God is love” in the Arminian view, why does He create people He knows won’t choose him out of their own free will? Why doesn’t He change their natures or offer them more convincing reasons to believe?
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EM, I’m not Arminian so I can’t answer for them. When we talk about God creating man and foreknowing, forewilling, etc. we do so as termporally bound, finite creatures. Past, present and future are all the same to a being who is always present in the eternal now. I think the Catechism of the Catholic Church talks about all moments in time being immediate to God. In the same way the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass – there is an immediacy – a connection to Cavalry – a timelessness for us.
I think there is always and element of mystery to the “why didn’t God ….” questions. This is used to attack all of us: Catholics, Orthodox, Calvinists, Arminians, Lutherans. The ones that “got around” these questions essentially left Christian metaphysics and theology, e.g. Mormons.
I’ll have to look up the entry in the Catechism.
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Completely agree. God has told us all we need to know about him — 31,173 verses of it. I just like posing that question to Arminians (or anyone saying the the “Reformed God” is unjust or some such thing) to show that their theology ends up in the same place. I am fine with the God’s sovereignty/man’s responsibility tension.
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Here is what the catechism says (I think):
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Yep. How does it work exactly? Not sure. But it is significant that when Paul anticipated an argument in this passage it wasn’t the argument that “man has complete free will regardless of his spiritual state, so of course he is fully responsible for his actions.” He was expecting people to say, “How can you hold them accountable if you harden some?”
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My church has removed people for sexually immoral things. Specifically, a young man was using his position to have sex with women in the church. When confronted, he hit back with the worst examples from above. “Well, I know the forgiving power!” And they dropped him.
It’s important to know that in some churches, these people are found and removed, while in others they run the place. Since becoming a Christian, it’s been amazing to see the different people that go to different churches. For instance, many of the people I have met come from 12 different churches. But in one particularly large church, I have met many people who attend, yet zero showed any fruit of the Holy Spirit.
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That’s why I was so glad the one church contacted the church where the bad guy was headed. The 2nd church still hired him, but that’s on them. When becoming a member at a church they should check to see where you came from. Predators like the one you described are slick, so you shouldn’t just trust anyone who walks in.
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Yeah, I mean, it’s interesting to get into the Reformation, Arminianism, and Calvinism, but at the end of the day the bible tells us what to do and how to do it. The Gospel, and how to live the Christian life, aren’t intended to require a lot of intellectualism or thought. It’s intended to be very simple in theory and application.
Your brother is sinning. Go to him and explain it to him and if he repents, you’ve gained a brother. If he does not, take 2 or 3 friends and explain to him again. If he repents, you’ve gained a brother. If he does not, have the entire church confront him. If he repents, you’ve all gained a brother. If he does not, excommunicate him.
Simple. Easy to understand, follow, apply, and execute.
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John Taylor Gatto referred to this as “justified sinning.” It’s part of the reason why the Christian West could sleep at night after committing the atrocities of modern warfare, compulsion schooling, usury, Freudianism and communism (his words). Who cares of we carpet-bomb Afghanistan? Or Munich? We’re the Elect, we can do what we want and God forgive us. Heck, it’s a courtesy and a grace to shorten the lives of the Dammed! God will look favorably upon us for that.
At least the old-school Elect were elitists. Add in today’s “everyone is special” attitude and now we can all be saved and sin with impunity. Let the panem, vino et circuses flow!
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I don’t see how warfare, modern or otherwise, gets included in “justified sinning”. War is biblical. Killing in war is justified; it’s not murder and it’s not sin. I know there were debates at Zippy’s over whether waterboarding and Hiroshima/Nagasaki were moral or justified. But, in general, war isn’t sin, and killing people and breaking things in war isn’t sin.
How is modern warfare sinful?
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Because if you fight on the US side you’re fighting to spread feminism and f@ggotry. Also because the US troops knew their tribal allies in Afghanistan were raping little boys and obeyed orders to not intervene.
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It’s not the acts of killing, but the methods. Modern warfare is downright barbarous compared to how our ancestors fought. And no, that’s not due to technology. It’s because we no longer believe the people we are killing are human and have souls. We atom-bombed half a million or whatever innocent Japanese, and the dude who dropped the Big Boy said he felt no emotion about it. Innocent people! And we haven’t even touched how war is a racket and we butcher people for profit. Modern war is an abomination, justified because “God is on our side.” Malarkey.
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You’d have to be truly ignorant of how our ancestors fought to believe that.
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In the past, armies fought man to man and this often required teamwork. A soldier/warrior had to be strong, mentally and physically. He also had to be disciplined and trustworthy. Men who didn’t have these qualities didn’t survive. This kind of experience brought a deeply endearing sense of brotherhood with his fellow soldiers. It also gave him a deeper self-awareness and a greater fear of God. Kings and commanders went into battle with their soldiers, and they had similar experiences. They also got to see first hand the consequences of their decision to go to war, and were judged on their effectiveness as a leader.
Modern artillery, missile warfare, and even terrorist-style bombings are very much like playing a video game. Everything is remote controlled and operated from a distance, sometimes entirely out of the region. (Maybe some readers with military experience can comment about this.) Aside from ground infantry, men hardly ever have to look their enemies in the eye or see any blood and guts, nor do they need to face the moral and spiritual implications either. The leaders issue ill-informed commands from comfortable rooms in distant countries and care little about any of the people on ground zero, including their own soldiers. They are never put into a situation where their consciences hold them accountable for their decisions to go to war, nor are they held responsible for how they conducted the war.
So you see, in many ways, modern warfare fails to bring men to a full consciousness of their own worthiness, the weight of decision making, the value of life, and the sovereignty of God. It obviously contributes less to masculinity and leadership, but whether this is a sin or not is open to debate. Based on the OT, whether a war was “righteous” or not depended on whether it accomplished God’s purposes for those involved. However, there are lots of “rules” about how soldiers are to go about taking spoils, claiming women, etc.
