Competing in the secular SMP displaces obedience to Christ and destroys the blessings thereof.
Readership: Christians; Christian Men;
Theme: Perspectives on the Topic of Attraction; Redemptive Headship and Masculinity;
Length: 1,000 words
Reading Time: 6 minutes
This week, the comments have been inundated with observations and viewpoints related to attraction and mating market dynamics — a spillover from last week’s mini-series. In this post, I’ll attempt to comprehensively summarize the greater points of this subtopic in applicable terms.
Ultimately, Men and Women are locked in a competition for the highest SMV/MMV mates. This is the natural expression of the flesh that is manifested in secular culture. Christian men and women are called to holiness and sanctification (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8), and so sex is (supposed to be) off the table as a method of competition. This puts Christian women at a disadvantage in the secular SMP, much like the Beta factory of churchianity places men at a disadvantage.
Hormones and the inexperience of youth blurs the distinction between the Flesh and the Spirit. Christian Men go along with the secular competition when they focus on hot / sexually active / activated women, and pass over virginal Christian women who are less so. (Catacomb Resident’s point can be applied here to mean that Christian Men should not go along with this.) Women go along with this competition when they seek nonChristian higher SMV men outside the church.
Secular women, once they reach a certain point, want very much to lose their virginity and thereby break into the SMP and gain a stronger edge in the competition. Because of the Flesh nature, most Christian women are just as eager to do the same, but they have a (dwindling) number of social and psychological obstacles that make this sociosexual identity transition more tortuous. Secular Feminism vilifies Christianity for making it more difficult for women to be sexually liberated and thereby join the competition (among many other stated reasons). For these same reasons, some women in the church reject Christian sexual mores and leave the church during their rutting phase to make their “season of singleness” more conducive to their own prerogatives of landing and/or bedding a high SMV/MMV man, while others who are less ambitious or who have a lower SMV go along with it (for a while). A very small number recognize the value and importance of sexual purity, but many of these also get swept away by competition envy, cultural currents, temptation, the delay in marriage, and their desire for exclusive high SMV male affirmation and attention.
When Christian sexual mores have been rejected, the SMP defaults to the natural mating selection, which includes “running the gauntlet”. (This is the context Thedeti is describing.) Both men and women use the gauntlet as a method of vetting bonding potential and “sexual compatibility”. The difference between men’s gauntlet and women’s gauntlet is in the matter of goals that revolve around their respective priorities and sense of urgency.
Men’s motivations for running the gauntlet are to…
- Primarily to get sexual access / expression / release.
- Establish / present themselves as sexually viable.
- Some men do it to “claim” or identify with a choice mate.
- A much smaller number do it to make themselves “visible” as marriage material.
Women running the gauntlet have the same four motivations, but with more variability in terms of their priorities on a case by case basis. In general…
- Secular women prioritize (1) and/or (2) or maybe (3), and generally postpone (4). However, the age of the woman and the SMV of the male affect the order of these priorities.
- Christian women (presumably) prioritize (4) over (1) and (2). (3) is generally neglected or is rolled into (4). However, many Christian woman are known to behave more like secular women, especially once the cat is out of the bag.
In addition, the pool of high SMV men that women target is much smaller, and because these men have more opportunities, fewer of these men are marriage minded. The ones who are get fished out of the pool quickly.
Unfortunately, a woman choosing an accomplished, more mature, and older man who is marriage minded is culturally unacceptable to both Christians and non-Christians alike.
RPA’s statement,
“A virgin guarding her status has nothing to do with activation. It’s about how she values her status as a virgin.”
…is true up to the point where she chooses to value her competitive engagement in the SMP (i.e. running the gauntlet) more than she values her virginal marriage potential. If she loses her virginity outside marriage, she becomes sexually “activated” as an active participant in the “natural” / secular SMP competition. There’s no going back. And as a young woman ages, this competition pressure intensifies. As RPA describes…
“In today’s western society, once a woman is into her mid-20s and still a virgin they end up in a selection boondoggle. The men who value virginity in their bride enough to be pure themselves and also pass women’s attractiveness filters get locked down early and are no longer in the dating pool. The remaining men who pass women’s attractiveness filters are men who look for hookups and/or sex while in a dating relationship.”
The nature of sexual purity, as contrasted with a sexually activated state, allows the sexually pure person to receive less attention and sexual objectification in the secular SMV. This “invisible” state is actually the protection of God over the obedient. As such, the mating competition should apply differently to Christian and secular women, but currently it does not because of many reasons. Here are a few.
- The centrality of sex in secular culture.
- Most women seek out and enter into a sexually activated state.
- Churchianity is not markedly different from the gynocentric world system.
- Both men and women are approaching the marketplace with similar goals as their secular counterparts, i.e. Men want a hot-to-trot foxy babe, and Women want a hawt, high SMV man. These goals are seen as non-negotiable must-haves by both Men and Women.
- The secular world appears to offer potential mates with higher SMV’s on the average than what is commonly found within the church.
- The MMV of a potential mater is not a significant consideration until later in life, statistically about ~10 years after the first sexual experience on average.
- There is no patriarchal structure of authority that would help guide young people towards marriage.
We all know how this works out. Without sexual purity, marriage is debased, and families are destroyed. Obedience is necessary for sanctification to occur.
I am somewhat dissatisfied with this discussion, because I was hoping to see more discussion of redemption instead of attraction and SMP dynamics. Most of the arguments this week have focused on secular SMP dynamics and there has been little emphasis and no distinction of how this relates to applied Christian morality and marital sanctification. Perhaps that’s because it doesn’t, or perhaps it’s because we have no working model of how young people are to rectify the desires of the flesh with God’s prerogative of sanctification. I’ll take this as a sign that redemption needs to be further explored.
In the comments, readers may like to consider whether all the discussion on this topic relates to redemption, and if it does, then how.
Related
- Σ Frame (Thedeti): The Unsolvable Problem of The Modern Sexual/Relationship Market (2022-2-7)
- Σ Frame (Jack): On Curating a Christian Culture of Attraction (2022-8-18)
- Christianity and Masculinity: Objective and subjective attraction measures and what the Church can do about it (2022-8-18)
- Σ Frame (Thedeti): The Delusion of the Good (2022-8-19)
- Christianity and Masculinity: Biblical Christianity is both good and attractive while Western Christianity is not (2022-8-19)
- Σ Frame (Jack): On Clarifying a Christian Culture of Attraction (2022-8-24)
- Catacomb Resident: Desire versus Desire (2022-8-25)
- Σ Frame (Jack): Only Hunky Monks can find a Sanctified Marriage (2022-8-26)
- Christianity and Masculinity: What sexual attraction does and does not do (2022-8-28)
- Σ Frame (Jack): Rowena’s Breakdown of Female Attraction (2022-8-31)
- Christianity and Masculinity: The differences between sexual attraction and sexual arousal (2022-9-1)
- Σ Frame (Jack): Roundup on Attraction and Marital Sanctification (2022-9-2)
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Sanctification needs to be better explored. As I said before it would be interesting to see the Holy Spirit’s influence on “corrupted women”. What it impact it would have on their appearance as much as on the character.
In addition to water baptism if you can do it. One must continue to ask for the Holy Spirit from God until you receive a 2nd birth:
Why are so many ostensibly Christian women not saved? “Twice born” that is of a natural birth and of a supernatural birth?
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Testimony by one woman:
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Churches, all of them regardless of denomination, fail us in this regard. They tell teenagers, whose hormones go from zero to 11 overnight, that even looking at the opposite sex is a sin. But as soon as you’re married, you’re expected to flip a switch and go at it like rabbits and create these huge families everyone wants. It doesn’t work that way. Secular culture is animalistic and sinful, yet closer to the truth on how attraction works, which is partly why people choose it.
Here’s how it should work: tell young men they have to wait until marriage. Fine. But also tell them: we’re going to help you become worthy of marriage. We’re going to help you find a vocation and get you the paper and training you need. We’re going to give you some leadership opportunities so you can practice. We’re going to get you in front of some important people so you can network. And we’re going to make sure you have some physical activity (if your job isn’t physical) so you’re too worn out at the end of the day to do stupid stuff like drink and play vidya all night, and so you can put on some muscle. Of course, this would require a sacrifice of time, attention and resources on the part of elders, which is why it stopped with Boomers. But all the while, iron is sharpening iron in both directions. And once a young man reaches his early 20s, instead of being rudderless, he has direction, confidence and some spiritual maturity. He will also catch the eye of the wimminz. Of course, we also have to train the women and make them a worthy prize as well. We can’t put the young men through the ringer only to give them disappointing wives at the end.
Our churches have their heads shoved way too far up their own @$$es to ever enact a program like that. But that’s what churches used to do when they were the center of the community. Today we’re all told to figure this stuff out on our own, and when we come across something that we can’t, there’s mockery instead of help. If our churches want to combat sinful Modernity, they’re going to have to get off their butts and DO something, not just expect the congregation to be holy on their own. That they haven’t speaks to either not acknowledging the problem, or being complicit on it. So be it. If we’re on our own, let’s make our own.
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Most church leaders do not expect holiness at all from their congregants. That’s the problem. When churches fail to discipline members for sexual sin, they send a very clear message that sexual sin is no big deal, regardless of what the pastor says from the pulpit.
