“To tell a woman that, because she doesn’t share his convictions about certain side issues she is homeschooling her children in a self-serving manner is outrageous. The moms in central Illinois and everywhere else deserve better.”

Karen,

Well said!

Truthfully, I don’t know why anyone in your area takes him seriously. He is not honest about his ordination. He does not answer simple questions forthrightly (even though he claims he is forthright). He was a Christian man while married to his first wife, had 4 children with her, presumably he spent some of those years “ordained” somewhere in the SBC (maybe that place fell into the Bermuda Triangle?) and he is now going to tell us how to do family?? Ha!

Sorry. He could have a quiet ministry to those in his own little sphere where he is under true leadership and accountable to his leaders. But, taking upon the mantle of pastor/”Reverend” all by his lonesome with his track record? No way. Not until he can give a FULL explanation of where he has been and where he has been allegedly ordained and a record of his divorce would I ever consider sitting under his faux-leadership.

He is the last one to talk about side issues being important when he can’t even keep the MAIN issues the main issue.

Where are all the manly men who will call him into accountability? Where are his peers? What about the men in his former presbytery? Why is there so much silence? Who is protecting the sheep? Who is sitting on the wall looking out for the welfare of the sheep?

How did he get into the sheep-fold? Did he enter through the door or did he climb over some other way? Imho, it is the latter.

Karen,

Well, you uncaring soul! (nudge, nudge, wink, wink…) Didn’t you read RC 2.0′s repentance paragraph at the end? (Kinda reminds me of my MIL’s apologies –She blames me for maliciously causing my husband to have arthritis but then says 10 minutes later that she’s “truly sorry for anything she’s ever done or said that was hurtful”… to recant that I’ve maliciously caused my husband to develop arthritis along with my being the cause for war in the Middle East.)

If ever you wanted an example of sacerdotal ism (the higher spirituality of the priesthood) on RC’s behalf: here it is. If you’re not one of us, then you might just be a Christian by the skin of your teeth for all the wrong reasons. But you’re not of the elite like us. Well, who died and made these young, arrogant, angry bucks the moral arbiters for mankind? I missed that memo, too.

Look at Henke’s Critera for Spiritual Abuse:

1.) Authoritarian
Well, the grand authorities spoke their mighty decrees to put you in your place, Karen. They sure showed you with that blog post. (????)

Yes, these “above the law” authorities, found by their peers to be scoundrels and liars, thieves and manipulators (redundant, I know), so what do they do? They just move over a step or two away from their authorities and declare themselves to be their own authority so that they are above that inconvenient law that held them accountable. Anyone who gives them too much hassle ends up in court or gets a couple of legal threats or nasty names or accusations leveled at them. As my grandmother said all the time, “Consider the source.” (The face slapping of the capri pants wearing mom isn’t worth the pixels it’s projected on…)

But authoritarian, none the less. And a little ad hominem abusive and circumstantial thrown in there. But it comes from the patriocentric holy priesthood so we know it must be true?

2.) Image Conscious
Does RC, Jr sound image conscious in this post to everyone else? Sounds like it’s all image consciousness (and works, mind you) to me, right down to the denim jumpers. We know your motives by your uniform and whose side of the divide you’re on. Where’s your Prairie Muffin logo and anti WWF button?

3.) Suppresses Criticism
The person who poses a question becomes the problem and not the problem raised. Hmmm. Karen poses a legitimate problem with both RC and McD, well documented and easily found by any chick with a computer and a brain (and a telephone to verify if need be). Funny how the issue of how a defrocked minister found guilty by his authorities of all sorts of nasty dealings to which minister admits is not addressed. It’s that latent/blatant feminist woman on the other side of the divide that dares speak about these matters of some years ago…. As Stacy McD said to me, cant you just be forgiving, Karen? You’re the problem here. [Lame, lame, lame and pathetic. Its an issue because the primary and critical issues have either never been addressed or repented of.]

And whoever HS was came in to squelch criticism on behalf of these two manipulators… That’s the beauty of spiritual abuse. Earnest faithful people will do your dirty work for you out of the goodness of their hearts. (Provided that HS was not a direct agent of one of the two of them…)

4. Perfectionisic
Need we say more to this one? The pragmatic homeschoolers just don’t have it together because we “movement” homeschoolers do it better! RC even runs a little litany of what he and his dear friends Carmon promote as moral imperatives (but can deny it when convenient for them). These signs follow those who do it better?

5. Unbalanced/Elitist
This is the icing on the cake and the most telling thing of all. We “movement” and Prairie Muffins, with all our many flaws (tear, sniffle) are the only ones that have it right. Well, we have to admit that these other “non-pervs” are Christian, but they aren’t as Christian as we are. Welcome to the higher life of the movement homeschooler and the Prairie Muffin! Yea are blessed because only ye have followed God with honest motives. (By the way, please sign up for our training on the 20 point checklist for how to be sure that you have the right motives. You will know that you’ve hit the center of the mark when you find yourself in the correct uniform and carrying all the right books and with “Generations” and never “thatmom” always found on your IPOD.)

(Do they let prairie muffins have IPODS, or must you have an off brand name? My husband got his from Ligonier a couple of years ago, so does that make an Apple brand okay to own?)

So thanks, RC 2.0, for such an excellent example of Spiritual Abuse. Some of the other points aren’t as noteworthy, but you did a stellar job on the elitist aspect. It really set you apart. I couldn’t have dreamed for something so obviously supportive of Karen’s premise — that this is spiritual abuse. Well, I have to go back to my dreary existence of just barely being a sub-standard Christian who will just make it into heaven by what is almost a cosmic fluke. (Frankly, I’m quite happy to be one of the whelps that gleans the crumbs that fall to the floor from the blessed children’s bread and what you imagine is the patriarchy movement’s table. Those crumbs will do just fine for us supposed pragmatists and our children.)

NO DENIUM JUMPERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

that’s all I have to say about this

Corrie, you’re so right when it comes to the HS patriocentrist’s teachings and those of FLDS. I was recently on Kathy Jo Nicholson’s website (outofpolygamy.com) today and she has a pdf of teachings and rules that FLDS followers had to follow. She escaped the Warren Jeffs cult and has gotten some help, and she even has Ephesians 2:8-9 referenced on her front page.

Cindy, you made some passioned remarks and I agree. I’m still reeling from the fact that our friends from church have just told my husband (yesterday) that they can’t be friends with us anymore. They were the ones who told us recently at a dinner at their home that women shouldn’t vote, patriarchy has been in effect for some 7,300 years, yada-yada-yada. I think they couldn’t be friends with us because we don’t agree with their beliefs on patriarchy. My poor husband; he just wanted some guy friends from church, and this was the one guy who came along. But when this friend started to verbally abuse our son at his home business, we knew we wouldn’t be friends for long if he didn’t control himself. So, we’re on the outs with some at our FIC. I think my husband is having a hard time processing it, though (I feel very sad right now). I’ve had truewomanhood and different online women and some local women not from our church to talk with about the patriocentric teachings, but he hasn’t had anyone to talk with about the teachings (except when I bring it up), even though he’s been in a men’s group at church. I sometimes worry that he may blame me for stirring up problems by not going along with the status quo.

Cindy, I’m right under the Lord’s table with you, passing around the crumb’s to those who are hungry for the Manna of His Word. :

OOPpps! Thank you, RC,Jr, for that excellent example of the “Demand for Purity.” In Lifton language, it is the demand for purity technique of thought reform. In Henke’s language of spiritual abuse, it is “unbalanced” or what I call “elitist.” It describes the same set of dynamics with different language. So thanks for both of these excellent examples!

Karen and her readers really appreciate these object lessons in spiritual abuse so that they can learn how to identify it when it happens to them.

>>>>

Corrie wrote: then subsequently had an earfull from the McDonalds about the evil women are persecuting them

I had this same experience this week when I was contacted by a reporter. He’d obviously talked to someone else before he talked with me, because his impression was way off. I believe he was told to expect an angry know it all feminist who had an agenda to throw mud at a particular group within a denomination. (All I did was quote their teachings.)

So Karen,

I understand that the McDonalds heard an earful about you before they ever settled in there in Peoria… So it’s okay for Stacy and James to tell RC all about your recent activities, but they are above such things? Weren’t they told that you were a “latent feminist” before they ever met you? And they clearly “informed” RC, Jr about your blog, telling him of your latent and blatant tendencies!

Would you be willing to tell us about how all of that came about? What I’ve heard about it is amusing.