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You ever been to war, Jack?
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Oscar,
No, I haven’t. But I know you have. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts about how modern warfare is an expression of hedonism / antinomianism, and whether you think it is a sin or not.
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@Oscar,
Do you believe this is accurate about modern war?
In the past, while war was barbarous, the camp was far more likely to be a safe space to decompress.
Also ritual cleansing served as group therapy sessions:
From the Fray: Warrior Rituals in the Bible
The Conversation: How PTSD treatment can learn from ancient warrior rituals (2016-11-30)
And war was more often a contest of skill rather than being blasted from above by artillery and airstrikes. Arrows are more easier to defend against by comparison.
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Jack,
Thanks for the reply.
War has always been an expression of hedonism. In ancient warfare, the winning side would almost always engage in an orgy of theft, murder, torture, rape, and oftentimes cannibalism. No one considered any of that an atrocity, or a crime. It was normal, and expected. Just read the Old Testament. It’s all there (Except for the cannibalism on the part of the conquerors. There’s a lot of cannibalism on the part of the besieged.) What is that, if not the worst possible example of hedonism?
You know what my soldiers and I never did? Any of that crap.
As bad as modern warfare is, ancient warfare was far worse. And in general, the further back you go in history, the worse it gets. One account I read by missionaries in Papua New Guinea said that in the tribes they were working with, 1/4 of the people (that’s men women and children) died in inter- and itra-tribal warfare. Not even WWII caused that kind of casualty rates among the general population. Read about how the Comanche, and the Siuox treated their defeated foes. Or the Assyrians. Or the Romans’ near-genocide of the Celts of Gaul. Of the 3 million Celts living in Gaul, the Romans killed 1 million, and enslaved another 1 million. Again, nothing in modern warfare compares to that.
The just, or unjust nature of a war is not determined by the technology used. I think Augustine’s Just War theory is still the best around, and judging by that yard stick, we’ve engaged in a lot of unjust wars. But, guess what? So has everyone else. In fact, the vast majority of wars – from ancient times until today – have been unjust.
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@ info
There’s a lot to cover in that video. I don’t know if I can do it justice, but I’ll give it a shot.
I don’t know if we can say that ancient soldiers really did suffer less PTSD than modern soldiers, but it’s possible. If it’s true, the video is probably right about the reasons. Ancient life was far more brutal, and violent, and death was a lot more common. On the positive side, the sense of national unity was a lot stronger.
One point they didn’t really cover is that the US military found that after a certain number of days (I don’t remember the exact number) in continuous combat, the average soldier cracks. They noticed that Soldiers and Marines in Vietnam actually saw more continuous days of combat than their counterparts in WWII, even though deployments in WWII were much longer. Why? Helicopters.
I don’t know if they meant to make this point, but the biggest takeaway I got was that the biggest cause of PTSD is not modern warfare, but modern society. It’s the same lack of personal connection, purpose, and meaning that leads to so much suicide, drug use, and all kinds of other pathologies.
I’ve never had PTSD, but after my first combat deployment, I missed the sense of purpose, camaraderie, and frankly, the rush of combat so much that I wanted to go back.
Finally, one major contributing factor to PTSD that almost never gets talked about is guilt – whether it’s justified or not. That may have been less of a problem in ancient times, since murdering, torturing, pillaging, plundering, and raping your enemies were considered honorable activities.
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@Oscar
There is a good reason for the Laws of War in Deuteronomy 20 and 21. Remarkable humanitarian constraint and dignified treatment of human beings.
As for the Canaanites. that was the exception and isn’t ever to be repeated ever again:
https://www.arcaneknowledge.org/catholic/cherem.htm
“There is no prospect of God ever again commanding the slaying of the innocent, since the Christian dispensation has begun. Indeed, the need for such a special mandate had already ended a thousand years earlier, once Israel had established a firm foothold in Canaan. A Christian should not seek to destroy his enemies, but rather to give up his own life, confident that the new Israel, which is the Church, shall never perish from the earth. We should not expect God to command a Christian, or anyone else, to act in a way that is contrary to the superabundant charity that He wishes to bring forth through the kingdom of God. The Christian sensibilities of mercy and charity toward our enemies have become so deeply infused in our culture, that we may say even of Jews, Muslims, indeed of all men, that none of them should ever expect a divine mandate to slay the innocent, even if their own nations are threatened.”
Except for his comments of giving up our lives for our enemies. The objective of Herem has been replaced with Conversion. Since God isn’t going to be commanding us to be dedicating all the Spoils of War to himself anytime soon.
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More on Herem War:
Of course I think the ferality of Amalekites including their females probably precluded any of them from being taken as spoils of War and likewise with the economic factors:
https://www.christian-thinktank.com/rbutcher1.html
https://www.christian-thinktank.com/nowelfare.html
More on the Midianites:
https://www.christian-thinktank.com/midian.html
Which God allowed the taking of the spoils of War in that regard.
Of course the Christian-Thinktank author only got those and a few other articles right like a broken clock twice a day. He is a complete feminist when it comes to the woman question.
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Info,
I want nothing to do with the kind of warfare that God commanded the Israelites to wage against the Amalekites, the Amorites, the people of Jericho, and others. Intellectually, I know it was God’s righteous judgement, but damn! I’m glad I live now, and not back then.
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And as Lori (painfully) discovered, she might as well have been asking them to sprout fairy wings and start farting, multi-colored, fruit-scented dust.
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The best way for her words to bear fruit is pray. She can sow the seed. But God must help to make the seedlings grow.
It’s man’s responsibility to roll the dice. But God has control of the roll of the dice. Pray so that He may bless her efforts.
Similar to how video games have their own version of blessing (buffs) and cursing (debuffs).
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The most important thing is to actually get women saved first of course. So that God can truly guide them with his Holy Ghost.