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They don’t hammer on pre marital sex because all the pastors had it with their wives before marrying. If they didn’t they would tell us and use it as an example not skate around the subject in every way possible. They also falsely believe if you have sex with a woman your “going” to marry then no big deal. This seems to b the consensus from all but the hard liners. What? They got married! Gosh you ever read the bible?? What are you accusing a guy of sin from having sex with his wife!
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I agree in principle with what you wrote above, but not at all certain it can produce the intended results and it is probably doomed to failure.
My conclusion is based on my experience and that of my peers which took place in the early 1980’s. We belonged to what was called “College and Career” group at a rather large church which had a singles ministry.
The group had a good mixture of young (early 20’s) men who had their heads on straight. We had a lawyer (from an Ivy League school), law school students, accountant, engineer, a professional truck driver, graduate student in counseling and many others with solid well paying jobs who owned their own homes. On the female side, there was a preponderance of nurses and nursing students, therapists (speech) some teachers and a even a doctor. And the group was kind of evenly balanced between guys and girls.
This would seem to be the ideal mixture of Christians who would pair off, get married, etc. What could go wrong? To a very small extent there were marriages, but 99% of the men in the group experienced not only rejection, but “nuclear” rejection.
The men I know who experienced rejection all share the same observation and opinion. The women in the group had as their priority, 1) Good looks, 2) Worldly success, 3) Christian. And Christian came in at a distant third. The men in the group easily passed 2) and 3), but the bar was set so high for 1) no man in the group who was reasonably fit and in good shape could measure up and pass. You had to be born with a stunning visage and be the correct height, neither of which a man could change because it is all based on bone structure.
Women base their attraction to men on good looks and are sexually uninterested in 80% of men. No amount of church teaching will change that.
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Fortunately, that’s false. As I’ve stated before, I’m attending a church full of couples in their 20s with arm loads of toddlers. A church definitely can build that kind of community and culture, but it takes a lot of work, and the church will be attacked for it. That may be why so few churches do it. They don’t want to be counter-cultural.
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It’s commendable that there is a church with couples in their 20’s with arm loads of toddlers. Having a lot of children means that the wife’s desire for children has been satisfied, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the wife has a strong or any sexual attraction for her husband.
It could mean that she just suppressed her lack of sexual attraction and is having grin and bear sex or occasional starfish sex to fulfill her I Cor 7 obligation. Such sex will result in frustration and a dead bedroom. It could also mean that the church did an outstanding sales job to the young men convincing them to marry such women and to expect minimal, if anything, for sex as normal.
If the church was able to change single women and cultivate in them the ability to have a strong sexual attraction for men where they previously had none, it behooves the church to explain how it’s done. Until that time, the jury is out.
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Have you considered the possibility that it actually behooves you to find such a church?
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This has been 100% my experience from start to finish.
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@Oscar
You sound like Nancy Pelosi when Obamacare came up for vote. She said something like, “you have to vote for it to find out whats in it.”
Like Obamacare, I shouldn’t have to run around and try these churches (which from your earlier posts are not even close to where I live) hoping to find out how this all works. In other words, uproot my life including job, friends and chase after some nebulous concept.
There should be transparency and these churches should be willing to share what they learned so other churches can implement the same, if they desire.
It’s not on me to chase it down, it’s up to the churches to share.
Until they share, the jury is out.
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“I shouldn’t have to” is just one of the many excuses that keep people from doing what they claim they want to do.
No one is hiding anything from you. I don’t have superpowers. I’m just an ordinary dude. If I can find such churches, then so can you.
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They take the saying by Jesus, “if you look at a woman with lust, you have already committed adultery in your heart”, as being in the same vein of how hating another and wishing them dead is murder in one’s own heart.
The message is that sin begins in the heart and mind. Yet that has been inflated to mean that sexual attraction, sexual pleasure is lust.
It reeks of the Manichean infection that unfortunately affected Augustine. Who experiencing only a diseased version of what he experienced wanted to throw the healthy and godly out with the bathwater.
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Well, you see, the Zippys of the world would tell you that the Church Ain’t Your Daddy. In fact, he said that, in pretty much exactly those words.
Zippy Catholic: The Church is not your Daddy (2013-2-16)
The Zippys of the world tell us it’s not the church’s job to help you navigate worldly life. Stuff like getting properly socialized, networking, job training, or help with learning about the opposite sex. That’s your father’s job. And if your father failed you in that regard, oh well. Too bad so sad, you’re just ska rood.
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In the absence of fathers and pastors providing this service, it’s up to men to step up to the task, pull together, and support each other.
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The Catholic Church, at least from my experience, certainly didn’t help with learning about the opposite sex. They actually threw up barriers and obstacles to prevent learning about the opposite sex. Religious studies classes were segregated by sex. There were separate entrances to school for the boys and girls. Church services were segregated, girls sat on one side and the boys on the other. Girls were a mystery and the nuns made sure it was kept that way.
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Crazy. IF the hidden core of attraction is spiritual, not fleshly; personal rather than generic market-value, THEN people who reject religion in order to pursue fleshly desires are really acting out their spiritual natures (and damaging them?) without realising it. Perhaps we should call it the ‘Sterile Market Place’.
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It’s not “rejecting religion”. It’s rejecting God. I know it sounds like the same thing, but it really isn’t.
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True! I was thinking of it by their terms.
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Jack, I think this is mainly because in the last 60 years or so, the secular SMP has so overwhelmed the pre-60s SMP/MMP that was in place prior to it (imperfect as it was), that if you see remnants of it out there somewhere, it looks archaic at best, or totally out of place at worst. One example, there’s a young couple in my church who got married when they were 20 and have one child now. I’m sure there were people in the church who thought, “They’re too young to get married! You don’t do that in 2019?”
I’ll admit, even I had to, with my RP lense, fight the thoughts off; not for the girl, but for the guy. My RP view had it, “Good for you honey, you cashed in your chips early, avoided the Carousel, and got a young husband with potential (future Pastor, currently climbing the managerial ladder at Chick Fil A restaurants)!” But my thoughts for him were different, in part because I was remembering myself when I was his age prior to my conversion, “Dude! You should wait, sew some wild oats first, get some experience with women and then get married when you’re 27-28 or so!” I was astonished that I felt “bad” for him, like he was making an error in judgement in getting married “so young.”
I was struck that I even still had these views. It shows the cultural conditioning that I’ve received over my lifetime still operating even though I’ve been immersed in RP dynamics for the last 4-5 years. IOW, I was “happy” for her, but not for him, at least initially. I got over it as I saw them progress in their relationship and began to think, “Wise move, you two!”
So, my point, when you wrote, “Perhaps that’s because it doesn’t, or perhaps it’s because we have no working model of how young people are to rectify the desires of the flesh with God’s prerogative of sanctification”, I thought, “Yep, that’s the dilemma now, no working model really, just ways to navigate the current times without getting destroyed by them”. That’s about all we can seem to offer young people nowadays.
The old model, pre-60s/70s, has been thrown out, and this new “model” SMP/MMP we all observe and analyze on here, aka the “hook-up culture” that replaced it, has been found so wanting. I mean, let’s face it, not only is it a total sh!t show, it leaves untold misery in its wake; however, “What to replace it with?” The Biblical model for relationships of course, but who, besides a very small percentage of people (like the posters on this blog), even begins to understand that model, let alone would even consider it, if they did?
This in my view is an enormous conundrum that is conceptually solvable on here by a bunch of people with insight into how life really works, aka solving it by God’s design (confession and repentance for starters), but out there in society at large??? It seems, short of some kind of revival on the scale of the Great Awakenings, to be impossible in our decadent western culture. I’m primarily an optimist in life, but when it comes to this subject, overturning our current SMP/MMP, not so much of one.
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The man historically had to built up his estate to properly afford his family. So a 5 year age gap is more common.
So I think at least in regards to the man the expectations outside of the sinful expectation of “sowing wild oats”.
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It’s not bad. But rather quite good.
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Redemption does not necessarily result in escape from earthly consequences. The criminal on the cross was redeemed. He still got his legs broken and died of asphyxiation after hours of agony.
On the other hand, there are plenty of stories of lives transformed by the redemptive power of the Gospel.
There’s no reason why a marriage can’t be redeemed. However, that requires confession and repentance, which leads to the process of sanctification.
If one person refuses to confess, or repent, there’s not much that the other can do about it.
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We were talking about LLJ a couple of days back. Here is a non-Christian talking about her latest sob story, and perhaps she overvalued her virginity while having too high of standards etc.
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LLJ’s husband is right where she left him. In her friend zone, back in her 20s.
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Related:
https://gab.com/UniversalDelirium/posts/108938528026246021
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LLJ was always in a rather unique situation. She looks white, but there are questions about her race. She describes herself as being of French, African-American, Native American and Norwegian descent. Yes, she is picky, but is she looking for a white man or a black man or it doesn’t make any difference to her? It may not make any difference to her, but does she realize it may make a big difference to any men (black and white) involved? So she is picky and also limited.
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For myself, I find that I continually return to the words of Solomon in considering things.