And is there any reason for the McDonalds or for RC Sproul, Jr. to have a problem with you personally prior to the McDonalds move to IL?

Is there any earlier reason why both men would have reason to hold you at arms length?

Karen,

Didn’t you originally get labeled as a feminist because you commented on a blog that featured a photo all the graduates of Doug Phillips’ Witherspoon School, saying that “all the woman graduates must have been standing in the back which is why you couldn’t see them in the photo?”

For those of you who don’t know, because women only belong in the sphere of the home (presumably), women (even attorneys) are not permitted to attend the Witherspoon School. It’s a blue function. No pink permitted. If women want to learn about what went on there, they can buy the CDs and learn quitely from their own husbands after the fact. If a husband finds his wife unworthy of them, I guess it’s his duty to withhold them from her like he does with the elements of communion during the Lord’s Supper. I mean, such knowledge might actually turn a woman into a latent feminist!

With the trend in the Southern Baptist Convention to forbid a grown woman from teaching anything to a boy over the age of 13 years of age, should this ever be ratified in the SBC, the argument that a woman might want to know this stuff to teach her sons would be a moot point.

The SBC has no direct authority over their churches. It’s not like a presbytery. Each church is independent and just cooperates with other Baptist churches in their association. Congregational rule is a hallmark of SBC churches.

As for teaching and speaking from the pulpit:
I really think I fall somewhere in the middle of you all on some of these issues. I certainly don’t line up with a lot of the patriarchal teachings of the movement (I’m officially off the Christian Home Educators of Colorado’s mailing list because of some of the stuff in their magazine.), but I do see the benefit of men and women teaching teams for youth. Teenaged boys don’t need women to teach them how to be men. They need godly men to do that, and often, if women are the ones doing it, it’s because the men won’t and that’s an indictment on them in my opinion. I like sex segregated classes for youth. It’s good to ‘hang out’ together, but teenaged girls need the example of an older godly woman and not to be so distracted by boys during Bible Study.

I really think your average complementarian is NOT trying to degrade women. I am a woman. My husband doesn’t mistreat me. He wants our daughter educated just like his sons. He also believes men should be elders. He believes he is the spiritual leader of our home. In fact, he supports me someday going back to school when our kids are older. If we ever lived someplace with a Christian school, our kids would attend and I’d probably work part time.

Please be careful, ladies ,not to lump all of us who might have more conservative views together on this.

Oh, and I have to share this. I can’t remember in which collection of short stories I read this, but L.M. Montgomery, of Anne of Green Gables fame, wrote the funniest story called The Strike at Putney. The ladies in the presbyterian church at Putney wanted to have a woman missionary share her experiences from the pulpit and the elders wouldn’t allow it. It was even during a special service. So the ladies all went on strike: no one cleaned the church, there were no flowers, no anything. Eventually, the men changed their mind. Montgomery was a pastor’s wife, too, so I think that’s why I find the story so funny.

Julie,

I don’t disagree with you about at all. I have conservative views on this issue, also. I don’t believe women can be elders and I do think you are correct about the importance of a man in a boy’s life. But I do think that women CAN and DO teach boys how to be men and a woman’s influence in a boy’s life is a vital part of him becoming a man. I think team-teaching is a great idea. In our church, men do teach the high school age but they are not at all possessing the attitude that I see exhibited in the SBC of late.

I do have a problem with making a ruling that women can’t teach boys over 13. I am assuming these women are not teaching these boys how to be men. I was thinking about subjects like math, science, grammar, or even Bible. Timothy turned out just fine under the tutelage of women. So did King Lemuel.

Julie,

I posted a response to you explaining how personally I know that this faction within the SBC is definitely not representative of everyone, but it included a web link that I forgot to break up and is likely stuck in moderation.

If it’s not online when you check back, please look later for it. There are serious issues in the SBC, but I wanted you to know about them. And I am blessed and encouraged to know that you are in a church where these things and ideas do not impact you every day. That is a wonderful blessing, for in my corner of the world, these ideas and groups have threatened to take it over. That gives me, as well as others who feel like me, a great deal of hope for the future!

I completely, 100% agree with you that women can and should teach boys over 13 grammar, math, whatever. What I do have a problem with is a woman youth pastor whose husband is not involved at all with the kids. If you’re going to do the youth pastor thing, then you at least need a couple willing to pour their lives into those kids and equip their parents to lead them spiritually at home.

And it’s not wrong to drink, it’s just wrong to be drunk so let’s not get outta line with that, ladies

I consider myself egalitarian. I believe that in Christ there is no male or female. I do not buy the perversion of the word of God into Authority/Submission relationships. My husband and I do believe that we are called to submit to and love one another, but neither of us is above the other. I also do not believe it is wrong for women to be pastors or teach men. Many fine Biblical scholars share my position on the last point (and the others).

It breaks my heart to see patriarchs twist the scripture to teach authoritarian, abusive relationships. For example, instead of viewing the pastoral relationship as nurturing and caring, how many times have these uber-patriarchs used the pastoral relationship as a threat or hyper-controlling authority relationship? How many times have they tried to interfere in the relationship between people and their pastors? Notice how they use the same threats and fear in parent-child and husband-wife relationships.

Patriarchy is based on fear. These men sell their theology by preying on the fears of well intended parents. Would that they would read the whole scripture and not only selective verses that support their apparently ever-growing cottage industry. If they did so, they would see that God has given us a spirit of live, power, and as strong mind – not fear and unthinking obedience to tyrannical authority.

Maybe I’m completely ignorant, but as I’m reading through CBMW’s website, seeing whose involved, and discovering very little I disagree with in their statement of beliefs I’m having an identity crisis!

My husband had four wonderful years at SBTS and never once did I feel like I was expected to be like these partriarchy types. Not once. Al Mohler sends his kids to Christian Academy of Louisville and his wife has a housekeeper. Russell Moore attends Ninth and O Baptist church where the variety of people is vast and the preaching is sound and biblical and doesn’t sound anything like what I’m hearing you all say these folks are like. I don’t understand how my personal experiences with these folks (I was involved in the Seminary Wives Institute for a time) don’t square with what I read on here.

I just don’t think you can lump RC Sproul Jr (and the obviously strange things he does) with CJ Mahaney, Al Mohler, Russ Moore. None of their wives wear Regency gowns, and Mrs. Mohler is even the head of the Seminary Wives Institute at Southern, a job I’m sure requires her to be away from home. It’s certainly not the Prairie Muffin picture there.

Is this called cognitive dissonance??

I am complentarian and I don’t feel afraid of my husband or any other man. He doesn’t act “better” than me, he doesn’t wield his authority like some domineering monster. I am a former feminist, a recovering one. Just because men and women have different roles doesn’t mean they are unequal.

This is why I’m saying that patriarchy and complentarian views are not necessarily the same thing.

“Not first to them who were the heads of the church, as it were, but first of all to lowly women did the Lord appear, and the apostles themselves had to go to school, to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to learn that great truth, “The Lord is risen indeed.””

Karen,

I love that quote.

I am thinking about Jesus’ words concerning those who seek authoritative positions for their own selves after the manner of pagans. He said that the last shall be first and the first shall be last.

In that society, the women were one of the last, especially in the religious system. They were not allowed to get very near to the important business that went on in the OT temple system. Women were first when it came to Jesus’ resurrection. Also, women were really the only ones who got it when Jesus repeatedly taught about His death, burial and resurrection. The disciples didn’t get it. The religious leaders didn’t get it. And these were men who had access to the word of God unlike the women who didn’t.

It would seem that any church who pushes women out of all spheres of influence except for the nursery and the kitchen is going to be a church that is greatly lacking in spiritual insight. After all, the same Holy Spirit that lives in a woman, lives in a man and in the same measure.

Karen, I commend you for your courage in sticking with this issue. It might be easier to leave it alone, but someone needs to say something. I’m thankful for your voice.

“chosen to draw his line where none should be. ”

Very well said. You gotta know when you’re rallying around a flag of denim jumpers, you’ve gone way over the edge, and are being factious and divisive. Even if he said that with his tongue in cheek. The intent when framing a discussion that way is purposeful divisiveness and that, dear ones, should not be.

I know very well how tiring it is to speak out on this kind of thing. But thank you for doing it.

You guys sure make me think!

I guess I don’t have a problem with this idea of the Trinity because of passages like Jesus praying in the garden, “Not my will, but yours be done.” completely communicates a submission to the will of the Father. The fact that in Hebrews Jesus is our prophet, priest and king, our only mediator to the Father, also communicates a difference in roles, but not power or equality.