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I wouldn’t constitute all the border skirmishes and “wars” of protecting our national interests of the last 40 years or so as war in a classic sense. Not with “national interests” being oil, toppling leaders of nations we-just-don’t-like, and keeping that military industrial complex running.
When was the last time the USA actually had a “declared” war??????
The last “real war” was when we were openly attacked by a nation that thought their emperor was god (Japan), and Nazi Germany declaring war on US just a few days later.
Vietnam had over 60,000 dead and that war wasn’t even declared as well…. and what were we protecting? A new republic that had been under colonial rule for almost two hundred years that had little or no reason to fight or to stand up for what WE told them they had to stand up for.
Our military is pretty much a worldwide police force now, which everyone hates… but the world then expects US to send our men in to die and defend their causes as well. That whole Bosnia thing of the 1990’s was a sham. “Umm… USA, come here and fix this so we Europeans don’t get blamed, and so we can afford to give OUR citizens healthcare and other perks, and when it doesn’t go right, we can wash our hands of it and blame you!!”
People tell me that our vets today are “heroes” and they need a lifetime living wage pension, free housing, healthcare, college for their kids… all because they ‘put their ass on the line’ for people like me.
When? When was the last war when the life or death of the nation was at stake? Also our military has been volunteer since 1973 or thereabouts. People who enlist know what they are getting into. You may be sent to die for the interests of a “King David” type of situation. People think I hate vets. I don’t. I hate the system that turned many into entitled men who think they deserve respect just because they served.
Hero? Sure…. there are heroes. That man who saved the platoon or squad, and demonstrates a bravery that is well above the call of duty. There are also many heroes who never get that recognition, and men like that probably wouldn’t want it either. But calling all our vets now “heroes” and giving them perks that even the WW II veterans didn’t get. and equating their service to the men at Iwo Jima or Normandy is a bit grandiose. And it cheapens the word “hero”.
My grandfather served in the British Army. He fought the Japanese and spent almost three years in a Japanese POW camp. After the war, he came back to Wales, and went back to work in the slate industry. He rarely talked about the war, and he didn’t think he was anyone special. Was he a hero?
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Yeah worship of the military – not many have the balls to say it.
It’s a good grift for a lot of the guys (all officers) I worked with for 20+ years. Almost all on disability of XX-percent. Nothing wrong with them – they were able to lock down a six figure salary with a giant defense contractor in addition to retirement pay (if they went 20 years – reserves counts I think). Oh yeah – the “disability” for the guys that can work just like you and I is enough for a modest, working class family to live on. Then they bitch and complain and jockey for position at the higher levels of the defense contractor. They kiss the engineers’ (the ones that actually have essential jobs in the company) asses enough to get the engineers to do work for them.
Also a jobs program (enlisted) for blue collar women they don’t have to stay in Plattsburg and make a family with the guys there – they come out as tattooed sluts and get a security job with the big defense contractors. Some literally have the thousand cock stare – it’s a real thing.
All a bunch of made up work. Few “programs”/contracts make it to an actual fielded project. Seen it for years. The self licking ice cream cone (I think that’s what they call it).
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Somewhat off topic, but because we were talking about Lori Alexander:
She has proven me right. Again. And gives bad advice to women on this. On this one point, she is wrong.
The Transformed Wife: How important is attraction in who you marry? (2022-3-15)
Then Lori Alexander writes in part:
She is wrong. But she proves that I am right. Most women — including Christian women, ESPECIALLY Christian women, are marrying men they aren’t sexually attracted to. And it created a lot of problems in their marriage early on.
I told you so.
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I posted a comment at Lori’s site – we’ll see if she publishes it.
It was a disagreement with her point that physical attraction wasn’t all that important to women — I asserted that it is important and that women’s decision to marry men they’re not sexually attracted to is the number one cause of marriage failures, and that she can’t use herself as an example that physical attraction is not important because her marriage longevity in spite of her lack of attraction to her husband makes her an extreme outlier, and she has admitted she had a very hard time of it early on in her marriage.
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Please let us know if she publishes it. I admire what she does, but she is thin-skinned with disagreement. I posted a similar comment to yours once and she wouldn’t publish it. It was a fairly benign comment, but pointed out something where she was a bit off. I quit following her blog after that.
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She was on a good path too. But then again we can only leave the results in God’s hand. We can only pray for her at this point too.
Rather than giving up on people who won’t be reached. Leave it in God’s hands through prayer.
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She’s allowing comments again? Last I checked (a day or so ago), she still had comments closed.
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She posted deti’s comment and responded. In a nutshell:
1- She WAS attracted to her husband. So either her OP wasn’t from-the-heart-honest or she’s now saying that because it looks bad that she publically stated she found him unattractive.
2- Attraction isn’t sufficient for a good marriage. We already knew that. Necessary but insufficient.
3- The Bible doesn’t command women to only marry men they are attracted to.
4- Women of faith can (presumably through grace and will?) be good wives even if they aren’t attracted. Proverbs 31 says that’s rare. Wanna take a chance fellas?
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As Cam said, she posted the comment I made and replied to it.
I tried to reply back to her, but I could not. It should have shown up as a comment or gone into moderation in which case I would have seen it. She has apparently blocked/banned me from commenting.
So be it, but here’s what I would have posted had she permitted it:
But you weren’t attracted to your husband. You said you weren’t. You said:
“When I first met my husband, I was not attracted to him physically, but I was attracted to his personality, his height, his athletic ability, his love for the Lord, and his intelligence. (I didn’t know how good looking he was until he stopped parting his hair in the middle, wearing his big horn-rimmed glasses, and wearing a rust colored sweat suit! :)) He was NOT trying to attract any girls at college, that’s for sure.”
You were not sexually attracted to him. You said that.