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I’m in the same boat as a late 20s virgin woman. I priced myself out of the market with my approaching 10yrs of %100 voluntary celibacy. Because I’m the only one. If I have a standard of I would only marry a woman who’s not had sex in this period of time which I do have, I will not meet anyone who meets this standard. All the Christians I told I wasn’t having sex talked to me like I was the only one. Only one guy didn’t and he was an incel and frankly didn’t know the difference.
So I’m left with a handful of 17-23yo who even qualify. But are hard to meet as a older man. Women who don’t will gladly feed me what I want to hear when they find how financially stabil I am. But I guess I do only need to meet 1 and as a man I’ve got lots of time and just accumulate more assets as I go.
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It shouldn’t be harder to meet younger women in early 20’s if you are well enough to do as an older man.
Perhaps there is something cultural going on.
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The problem is finding warm approach situations I refuse to cold approach young women at church. They basically have young peoples groups and when those chronologically end they are taken.
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Does anyone know if there any way to change that?
Its simply not an option for Men of a certain age given women’s fertility. Unless one is only content with companionship.
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Hey Locust, I know I’m several days late, but you’re not alone, man. I’m a 36-year-old Virgin myself who adamantly vows to wait until marriage in this messed up culture. And if it looks like our situation is bleak, there’s even more men out there who aren’t Christians and are voluntarily or involuntarily celibate just because the culture (backed by the puppeteer Satan) has demonized the traditional ways men used to approach women.
That’s why I personally pray for God’s intervention. I don’t expect women to just “fall into my laps,” but like you, I refuse to Cold Approach, which means I require whatever girl who’s interested in me to make her interest known. That’s a rare breed. And even when you do find her, it’s likely because she doesn’t have a lot to lose (she’s a single mom, overweight, aren’t blessed with good looks)
But still…I maintain the attitude of remaining ever hopeful, keeping myself in shape in case today’s the day. Because as much as you’ll have naysayers shout, “THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN!”…The truth is, I’ve had two women Make the first move, both were ridiculously gorgeous and both ended up my girlfriends.
Ultimately, they didn’t work out, but I have no regrets, I still wish them the best, and I thank God for blessing me with them.
As far as solutions go 1) The waiting game, where you hold strong, keep your mind focused on other things so you don’t think about what you’re lacking and stay ever on your purpose until the day you meet her. 2) If she’s a 10 out of 10 and at least throws a smile my way, I’ll at least talk to her but nothing beyond the greeting and some trivial small talk, nothing to let her know I WANT HER. If she doesn’t engage in the convo, that’s it for me, that’s the most I’ll cold approach. or 3)…sad to say, Online Dating. E-Harmony is a waste of time for reasons I won’t go into, but Match dot com has more options, and I’ve at least connected with about four women within the 3 months I was on it. Hope some of this helps.
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lol, just re-read your comment. Apparently you’re a woman? Oh well, hope my comment helps! 😀
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Start with church dress codes. I am being completely serious. Recently I heard a pastor lecture on the need for women to dress modestly, but then turn around in the same sermon and state that the church cannot enforce a dress code. I mentioned to him that the church he pastors did indeed enforce a dress code, namely they enforced the wearing of Fascist Fauci’s Filthy Face Diapers during the great Covid19 scare of ’20. I inquired as to why he could enforce a face diaper but not a skirt to the knees; as of yet I have no good answer. That is not necessary, because I already know the answer:
1) Modest apparel is a command given by God for our spiritual protection
2) Face diapers are a command of man, ostensibly for our physical protection
Hence, for this pastor and his ilk, commands of men for physical safety are far more important, and more importantly enforceable, than commands of God given for our spiritual safety.
At any rate, if your church cannot at least enforce a dress code for modesty when you assemble together then all the rest of this discussion is meaningless.
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Ultimately the problem is in the past men (pre America) got married at like 14 to 112 year old girls and now you can’t because America brought in the industrial retardery where you have to sit in slave school till 18 and then slave office till old age and slave nursing home till death, and there is no time to marry until 40. Staying a virgin till marriage is easy when you marry during or immediately after puberty. Not so much when you have to keep it up a few more decades. America is unnatural and immoral and has destroyed the whole world with its wankery.
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Once again, that’s false. My church is full of couples in their 20s with armloads of toddlers.
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In secular world, he’s correct. There’s a reason everyone has sex in high school and college. That’s the proper marrying age. Modernity goes out of its way to make sure that doesn’t happen.
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Sounds like a pretty good reason to choose Christ over the flesh, doesn’t it?
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It’s commendable that your church has couples in their 20’s with arm loads of toddlers. Having a lot of children means that the wife’s desire for children has been satisfied, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the wife has a strong or any sexual attraction for her husband and the couple has a healthy sex life.
It could mean that she just suppressed her lack of sexual attraction and is having grin and bear it sex or occasional starfish sex to fulfill her I Cor 7 obligation. Such sex will result in frustration and a dead bedroom. It could also mean that the church did an outstanding sales job to the young men convincing them to marry such women and to expect minimal, if anything, for sex as normal and desirable.
If the church was able to change single women and cultivate in them the ability to have a strong sexual attraction for men where they previously had none and the couple has a healthy sex life, it behooves the church to explain how it’s done.
Until that time, the jury is out.
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Yeah, I’m with Joe2 on this. I’ll believe it all when I see it, and not one minute before
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Then go see it. No one is stopping you.
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Oscar,
The discussion here is to try to find solutions. Saying, “I found a good church, what’s your excuse?” is not helping anybody. Good churches are few and far between. We are not going to find them; we are going to have to build them ourselves. Unless you can help us do that, keep your Boomer posturing to yourself.
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We can’t all move to Idaho.
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No one said you had to.
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Are you actually working on that, or just talking about it on the internet?
If you’re actually working on it, then what help would you like?
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Women went to college in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Take a look at college yearbooks from that era.
I did for a major university and a small Christian college. There were tons and tons of girls attending college at that time. They were most likely working on their Mrs. degree while studying liberal arts or teaching. Women attending college is nothing new.
Were all these women promiscuous? Some may have been, but I’m unaware that it was widespread or expected as it is today. Thus, I doubt delaying marriage due to college caused immorality.
Of course, I could be completely wrong and women even back then were in college and majoring in sex.
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In honor of the disaster that is “The Rings of Prime”:
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OT, but of interest:
The American Thinker: Why ‘Educated’ Liberal Women Are the Real Threat to Our Republic (2022-9-9)
The author focuses on what are alternatively known as “AWFLs” (Affluent White Female Liberals), but what he’s really referring to with the characteristics he describes are women in general, regardless of political ideology, race, or socioeconomic stratum.
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I know no one is going to read this comment and everyone (including me) is tired of what I have to say.
There are not going to be any systemic solutions to this problem. There are not going to be nationwide marriage revivals where 20 year old girls marry 25-30 year old men and start carrying alleged “armfuls of toddlers” (LOL, right) to churches on Sundays.
(Yeah, right. Check back with me in 10 years and we’ll see how many of those marriages are still together. Fully half of those marriages will implode spectactularly into “I’m not haaaaappy” divorces in 10 years or less, at the hands of the “wives”, and with the FULL encouragement of the pastors, because if they don’t, the other women of the church will turn on Dougie Wilson in full force and excoriate him, cancel him, bankrupt him, MeToo him, and threaten him and his loyalists with sex harassment/sex assault lawsuits. The other half remaining – 80% of them will be grindingly miserable dead bedroom marriages held together with children, family pressure, crushing debt, and golden handcuff jobs.)
But I digress.
There’s only one way for this to resolve so that men gain the maximum from their lives: men start imposing their wills on their own lives and marriages, requiring that any woman who wants a relationship with him come to him on his terms or not at all, and refusing any involvements that don’t meet these terms.
Men are going to have to spend a lot of time alone in the “sexual wilderness”. For most men, that wilderness will be lifelong. Most men are just not attractive enough for most women. They’re just not. Before the sex rev, women accepted these men because it was better than working and living with a sibling. Now, women don’t have to accept these men, so they don’t. We need to accept this as a society. Most men who marry, will be marrying women who do not really want them. We need to accept this as a society. Men need to decide if sex is really worth that.
Second: Men need to make clear that any relationships they have with women will be fully and completely on their own terms. “Here’s the life I built. If you want to be part of it, it will be how I say, when and where I say. You do what I say, how and when and where I say. You fit yourself into it. I’m not fitting myself into you or anything of yours. You come here; I’m not going there. You move in with me; I’m not moving in with you. I’m not changing for you or anyone else. Take it or leave it.” Most will leave it. And that’s fine.
Men need to stop compromising. It’s on women to compromise now if they want men. If they really do want to get married and have kids, then they need to come to the table ready to compromise.
Third: Men need to improve themselves in all arenas. This is one place I agree with Oscar. There are no downsides to self improvement even if you don’t get everything you wanted. Physical health and weightlifting: Let’s say all you get is some weight loss and some muscle tone, but no real definition or the shredded look, or female attention. OK. But you still get in better shape. You look better. You feel better. You work and sleep better. Your clothes feel better and hang better on you. You’re less likely to be injured or ill. You’ll have faster recovery times from injury or illness. You’ll live longer. You’re less likely to have diabetes, heart disease, lung disease, or cancers.
Looksmaxing: Let’s say you don’t get any female attention. OK. But you look better. You feel better about yourself. You present yourself to the world better.