We memorize the Baptist catechism at our house and I love how it describes the Trinity: the same in essence, equal in power and glory. Besides, someday Jesus will triumph over all and every knee will bow and tongue confess that He is Lord. The Father will further exalt Him on high. What a beautiful working together!

You know, I think that there are some fundamental differences between what I’ve labeled the T4G camp (Duncan, Mahaney, Mohler) and the Vision Forum camp (Sproul Jr., Phillips). They may make the same statements, or the VF folks may quote things that the the T4G people say, but the WAY that they APPLY those principles to the life of the Christian woman I think are vastly different.

During our time among all those men and their teachings, I did not encounter ONE prairie muffin. Not ONE.

In regard to the firing of seminary professors, I don’t know all the details, but the purpose of the SEMINARY is to train pastors (elders, overseers) who must be men. I’m not sure it would make a lot of sense for a woman to be teaching a preaching class, for example. Other schools, like music or missions, I would think would be completely open to all who wanted to serve. The many Southern Baptist colleges have plenty of capable, wonderful professors (I had many of them at my school.). No one is trying to fire them.

The behind closed doors thing might be an effort to speak privately about matters FIRST, the Biblical model of confronting someone you disagree with, as opposed to nefarious motives with no accountability I don’t know. Just a thought, I guess.

“It would seem that any church who pushes women out of all spheres of influence except for the nursery and the kitchen is going to be a church that is greatly lacking in spiritual insight. After all, the same Holy Spirit that lives in a woman, lives in a man and in the same measure.”

Oh! I just had a thought (there I go; “Thinking” again), and it involves Matthew 25:14-30.

“15And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. ”

Those who want to exclude so many from the Kingdom (because they hold to the Law — “Lord, I knew you were a hard man” ) or because they only preach their ONE talent of hierarchal patriarchy/authority, etc., may be setting themselves up for a less than joyful experience when confronted by the Living Savior Himself. The other two who had the 5 talents and 2 talents were allowed to enter into joy with the Lord after doing what seemed to be their calling.

Just a random thought, I guess.

Julie,

Reading this, I can’t help thinking of when my husband came home from an elder’s meeting that he was summoned to at our cultic church. He wrote a letter to the elders with some new ideas about how they could better reach the youth there. We offered to participate with them as they had a period of turnover in leadership with the young people, so he wrote to the elders with some ideas that would help. He came home from the board meeting and said that we had to find a new church because they accused him of the sin of the son’s of Korah (“challenging” and “usurping” their authority). I could not believe it, and it took a whole other year of persecution before I would admit it. I loved those men so deeply and I could not believe that they would behave this way. About a year later, I was summoned to my own “star chamber” meeting. I was so grieved that I could not even begin to believe my own husband’s account in favor of my love and esteem of these men, prolonging the problems for a whole year. It broke my heart three times over. So I can understand, deeply and personally, that what I’ve said doesn’t compute with your love and esteem for these men. I appreciate this more than you know, and it is one of Cialdini’s “Weapons of Influence”: Liking. We disbelieve unpleasant things about those we love.

I’m sorry that this is lengthy, but I don’t know how else to point these things out. I want you to understand that I am not just targeting them for some weird reason or that I am making light of the abuses of the patriocentrists. So I’ve included an explanation of the content and links to it when applicable so that it is very clear and so that people can understand my problems with the teachings and not the men themselves. Having believed different views of Scripture than I once did, I can completely relate to being “sure” of my understanding and what it’s like to realize that I haven’t seen all areas with clarity, for that it my desire concerning the Word.

Russell Moore says some interesting things (some of them very good) in that Different By Design lecture (http://www.cbmw.org/Different-by-Design-2007/), but he also said the following:

-Christians are kidding themselves by giving lip service to the word “complementarian”
-Those who don’t hold to the “hard complementarian” view (his) are really egalitarian feminists
-Egalitarian feminists who are Christian are “open theists”

(“Open theism, also known as free will theism, is a philosophical view about the nature of a theistic God’s knowledge, according to which God is incapable, to some extent, of knowing the future actions of a human being with free will.” Wikipedia says that open theists believe that “Although unknowing of the future, God has predictive/anticipatory foreknowledge of the future through his intimate knowledge of each individual. As such, he is able to anticipate the future, yet remains fluid to respond and react to prayer and decisions made either contrary or advantageous to His plan or presuppositions.” I don’t believe anything remotely like this.)

-He says that we are in a war concerning gender and that these views cannot be compromised because we are contending for the heart of the Gospel when we contend for the hard complementarian view of gender
-He says that we need to become a kingdom of freaks so that we look like a unique option to the world. (Not only are we to live like dutiful Christians, but we are to be very obvious and novel so we will catch people’s attention.)

What Bob Allen (Ethics Daily http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=10390) quoted directly from that lecture:

In a 2007 lecture at the CBMW-sponsored Different By Design Conference, Moore said the gender issue is not a matter of “intramural debate” but rather “spiritual warfare.” “When you come to the issue of gender roles, you are dealing with the gospel,” he claimed. “What we have to understand is the gospel itself is patriarchal. It has to do with the fatherhood of God. In dealing with issues of male headship, Moore said, “So often we have acted as though there are more important issues, such as open theism, and so sometimes we will join hands and link arms with those that are with us on the doctrine of God: they just disagree with us on male headship.” “Open theism is not worse than evangelical feminism,” Moore said. “Open theism is simply another way of saying evangelical feminism. We have to understand that what is happening in all of these debates that we have going on is indeed a slippery slope.”

From what he said in this audio lecture, for Russell Moore to want to reconcile or call a truce with me would be collaborating with his enemy in his own, openly declared gender-related spiritual warfare. He’s already made his stance perfectly clear. This has nothing to do with Doug Phillips declaring any laws – this is Moore’s own bold declaration of his “LAWS” of spiritual war. He doesn’t see this as a Matthew 18 issue but that of Galatians chapter 2 (remember Karen’s blog post: http://thatmom.wordpress.com/2007/11/24/slander-libel-and-gossip-oh-my-understanding-the-difference-between-matthew-1815-and-galatians-2/) They are following the rules that they declared, and they have said that I don’t deserve to have an opinion and that it should not be public because this is a war of doctrines not of personal offenses.

You mentioned Al Mohler and your sensing that he was not “off” or condescending to women. Where do you stand on his arguing to have the language about the priesthood of all believers removed from the BF&M? http://www.baptiststandard.com/2000/7_17/pages/bfm_meaning.html I spoke to a member of the Louisville press last week, and he validated that my understanding of Mohler’s efforts concerning this issue were accurate. He agreed that it was understood (as I have heard from others in Louisville) that Mohler rallied to have the phrase removed altogether, but this was the concession that was made and as far as the committee would let it go. Mohler says that the church is infected with autonomous individualism, and this is his solution. http://www.baptiststandard.com/2000/4_17/pages/mohler.html
This is a shift back to the sacerdotalism. They want to make these secondary issues mandatory so that many things that are not included in the BF&M would be added such as these gender beliefs. They deny that these are matters that are open for believers to decide under Romans 14.

About Bruce Ware:

Bob Allen quoted this from the Winter 2003 edition of the Southern Seminary Magazine titled “The Beauty of Biblical Womanhood.” http://www.sbts.edu/resources/Publications/Magazine.aspx

“Eve was tempted and deceived by the serpent and ate the forbidden fruit, and then gave it also to Adam,” Ware wrote. “Eve, that is, sinned first. Despite this fact, God seeks out Adam after their sin to inquire why they were hiding…. God approaches Adam, not Eve, as the one ultimately responsible for the sin.” “Adam only rightly bears the responsibility as the head of the sinful human race, when Eve sinned first, if he is viewed by God … as having authority and ultimate responsibility over the woman,” Ware posited. Ware said “complementarians” understand the Trinity “to present an analogy to the male/female relationship, as God designed it.”

How then does Ware explain Romans 5:14 -15? “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.”

