When Bad People Need A Crutch

106 thoughts on “When Bad People Need A Crutch”

1. I don’t believe that all abusers have the disorder…

   But that sort of Egotism does predispose you to be abusive. When you are a GOD in your own perception and all other “people” are just THINGS to be used for your personal advantage/gain/amusement, you tell me that’s not going to turn abusive. How can you abuse NOTHINGS?

   Scott Peck used to say that evil people like the church because they can get away with so much–even in the name of Jesus.

   As did Chesterton and Lewis. Because that situation gives Cosmic-level justification for the Evil. “God Wills It! God Saith!”

   “Nowhere do we tempt more effectively than at the very foot of the altar!” — Screwtape

   LikeLike

2. My church tradition (RCC) uses a special Canon Court called a “Marriage Tribunal” to hash all that out in a quasi-legal proceeding. Comes from inheriting the surviving Imperial bureaucracy when the Western Roman Empire went belly-up plus16 centuries of Church bureacuratic accretion.

   I understand going before a Marriage Tribunal to determine eligibility to (re)marry is quite a hassle, and (like court verdicts in general) no matter what they decide, SOMEBODY is bound to be offended.

   LikeLike

3. I DO have class. That’s why I didn’t print my unprintable thoughts. 🙂

   As for your reply, I’m not sure I understand its relevance to my comments.

   LikeLike

4. “If I were a woman and not a man, and I was told I couldn’t use my giftings or abilities to their full extent in the body or stand in the “pulpit” (akin to some churches not allowing women to minister at the altar – which makes me wonder if Protestants have simply swapped the men-only altar for a men-only pulpit) simply because I was a woman, what would I think?”

   Now now now, just because you hold strong principles doesn’t mean you have to have no class. Remember Christ and the women with the expensive oil? Judas (he who steals from the collection box) challenged the supposed “hypocrisy” of it and Christ pointed out how what she did was, in fact, out of love.

   LikeLike

5. And not just that, but under careful inspection you find that it was a case of “trees, not the forest.” Most really bad things justified with or resulting from Christianitis are caused by people looking at individual passages instead of the bible as a whole from Genesis to Revelations, or at least the entirety of each book.

   LikeLike

6. It seems to me that all things from God are conditional, grace, including life, forgiveness of sins, and even, as you see in 1st and 2nd Samuel and the Book of Daniel, the legitimacy of rulers, and likewise, so is the legitimacy of husbands. If you treat your wife in such a horrible manner, you were never truly married to her to begin with, though she thought she was and is thus blameless for her erstwhile sexual error (you, however, are not.) See, as God has decreed, things under God only occur as under God when your heart is in it, otherwise it is illegitimate. When you practice a sacrament, but have no love or faith in it, neither God nor your own heart hold it to your account. Thus, he was never really married to her to begin with, though she was married to him. It’s not a divorce because there was no marriage to start with – she is guiltless of adultery, he is an adulterer.

   LikeLike

7. I know post-modernism is chock full of the smashing together contradictions, but I don’t think being a complementarian automatically rules out being an egalitarian. In fact, that is how I would characterize my own position. Men aren’t women and women aren’t men, but women and men are equal. In fact, this is exactly what we read in Ephesians 5. Reducing Ephesians 5 to wifely submission is a gross exegetical and theological error, an unjustifiable reduction.

   Like you, Driscoll has a point. Let’s not forget that he is clearly talking only men who call them Christians. Before “going there,” conversion is necessary.

   LikeLike

8. The part that makes me uncomfortable about his remarks is that it sounds like he’s comparing domestic violence to consensual premarital sex. To me that seems a little disrespectful to those that have experienced abuse.

   LikeLike

9. Tonjes- I think you have a good point about the problem of delineating between cause and excuse, and the dangers of not doing so. I think conflating the two can bring about a “throw the baby out with the bathwater” affect. On the other hand, if something is consistently used as an excuse,then I think it stands to reason that investigation into what about that particular thing makes it such a convenient or compelling escape.

   LikeLike

10. With 6000+ attenders each Sunday, many of whom are curious non-Christians or new converts, Driscoll is often preaching to the statistics. He assumes the makeup of the congregation roughly aligns with the general population. He says “You guys…” because, statistically, he knows they are there. He cannot possibly know the personal situation of everyone attending, but I am certain that if he were aware of a specific situation he would address it swiftly and firmly.

    That said, while agreeing with the gist of his message in this sermon, I son’t care for the tone. I fear he likely harmed as many innocent sheep in the congregation as he did wolves.

    LikeLike

11. He didn’t talk about guys fondling their wives in public, he said “girlfriends.” In other words, men who aren’t willing to exercise self-control in their physical lusts prior to marriage and would flaunt it even in church.

    When talking about husbands and wives, he talked about men who abdicate spiritual leadership and use intimidation to silence mutual spiritual critique and dodge loving service.