You represent yourself, your employer, your family, and your “tribe” better. You have the self satisfaction of knowing you did your best.
Last: I don’t want to hear any more about alleged churches with alleged “armfuls of toddlers”. If there really is such a thing, if they claim to have the answers, they need to trumpet it to the world and show everyone else how it’s done. Put up or shut up. Either present your statistics on this or shut up. Either show everyone else how to do this or shut up.
I don’t want to see any more complaining from women about any of this. Either accept a man who is willing to accept you, or shut up and do it yourself. Either come to the table compromises in hand, or shut up and do it yourself. Either be ready to submit, or shut up and do it yourself. Either get on board, or go away, shut up, and do it yourself. And then when you do shut up and do it yourself, be happy with whatever you can muster up on your own and stop complaining about “where are all the good men”. I don’t want to hear it.
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What I wrote up there is how society is going to look for the next 3-4 generations.
The only way this is going to change is slowly, if it changes at all. If we ever get to a society with churches of young married couples with “armfuls of toddlers”, we’re not going to see it for at least 100 years.
Men, you need to get used to doing what I wrote up there. Men, that’s your life: Austerity, self improvement with no guarantees of it attracting women, and absolutely no compromise for the sake of relationships. Because, men, this is the only way you’re going to avoid getting screwed over, shafted, used, exploited, and taken advantage of. 99% of women are not going to compromise for you. So you have to refuse them and give them no quarter.
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Finally:
Men can do all the self improvement and standing firm on principle all they want. If women don’t get on board, there will be fewer marriages formed and whatever are formed will be unstable at best.
I’m really beginning to thing TFM is right. Taking women’s “rights” away is the only way this changes. Is that going to happen? No, it will not, so it’s really not worth talking about. This changes only if women voluntarily lay down their arms and choose to submit. (Heh. Like THAT is gonna happen.) Who am I kidding? None of this is going to happen. None of this is going to change. Men will go to their corner; women will go to theirs, the bell will ring, and both sides will come out swinging.
And the beat goes on.
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This has been my point all along. We have to do our work, but not to please the wimminz. Heaven should be our goal. The women who want it also can come, but only in their rightful place. 99% of wimminz today don’t want it. Let them go.
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Amen. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
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Let’s be honest here. If there is such a church, it’s because of a return to traditional patriarchy: women’s sexuality is tightly controlled. Men’s SMVs and RMVs are artificially bolstered; women’s are artificially suppressed. Premarital sexual conduct is strongly discouraged. Lots of arranged marriages, or traditional “courting”. Lots of 20 year old women married off to men in their late 20s and early 30s. Divorce is strongly discouraged.
There’s no way I’d marry without a prenup now and no way I’d marry legally. A relationship with a woman would simply be governed by a contract: “If you leave the relationship, you get no alimony or maintenance, regardless of financial position at the time you elect to leave”.
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@thedeti
If those successes hold. Then there is hope locally in Oscar’s area and a few others in hidden away places.
But nationally you are definitely correct.
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The attitude of such churches is pretty much the same attitude that the successful people in the secular world show toward the struggling less fortunate: “F**k you, I’ve got mine!”
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Not even close. The attitude is “come and see for yourself”. If one chooses not to, the consequences of that choice belong to the one who makes it.
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No one is forcing you to read anything, deti.
You got my email, deti. You responded to it. You got my invitation to come and see. You’re free to take me up on it, and you’re free to refuse and keep complaining.
The ball is in your court.
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No, it is not on me to seek out the evidence which someone else claims supports their proposition. One does not get to say “X is true” then when challenged on it, say “you just have to accept my word for it” or “the evidence for X is 2000 miles away, go get on a plane and look at it”. No. Not acceptable.
One who seeks to prove a proposition is required to come forward with the evidence to support it and then has the burden of proving the proposition with sufficient evidence. That means one who wishes to prove said proposition must bring the evidence to me.
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This is meant for Deti, but I don’t see a reply button on his reply to Oscar. My church has swelled with couples under 35 with SAHMs and homeschooling or Classic Ed kids.
I think it’s despite the blue pill pietistic sermons, not because of them, but I have no evidence for it.
Did they learn and recoil from the CBMW feminist-lite parents? Did God bless our figurehead holding the line on no female elders or pastors? I don’t know.
I know the church is a millstone to my marriage and wife’s ability to see her need of repentance, yet springing up from the dim, tasteless, and muddied sermons we have, a bunch of families have sprouted. Too many singles still, but normal guys are landing women.
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thedeti and surfdumb,
I see a bunch of equally paired, at least in appearance, young couples in their 20s. Many of the wives are sporting the ever popular baby bump as the current must have Fall fashion accessory for young married women (That’s funny right there. I don’t care who ya are. h/t Larry the Cable Guy) The church also hits the childcare capacity every Sunday that isn’t a travel holiday. We are a church of roughly 400 and most of the families have 2 children or more with the average I’d guess being 3.
Enough of the families with grade and middle school aged kids have stay at home moms that home school so that women’s bible studies are mostly mid-day. I’d estimate that about 1/3 to 1/2 of families homeschool using Classical Conversations as the curriculum (I have overheard enough conversations to remember the name).
It’s not a perfect place and I’m sure some of the couples will end up divorced because sin happens. If I am profiling (and profiling is wrong h/t Ron White) I see divorce in my church being very rare simply because the pastor and elders are much more tied to teaching scripture as it is, with all of the discomfort that presents, rather than how they want it to be. This tends to draw in a different profile of person and cause the typical churchian to find another church.
thedeti, if you ever end up east of Atlanta, GA and want to see for yourself there is a bottle of Eagle Rare or McKenna 10 with your name on it to enjoy Saturday evening. We’ll go to the late service of course, because bourbon. 🙂
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As further evidence I went through my church’s email announcements that get sent out. In the past 2 weeks:
8/31 It’s a Boy: Jones family (7th kid)
9/4 Adoption complete: de Silva family (2nd)
9/13 It’s a Girl: Nelson family (2nd)
We probably average 1-2 baby announcements like this every month from a church of 400. There are certainly pockets where God is working his covenant through families
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Our church has a lot of young couples/families with lots of young kids, mostly but not all homeschooled. The wives range from some mid-20s to mid 30s, but just as surfdumb noted, still a lot of singles also (my kids and kids of some of my friends’ kids among them).
I think Reformed circles are mostly a mixed bag. A lot of hopeful signs and a lot of evidence of the fact that the same greater cultural struggles are present and invading the church.
If the object lesson church is Christ Church in Moscow, ID then yes. Their reputation of strong community and thriving families is actually well known. Whatever you think of Doug Wilson, he has built what many Christians say they want. I don’t think they’re hiding the secret formula/ I think that most of us are 1) too modern to really go as far as is required to have this, and 2) It’s super messy and imposes on all of our addictions to privacy, autonomy, and convenience.
And so… we slog through this post modern morass trying to somehow grab hold of the things about community and patriarchy that we like, while shunning the parts we don’t, and lamenting why it doesn’t come together.
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Elspeth said:
Yes, 100%, including for me personally.
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@ ramman3000:
We often overlook or fail to even consider the true costs of strong Christian community because (like the gays who want gay marriage for themselves but restrictions on transgenders rights to invade spaces where they don’t belong), we all have our own lines about where we are willing to draw the lines for others. Our pet sins and addictions, if you will. Chief among those is the “right” to do whatever we choose without accountability.
Men who are all for patriarchy but get all bent out of shape when a gal’s father expects to be involved throughout the courtship. We’ve seen this up close. We also know a Christian guy who dumped a girl because of this, married a girl who moved more freely, and ended up divorced five years later. He told my husband on more than one occasion that
There are also the numbers of women who want men to be traditional in all the ways, but don’t want to present him with ANYTHING approximating a traditional wife (in behavior, presentation, or obedience). This is so ubiquitous that we all know scores of such women of all ages and backgrounds.
There are a few other things I could note, but those are benign enough examples to make a point without (I hope) causing consternation. And now, shall take my leave, :).
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Good thing I never said it then, huh?
These are your exact words.
Yeah, I’m with Joe2 on this. I’ll believe it all when I see it, and not one minute before ~ thedeti, 2022-09-11 at 9:34 am
First, you claim that “[you’ll] believe it when [you] see it, and not one minute before”, now you say that going to see it is “not acceptable”. Why am I not surprised?
By the way, what do you think I did? My wife and I got on a plane back in March 2021, and went to see it for ourselves. Then we moved our whole family (seven kids still at home, plus my mom and brother), because we wanted to be a part of what we saw.
You’re not willing to do that. That’s cool. Not my life, not my problem. You get to live with those consequences, not me.
You said you wanted to see evidence for yourself. I offered an invitation that still stands. You rejected it. That’s on you.
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What town and state do you live in oscar?
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Jack: Please give locustsplease my email address.
locustsplease: please email me.
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Elspeth,
A lot of Christians are lying about what they want.
A lot of women say they want good men, but reject every good man. A lot of Christians say they want a Christian community, but they reject every Christian community.
They’re both equally lying.
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Not what I said.
What I said was that forcing me to seek it out and see it AT MY EXPENSE is not acceptable.