Adam sinned with knowledge, therefore he knew exactly what he was doing, so his willful and fully realized violation of what God told him was the issue. It was about motive and culpability, not who sinned first or about Eve having some strange charm over Adam because the Scripture does not say that. Eve was deceived and didn’t realize that she was actually violating what God had told them. Eve was not held accountable because she didn’t “get it,” but I Timothy 2 says that Adam knew exactly what he was doing – outright and willfully choosing disobedience of God. This is why he was held accountable for sin entering mankind. Eve paid the penalty for her unrealized disobedience, but Adam was held responsible because his sin was greater — that of the will. Now, I have no problem with others interpreting this differently, but I am not okay with being called an arminian open theist for rejecting their interpretation through holding a contrary one. I’ve only disagreed with their interpretation, but they’ve said that my interpretation is sub-Christian. You need only listen to a few of Ware’s audio downloads to discern that those who differ on this foundational teaching are no different to him than those Christians who pray to “Sophia” and want to make the Bible gender neutral. I’d go to my death before I’d advocate such a thing, but I am lumped in with these in Ware’s lectures. (There are plenty on CBMW’s site and there were more on STBS’s site as well, but I don’t know if they are all still online.)

Ware also states this (Eve being morally and historically responsible for the Fall) in the audio “Equal in Essence, Distinct in Roles” http://www.cbmw.org/resources/articles/WareETS2006.pdf

In this audio, he also declares that women are the indirect or derivative image of God. Man was made in God’s image, and what he does not say in this language but is understood through unstated assumption and vague inference is that woman is made in man’s image directly. That’s why she’s only the indirect image of God. Man was made after God’s image, and woman was made after man’s image. That’s the logical conclusion of his statement, but if he came out and said it in this language, people would find it to be too offensive. It openly states the logical progression that they use to support submission, and then they apply that to Jesus when he says in his book that the Father has the preeminence in the Trinity.

From “Tampering with the Trinity,” another Bruce Ware audio on CBMW (http://www.cbmw.org/Conferences/Different-by-Design-Orlando-FL/Tampering-with-the-Trinity-How-the-Trinity-Relates-to-Gender-Roles):

While the early church clearly embraced the full, essential equality of the three Trinitarian Persons, nonetheless, the church has always affirmed likewise the priority of the Father over the Son and the Spirit.

That’s not true at all. Where’s the evidence? He doesn’t present any in the lecture.

From his book, “Father, Son and Holy Spirit”:

[T]he Father has primacy in what is pictured here, for the Spirit is sent from the Father. But even though the Father sends the Spirit, the Spirit is sent not to teach or remind concerning the words of the Father, per se. Rather, the Father sends the Spirit in order for the Spirit to uphold the teaching of the Son. (pg 95)

The Father, then, as supreme authority over even his own Son and the Spirit, is the one to whom we gladly, but humbly, address our prayer. (pg 152)

If you have not read the book, I’ve pulled many problematic quotes from it and posted them on my website. http://www.undermuchgrace.com/index.php?p=1_57_Bruce-Ware-s-Book I am in the process of refuting what I find problematic, but I had to stop because this is so disturbing to me. Jesus is reduced to a woman’s level of authority within a marriage, though all those who advocate this view say otherwise. That’s just what I see. Look at everything under the “Against Subordination” option in the menu.

Colossians 1:18 says that “And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He [Jesus the Son]may have the preeminence.” Why would Scripture clearly say this if this is not what was meant? It isn’t a translation issue either. This chapter explains that all things were made through Him, but that just means that Christ was the part of the Divine Persons who created. It does not say that Jesus had to get permission from the Father first. To use Ware’s language, it was the Son’s role to create, but there is nothing in the creation account or in this passage that says that outside of the incarnation that Jesus was a juvenile Son or without just as much authority as the Father held. Anything else is eisegesis and poor hermeneutics.

This says that in terms of authority, the Father is the President, the Son is the VP and the Holy Spirit is the Speaker of the House, to draw an analogy. But this is considered heresy because it denies the creeds of the church (that the Divine Persons are co-equal) and argues to a degree what Arius argued. ENMR and Spiritwatch Ministries did a big expose’ on this concerning Gwen Shamblin, denouncing this hierarchy in Trinity (though she claimed that Jesus had an origin in time). The Father sits at the top of the totem pole, Jesus is in the middle and the Holy Spirit gets directed by both Jesus and the Father. Aside from that which could easily be understood as a function of incarnation, we are not clearly told that Jesus has always had and continues to have less authority outside of his incarnate state before He made atonement for our sins..

I’ve seen direct correspondence between Cheryl Schatz and Bruce Ware (before he declared her sub-Christian) where he explains that Jesus does not have authority to answer prayer or even to hear prayer. If you pray to Jesus (YHWH God), those prayers don’t go anywhere and they are not heard. Only when you pray to the Father in Jesus’ name does God (YHWH) hear us. This is because the Father has “ultimate” authority in the Trinity and Christ does not. Christ praying to the Father and submitting to His will was an eternal thing for Ware and not a limitation that came about through the kenosis (the emptying described in Phil 2). If Christ had to empty Himself, just what did He empty himself of in the kenosis for his incarnation as a function of being fully man? And when He rose again, was He not then relieved of the functional or what I believe Tertullian called the “economic” Trinity?

Denny Burk, the editor of CBMW’s journal said that Jesus was not even equal to the Father and that he forfeited this because he could not be both equal and become incarnate. It also sounds like Jesus was an actual juvenile son who was growing up like a created man (though he does not say that Jesus was not co-eternal or created Himself). From his address to the 2003 ETS (listen to the audio here: http://strivetoenter.com/wim/2008/01/22/equal-but-different-deteriorates-to-an-unequal-trinity/)

“I would like to propose an interpretation that allows for equality with God to be a reality that is distinct from the form of God. What I mean is that although Jesus existed in the form of God, He did not want to grasp after being equal with God… That is, although He was in His essence, God, he did not want to become equal with God in every respect… The form of God is something that Jesus possesses by virtue of His deity while the equality with God is not… In His pre-existent, Trinitarian fellowship with the Father, Jesus decided not to go after equality, but to go after incarnation.”

Where is that written in the Bible?

And if there is no interest in patriocentrism at SBTS, why did they hire Randy Stinson, a Family Integrated Church specialist? http://www.visionforumministries.org/issues/cross_examination/southern_baptist_seminary_to_c.aspx
Stinson is called an FIC specialist on the SBTS website and countless other places when you put his name in a search engine.

As far as Vision Forum perverting what Moore and Ware have written and stated, to their credit, I never heard Doug Phillips say that Jesus does not have the authority to answer prayer, women are the indirect image of God, sin entered mankind through Eve, or that Jesus has less authority than the Father. Vision Forum might follow a more rigid view of performance standards and moral imperatives for women than Ware, Moore, Mohler or Burk; but in terms of teachings about theology, VF certainly has not perverted anything. They’ve never taken the foundational theology supporting a low view of women and Christ to the extremes that these SBTS/CBMW have done, and that, at least, is to Doug Phillips’ credit. If Phillips had said this or any other of the patriocentrists have said this, then I would be more than willing to expose it. But VF doesn’t go that far, but Ware does. Moore quotes him as do others affiliated with both CBMW and ETS. And Phillips quotes Moore.

So I am confused when you talk about truce and reconciliation. I believe that this is an doctrinal war that I did not declare because I believe that these are intramural issues. According to their stance, there is nothing that can be reconciled between their ideas and mine because they are right and they believe that I’m seriously compromising the character and image of God through my gender stance (which is functionally not all that different than theirs.) The only personal thing to reconcile comes up if Ware or Moore were responsible for attempting to squelch my opinion or for arranging for me my scholarship to be wrongly denounced.

Clarification of above:

Now that this has posted, I noted a few things that were muddy.

I wrote Jesus is reduced to a woman’s level of authority within a marriage, though all those who advocate this view say otherwise. That’s just what I see.

Dr. Ware and some of these others at CBMW reduce Jesus to a level of authority like unto that of a woman under a husband in an hierarchical marriage. What I meant to say more clearly is that it seems likely that these men have, over time, altered their view of the Trinity to support their gender arguments. (I’ve not doubt that this happened, over time. This likely created cognitive dissonance for them in their comparisons of the Trinty to marriage because it isn’t a direct and “cut and dry” relationship between these concepts. They knew what they wanted to say about gender and they knew that there were similarities in the analogous comparisons between these examples. But it isn’t a perfect fit. So, over time –as this was not part of CBMW’s original teaching so far as I know — their Trintarian views eventually shifted to be more in sync with their gender concepts.

I know well that Bruce Ware staunchly denies that he recapitulated his view of Trinity to fit and support his view of gender roles. So he is the “they who say otherwise” in the preceding post that I wrote. Bruce Ware denies that he acquiesced to change his Trinity views, and I believe that he believes that he is being honest. But I think that it was so conveinent to make the transition that this is likely what happened. This is pure conjecture on my part, but I believe it to be a reasonable thing to consider. And I don’t believe that Dr. Ware is being dishonest with anyone, and if he has accomodated the gender arguments by altering his view of the Trinity, I don’t think it was intentional.