I know what the bible says on what makes a good marriage. I know that physical and sexual attraction is not required. Those things do, however, make it easier for a woman to submit, obey, please, and help, him. The reason you would not submit, obey, please, or help him in the beginning was in part due to lack of sexual attraction.
If you want to know what makes a good marriage, you might want to ask men (of which I am one). Women aren’t the only ones who get to decide what makes a “good” marriage. Men have input on that too. What men think and want is important too.
Women’s lack of sexual attraction for the men they choose is destroying marriages. If you want to understand this, you might take what men say into account. Men are fully one-half of the marriages you’re talking about, and we have things to say about it too.
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Fee:
She’s allowing comments on that one post I commented on – whether a woman should or needs to be attracted to her husband before marriage.
Cam:
Yeah, I don’t think it’s a good idea for a man to marry a woman who is not absolutely head over heels for her husband before they get married. Lori is right that you don’t have to be attracted, but then again, women don’t have to be good wives either.
Men aren’t going to risk it anymore. And why should they?
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First of all, she admits she was physically attracted – by saying he was tall and athletic. What she means is his face wasn’t good looking the way he parted his hair, his glasses, etc. There’s also an element of personality dominance that women find viscerally attractive. Notice she didn’t marry five-foot six, balding Waldo with snaggle teeth even though she claims she “wasn’t attracted to him.” What she means is she didn’t find him “gorgeous” — the word women use.
If you say you’re from the manosphere she probably won’t publish your comment. More on this in a bit deti.
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Lori and I had this run-in before, deti. Not just her, but a few women on her blog. Me, in the “no man wants a wife who would say she isn’t in love with him” camp, and a few of her regulars (including her) in the “being in love is not a prerequisite for being a good wife and you can be a great wife even if you’re not ‘in love’ with your husband.”
In reality, in a perfect world (or at least one with a sane marriage and family culture), I agree with her. You can be a great wife if you understand what marriage is truly all about.
But we live in a different world. Marriage is as much hedonic/romantic as it is a function of roles. And I know for a fact that if my husband was even slightly suspicious that I might have any inkling of thought that resemmbled, “I’m not in love with you”, our marriage would be severely damaged.
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She’s just wrong on this one thing. She is giving severely damaging advice to women that will destroy them, their husbands, their children, and their lives.
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A lot of women on her blog aren’t attracted to or in love with their husbands. They’re in a real pickle, aren’t they? They’re gonna be triggered by you and your marriage.
Natural/pagan/contractual marriage, contrasted with sacramental marriage looks a lot like institutionalized monogamous prostitution for 80% of couples. A prostitute doesn’t want to have sex with the John she’s getting stuff from, even if that “stuff” isn’t cash. What a grim view of relationships but I don’t know what else to conclude after reading the manosphere. My only hope is the grace of the sacrament of matrimony could make things happy for some.
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I don’t think they’re triggered by my story. I think a lot of them sincerely disagree. It’s not as if my route to the altar had any Christian virtue attached to it. None of them who did it right would trade my story for theirs, and I can’t say I blame them. Faith and the fact that my father and husband eventually formed a deep bond is the only thing that saved me from being another statistic.
I’m all kinds of messed up. I’m a Christian who loves Jesus and is Reformed and somehow doesn’t feel like I’m sitting pretty, assured of my shiny crown and heavenly mansion.
I’m no one’s courtship role model and believe me, there have been more than a few women online willing to share perspective that with me over the years.
The downside to having told your story in great detail online is that you’ve told your story in detail online.
Even as an old dude, Mr, Alexander is not that bad looking. I believe her when she says she was attracted to him physically on some level. She has been quite clear that she thought he was attractive, but she didn’t feel any “in love” feelings. She knew he would be a good husband, provider and father, and the love deepened over time.
Based on her testimony, I think the problem of their first 2 decades of marriage had nothing to do with attraction, and everything to do with her feeling superior to her husband. She’s been pretty clear about that.
Either way, I think she makes a valid point, but like so many people I communicate with, they’re applying values from a different time and place -values that should be solid and transcendent- and asking that women who have not been taught anything other than a Jesus who wants them to be happy and have good feelings all. the. time. be able to walk this out without a clear understanding of what it means.
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Well, if you don’t feel assured you’re not Reformed! 🙂
Come on up here. You’d make a good Papist. Lutherans aren’t assured in quite the same way either. Plenty of them around too.
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Ain’t no papacy in my future, dude. That much is for certain. Besides, my man is the real deal Reformed, so that’s that.
Maybe if I was a better person, I’d feel more certain. But that’s not in keeping with Reformed theology either, is it?
See? Told you I’m a mess. I should probably go read my Bible now, LOL.
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“Maybe if I was a better person, I’d feel more certain. But that’s not in keeping with Reformed theology either, is it?
See? Told you I’m a mess. I should probably go read my Bible now, LOL.”
I heard a good distinction on assurance last week (something that I think everyone wrestles with at times). First, yes, do read the Bible so that you can objectively see how your assurance is based on what Jesus did, not on what you are doing.
Second, yes, focus on your sanctification and subjectively assess where you are. Of course, we all still sin, but if you are fighting it then that should give you assurance. 1 John is such a great place for the tension between “you shouldn’t sin” and “of course you’ll sin — don’t deny it and make God a liar.” In the midst of that much assurance is offered. Sin isn’t more powerful than the cross. If Jesus defeated sin at the cross, then your sin can’t be so powerful that it undoes his work.
At the risk of getting back to the OP, if someone has an antimonian worldview then I would want them to question their assurance. They may have made up a false god.
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@ EM:
I actually know all of that. We’re in a good church, and husband is a sound Bible-ist. I get it. My statements were more emotional.
I grew up in the doctrine of “Your behavior reflects whether or not you’re saved.” Jesus certainly did say you’d know the tree by its fruit. But I think we internalized something a lot less healthy.