What I said was that if you want me to believe you, YOU BRING THE EVIDENCE TO ME. Don’t say “eh, just go out and find it” or “you must travel at extreme expense and inconvenience to see it”.
Stop lying about what I said.
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My impression of “not acceptable” was that Derek’s suggestion to go seeking was inadmissible as proof of his argument.
True, it is disappointing to the rational mind, and it does not further the discussion, but at some point, men will have to get off their butts and go looking for what they want.
The bible doesn’t say, “Thou shalt construct a sound, credible, and well documented aristotelian argument, and thy soul shalt find peace, rest, and prodigious poon.”
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men will have to get off their butts and go looking for what they want.
I never said otherwise. What do you think all men who hang out and comment here are doing? They’re here because they’re looking for something. They’re here because they are or were dissatisfied with their lives and went looking for something better.
I was addressing how you establish the proposition sought to be proved, which is “there are happy young couples with alleged armfuls of toddlers”. You don’t prove that by saying “you have to come and look at it” or “go look for it”. You prove that by actually bringing the evidence to the person(s) you’re trying to persuade of the correctness of your position.
I’ve made my point. I’m done with that.
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For once in my life, it wasn’t an argument. I know for a fact that these churches exist, having grown up in them and having current family who is a part of these communities. Up until a year or two ago, I even still had eligible cousins still on the marriage market.
But it is as elspeth said:
Elspeth’s observation is critical. Most men cannot sacrifice themselves enough join such a community.
I do not live in Lancaster anymore. I wish I did, but my life choices, yes my choices, mean that I’m elsewhere. I’m resigned to a KJV-only baptist church because they love God and serve him faithfully, but they are not large enough to be full of young families.
I can’t vouch for any particular church, but even if I could, what are the chances that the Mennonite doctrines as a whole would be acceptable to deti? In fact, I strongly suspect that nothing there would satisfy. But that’s not necessarily the fault of the church.
That I can live in a major metro area and find a faithful God believing church is enough for me, for now. My two boys made confessions of faith during COVID, precisely when the unfaithful churches were making it hard to worship.
It doesn’t? Knowing where to find good faith communities is an important first step in ‘furthering the discussion’. Perhaps second is asking yourself if it is what you really want, a question I cannot answer for another. While I’m happy to assist, I’m not anyone’s father (except for my children).
I offered to ask my father for church recommendations. Were deti to fly 2,000 miles to Lancaster, I’d try to find a way to go church hopping with him to assist (but these things take a while). My public email is right on the landing page of my website (me@derekramsey.com), so it isn’t like I’m hard to contact.
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One more thing to say.
You and Oscar say there are churches with young couples “armfuls of toddlers”. You simply haven’t made that case with me. You simply haven’t carried your burden of proof with me. That’s fine. there are those who agree with you and have evidence. There are those who agree with me and have evidence.
You just haven’t proved your case. We disagree, and that’s fine.
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I never said “you must” do anything, deti. Stop lying about what I said.
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Jack,
The ones who actually want it will get off their butts and go looking for what they want, or already have. The ones who who won’t get off their butts, don’t actually want what they say they want. Just as women who say they want good men but reject good men don’t actually want good men, men who say they want Christian community but refuse to get off their butts and go looking for Christian community don’t actually want Christian community.
deti,
You’re not going to find it — what you claim to be looking for — on the internet, and you know it. What you claim to be looking for can only be found in real life, but you refuse to look for it in real life. You insist on waiting for others to “bring it” to you.
That’s fine. You’re free to do whatever you want. You’re also free to live with the consequences of doing what you want. I hope you enjoy your consequences.
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…of which I have almost no interest whatsoever. Even when I was in the marriage marketplace, I was never, so to speak, much in the sexual market place and being a Christian was supposed to limit my options anyway.
Marital sanctification is largely a matter of you being holy, pure, and loving: Christ-like. What this consists of is largely context-dependent (and we could explore that for a long time), but it is mostly things that you do, the example you set, not demands you make of others. Jesus modeled love and sacrifice. He took on the role of a servant and said that others must do so. However we—man or woman—act towards our spouse, it must be from the frame of trying to serve and sanctify them, not primarily focused on how it benefits you personally.
The focus on authority is the error.
I agree, but good luck with that, considering how well it went when I suggested that people should focus less on sex and sexual attraction, and more on the other aspects of dating and marriage.
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There is a common modern church error in this statement. The error is that Christ did not directly serve the church. He served God the father and the church was the eternal beneficiary of that servanthood. When this type of sentiment comes up it is often without considering that Jesus asked to get out of being that servant in Gethsemane, but submitted to the will of God, not the church.
For the sacrifice and his submission to God, Jesus is the ultimate authority over the church. He commands and we are to do. This is for our benefit. For some reason he has decided to set up marriage in the same manner with the husband as head. I will attest that husbands are ABSOLUTELY to impose the authority God gave them on a disobedient wife. If he does not he will end up a Proverbs 21 husband all the while his wife will delusionally project that she is a Proverbs 31 wife.
We should actually focus more on authority and the hierarchy in marriage. A funny thing happens when men are recognized as the authority in their households, respect and regular sex tend to happen more often. There is more peace in the household as well, which is a better environment for raising kids. So on the point we should focus on sex less, I agree with you, but not for the reasons you give. We should focus on how men are to establish themselves as the God given authority in their households and how they should treat their wives and children in light of the fact that husbands are also under the authority of another. I have a gut feeling the more we do this the more the sexual aspect of marriage will work itself out.
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Consider…
…and…
Jesus took on the role of servant and served his disciples by washing their feet. He could not have taken on a more subservient role, which is precisely the point. Peter was scandalized by such a role reversal. Jesus chided him by saying that he (Jesus) was the master with all authority, and no servant is greater than the master. If he, with all authority, could serve, so too could the disciples serve each other, members of the same body, Christ’s bride.
Paul echoes this when he says, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21 NIV).
When Paul speaks of headship (“because the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church”), the word head (kephalē) means preeminence (of higher status, exalted, elevated, or the first position), not authority. This is why wives are told to respect their husbands. That’s also the only way to make sense of what Paul says next:
The confusion stems from the fact that someone in authority usually also has high status. But the two concepts are not the same. Christians err if they think Paul is talking about authority when he is talking about status.
No ancient Greek lexicon (which includes many secular uses) gives a definition of head that means ‘leader’. Al Wolters states that the meaning of leader is “virtually unattested in pagan Greek literature until about the fourth century AD”.
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If Paul wanted to wives to submit to husbands of higher authority, he would have used the word exousia (which means authority) rather than kephalē (which means higher status). This is precisely what he did in Romans 13, where he used the Greek word for authority and told us to submit to it (using the same Greek word for submission that he did in Ephesians 5).
In Matthew’s version of the Great Commission, he says…
…using exousia to refer to his authority to command the disciples.
Jesus had the ultimate authority, and he used it to command us to serve one another, as he served us, seeking to make disciples of all nations. Paul commanded us to submit to governments, due to their authority. Then Paul commanded Christians to submit to one another first, and only thereafter mentioned submitting to others because of status. We are still obligated to serve one another, regardless of authority.
In equating status with authority, you have misunderstood the command. If you “focus more on authority and the hierarchy in marriage”, you will be unable to solve the problem you want to solve.
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ramman3000,
Eloquent BS.
Right after giving instructions to slaves to obey their masters, even the harsh ones, he tells wives,
There is no way around it. Marriage is a hierarchy structure with the husband in authority and he uses words that translated into English (depending on the version) such as submission, subjection and obedience. We as husbands will be judged on how we used that authority as we are under God’s authority because those same words and concepts are used when describing how we are to be with our heavenly father.
This is false. I cannot express to any men who read this series of comments down the line just how wrong ramman’s sentiment is. One of the biggest problems in the current state of affairs is a lack of recognizing headship, which is authority, in marriage. Men need to understand what burdens that puts on them if they marry and women need to understand what requirements it means of them.
The lack of understanding that both husbands and wives have around this topic leads to all sorts of bad outcomes as both husband and wife vie for control. That fighting for control has a high potential of leading down the path to divorce or loveless marriage. It’s not pretty and the process starts with men and women not understanding the authority order in marriage.
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I don’t respond to incivility.
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Derek, RPA,
Whether you know it or not, this is a very important debate for all married and marriage-minded men to go through. For the benefit of readers present and future, here are some questions for you two to address. Other readers are welcome to chime in too.
Derek,
1– In the past, you’ve said that your marriage is rather Complementarian-ish. Is your viewpoint (given here) any different from mainstream Complementarianism?
2– How is your viewpoint different from Federal Headship?
3– How is your viewpoint different from Servant Leadership?
You might want to address these questions at your blog, or else email them to me in MSWord and I’ll write it up in a post. If you post your responses at your blog, then please allow comments to encourage and facilitate the discussion. I’ve left some comments there in the past that disappeared.
RPA,
Didn’t you used to have Derek’s viewpoints in the past? But you learned how it is insufficient / unworkable.
1– You may like to describe the specific context of your testimony and what you have learned.
2– Point out why Derek’s views didn’t work for you and why you changed your views.
You are cordially invited to write up a post on this.
I believe the main differences between your views lies in the level of willing submission being offered by the wife, so the respective paths toward sanctification are markedly different.