If a kid has his hand in a cookie jar and then says that he doesn’t like cookies and doesn’t eat them, he can say that all he wants. His hand is still in the cookie jar. They repeat much about what they say they believe, but I argue that a good part of what they argue actually argues the antithesis of what they claim. I cant say with forensic assurance that any cookies were eaten…

That’s what it seems like to me. I just see way too much explanation and disclaimers being thrown around to have a great deal of confidence in what Bruce Ware claims when he says things that are contradictory (the Father’s ultimate does not equate to the Son’s lesser than ultimate ).

So there’s my long winded clarification…

Karen,

Thanks for the invitation to continue to post info here. Someone sent me a link to another audio featuring Russell Moore (along with Randy Stinson, CJ Mahaney and Mark Devers) that apparently was being discussed on the CCC Forum. It’s dated May 1, 2007 and contains some of the identical info that Moore presented in that Dif by Design, Feb 07 conference I mentioned before.

Just add www. ~
resources.christianity.com/details/mrki/20070501/d2de20cd-e931-4593-9ba8-71907cc50ce0.aspx

Again, this was a royal patriocentric fellowship of fallacy to me. I wish I had Dave Letterman’s blink counter for everytime someone used “Biblical” as a modifier. It is used so much (speaking to an audience that already knows that they are talking about and desirous things Biblical) and buzz phrases that they loose contexual meaning. I find it frustrating because they talk at length but much of what they say lacks meaning. The other thing that was frustrating was, again, this view that anyone who does not agree with CBMW on all points wants to make all gender references to God in the Bible either gender neutral or female.

Talk about “grand sweeps of revelation” that are not revelation but are outright propaganda distortions of steriotyping, scapegoating and argumentum ad hitlerum. I grew up in the Assemblies of God, and I never heard anyone say that it was appropriate for women’s roles and men’s roles to be interchanable. They did not tolerate women being men or men being women, they just thought women could be ordained (but I never saw a female senior pastor in 20 years), teach or preach both genders, serve as voting elders (at one phase, we only had about 6 families who regularly attended, so we didn’t have many options), and they could hold leadership postitions or titles. I know that my former church family in the AoG would NEVER, NEVER, EVER entertain changing gender pronouns or refer to God as a woman. They never taught or believed that “roles” that were gender dependent were interchangable and that was not a function of viewing both genders as equal. There was definitely no gender ambiguity ever. I’ve seen none in the Pentecostal/Charismatic churches I’ve visited or attended since I left the AoG, save for the effeminate men that gravitate towards shepherding and patriocentrism.

There was also a crashing/rolling/flying down a slipperly slope statement in that audio that Moore makes. He connected Nicole Simpson’s murder to gender roles to what he called hypermasculinity to abuse of women to gender ambiguity. What is gender ambiguous about hypermasculinity and those who abuse women physically? (I’ve actually seen quite the opposite in my working relationships with homosexual men and women in nursing.)

Moore says:I think that hierarchy is what Lordship means. I think that without hierarchy, you don’t have the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And so patriarchy is offensive in this culture – yes it is – but it’s offensive for all the right reasons. Because what we have is not a choice between patriarchy and gender egalitarianism, that doesn’t exist. What you see out there in the culture is a pagan patriarchy. You have men who are predatory who are abusing and mistreating women as sexual objects and in all kinds of other ways. You know, right now, on Fox Television, there’s the discussion of having a show with OJ Simpson saying “If I did it” meaning killing my ex-wife: “This is how I would have done it.” That’s a very brazen example of something we see all the time where you have, for instance, Sharon Stone, an actress, speaking to young girls saying that in order to prevent date rape, have oral sex with your boyfriends to prevent that kind of aggression.

Well, you have aggressive men, hyper-masculinity is dangerous. The Bible takes masculinity and channels it in this way. When you loose those channels, when you loose sexual differentiation, then you are going to have the hurt of women.

Question from Devers: So then, why is it that you don’t like word “complementarian”?) noted at time mark 38:25

Moore: Because complimentarianism doesn’t say much more than the fact that you have different roles. Everyone agrees that you have different roles, it’s just on what basis do you have those different roles? So an egalitarian would say “Yeah, I am a complementarian, too. It’s just on the basis of depths (or gifts? I cannot tell from the recording. — It sounds as if he said “GEPTHS.” )

I think that we need to say instead, “No you have headship.” That’s the key issue. It’s patriarchy. It’s a headship that reflects the headship, the Fatherhood of God, and this is what it looks like. You have to then define what headship looks like.

Lordship is hierarchy? The Gospel of Jesus Christ is hierarchy dependent? What????

Moore: That there’s no distinction of roles and instead there is this false equality.

That’s not remotely true of what anyone thought or believed in the AoG. There are plenty of role distinctions, but they let women teach and be elders. Other than that, when I was growing up in the ’70s and ’80s, I never heard anyone promote gender role ambiguity. It was not a huge conspiracy against the Word but a different interpretation of certain Scriptures. Women can teach and be elders, and this doesn’t mean that the denomination or church encouraged women to be men by opening these “roles” to women. Denying them never occured to them. (They didn’t decide that in 1967 that they would give women those liberties because of changes in society. This was a woman’s liberty from the founding of the denomination. Gender was never a focus, but this does not equate to gender ambiguity.)

Moore: Why do pastors need to listen?)
Because most of the people in the churches are feminists and most of the people in our churches are in same sex marriages right now, they just don’t realize it. Because you have people who have marriages that in which you do not have male headship.

(And I was accused of “guilt by association”??? and painting Bruce Ware out to be pro-slavery???) Moore is “slippery” because half of nearly every paragraph, I completely agree with. Then he mixes a solid and cogent idea in with something just outright fallacious based on my own beliefs or my knowledge of my former, egalitarian denomination.

….

Devers: So You’re saying to mean evangelical, PCUSA church where the Gospel is preached and there are women elders, they cannot have a fruitful discipleship program.

Stinson: I’m not saying that there will be no fruit at all, I’m saying that their efforts in discipleship will be undermined because there are no generic people and consequently people so there are no generic Christians. You are either a male Christian or a female Christian and you’re going to live out the Christian life differently in a different context based that – based on the particular roles that the Bible has prescribed. And so discipleship is impacted. The structure of the home is impacted. The structure of the church is impacted. How we worship is impacted. Bible translation issues are impacted and so every aspect of the Christian life is impacted with how we in regard to Word language. Do we call God mother…

[Pastors] don’t see [gender] as related to the Gospel and the center of their ministries.

This is post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy. It’s just looney. AoG grants women the liberty to be elders and somehow that means they want to make pronouns that refer to God in the Bible all feminine? What????? Bruce Ware mentions this all the time in his audios, more oft then not.
….

Moore: And you have husbands who think that headship means “Woman, get me my chips.” That’s not what Biblical headship is about, and so it is distorted and that means you have danger to the Gospel itself.

Danger to the Gospel? Huh? Now this was in a conversation format, so it was not like he was delivering a well planned sermon. So what’s the listener to think? Man can endanger the Gospel? This is not reformed theology, and if someone thinks that they are able to thwart and frustrate God, then it is not possible to endanger the Gospel. What does “danger to the Gospel itself” mean? Is this like Stacy McD’s concept of religious genocide (what was done to the FLDS by the govt). I don’t want to gnit pick, but the imagery of this language is much like fear mongering to me and over something that I believe these men created themselves. Gender is a challenge, but the conspiracies that have been created to counter this are so overkill that they get outright bizarre to me. And if the reader here doesn’t agree with my assessment, then they don’t agree. That’s fine. It’s not a big deal, but it is a big deal to Moore.

Moore: It’s not just the publication of curricula. It’s about men who are mentoring and discipling younger men, wives such as your wife, CJ, and daughter, who are doing this and talking about this so it’s not just theory but you have younger men who are actually in your home seeing “This is how you’re making a decision in a marriage. This is how you discipline children.” That has to be an essential part of what’s going on in every local church with pastors who are saying to young men, “Listen. No sir. That is not what you’re going to do. I’m going to correct you on this and show you a better way.”