It didn’t help that — quite literally — everything that everyone believed about how good of a girl I was came crashing down when I “found myself pregnant.” Don’t you love that phrasing? I always laugh when women say that: “I found myself pregnant”, or divorced, or whatever.
Anyway, I am Reformed. I just somehow missed that American woman gene that makes us feel as if whatever we do, Jesus is cool with it.
Sometimes I wish I had it, because remembering that there is no condemnation to those in Christ is at least my part time job. 🙂
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Then Lutheran. Then you’ll be closer. Nudge you bit by bit. Messin’ with ya! 🙂
Joking aside, I do have an online traddish Catholic friend who started in the Wisconsin Synod which is dinosaurs-on-the-ark-in-kids-books Lutheran. Fine people.
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You have to go read your Bible because you doubt? Very Lutheran. The “Word” half of “Word and Sacrament.”
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That was tongue in cheek, Cam. 🙂 LOL!
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Yes, they would, and they didn’t “do it right.”
They’d choose marriage to a very sexually attractive man in a heartbeat. That they didn’t, means they couldn’t. And they resent that with a white-hot seething resentment that cools the sun.
They didn’t do it right because they didn’t marry sexually attractive men.
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That’s the problem right there — her feeling superior to her husband, which is lack of sexual attraction. If a woman feels she’s superior to her husband, she isn’t sexually attracted to him. Stated conversely, her lack of sexual attraction to him leads to her feelings of superiority.
Women don’t feel superior to men they want to have sex with. Women reflexively submit to men they want to have sex with.
You’ve just proven me right — she felt superior to Ken. Ergo, she didn’t feel sexually attracted to him.
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I don’t mean triggered by your courtship story.
I mean the fact you are attracted to your husband – that you landed an alpha.
They didn’t. Your situation won’t resonate with them. “Triggered” could be the wrong word. When you tell them women shouldn’t marry men they’re not attracted to, their heart will harden because they are in that situation. There will be jealousy because they’re women.
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Eh. There were seasons in the very early years when I might say I felt spiritually superior to my non-Christian husband. That was true without my desire for him ever waning. I suspect the difference is that he never “just took” whatever attitude I was dishing out, whereas a lot of men do. No sooner than he reminded me who was who here, those moments dissipated quickly.
Nothing like a strong man to keep a woman on her toes.
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Sigh.
“Spiritual superiority” doesn’t really correlate to sexual desire. Your sexual desire is flat out more important than any sense of “spiritual superiority” you might have ever had. The reason you submitted to him was because of your sexual attraction to him. She felt “superior”.
Second: Your personal experience is extreme outlier. Lori’s experience is more usual and “normative”. Most women feel superior to most men. This is just one reason most women aren’t sexually attracted to most men.
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thedeti,
100x yes.
One of the important factors in changing Mrs. Apostle being taken down a notch or 20 with her performance as a wife. Another was applying the biblical authority hierarchy to our marriage. Little by little the feeling of superiority started to wane and with it her attraction to me started to come back.
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Most female Christobloggers are thin skinned about disagreement. Sheila Gregoire is one of the most hypersensitive. They really shouldn’t be out there dispensing “advice” if they can’t take some pushback. They shouldn’t be putting their ideas out there if they aren’t willing to defend those ideas in the public marketplace of ideas.
Ladies: I’m not required to accept your ideas as truth. Don’t blog your ideas if you can’t take criticism.
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I doubt unrepentant Sheila and her daughter/s is even saved.
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I don’t know if they’re saved or not, but they are giving women bad, gynocentric advice (as they usually do). They don’t take into account what men want or think.
This is one of the prime reasons men and women aren’t getting together in the first place – because women don’t know men, they don’t understand men, they don’t know or understand what men want, they don’t care what men want, and they absolutely refuse to even consider thinking about giving men what they want.
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Even more importantly, if they are going to presume to “teach” women (which, other than for instruction that is Scripturally prescribed, e.g., Titus 2, they shouldn’t be doing anyway), woman like Lori, Sheila, et al., should remember that as teachers, they are going to be under a microscope, scrutinized more carefully than other women, and are going to be held to a higher standard. Most MEN who are ministering, leading, and teaching in accordance with their biblically prescribed roles have a hard time swallowing this. Women, who as a sex are almost genetically incapable of being held accountable or responsible even under ideal conditions, are simply not wired for this kind of scrutiny, which is why they go ballistic over any criticism whatsoever, even that of a mild or constructive nature.
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This was a major reason why I stopped woman encouragement blogging. I had a pretty thick skin, I thought. I allowed women to get away with saying some fairly despicable things to me, about me, about my husband, and some pretty vicious assumptions about my marriage. I took it for a long time because I thought it was worth it as other women said they were being helped.
Then my husband told me that allowing that was no different than if I allowed them to walk through our front door and pull an Amber Heard. So I started blocking certain commenters. By the way, these were almost all liberal leaning, confessing Christian women. Conservative women and the few men who commented never behaved that way, even when they were pushing back. Getting personal and dragging out every detail you recall even when it doesn’t relate to the topic at hand is a very feminine tactic, which is why men were no trouble.
Eventually I decided it wasn’t worth it. I scrapped the blogs and saved my pearls for those who asked for help, expressed interest in my point of view, and who knew me and my husband well enough to properly gauge what I was trying to say.
I do read a few blogs that don’t allow comments, and I can understand why someone might make that call, but I decided that without the feedback there was no real point.
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OK. So she just didn’t like his hair, dork glasses, and slobbish dress. She admitted she found him good looking once he undorked himself a la Christopher Reeves as Clark Kent. Tall, athletic. I don’t buy that love of the Lord is attractive — sorry — self serving hamstering.
Mike was tall but boyish looking (very young) when Liz met him. Doesn’t mean he isn’t a viscerally attractive top male.
Lori fooled around with other men prior to bad hair part hubby; she just didn’t go to the point of penetration. She wrote about it — you think she’d have the discretion to not write about this in front of hamstering. Presumably she was attracted to them.