— For the submissive wife, the husband’s humility and service to the family makes her feel appreciated, thankful, and willing to continue being submissive. (Derek’s stance)
— For the feministic-ish indolent self-centered wife, the husband’s humility and service is trampled on by the wife. The husband needs to exercise more authority to correct the wife’s poor attitude. There is more work to do in “washing her clean”. (RPA’s stance)
All the best, gentlemen!
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I don’t enough about these terms to answer your questions. I’ve been exposed to them indirectly to greater (Complementarianism) or lesser (Federal Headship) extents, but they are not a part of Anabaptistism that holds that the New Testament is the only creed. I argue with scripture directly, although I reference a variety of translations, commentaries, lexicons, etc.
Due to my ignorance, I cannot deduce precisely what you want to know. I may need to research those topics and do reviews of each, citing relevant scriptures to cover areas where I agree or disagree, as I’m doing now with the ongoing series on my blog covering John C. Wright’s Catholic apologia. I suspect I won’t fully agree or disagree with any of those items.
I think it is a mistake to sign up for doctrines that are not clearly spelled out in scripture. I also think it is a mistake to base those doctrines on questionable proof texts. One future post or series I want to do is go through all of the “pro-patriarchy” scriptures and point out how many relevant Hapax legomenon (e.g. authentein) and anachronistic meanings (e.g. “head” meaning “leader”) those doctrines rely upon. Foundations of sand.
Years ago, I used an anti-spam comment filter, but I hated it and removed it. You may have lost a comment back then. Now comment moderation is turned on and I have enabled “Comment author must have a previously approved comment” and “must have 3 or fewer links” to avoid moderation. I am emailed whenever a comment is awaiting moderation. I have one comment from you on August 2, 2022 in my email, and it was approved and responded to, albeit late.
That said, you can always repost any of my posts on your own blog if what you seek is comments. I don’t have a following, you do. I recently remastered and reposted a number of my old posts from Boxer’s blog, but lost all the comments.
I’m happy to engage in comments on either blog, but I am not interested in engaging in uncivil debate. I’d rather have no interaction at all than to further division. That’s why I finished a years old article on 1 Peter 3 and posted it without (back) linking.
Yes and no.
For a believing, God-honoring wife, you follow the path of mutual submission and the Matthew 18 path of conflict resolution.
For the ungodly, unbelieving spouse, you do what 1 Peter 3 tells you to do, which involves suffering for the sake of sanctification, most certainly not “double down on authority”. The unbelieving wife needs to be treated with the same (or greater) zeal with which you’d try to convert any unbeliever.
Somewhere in between the perfectly godly spouse and the militantly ungodly spouse is varying techniques like I said the other day:
Regardless, the entire focus on hierarchical authority is fundamentally wrong. The fact that we are back-reading a 4th century understanding of “head” into a 1st century work is concerning. I stand by the claim that making this mistake will fix precisely nothing: you can’t misread the Word of God and expect quality results.
I’m not saying no authority exists in the church or marriages. It just isn’t all that relevant in this context, especially not pertaining to Paul’s and Peter’s directives.
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Interpreting “head” as “authority” is wrong, but it’s not obvious why it is wrong. You can see that it is wrong because it leads to logical contradiction, but it isn’t obvious why it is wrong.
Back in 2018 when I didn’t know that “head” meant “status”, I argued differently over at Deep Strength’s blog. I assumed that head meant authority, and so made an exegetical mistake on 1 Peter 3:7. But on the topic of Ephesians 5, I was able to find the contradiction.
Now that I’ve been made aware of the mistake, I have to go back and reevaluate all of what I previously understood and wrote. This will take time.
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Where’s the contradiction?
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This passage indicates that said status also entails Authority. Jesus isn’t Head over every Rule, Authority, Power, and Dominion without having ultimate command over them all.
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@Info
In view here is “the riches of His glorious inheritance“.
This is a reference to both Christ’s exalted status, which he has over every other ruler or leader.
This is one of about seven “head” references in Paul’s letters. This one includes both the “head-feet” and “over-under” reference. The head and the feet are extremes. Just as Jesus was exalted, elevated, preeminent, the beginning and the origin, and firstborn of the dead, so too is Jesus exalted, elevated, preeminent, and the beginning and the origin of the church. The lowest of the low are under Jesus feet.
But jump back to the first verse you cited. Glory refers to status. We are intended to be exalted and elevated to a place of glorious inheritance, just as Christ has already been exalted. There is no better inheritance than that we receive by adoption into Christ’s family.
Furthermore, in three places Ephesians 1:22-23, Colossians 1:18-19, and Colossians 2:9-10, Paul pairs the term “fullness [and perfection]” (plērōma) with the term ‘head’. Scholars believe that the these three contexts were an explicit rebuttal of Hellenistic Pre-Gnostic heresy, as the Gnostics embraced the head-body metaphor in their teachings. In any case, this has absolutely nothing to do with authority. See more on the Gnostic godhead’s circle of divine attributes here here.
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It is at the link where I say “…this is a logical contradiction.”
If you were looking for a contradiction where using “authority” invalidates the entire passage, rather than a particular, but not uncommon, exegesis, then I will have to disappoint you. Regardless, I was able to make logical sense of it…
…but not without a disquieting sense of disharmony. I’m never comfortable when exegesis requires a huge, complex effort of logic. It often indicates an error.
Let’s say someone was reading you a story about cats, but replaced every instance of “cat” with “dog”. The story might be not cause direct contradictions, but it would be weird and discordant.
This is what it is like to use the wrong word: discordant.
When the word head (kephalē) is used, it doesn’t mean authority (exousia). There exists other supporting documentation beyond what I’ve presented (e.g. Septuagint’s use of kephalē), but the fact is it doesn’t mean leader or ruler until the 4th century. It doesn’t really matter that I can find a way to make authority kind-of work. It’s the wrong word and using it as “authority” is an error.
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And this exalted status over other rulers and leaders would involve being as being in overall command.
That High Status is also matched with Authority very often in the Ancient World. I don’t see how that all this wouldn’t include Authority. In the instance of being over all rule and Authority.
If Jesus doesn’t truly have command. How can he be truly Head over all Rule and Authority?
Jesus is the Head of the Church. And therefore we obey him (Ephesians 5:22-23; 1 Peter 3). This Headship is why the wife obeys the Husband.
This Headship allows Jesus to reprove, rebuke, discipline and shut down individual Churches that don’t measure up to standards.
Jesus as head of the Church has command over all believers. His higher status isn’t merely about prestige.
http://www.rightreason.org/2018/kephale-in-the-nt/
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Jesus does not command governments. He is not in control of them. The dominion of the earth belongs to Satan. God has ultimate authority, but he does not command (to make happen in reality) obedience.
Jesus allows apostate churches to exist, be they Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and/or Protestant (depending on your personal persuasion).
Yes, I have said as much. It seems to be a common misunderstanding that I said there is no room for authority in either the church or marriage, but I never said that.
What I said was that Paul does not have authority in mind when he is giving instructions to husbands and wives in Ephesians, he has status in mind.
This is true regardless of whether or not you think Genesis 2-3 sets up a marital authority structure or the ANE patriarchy is a moral imperative. He’s simply not talking about authority. If you think he is, any conclusions you draw from that will be in error.
Maybe he is in authority over every other authority and maybe he isn’t. Indeed, as the Great Commission shows, he has both power and status. The nature of his authority is a different discussion from whether he is exalted, first, preeminent over the rulers of the earth. It isn’t being addressed in Ephesians.
While you can argue that being of high status among those in authority is evidence of being of higher authority (as logical inference only: this is not a valid logical deduction), this still doesn’t have any bearing on husbands and wives, and members of the church, to which magisterial powers are not included. That’s why it matters that ‘head’ figuratively means ‘preeminence’.
This citation of 1 Peter neglects the context. The head-body metaphor works like this…
…but of course we don’t translate non-literally like this because it would destroy the metaphor. But that’s what it means.
Lastly, thank you for providing the link. There is plenty of material here to respond to. I also really like what he says in his linked post:
I have found a lot of concerns over my comments go beyond this scope.
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@ramman3000,
Are we to believe all the Holy Spirit inspired Apostles especially Paul and Peter, the Church Fathers like St John Crystostom and all the Divines of the Reformation.
And the Calvinists were all wrong. Until the modern interpretation which makes all relationships between the sexes somehow egalitarian in the Bible in the modern day?
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No, it’s not a modern interpretation.
The modern interpretation is the one accepted by the Roman Catholic Church to justify its rules for priesthood, itself a violation of the ‘priesthood of all believers’. The word kephalē — when used figuratively — did not mean leader until the 4th century, coincidentally when the Roman religion became the state religion (in 380AD). Moreover, the scribal alterations to scripture designed to diminish the role of woman are not exactly a secret, some of which still exist in English Bibles.
No. You read too much into my words. That Paul is talking about status, not authority, does not mean all marital relationships are (or should be) egalitarian. It merely means Paul wasn’t talking about authority and any arguments based on that faulty premise are themselves invalid. This in and of itself is a hurdle too great to accept, and we have not really even starting discussing much in the way of possible ramifications (if any).
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I read the link. You never explained how it’s a contradiction, that I could see.
It’s ironic that you say that, because this….