Sorry, but this sounds just like shepherding and sacerdotalism. My husband has a saying that he heard from his father: “Never interfere with a father and his children.” Or is that more feminist egalitarian open theism I picked up from our degraded culture? Were people raised by wolves and had no parents? Am I that out of touch with the world? Do people really need that much supervision? I guess that I always observed this to be an organic process and what I saw in my cultic church was a formalization of the process which turned it into an Orwellian nightmare. Mahaney is deep into shepherding and discipelship theology and submission teachings (and he creeps me out on this audio because he is so sychophantic). It’s a nice intention to say that you want to try this to help mentor, but it quickly degenerates into authoritarian nightmare.
……..

Dever: [When teaching about the Fall] It’s a satanic attempt to undermine authority to teach people made in God’s image that you cannot both be guided and lead by an authority and loved at the same time.

I dont’ believe and no one that I ever met in the AoG ever thought that being guided and lead by an authority meant or prevented simultaneous love. This is just the most outrageous statement that makes no sense and draws a false dichotomy to force a view. The best leading and guiding comes from a loving authority!!!!! That’s what makes and keeps them righteous and compassionate. But Dever tells his congregation that egalitarians cannot conceive of submission to an authority or the governance of an authority as a function or related to or a demonstration of love. That’s a slap in the face to anyone outside of their camp.

Alright, I’m giving up on ranting about this one now!

Oh, Karen,

I could understand saying something like this as a joke or as a biting comment in response to something (like my husband’s biting comment to me right after Moore said this). But this is something that Moore says quite seriously as a main point and in response to a specific and directed question. And to make it even more significant, Moore actually talks at some point about how offensive it is to him when pastors joke about gender steriotypes. He said that it was inappropriate to say things like “the old ball and chain” or “I only take care of the important things like whether or not we should invade Iraq and whether we should raise minimum wage while she does the unimportant stuff like paying the morgage and deciding where our children go to school.” He says that’s a sign of a deeply corrupt church life when pastors joke about these kind of issues.

So not only do you have to believe like them, you have to have their same form of communicating, too? I got the sense that this was not an issue of irreverence or being too casual in the pulpit and in worship. The point was that you can’t even make lighthearted jokes because gender is central to the Gospel message — that this is like making fun of the Blood of Jesus or something.

He later talks about how Satan hates marriage and attacks it because he hates the icons that represent the Church Bride’s relationship with Jesus. (Another example of a paradoxical statement where half of what he says is solid and good. I also agree that Satan hates marriage because of the image of God and the analogy that we have of Chris’s redemption of us through faith and not through works. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.) But these men have made a sacred cow out of gender to the point that living out their idea of gender roles has become a sacrament. Anything gender related confers some kind of grace or something and relates directly to God’s image. I have an image of Puritanism and rigid people who view — well — just see everything as some kind of sacrament through which a work communicates saving grace on the inward man of whoever follows this.

But Moore sees nothing wrong with saying people are in same sex marriages and don’t know it. (I’m sure that he only considers strong-willed women when he says this, but as you pointed out, Karen, my husband also made a snide comment about the effeminate mannerisms of so many of these patriocentric men that we’ve met in many different churches.)

There are a couple of men on that “Return of the Daughters” video that act so gender ambiguous and say some bizarre things (out of context would make me suspect pedophilia) that I would not have been surprised if Richard Chamberlain walked into frame and kissed one of them full on the mouth. (And we’re supposed to listen to THEIR views on gender?) And what’s sad is that they have no clue how effeminate they seem to people outside of their influence and how very similar their own behavior is to homosexual men in real life. I transcribed one section out of the extras on courtship and was going to post it on my blog because of how bizarre it was (it sounded nearly identical to prose of the front page of the NAMBLA website), but I couldn’t do post it because it did sound so terrible. They are so far beyond culturally irrelevant that they’ve become culturally relevant in a disturbing way. And they either seem cluless about it or they consider people’s adverse reactions to them as persecusion that validates to them that they are riddiculed for Christ, not because of their own personal inappropriateness.

“As far as I am concerned, some of the most effeminate men I have known have been on the patriocentric end of the scale.”

Karen,

You can say that again. That is why I find all this macho manly-man patrio talk so funny.

It is really hard to sit quiet and be falsely accused of all sorts of things when it comes from such effeminate sounding voices.

We are all in same sex marriages because we don’t do marriage the way they do it? That is a hoot.

“What happens often to – to older men, to fathers, is that they only – they only have relationships with other older men in the church. Well what’s that all about?”

That is called “normal”.

So, if some older man starts hanging around with 13 year old boys, then that would be ???????

There was a guidance counselor from my high school that had a lot of young teenage boys as his friends. They would hang out with him and do things together. Turns out this man was….you guessed it…..a pedophile.

Where else is this man/boy stuff being taught?

This seems to go totally against the whole dogma about children never being under anyone else’s influence except for the father’s.

“same sex marriage”

So, would that mean that the husband is a male lesbian?

Is this a marriage of two females? Two males? Or did each spouse have a sex change and become the opposite sex?

I just don’t get it. I am embarrassed for the person who said this.

So, like what about Peter’s father? Where did he fit into the picture?

The first time I saw the You Tube videos with Doug Phillips group father/daughter’s getaway and the daughter’s shaving their daddies, a big red bell rang in my head. I actually thought it was a joke. And gasped when I saw that it was not and they all think this is a normal thing. Weird, weird, weird.

Then I went to VF blog and skimming back through their archives came across an entry for their father/daughter banquets and the subtitles given to the photos were really, really suggestive. Suggestive of love that is reserved for a husband and wife. Tacky. Creepy. Ick. These people need a shake. The whole thing is offensive and creepy. What happened to just Jesus? My husband and I were talking about this today. Where is Christ in all this?

Speaking of drinking, I wonder how many home school grads from radical families turn to substance abuse or other frowned upon behaviors to deal with the mental and spiritual issues arising from the spiritual abuse they experienced during their youth?

Another thought…

I’m not a big Richard Foster fan, but my friend Dr. George Kudolo (UT faculty in San Antonio who also left a cultic church who is quoted in Blue’s spiritual abuse book) recommended Foster’s book about Sex, Money and Power as another source of healing to help make some sense of my experience. For these public men of notariaty who become corrupt, Foster basically believes that we will always see all these themes in their lives and work.

The power motive is pretty obvious in the authoritarianism and the blatant rejection of accountability in patriocentricity. Money is major. I’ve heard several people now suggest to me privately that the pats are speaking out in support of the FLDS because such a large amount of their sales come from the Mormons and the Unification Church as well. To alienate these people would be like biting the hand that feeds them. Some have also made this observation and speculation about the Constitution Party and why Howard Phillips essentially catered to Mormon groups in the controvertial admittance of a particular state. (The issues concerned compromise of Howard’s prior pro-life stand.) They can’t afford to offend the Mormons, because their financial support base among Christians is not sufficient (particularly not for VF now that it is no longer bank rolled by Jim Leininger). Always follow the money. (Wouldn’t it be instructive to see the demographics of the belief systems of those who purchase patriocentric literature?

Then we have this troubling sex issue. I hope and pray that young people are not being sexually abused physically, but we certainly see a high degree of what the addictions literature considers to be emotional, spiritual and gender-related nonsexual incest. (The using of family members inappropriately to meet another’s needs, at the expense of the family member being abused through lack of health boundaries.) And Karen said above, there is so much focus on gender specifics and gender concerns, as if this is the primary concern of Christian living. It is an obsession in patriarchy.

It’s human nature to wrestle with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, but the Word says that church leadership should be innocent of major violations in these areas in addition to loving, Christlike character. Instead, in patriocentricity, we see obsession with gender (reflective of sexual impropriety), lust for money, lust for voyerism/exhibitionism, pride as resistance of accountability, and personal characters/behavior that is just very problematic (“let the non-elect die in the streets and be aborted” per Wilson, the elitist attitudes of the gender agenda, the “movement homeschoolers” against the “big tent pragamatists”, the RC Jrs, the plagairists, the sue happy thugs and the pats who don’t pay their bills).

Scott Brown’s son in law is the son of a very well-known and conservative Christian family. I hardly think the Bradrick’s were slouches nor do I believe they left Peter like a reed blowing in the wind when it comes to doctrine and mentoring.

Why is it that the daughter’s family are always the ones who are “fixing” and “mentoring” and bring up to speed the future son in law? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? It seems that patriarchy is just a thing that they talk about but in real life do not come near to practicing.

Karen you are so RIGHT about the leave and cleave principle. I truly feel sorry for some of these young men who get stuck in one of this quagmires. Sheesh! Everything they do will be examined, corrected and they will be cuckolded and suckled into doing things the future bride’s family’s way.