    As to people hearing only law and not grace, the grace is there in all the means of grace these people are avoiding. I guarantee in the larger context of Mark Driscoll’s ministry, grace and the cross are preached. I haven’t heard this whole sermon, so I can’t speak for it, but you can’t make a sound judgment call on a man’s doctrine from one 4 minute clip delivered to his own congregation.

    LikeLike

12. I stopped being a quasi-complementarian when I asked myself:

    “If I were a woman and not a man, and I was told I couldn’t use my giftings or abilities to their full extent in the body or stand in the “pulpit” (akin to some churches not allowing women to minister at the altar – which makes me wonder if Protestants have simply swapped the men-only altar for a men-only pulpit) simply because I was a woman, what would I think?”

    And when I realized that what I thought was not printable, I knew complementarianism was a crock on par with racism and slavery.

    LikeLike

13. “I might actually agree with him about true masculinity, but the gospel isn’t about, nor is the law about, being a man. Christ died for women too.”

    Amen, Word. Preach.

    This is a very freeing statement for me.

    LikeLike

14. Very well-put, Cassandra. I am not an apologist for either of the “camps” that many Christians in marriage force themselves into, but I will say that what is stunningly obvious is that, at the very least, complementarian-abusers tend to cite scripture as justification for their abuse. While the other camp may have its problems, too, at least it is not likely to get away with abusing people in the name of scripture.

    LikeLike

15. Very well put. And going on even further, a good stance to use in the defense of Christianity in general, when people are always blaming Christianity for the sins of man. People certainly use Christianity as an excuse for doing awful things, but that doesn’t mean Christianity is an awful thing.

    LikeLike

16. Amen!

    LikeLike

17. It seems to me that one of the ongoing struggles we have is delineating between a belief that “causes” an action and a belief that is “used to excuse” an action.
    If complimentarianism causes abuse, of course it should be criticized. In fact, if we’re honest, it cannot then be biblically true, since no truth of God would cause us to sin. However, proving that causation is pretty difficult on most things. I think about the way a lot of people talk about Christianity in general: it is claimed that it causes (or has caused) genocide, war, torture, racism, oppression, abuse, irrationalism, and a hundred other things. I’ve had those conversations, and let me tell you, they’re not fun. I assume that those of us who are Christians want to disagree with this, but how do we do so?
    The answer is that we have to insist on the fact that to claim this causation is a heavy burden. In fact, we need to labor to prove it before we use it. Otherwise we’re engaging in slander.
    Of course, our first response to the above accusation should be that Christianity has indeed been used to excuse all of these things. This is wicked, and should cause us to repent for the sins of the church on this front. However, we don’t have to concede that this means its actually Christianity that leads there. What iMonk is arguing above is that, right or wrong, complimentarianism in fact argues against these abuses. Just as egalitarianism, rightly understood, argues against the sort of humanity-abuse we see in modern high schools. Misunderstanding or abusing a position cannot prove the position is wrong if it is in fact misunderstanding or abuse.
    This goes equally when we talk about a position “making possible” or “leaving room for” such an abuse. It is always possible to twist truth to use it for a lie. Sit down and visit with the nice people who knock on your door and want to convert you to their fringe religious group. They’re certainly using Scripture. Does this Scripture leave room for such an abuse? Well, yes, if the standard for “leaving room” is “saying something that might be used for some incorrect end.” That’s why we regularly use Scripture to clarify Scripture, and why we use words like “context.” I promise you that I could take any position you hold and pervert it for evil. That’s not a criticism of your position, unless I can prove that your position warrants my interpretation. Instead, it’s a criticism of the human heart.
    I realize this is getting long, but one last thought. All of that being said, it certainly is true that we can be equally at fault for holding true positions and then allowing evil because we’re afraid that to correct it would be a win for the other side. If a complimentarianism doesn’t speak out abuse for fear of sounding egalitarian, that is certainly wicked. In the same way, if an egalitarian refuses to confront sin (say an approach to marriage that stresses individualistic independance rather than mutual self-sacrifice), that is wicked. But those sins are sins of the person, not the position. To lump others (who might not be sinning in these ways) in with such people is to lump modern Christians in with Crusade-happy firebrands calling for Muslim blood.

    LikeLike

18. Because the emasculated and shamed men might try to restore their manhood by taking it out on little wifey?

    (Like poor whites in the former Confederacy during the days of Jim Crow used to take it out on poor blacks. They were kept down by their betters, they made sure there was somebody below them they could keep down. I wonder how much in the world is caused by that pecking-order dynamic?)

    LikeLike

19. Thank you, Martha. I may have to write that one down.

    LikeLike

20. It’s true that complimentarianism isn’t the only philosophy that abusers will use as a crutch to justify their abuse–indeed, they’ll use anything–but that should not stop us from seeing, acknowledging, and wondering why it’s one particular crutch that seems to come easily to hand for so many abusive Christians.

    People seem suprised to see that complimentarianism is being used as a tool to justify abuse. I’m seeing a lot of, “well, that’s not the way it’s intended. If they weren’t sinners and abusers, they wouldn’t find that in the text, and twist it all up to use as a justification.”