…is a pretty good example of what you claim makes you uncomfortable.
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It’s not ironic, because that is exactly why I said it. I was talking being dissatisfied with my own analysis. The fact that I had to go through such hurdles to harmonize the use of “authority” in Ephesians 5 and still not derive a clear meaning has never sat well with me. It suggested that something was very wrong with my assumptions (obviously not the logic, which was complex, but valid).
I grew up with the KJV and I (ironically) currently go to a KJV-only church. I had always been told that ‘head’ referred to the authority of a leader. When I found out that ‘head’ connotes ‘preeminent’, it cleared up much of the difficulty I’ve had with Ephesians for decades.
Here is what I wrote:
It is clear why this is a contradiction. Even the most simple, plain reading of Ephesians 5:21-22 is contradictory if submit and head both refer to strict hierarchical authority.
Ephesians 5:22 does not have ‘submit’ in it. It is only there by implication and yet scholars place a period between Ephesians 5:21 and 5:22 and begin a new sentence or paragraph. Treating this is a separate sentence is almost universal, despite the fact that Ephesians 5:18-21 form a complete sentence chained with multiple participles (highlighted): “And don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled with the Spirit: speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music with your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.” These are all linked in flow (e.g. the NIV’s section break is incorrect). This is conduct for all Christians—men and women—in all parts of life (e.g. we don’t just not get drunk during worship) and we do it all for God, the Spirit, and/or Jesus Christ. In particular, the submitting is mutual.
It is incoherent that women and men must submit to each other, while wives (and only wives) must submit, and in a strict hierarchical, unidirectional, non-mutual authority structure, no less. It flies in the face of both what Paul was actually saying and how he was saying it.
Ephesians 5:22 does not have the word ‘submit’ in it. Paul does not directly use the word ‘submit’ to tell wives to submit to their husbands, he does so indirectly in what translators treat as a new sentence or even a new paragraph. Then, instead of using words like “leader”, “master”, or “authority”, he uses the word “head”, which primarily connotes preeminence.
Paul is being as delicate and deferential as is possible, taking care not to offend. Though Paul was a Roman citizen and educated, he was of lower social status. He was certainly writing to both men and women who were in a higher social stratum than he was, even as he had more authority.
Immediately after delicately telling wives to submit, he delicately tells husbands to love their wives. In none of Paul’s writing did he ever instruct husbands to be leaders of their wives (which might have been expected), but he tells them to love, care, and sacrifice for their wives as they would themselves (which was not expected): because the two become one flesh. For a man to apply the Golden Rule to his wife was to give up his primacy, to culturally debase himself. For this, his wife is told to respect him.
As for what the nature of that submission is, by far the most logical answer, which is also the simplest, is that Ephesians 5:22 is one example of Ephesians 5:21, and Ephesians 5:25 is another example of Ephesians 5:21.
So while it can make logical sense (though an etymologically unjustified anachronism) to read ‘head’ figuratively as authority and authority only, it can only make sense if that authority is limited or scoped in some undefined way.
It is worth noting that when Paul writes about submitting, he does so in the middle voice (“be submitting”), where it is the person doing the submitting of their free will, not an act of force or command. The emphasis of Ephesians 5 is inward focused, not outward focused.
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No, dude. Your current exegesis is convoluted.
Your misinterpretation of Ephesians 5:21 is the problem. Others have explained this to you, but you insist on continuing in error, so there’s no point in me explaining it again. Thanks for clearing that up.
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If you are referring to this…
…the local Christians are made up of both men and women. Men and women mutually submitting to each other is a direct contradiction with wives uni-directionally submitting to husbands in the same way. I didn’t respond to that comment, because the contradiction is obvious.
This is an incredibly simple concept and does not rely on historical anachronism.
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Studying the Hebrew and Greek has its uses, to be sure. but once we start dismissing the Bible in plain English by trying to directly overlay Geek with English (not even possible), we get into trouble. The idea that a wife is to obey her husband has been -to my understanding- Christian orthodoxy and orthopraxy since its inception.
The OT (Jesus came to fulfill not abolish the law) as well as NT Scriptures besides Ephesians 5 (see 1 Peter 3) clearly indicates that a husband has authority over his wife. This does not necessarily have to mean abusive, overbearing, domination. In fact, done well it absolutely does not. Ever. There seems to be an assertion here that authority and “real” love are mutually exclusive.
To the extent that the husband has concluded by Christian conviction that it is best to have a more egalitarian arrangement, then all well and good. There are some husbands who feel that way. You do you, but let’s not decide that Scripture doesn’t indicate what it clearly indicates from beginning to end.
Higher status always confers greater privilege and authority anyway, so it’s basically semantics, isn’t it?
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No. The two words mean completely different things. Actors and professional athletes have high status. Most have very little, if any, authority. As with Jesus or governments, it is quite possible to have both, but Paul uses the word for authority when he has those type of arrangements in mind (e.g. Romans 13), just as you or I would use the word that matches the situation we are using it in.
In quite a few of Paul’s letters he has to deal with the fact that those of substantially different social status (e.g. the wealthy landowners and the poor or servant-class) who are now essentially equals in Christ’s church. It is not appropriate for those of higher status to lord it over those of lower status within the church. Ephesians is one such letter concerned with this.
Nevermind that this is circular reasoning (since the English came from the Hebrew and Greek), but the Bible says “head” in plain English, it doesn’t say “authority”. Knowing what the Bible means has actual significance, it is not an irrelevant side point.
If you use the KJV, this is especially problematic, as it contains a number of clear translation and manuscript errors that most English translations have correct.
Most of what we know comes from the 4th century or later. A couple hundred years after Christ, there began a strong push to deemphasize the role of woman. Logically, in order to deemphasize their role, they had to have had a role.
For example, in discussion the of the extremely popular “Acts of Paul and Thecla”, Tertullian (155-220AD) notes that a presbyter of Asia forged it “for love of Paul.” He reports that people were using the book to show the right of women to teach. This highlights that there was a not insignificant belief in the early 3rd century that Paul not only permitted women to teach, but actively desired it. It also shows that there was a strong push by that point to suppress the role of women.
Here is some examples from the textual record:
In Mark 3:31, the “mother and brothers” was altered to read “his brothers and his mother”. The Byzantine texts upon which the KJV was written includes this alteration.
In Acts 17:12, the text was altered in the Codex Bezae (5th century) to minimize the prominence of women.
In Acts 17:34, the Codex Bezae does not include the line about the woman Damaris.
In Acts 18:26, the names Priscilla and Aquila are swapped in some manuscripts to reduce her prominence.
In Romans 16:7, Junia (a woman) was changed to Junias (a man) in the manuscripts. Some argued that Junia is a man’s name.
In Colossians 4:15, Nympha (a woman) was changed to Nymphas (a man) in the manuscripts and shows up in the KJV. The passage implies that Nympha was a leader in the church.
1 Corinthians 14:33-34 is a marginal gloss that may also be a forgery. Its placement has exegetical significance.
If you’ve already decided what the Bible says and nothing can change that, then what I’m saying is not for you.
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Well stated Elspeth. I will add that scripture is so clear on husbandly authority in marriage both in the old and new testaments, that the only option for those who want to challenge this scriptural truth is to go to try and parse out exceptions.
ramman3000’s dive into translation variations and the splicing of hairs on ancient languages is a good example of this given the preponderance of evidence in scripture to the contrary, both in plainly stated language and in logical form. Another prominent example is Shelia Gregoire’s use of one verse in Ephesians 5 to promote the concept of mutual submission between spouses even though the concept is entirely antithetical to other verses in Ephesians 5, 1 Peter 2 and 3 and the Hebrew law given in the old testament regarding marriage (basically the husband owned everything in his household including his wife and children, ie the evil God established patriarchy).
Here’s a simple test to see the fault in ramman3000’s analysis of Paul’s writing specifically applying to husbandly authority and status. Peter tells slaves how to obey their masters, both harsh and kind ones mind you, and then flows right into how wives are to submit to and obey their husbands telling them when they are obedient like Sarah they are her daughters. This is to be the wife’s posture regardless of how kind or harsh the husband is. This sentiment would flow from OT law where husbands had absolute authority over his household as a husband and father given he stayed within scriptural bounds. He had great leeway on how he ruled his family. Women probably did not like to hear that message back then just like they don’t like to hear it now, but it’s in plain English/Greek/Hebrew/Sanskrit for anyone who wants to read it. To try and find exceptions to the overarching truth found in scripture based on wordplay is a form of willful ignorance the borders on dishonesty.
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That’s Ephesians 5:21: “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.” The context is clear that that verse is about individuals in a local church body; not husbands and wives.
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OF COURSE no such church EVER thinks that it displays this kind of attitude to those outside. It just KNOWS that it welcomes the world into its fold with open arms, that it is on fire with evangelism for the Lord and His ways. That it’s tiny, insular, unknown to the wider Christian world, and not being overwhelmed every Sunday with either new visitors or recent arrivals seeking to establish themselves as members serves as pretty solid (circumstantial) evidence that it’s not exactly making a dramatic impact as a place of refuge from either the churchian or secular madness engulfing society. Indeed, I would wager that any single young man, in particular, who were to visit for the first time on any given Sunday morning would be made to feel singularly UNwelcome.