Yuck.

I just watched the 48 Hours special on Polygamy and the more I see concerning the FLDS, the more it confirms to me that there is very little difference between hyper-patriarchy and the FLDS. Really.

Anyone catch the pictures of Warren Jeffs, the revered High prophet, priest and king of the FLDS, necking with his 12 year old wife? Pretty sick. Actually, downright nauseating. Oh, but the FLDS keeps on telling us that there is no underage marriage going on in spite of the Bishop’s book on marriages and now these pictures. The FLDS lawyer and another male member wouldn’t even look at the Bishop’s papers or pictures of Jeffs. I guess ignorance is bliss? Does anyone know how many wives the FLDS lawyer has since he is a member of this cult? I don’t take anything he has to say seriously, especially after seeing how he so adeptly evades the real questions in true Bill Clinton fashion.

A picture of Jeffs hangs in almost every ROOM of the FLDS compound in El Dorado. How many pedophile’s pictures do you have adorning the walls of your home? Jeffs has about 50 plus wives. His uncles and other male relatives have a lot, too. And when one of these old perverts die, the wives are transferred to sons and other male relatives.

As Tim Bayly once said to me “a rose by any other name is still a rose”…..that was in response to my defense against his false accusations when he accused me of being an evil feminist usurper and heretic.

Well, back at the patrios. A rose by any other name is still a rose. Talk about a white-washing! Ha! Somehow I think that their bad logic only works one way but doesn’t apply to them when the shoe REALLY fits.

No wonder they are so very afraid about the government coming for them next. They don’t pass the visual “duck” test (walks, talks, dresses, etc like a duck) and I am quite sure that when they are out in public, people size them up as Mormons or think they are some odd cult. They have deceived themselves into thinking that they are in the right and everyone else is part of the white-washed feminist contingent.

Sorry. We still follow God. We read our Bibles. We will not be side-tracked by pagan practices dressed up in a “nice” “biblical” package.

I have started such a thing. It really is eye-opening to see all the similarities.

Anyone remember Rivendell? A bunch of patriarchalists hunkering down in their own little “community”. Just another one of those uncanny likenesses.

So much for going OUT inTO the world and making disciples of ALL men. We just hunker down in our own little cloisters and only stay around like-minded people so that we and our children won’t become polluted by all the other luke-warm Christians (those who don’t believe as they do) and worldlings.

I am always amazed at how these people leave churches because everyone around them is immature or spiritually lacking. Then they go to a home group made up of the spiritually “mature”.

Who in the world are they helping by doing THAT? The Church, God’s Bride? No. They are serving themselves and their own agendas. If they really cared about these things, they would stay and be salt and light and servants to God’s Holy Bride.

“Where is Christ in all this?”

I couldn’t agree with you more, Anne.

I don’t know what happened to Phil Lancaster’s Rivendell. I do know that there was some huge split and people lost money big time. As far as I know, there is no place where the facts are put forth. Just nebulous and cryptic statements.

http://www.letslearntheology.com/content/view/54/50/

Here is an article from Phil Lancaster. Doctrinal unity and biblical church authority at Rivendell? Not so much. I don’t know when this community fell apart but it wasn’t much after this article was written.

It looks like the cart was put before the horse or someone spoke much too soon, just like Y2K:

“Our new church is a better example of how a church ought to be started (at least on the points under discussion). We began under the oversight of the elders of another local church. Another man and myself were recognized as elders by the overseeing church and the churches with whom they are affiliated, and we became, in effect, both elders and church planters here (both of us had been ordained as elders in previous churches). So from the start this new church has the benefit of clearly-defined biblical church authority. (A third man, who also has been a pastor before, is being added to our number.)

Also, we started with a clear standard of doctrine upon which we were agreed, so that we would not be surprised down the road by differences. This church will not be like the one I started in St. Louis. Here we are in agreement to teach and uphold a certain standard of doctrine for the church. Our unity will be based, in this case, not on toleration of differences but upon a mutual agreement about the standards we will uphold.

It is refreshing to once again be able to function fully in the office to which I was first called 24 years ago. There is such liberty within the structure of a plurality of elders. Our 20 families are also benefiting from the leadership of men who know they have the authority and responsibility to speak and act as shepherds. We are having a rich ministry of discipleship, peacemaking, and teaching. Everybody is better off when we do things God’s way rather than in ways that seem expedient.

Now I realize that we are in a unique position, having two and now three men who have been elders before immediately available to lead in a new church. Lacking this provision, this church would have to have remained under the oversight of the “mother church” until elders could be put in place here. But I believe that any new group that seeks to honor the principle of biblical authority from the start, one way or another, will be blessed on their way.

ADVICE TO MY OLD CHURCH

I have shared my journey in a spirit of openness so that you can benefit from my mistakes and hopefully make better choices yourselves. My aim is not in any way to disparage the church in Missouri. Again, I believe that any deficiencies there are largely my responsibility, and I grieve for what my inexperience and foolishness may have done to hinder the church. I love my brothers and sisters there and wish them God’s blessings.

What would I advise a church in their position to do at this point?

First, I would urge them immediately to clarify their doctrinal position. Do they want to be tolerant of doctrinal differences? Then spell it out and take a stand for toleration and openness. Do they want to adopt one position over another in key doctrinal areas? Then spell it out and make clear what the position of the church will be. There can be no unity apart from agreement, either agreement on the specific points of doctrine, or agreement to allow diversity of opinion.

Second, I would urge them immediately to ask the elders of a sister congregation to accept ultimate oversight of the flock, working through those who are local leaders. This would be a step of humility and trust in God to work good through those the Holy Spirit has set apart to the office of church leadership. It would run contrary to the pattern to which they have been accustomed. But it would show a commitment to principle over expediency that I believe God would be pleased to bless.

There, for what it is worth, is my advice to my dear friends. I’ve learned most of what is valuable through mistakes I have made and I’m sure I haven’t stopped learning. May the Lord help us all to discern His plan for His church, and may He grant us the wisdom to put it into practice in the diverse circumstances we face.

Author: Philip Lancaster”

http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=004PqE

Another informative article on Rivendell.

Still can’t find anything AFTER the break up.

I wrote :
“This patriarchy business is about separation not about personal holiness. ”

Karen,
Since you pulled out that statement, I wanted to clarify…

I’ve said this multiple times concerning other topics but I wanted to restate so here. I believe that earnest, true believers in patriocentricity want to be holy for the right reasons, but along the way because of the traditions of men and the turn towards legalism, patriocentricity becomes a bureaucratic monster that deceives. The monster of the ideology deceives the true believer into thinking that they are pursuing personal holiness, but what actually comes about is separation from the Body and from the Spirit. Because there is so much of man and mans laws woven into patriarchy, sin makes use of those laws to have us do what we would not do because we are not following the Spirit in liberty, and we get stuck in that body of death through the law.

Hallelujah, this has really been at work in me and I keep thinking of Romans 1 and 7 today, partly because of the issue of gender and partly because of the ever fascinating topic of how we can be in sin and not realize it. We get justified and redeemed, and then we start this long, hard process of working out our salvation in fear and trembling and it’s awful to realize how dark our hearts really are. But in light of what has been said on this topic, I wanted to kind of remind myself and everybody else that we know that if we’ve professed faith in Christ that he is working the truth in us.

What I think that both Joseph told his brothers and what Paul teaches in Romans is an evangelical view of sin, but the Spirit uses that sin, even our own sins, for His eventual glory that is seen through us and worked into us. Sins, when we are delivered from them reveal God’s glory. That is why we should resist shame which tricks us into covering up our insufficiencies in ourselves, but these are really the points at which God shows forth His greatest glory, revealed in us through Christ’s fulfillment of the Law as we walk after the Spirit. But even with this issue and particular “thread” in patriocentricity, God is at work in all of us as the Spirit leads and guides us into all truth and until we come together in the unity of the faith. I believe that we all desire unity in the Body as well, but we are just in different places with different interpretations.

May all who read this agree in prayer that God will be glorified through all this debate as He works these things into us, bringing both sides of the “great divide” together in unity in Christ and in faith. That’s the bottom line and the bigger picture, though it does not often get mentioned when things get more provocative.