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“in front of the world” damned smart phone
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The Private Memoirs And Confessions Of A Justified Sinner is a Gothic novel from 1824 which vividly depicts what “antinomian Calvinism” can lead to. A good read.
Infogalactic Summary
Gutenberg Online
Amazon
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I was made aware of a group of Baptists called primitive/hardshell. Apparently they are ultra Calvinists who don’t mission. “Whomever God wills will come find us.” Or something like that.
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One could almost argue that the Great Commission has already been fulfilled in that nearly ALL of the world (with the possible exception of people like the natives of Sentinal Island off the coast of India who remain isolated) has heard of and been exposed to the Gospel of Jesus. It’s merely a question now of whether or not they choose to accept it. In that sense the Primitive Baptists might just have a point. The world knows all about Jesus and His Salvation, but unless they’re hurting and hungry enough to realize that they need it, they’re not going to want it. Once they are and do, they’ll search for it with everything in their being.
I’m not saying that I necessarily agree with this perspective, but it is one worth at least understanding.
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Yeah, those guys sound rather extreme and even play into the “But with Calvinism you wouldn’t bother to share the gospel” canard. But I would be interested in the context. 1 Peter 3, for example, talks of being ready when people ask you for a reason for the hope that is in you. It doesn’t say you have to go door-to-door (not that there is anything wrong with the latter, but it isn’t my thing).
I had a non-believer from a Sunday School class email me with this exact subject line: “Why do you believe in Jesus, and how can I?” I always start with that example when encouraging people to be equipped to share the gospel. If you aren’t ready to handle that softball then you have work to do.
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EM –
Sharing the Gospel and prayer for that matter are interesting subjects because God doesn’t need us at all with either. The purpose of prayer offers us some insight into why those of us who are reformed in theology share the Gospel.
With prayer we not are changing God’s mind on a matter. He’s perfect, omniscient and all powerful, so prayer is much more about connecting with God and through that being changed ourselves. Prayer is an essential part of our sanctification process.
Likewise, God does not need us to share the Gospel for those he knows are His to find Him. In light of God not needing us, the command to share the Gospel, and God’s choosing to work through existing believers to gather His children to Himself, means that sharing the Gospel probably has a great benefit for the person sharing.
My personal take is that sharing the Gospel, similar to prayer, is part of the sanctification process for at least a couple reasons. First, you have to have studied, internalized, and wrestled with the Gospel in order to share it as an expression of your faith. Second, sharing the Gospel is an act of obedience and submission to God’s lordship. Whether God needs us or not, He told us to share the Gospel and that is enough even if we don’t understand why this is the way He chose to go about things.
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Yes! Prayer, evangelism, giving, serving — God doesn’t need me to accomplish his will, but He lets me be a part of his plan. Evangelism can be hard work to prepare and challenging to do, but I ultimately find it invigorating. Same thing with prayer, giving, and serving. It also strengthens our faith, as we are constantly reminding ourselves of whom we serve and what He did for us.
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More Lori Alexander: This is from today, her writing about women complaining about being ghosted right after sex.
So even Lori comes at this from an egalitarian viewpoint. She demands that men “respect” women. Women demand that men “respect” them. Women want “respect” from men.
No. What women want from men is LOVE. It’s true that men don’t love women who give away sex for free. That’s certainly not loving. But women, including Lori Alexander, don’t view this as an issue of men loving women. Because women don’t want men’s love. They want men’s respect. They want respect because they see themselves as men’s equals in every way. They demand respect, but will not give respect to men. They demand “equality” even though they aren’t equal.
This correlates to mankind’s relationship with God. God loves us, but he does not respect us. God says so Himself in His Word: “God is no respecter of persons” (Romans 2:11; Acts 10:34). Yet, we see ourselves as “equals” because we won’t submit.
So it is with women and men. Women won’t submit, they won’t accept men’s love; they instead demand “respect”. And that, in a nutshell, is the problem.
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You’re stretching, deti.
I have had some issues with Lori over the years, but on balance, she is far more right about things and far more pro-men than not. By a country mile. I’m not always particularly charitable to her and I suspect by “respect” she meant, “respect the woman’s stated decision to not have sex without pressure.” Just because a woman uses the words “woman” and “respect” in the same breath, it’s not a sign of usurpation. I already know I’m loved. But I feel “respected” when SAM asks my opinion, grants valid points I make, and takes my thoughts into consideration when making a decision.
If she is making any mistake here, it’s two fold. The first is giving any credence to Evie magazine. Can you think of a worse place to draw an example from if you’re trying to encourage sincerely practicing Christian women? I can’t, except maybe a brothel.
The second mistake is assuming that every woman who gives in, even under a little bit of pressure, does so because she is hoping said man will marry her. Wanting a boyfriend is different from wanting a husband.
Again, poor source material.
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No. This is common for women to speak in terms of “respect” and “mutual respect” and demanding and expecting “respect”. Women don’t want men’s love. They have been brought up to look for, demand, and expect, “respect”. To women, “respect” means being treated as a peer, as a colleague, as an equal. That’s what they demand.
Women never, ever speak of wanting “love” from men. They demand “respect”.
You’re just wrong about this, and so is Lori Alexander.
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I do note that Alexander has closed comments on at least the last several blog posts, so there’s that. Ever since “no debt laden tattooed sluts”, she’s become a lightning rod for controversy.
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EXCELLENT observation, Deti!
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deti,
It is worth pointing out that “respect” as it is used in Romans 2:11 and Acts 10:34 is translated as “favoritism” and “partiality” in other translations. Whereas, the concept of respect as it is frequently used between men, and from women too, is a deference and reverence towards one holding power and authority over themselves.