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I have never understood this attitude.
Jesus stated in the Sermon on the Mount:
Jesus experienced this himself:
Instead of many followers, Jesus promised suffering and persecution. He said the world would hate us. Peter wrote a whole letter (1 Peter) for the express purpose of exhorting believers to accept and persevere through suffering.
The idea that 17% of the world’s population is contained in a single Christian denomination and that 29% of the world’s population is Christian has never struck me as particular plausible.
I expect to find Christ’s church among the outcasts and the unpopular, living in faithful service, scoffed at by those who do not accept their ways. Why? Because that’s what Jesus said would happen.
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Whether you want to argue “authority” or not, the main (and consistent) point is that the woman does not usurp the dominion he has over her. Period. She is repeatedly instructed to submit to him.
Women who fail to submit to their husbands will answer to God. THAT is the point. When she doesn’t on the macro scale, you have today’s culture.
When she doesn’t on the micro scale, you have broken marriages, broken families, and broken children.
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@lastholdout
The word authentein is a Hapax logomenon. For this reason and others, the precise meaning of 1 Timothy 2:12 is not known.
Your interpretation creates quite a conundrum for the patriarchal position among scholars, because “to usurp” or “to dominate” has a negative sense, which is a complementarian or egalitarian argument. Virtually all patriarchal positions rely on it having a positive sense. The way you’ve argued it is considered self-contradictory.
This is one of those ironic situations where using the English KJV or ASV leads to the so-called modern interpretation and using the English NIV or (sometimes) the Greek leads to the so-called traditional interpretation.
The only reason the English KJV/ASV interpretation works is because the rest of the verses are poorly interpreted in order to make the selected meaning of authentein work. That’s one reason why patriarchal scholars reject that meaning: when translating from the Greek, it defeats the patriarchal argument.
Some readers here may remember the last time I discussed this. No one could agree on what authentein meant, because so many had ideological blinders on and they couldn’t figure out which interpretive choices didn’t contradict their position. They all agreed on patriarchy, but they couldn’t agree on the best way to manipulate the language to get the Bible to say what they had already decided it said.
As with ‘head’ (kephalē), Paul has preeminence in mind, not authority: Adam came first. This is also referenced in 1 Corinthians 11:11-12…
…but within the context of mutual dependence. Again, preeminence—not authority—is in view.
I responded to this point a couple days ago. As I said there…
…the word ‘submit’ in this sentence can—and probably does—carry some sense of authority. But, whatever the nature of that authority, just like Corinthians 11:11-12, mutuality is in view. The submission of wives to husbands is precisely the same as the mutual submission between members of the church, both as to Christ. What is being proposed for the marital relationship (a strict authoritarian hierarchy) is not logical in this context, especially since kephalē was used to emphasize preeminence w.r.t. connoted authority.
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@ramman3000
In that case the relationship between Christ and Church, Husband and Wife. Parents and children are also mutual. But that doesn’t work.
Therefore Ephesians 5:21 is explained by the passages afterwards which explains what Ephesians 5:21 entails. Which is the God ordained Hierarchy of submission and obedience one way. And care, justice and wisdom the other way. As a Shepherd cares for his sheep.
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Yes, this is my point: it doesn’t work if both ‘head’ and ‘submit’ refer to strict hierarchical uni-directional authority. It is clear why that is a contradiction. It only works if you reject that premise.
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@info
You begin with the conclusion that authority is in view and rationalize the passage accordingly. If you were to begin with no such preconceptions, your conclusion would be different. As circular reasoning is self-supporting, the only way to break the circle is to make you aware that it is a circle.
I gave an effort to summarizing Ephesians 5:21-33 while explicitly rejecting the anachronistic assumption of ‘head’ meaning authority (thought it doesn’t address your other comment). You can read it here. If it isn’t convincing, so be it. I wish you well regardless.
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Yes, I agree. If you haven’t already, I suggest reading John Murray’s excellent book, “Redemption Accomplished and Applied.”
This single book did much for me in explaining how regeneration, faith and repentance, justification, adoption, sanctification, etc. all work toward our redemption. The chapter “The Order of Application” is especially helpful.
It has been a while since I’ve read it and this is a good excuse (and context) to re-read it.
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Yes, on the “Christian” Left / egalitarian take, then Jesus is to be mutually submissive to the church. Which is nonsense.
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@ramman3000,
What you’re saying is that a conspiracy began in the 4th century, followed by millennia of misunderstanding and misapplication . . . until now . . . when it just so happens that in a culture of gynocentrism a select few have discovered the “true” Scriptural interpretation. If you want to gain some credibility, you’re going to have to employ a bit more finesse than crashing into a blog like a bull, and putting the entirety of the modern interpretation into question. I have to believe that you came to your current understanding in a slow burn. When attempting to influence change, slow is better.
So now we are questioning not just the word for authority, but the “rest of the verses” too?
You’re attempting to reframe the point I am making by bringing the focus back to “authentein” and the “rest of the verses.” My point is not the action, position, nor level of authority of the husband, nor is it about patriarchy vs. complementarianism, but the disposition of the wife . . . regardless of her husband’s faith, disposition or position. Her proper disposition toward him is consistently expressed throughout Scripture.
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I think you are right that my approach is bad, but this here is what finesse gets you. Let me show it.
I’ve been commenting on this topic for half a decade. In fact, Info commented on the original discussion in June, 2017. Speaking of Info, recall the link (here) that he provided. He cited it against my claim, but that author mostly supports my position.
It isn’t a secret what ‘head’ means, as shown by Info’s citation, but this has had little-to-no impact on rank-and-file Christians. Finesse does not appear to work against determined resistance… but neither does what I’m currently doing.
Regardless, whether you think there was a 4th century conspiracy or not doesn’t matter, since the word ‘head’ objectively changed meaning. While it would be deeply concerning if the church fraudulently changed the meaning, which caused false doctrine to persist in the church for centuries, it is irrelevant to the historical question of the meaning of the word. I’m not arguing that it doesn’t mean authority because it was corrupted (that would be circular reasoning!), I’m arguing that it means ‘preeminence’ because that’s what the word studies indicate. In fact, I believe the converse: the word was corrupted precisely because it didn’t mean authority.
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Huh, I think it was probably a different Info.
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Regardless preeminence in that case includes Authority. It means more than just Authority as you argued. But the Scriptural use indicates the inclusion of Authority in the meaning of the word.
You previously said God hasn’t closed down particularly big churches. But several Churches that Jesus wrote to in Asia is certainly extinct by Jesus decree according to his Headship (Kephale). And many protestant churches have died. One can only guess at his intentions aside from his 4D chess moves so to speak.
As for Exousia. It is interesting it is correlated with coercive power like Authority of civil Government. Like the Authority that comes with bearing the sword.
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Your doppelganger said the same thing. My response is more-or-less the same as it was then.
Exousia is correlated with authority because governments have authority, not because authority makes a government.
The denotation of ‘head’ is the literal head. The rest of the meanings are all connotations. The primary figurative connotation of ‘head’ is preeminence. All uses of the term figuratively imply preeminence: first, priority, exalted, elevated, top, corner, authority, superiority, and source.
Authority is a secondary connotation: it may or may not be related to the preeminence. Even if authority is in view (which needs to be shown: it isn’t automatic), its shade of meaning involves preeminence.
Kephalē is correlated with authority because authorities often have preeminence, not because preeminence confers authority.
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Yes, millennia of misunderstanding and misapplication, but no, not until now. It continues unabated.
It is not a conspiracy, as it was not secret. It is in the recorded record of history, though few now know of it. Pope Siricius, who reigned over the rise of Roman Catholicism in the late 4th century wrote this:
He was excommunicating those who believed a “new heresy and blasphemy” that celibacy and marriage were of equal worth in the eyes of God, rather than “different degrees of merit” (as Ambrose would call it) for virginity, widowhood and marriage.
In other words, this focus on sex and marriage rather than celibacy would have gotten the whole lot of you excommunicated in the 4th century. Red Pill Apostle recently confirmed as much:
The development of the “consecration of female virgins” in 4th century coincided with the priesthood requiring celibacy (due to its superiority), sexless marriages that were elevated in merit, and headship becoming about authority. Sex, the glued oneness of which implies unity and equality, had to be rejected and replaced with authority, which is the Curse of the Fall of Man.
The very notion of celibacy—intrinsically tied to the authority of the Roman Catholic Church’s male-only priests—relies on its implied higher merit, its greater holiness. Logically then, marriage—or at least one with lots of sex—must be of lowest of merit, of least concern, the least holy. The reason that priests, the rulers of the Church, are celibate males is because the Church is the Bride of Christ and its rulers are men, the ones with authority.
The authority of the church rulers is the same as the authority of husbands. Everyone here is arguing that point, but they don’t realize the implications of that connection or where in history the idea came from. The emphasis on power in marriage (and thus the church) logically requires the superiority of celibacy and the deemphasis of marriage and especially sex.
If wife’s submission to her husband is not about authority, then celibacy would is of no worth to priests, precisely the Protestant Reformation concluded. But the Gynocentrism of feminism is not about equality either, it is about female supremacy, about female authority.
Interesting how the “consecration of virgins” was reactivated by the Roman Catholic Church completely coincidentally with the Sexual Revolution:
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