I’ve been long pondering the “plight” of us while we are both ordained and stuck in this mortal coil, always about the process of mortifying (putting to death) our sin nature. Romans 7:18 says that sin is at work in us, and both chs 1 and 7 talk about the deceptive nature of sin. First we are blind to what we are doing and our perspective is such that we do not see our sin as sin. Second, we actually believe that we are working righteousness through our sin, really like a two fold purpose that sin desires (like an evil force and function of its own – like the bureaucratic monster of patriarchy). We are “yoked by the evil” within us which somehow, despite our good intentions, and sin gets us to do the opposite of what we desire. (7:18-21).

We’re blind in our sin and we accomplish the opposite of what we desire in our sin (in that part of us that has not yet been put to death and made alive in Christ Jesus). Someone wrote to me a couple of weeks ago and asked if I could explain how the depression in spiritual abuse shuts down your critical thinking (like a lobotomy) because they were sure they were in the right when they were part of the patriarchy movement. She was blind to any other perspective and wondered if it was a brain issue. I explained the physiology, but I neglected this about the nature of sin. When we are in it, we can’t see it. That is part of what it does – the part of us at enmity with God turns away from Him and from the truth.

Which brings me back to chapter 1, with all the same message that sin turns us away from God. A part of us realizes and turns from God’s holiness (1:21) , and in so doing, our foolish hearts become darkened and cannot see. On some level, the turning away from God makes us blind and foolishness seems like wisdom. Turning towards ourselves toward the seeming virtues and wisdom of the creature, we turn away from the creator in our idolatry. But note that like turns to like. (I got this from theologians and did not make it up myself, but that said, it may or may not be accurate.) Man turns to man to glorify himself instead of God.

God then gives them up unto the object of their desire, just as He does in the Old Testament, almost always with an ironic flare. Here we have a picture of what the idolatry of worshiping self becomes. Some theologians say that this chapter bears out the striking similarities between the idolatry of worshiping the creature and homosexuality. Not to say that homosexuality is always the outcome of idolatry of man, but rather that they are parallel because like turns to like for glory and worship and gratification. They both bring wrath and they both cause God to give man engaging in idolatry or homosexuality over to the object of their desires, forsaking what they should rightly desire. Both involve the madness of believing self to be right in this blind deception of sin.

Consider patriarchy and the parallels inherent in it. If you believe as I do (but don’t have to!), you see woman as God’s precious gift to man as his “ezer” and help, a show of Gods help and care of us to the man. Through patriarchy and the clever, subtle deceptions in it, the truth becomes more obscure as man turns away from SOME of the natural use of the woman. Through all this role business that must meet certain criteria, I believe that man denies many of the natural uses that God intended for wives and mothers and sisters to provide for them. Some of this is true for women also, as for the system of patriarchy to distort one side of the balance, the other is affected. It is actually through all of this role business that “natural use” becomes obscure. Provided that this is true, say that God “gives men over” to this desire for more power and more worship of men and the “roles of men” until their bellies are so full of it that it comes out their nostrils (actually from some wording in the OT somewhere that I don’t readily recall). As God does with idolatry (“You want a king? Oh, I’ll give you a doozy of a king.), he delivers the patriarchal men over to the lust of their hearts to see men worshiped as demi-gods at the expense of turning away from (non-sexual) use of their wives.

What results? Well, we know that Paul is talking primarily about physical misuse here, but just think of it in terms of roles and of lust for power and the pride of life rather than physical lust. What is the fruit of this unnatural affection? Works of the flesh (1:29-30). There are quite a few characteristics in there that describe patriarchy to a T. Verse 31: Which men, though they knew the Law of God, how that they which commit such things are worthy of death, yet not only do the same, but also favor them that do them. Verse 2:1 says that in condemning these others, you actually condemn yourself because you do the same things. In verse 2:7, to those who seek glory through patience in well doing (the motive is seeking God’s glory in patience, not the well doing by focus on works) will be rewarded according to those works. But those who are CONTENTIOUS and disobey the truth and obey sin will receive God’s wrath per verse 8. The idolatry will produce contentiousness and seeking God’s glory (not man’s glory or glory for man’s vain and empty philosophies) will be rewarded in Christ.

Anyway, it’s funny that the homosexuality thing enters in here, as I don’t think God has ever changed over time because the Word says that He never does. Is God giving the patriarchs over to their lust for power over women and lust for power for men to the point that they have started to literally look and act like homosexuals? I think that you could make a case for this. In desiring to see men be godly men and women be godly women to the glory of God, their own idolatry of the gender and role of man gets the better of them. We see all this dressing up and pageantry. We hear all this weird emotion and syntax and maudlin language.

I’ve heard more people talk in private about how effeminate so many of the leaders in all different areas of patriocentricity really are. I think that it’s time to start shouting it from the rooftops. My husband and I used to comment about our elders at the cultic church being such busy bodies that they acted like women by means of their interests and things that occupied their time. Even that was inappropriate and uncomfortable for us, and they were not effeminate. But in patriocentricity, there are men that are so wound up about gender, and some literally act and talk like male homosexuals. Could that be God making further fools of them? I believe there is some reason in this, based on Romans 1.

Well if it is, Heavenly Father, let this be a working of God’s glory in all of us on both sides of the great homeschooling divide. Let this man turning to glorify the roles and authority of men become a turning to God in repentence. If I am blind in some sin in this, I know that the Spirit who leads and guides us into all truth, reveals the truth to us in our inner man and sets us free indeed will reveal my sin to me in His perfect timing, and I will repent. That is my faith in God through His mighty promises to me and to the Body in the Word. May my heart condemn me if God is greater than my heart in this area, and I have the utmost faith in Him that He will as I pray constantly that I am careful in my standing, lest I fall. I pray for that all the time. But let the truth be revealed, Lord, and deliver us from this body of death for Your Glory alone. In the mighty, all-powerful name of Jesus — the full authority of YHWH. Hosannah! Amen, amen and amen.

Julie wrote: What I don’t understand is how my husband, after spending 4 years under many of these men on a daily basis, did not come away with any of these bizarre tendencies you’re describing. He’s also not some he-man woman hater, either.

Where do I fit????

Julie,

I speculate your husband didn’t come away from the seminary with these ideas because he was there to serve God and not man. And this stuff has been escalating. These teachings have not been at the forefront of these men’s ministries, nor have they always been a speaking point. It’s been growing. Part of what I’ve been doing is pulling the appealing dressings off the teachings to elucidate the core and foundational ideas, and this is where I have arrived, with great disappointment and grief. I honestly set out expecting find that it was the patrios that were perverting things, but that is very regretfully not where I arrived.

What you describe is exactly how I think most of us feel. I’ve been plugging along all my life aspiring to live the most wholehearted and Christ-honoring life and never heard this stuff. There are those of us who know that this is a faction that does not represent us nor do we believe that they represent the whole of the church. I once attended an SBC church for a few months about 18 years ago, but though I am not part of the denomination, I have always felt deep kinship with all those in the Baptist deominations. We are all members of one another, and I feel like, always sharing the same fundamentals, that a major landmark on the spiritual horizon has disappeared for me.

I think that we’re all asking this same question and saying the same thing. “We don’t believe the same things about the gender issues.” and “Where do we fit?”

I never thought I would live to realize anything like this — ever. It’s deeply disconcerting, and I feel somewhat that I’ve been exiled to a place that I don’t belong in the church by these folks or that I do need to run off in exile. In protest, resistance and in obedience to what I earnestly believe to be right and true, I’m standing firm as long as God gives me the ability to do so.

That is very much my question also… “Where to do I fit?”

I fit with top-notch SBC pastors like Wade Burleson. I fit here on thatmom.

Anne,

” About 15 years ago I was at a wedding with patrios leanings. I felt embarrassed when during the ceremony the father made a big deal about how his daughter was a virgin and blah, blah, blah. She was a blushing bride, for all the wrong reasons.

In the previous week the bride’s mother had pulled out some lingerie to show me, that the father gave the daughter. It had been purchased by the father and was a gift for the wedding night. ”

EGADS!!!!

How truly disturbing. And for a woman to think such behavior is okay and then to justify it????

Of course it is okay for the new bride to have sex with her new husband and why would it matter if her father thinks so or not? As if he [the father] has anything to say about it?

Honestly. The focus on virginity and the making a big spectacle out of it to the embarrassment of the female reminds me of a cult.

The whole lingerie thing would have given me the willies, too. Fathers don’t give their daughters nighties. That should be on a t-shirt.

The obsession with sex goes right along with common cult behavior: men wanting power, men wanting sex, men in control. It is discusting and they seem to be completely blind to their obsession and obviously in deep denial of their cult-like qualities and “vision”.