I don’t think this distinction changes your argument, but it does change part of Lori’s argument. She is right that refraining from illicit sex shows respect to one’s self, especially for women since their primary power lies in their sex appeal and reproductive potential. But the whole idea of men respecting women is unfounded. It would be more accurate and more truthful for her to say, “Men don’t love, honor, nor cherish women who give sex away for free.”
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Yes. But Lori chose the word “respect”. That word choice was not accidental, in my opinion. It’s because women don’t want to admit that they want love from men, because that admission would put women in a subordinate position of asking for something they’re not entitled to from men; instead of demanding something they deem themselves entitled to.
Women simply do not want to admit they want men to love them. Women do not want to admit that in order to get that love, they have to do things for men, offer things to men, and — gasp — subordinate themselves to, and respect, a worthy man.
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Well I’m pretty sure Sharkly (with his diplomatic style) waded into her comment section at one point. She probably closed off to us at that point. One thing Mr. Sharkly ain’t is lukewarm. God bless ’em.
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What in God’s name is the point of a blog that doesn’t allow comments, feedback, or interaction? Why would anyone bother (to write OR read one)? That’s what called an “echo chamber.”
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These are not my thoughts, and I’m sorry I can’t provide a link, but they are worth sharing before I skedaddle for at least the next week after today. I’m going to edit, cut, and paraphrase it because it was much longer, but he really made my heart glad because — believe it or not — I do not like the idea of being an “extreme marital outlier”. It doesn’t make sense to me. He basically said:
I totally agree with him 100%. I’ve been in his wife’s shoes. (“You make his breakfast and pack his lunch???” He’s a grown man!”) Apparently we’re supposed to be beyond a certain level of intimacy too, but shrug. Or men who look astonished and forlorn on those days when my schedule is poorly managed and I pull up to the office to actually bring SAM the lunch I didn’t get packed before he left.
This guy is so right. Marriage is not suppoed to be a gauntlet, especially for Christians. Like him, my heart breaks that we have gotten it so wrong, and that our clergy and most of our mothers have failed us so miserably.
Women are ungrateful is the bottom line. Why do I do what I do? We can chalk it up to tingles if that’s what y’all think is the driving force, but it’s equally if not more related to gratitude at the reality that a man sacrificed his youth and time and body to feed and clothe and care for me. The least I can do is make it easier for him to do that without added pressure and stress.
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This is the logic for why we obey God’s commands. Sure, God’s love is such that he forgives his children continually. To use that grace as license is to show scorn for the sacrifice that your life cost. To look at the depth of my depravity and then the magnitude of grace that overcomes it and not feel a gratitude that alters my behavior would effectively mean my heart never changed.
What E’s comment also clearly demonstrates is husband and his wife as a model of Christ and his church. The church serving Christ should be done out of gratitude. A wife serving her husband should be done with a heart of gratitude. Sure the Bible commands obedience of the church to Christ and wives to husbands, but if gratitude aspect is missing it’s being done wrong.
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We are a people -particularly in the west- who have wholly abandoned gratitude as a virtue. Even in the church, frankly. While it is true that there were a whole host of red pill stars aligned for us (not going to deny it), marriage is a long haul institution, and tingles will only take you so far.
Lots of sex helps, sure, but there are times when that is not possible: illnesses, periods, post partum, separations, etc. Gratitude for being blessed with a mate who loves and cares for you and works hard for you is the lynchpin that will keep you joyful and serving when life throws interruptions into your normal flow.
So when I got this commentary from a younger husband who described his wife as one who does a lot of things that are second nature to me, and whose husband is also met with shock and awe that hsi wife rises at 5, cooks breakfast, packs lunch, listens to his thoughts and enjoys it, etc. it did my heart good. His wife is very grateful and happy to have him.
We’re ingrates. We think we deserve the world and everything in it on our terms simply because we showed up female. After all, that’s what the greater culture is teaching us. And THAT is why it’s such a problem when a woman deigns to show mercy on a guy and marry him, rather than gratefullly joining herself to a man who has invited her to take his name and make the sacrifice to swear off all other women.
LOLOL, she laughs! “What other women?”
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E
Everything you’ve described in your posts here might be true. But it’s not men’s fault. This is not our fault. We didn’t do this. Women have full agency and they are fully personally responsible for their actions. This is all, 100%, on women.
Men are saying, “We’re not putting up with this” and “We’re not even going to try anymore.” Women are complaining that men aren’t “showing up” and that the men who do show up, do so only for sex and to “kick it”.
This is not men’s fault.
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You’re quoting a Catholic, Elspeth? In your “want to have HIS baby” comment, you said the reason for marriage was to avoid fornication i.e. marry for sexual desire.
The Catholic husband mentions bodily desire. Sex for husbands is more than emptying “muh ‘nads.” There is a unitive function to sex as described by the Catholic church. Denied husbands experience feelings of rejection by the woman they gave their whole life to. Ordering life by the Catholic’s prioritization of the functions of marriage doesn’t solve the modern Catholic man’s marital problems. Great! You get gynocentric marriage —“Work hard for me so we can send the kids to a good parochial school. We’ll have sex each time I want another baby.” Natural family planning is licit.
I appreciate you putting a lot of this on women — it just isn’t very helpful for men beyond “well at least one woman understands it’s not just men’s fault.”
I understand how men not wanting to marry (in general) is instinctively upsetting to women — even happily married Red Pill ones.
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It goes without saying that I don’t agree with Catholic teaching 100%. That doesn’t mean I don’t respect some Catholic positions.
The guy I am quoting respectfully disagrees with me on some things as well.
And I think I’ve been pretty clear that in a sane culture, a happy marriage based on mutual goals and shared faith is entirely possible. As it happens, we don’t live in a sane culture.
I don’t see where my quote of this guy is problematic. I may not agree with Catholicism on the order of importance, but I completely agree that sex in marriage is for procreation, unity, and bodily pleasure.
Not seeing the problem here.
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It’s nice that you and the Catholic man’s wife wake up at 5am to make your hubby’s lunch (I’ve never gotten that and it doesn’t bother me). To quote Mrs. Duggar, “anyone can make him a sandwich, only one person in the world can…..”
My mom woke up early to make my sandwiches. I don’t want to marry my mom. I can make my own sandwich or buy lunch. We can make a sandwich, but we can’t kiss, f_ck, lay naked with, etc. ourselves. SAM gets what’s basic first and then the sandwich is a nice addition. He gets what’s “insufficient but necessary.” Take that away, take away the submission, and take away his sense that you are attracted to him and see what you get — then talk about grace. The sacrament works when both consent and will are utilized in participation. Men have no reason to think women will do this any more. MGTOW.
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You’re missing the point. Its not about the clock, the sandwiches, or the specific actions. Not every man wants that. But my husband’s experience (and my BIL’s as well), has been very similar to this guy’s.
Specifically, there’s a fair amount of incredulity at the idea that their wives go out of her way to do things for him that he -presumably- can do for himself. Especially since she has the kids to deal with. Basically, they say that once kids came, they were on their own.
Whatever any particular man needs or does not need, that is a universal reaction that SAM and this guy receives.
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I’ll be on hiatus soon, but I had another thought Cam, since you started this dialog. I actually agree with this:
I actually stepped in it one day recently with a dear friend when I basically said as much, so don’t misunderstand me. I get it. But there are unmarried men who are getting that, and who are capable of making their own sadnwiches and what not, yet they still marry. Why? Because they want more than just that.
This is another thought that I had this morning, so I’ll quickly share it. I’m not trying to dismiss attraction and all that. But there is more to it, and while I alluded to this yesterday with EM, I want to expand on it a bit.
One thing I think that causes the kind of incredulity SAM encounters, is that we live in a culture that has discarded notions of duty. More than that, we’ve abandoned gratitude.
Duty is a great jumping off point, as we all need to be doing what we’re supposed to be doing. SAM working hard, leading and providing for his family, and me doing whatever it is I need to do make it easier for him to fulfill his mission. Physical intimacy is a big part of that. When it’s all clicking, that’s a beautiful thing.
What I have learned (and I think it really caught fire in me around the 12-year mark), was a profound sense of gratitude for the sacrifices this man was making for me. I put it to our kids this way (they were being ingrates as kids are prone to do): “Do you think when your daddy was a 10-year-old boy, he dreamed of working 12 hour days at a job that brings him more hassle than joy?” I stopped myself short with that one!
When I was growing up, it was often said that we shouldn’t expect pats on the head for doing the things we’re supposed to do. I get why they said that, but I think — and this is particularly true in the marriage relationship — that sentiment can be taken to a very unhealthy place. We should never forget that a person can always choose to shirk his or her duty, so when they give their all to their duty, and it’s to our benefit, we should be eager to show gratitude for that.
I have concluded that gratitude is the bridge which closes the gap between duty and joyful service. And like I said, American women are mostly (not all because I wasn’t) bred to be ingrates.
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My wife after being gone 3 hours yesterday texted me how long the day was. I’ve been doing 12 hour days (commute included) for 23 or so years.
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Yeah, the first day I taught this past school year (total day of 4 hours including half hour commute one way and back), I felt like I’d worked a full day’s work. I remember wondering, “What the h.e.doublehockeysticks possessed me to take a job?” LOL.
But I adjusted and wasblessed to at least be doing something I like. SAM had to adjust as well. He’s pretty addicted to my beig available throughout the day. He thought it would be good for me to have something ona resume after so many years at home, but I don’t think either of us appreciated the boon it was for him to be able to call me at a relative moment’s notice to take care of little things here and there.
Mrs. Cameron is not used to the rigidty of not being the queen of her won schedule. I totally sympathize with her.
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E
These two comments are just one more set of reasons why you and your marriage are extreme, extreme outliers.
Women aren’t grateful for men; or for THEIR men. Women view men as resources to be used. Women view THEIR men as birthrights. Women really, truly believe they’re entitled to use men for whatever they want, and to have a “high value man” all to themselves. Women really truly believe they don’t have to prove anything to their men, don’t have to do anything for them and don’t have to give them anything. All they have to do is exist and show up; and men are supposed to fall all over themselves giving women whatever they demand.
Women are now complaining because more and more men are simply not showing up; and the men who do show up are “average” (i.e. “not good enough” or “not on [her] level”). Women are complaining because more and more men are saying “um, we want things too; and we want them from you”. Women are shouting “how dare men even want anything from us”.
That’s the problem. It’s not men, This is not our fault.
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Let her go ahead and neglect/disrespect him and she’ll eventually find out.
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Off Topic: Check out this video. You gotta love how people are revealing their true colors.
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Among the reasons why almost no churches do this is because:
— Modern sensibilities hate the confrontation necessary for making this work.
— The people who would make the accusation(s) very likely have an entire ossuary full of skeletons in their own closet that would burst forth into the light if they were to make an issue of the sin.
— As others here have pointed out, modern churchianity holds that “some sinners aren’t as sinful as others.” The more influential, popular, and powerful within the church the sinner is, the less likely they’ll suffer temporal repercussions or judgement for their sin(s).
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If I was joining a new church, one of my questions would be about church discipline. I wouldn’t need to know names or unnecessary details, but I’d want to know their track record on it. My guess is that most churches would cringe at the question because they wouldn’t dream of doing that. It is one of the liabilities of megachurches.
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Remember, guys: EVERY woman thinks she’s the exception to the norm and the epitome of the Proverbs 31 wife. Even if she’s the polar, 180-degree opposite, a Proverbs 14:1b wife (two words: Lysa TerKeurst).
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feeriker,
Given the number of Proverbs 21:9,19 husbands, the Proverbs 31 wife is in a Hope Diamond category of rare these days.
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Full sermon here.
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