    Tools aren’t always going to be used for the purposes for which they were intended. The fact that a tool may have an intended purpose doesn’t prevent it from being used for a purpose for which it was never intended, or even being good to use for that purpose.

    When my dad beat my sister, he didn’t do it with his shoe, even though his shoe was right there and just at close to hand as the belt he did use. Why the belt? Once you’ve been hit, you know why: the very same features of the belt that make it useful in the manner for which it was intended–flexibility, thinness, durability–also made it a better tool for hurting than a shoe. It’s simply the better tool for causing pain, and it has some qualities about it that especially lend themselves to causing pain when the tool is misused.

    If a tool has qualities that make it most likely to do the job, and do it well, that’s the tool you’re going to use, whether that’s the tool’s intended purpose or not. And it’s possible that the very same qualities in the tool that make it well-suited for its intended use might make it equally well-suited for an unintended use.

    It can’t really be a suprise that those who want to abuse others will use ideas in books and sermons as justification for their abuse and sin, and that we, as broken people, will misinterpret failable texts–in fact, the big news would be if those things didn’t happen. But they don’t keep coming back to any old philosophy to justify their abuse–they keep coming to this one. Abusers, like anyone else, are going to use the best tool they have for the job. Why do we shy away from looking at the reasons why this philosophy makes a good tool for abusers? Why not take a look at the qualities of complimentarianism that make it an idea that abusive Christians find attractive, that make it a go-to idea of choice for sinners, that make it easy to twist to evil, that make it an idea that abusive people pick up time and time again when they want to hurt someone, that make it a belt instead of a shoe?

    Could it be that some of the qualities of complimentarianism and the texts it’s explained in make it more well-suited as a tool for hurting and abusing others than other philosophies might? That seems to be part of the actual experience of some of those who have spoken up about their abuse here. It’s not that the abusers aren’t at fault–they are–but that shouldn’t stop us from looking at the words and ideas they use to abuse, and wondering why those are some of the most frequently used and most effective tools that Christian abusers have to employ in hurting others. I would argue that we are bound as Christians to take a look, since words–and the way they’re understood, used, and misused–are so important to Jesus, and should be important to his followers.

    If abusers didn’t have complimentarianism to lean on as a crutch to justify their abuse, they might more quickly be able to realize they were limping.

    LikeLike

21. I tend to like Driscoll ….. mostly. I love the way he stretches the Church and with the exception of this clip he is a Gospel guy with a capital G.

    I would actually like to do his studies on song of songs with my wife … with the understanding we use what is good but leave behind what we disagree with. Overall I would never throw the baby out with the bathwater on Driscoll … he is reaching people that Piper and others would never have a chance to reach and he has taken correction from Piper without batting an eyelash…. not that I am a Piper fan either…. but it shows some desire to at least look good in the mainstream theo spotlight and have some accountability from some Pastors.

    LikeLike

22. Nice post. I hope that I would sit still for this kind of rant coming from those who know me best, and have deeply invested in me over the years. Thank GOD for those men, I have several, and it’s doubtful that they’d be shouting “Shame on you, shame on you…..” To use this approach from the pulpit , and in some kind of broad sweep to arouse the flock is, in my mind, dicey and filled with problems, and at the end of the day: “not helpful” as Tamar noted. This is, I think, someone who is much more used to preaching than coming alongside and talking. There is a difference.

    Greg R

    LikeLike

23. On another forum where this video was being discussed, I noted that this sort of berating could easily backfire for Driscoll If an abuser was in the congregation while this was being preached, and particularly if he had narcissistic tendencies, he might very well take this sermon personally and accuse his wife/girlfriend of “tattling” on him. His partner may well suffer further abuse if he was convinced that he was the target of this rant.

    LikeLike

24. That’s the ticket! Be a man about it! [ no joke meant]

    LikeLike

25. The words of King Lemuel the Obscure and Downright Unknown:

    “She considers a field and buys it;
    with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.
    She girds herself with strength,
    and makes her arms strong.
    She perceives that her
    merchandise is profitable…
    She makes linen garments and sells them;
    she supplies the merchant with sashes….
    Give her a share in the fruit of her hands,
    and let her works praise her in the city gates.”

    — Proverbs 31:16-18a,24,31

    Or maybe it’s just something Gandolf said in “Lord of the Rings.”

    The virtues of delegation alone *should* prevent the complentarian husband from demanding that his wife check with him for every little thing. “She considers a field and buys it” is a world away from such a mindset. I realize this chapter of Proverbs contains a number of verses indicating how the Virtuous Woman reflects well on her husband, but it’s interesting that this is the case precisely because *she* is the one who is taking the initiative — the whole chapter is about her gumption. “Give her a share” indeed!

    LikeLike

26. “Feminism does indeed play a role in today’s bad gender relations.”

    “I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a prostitute.” – Rebecca West, in “The Clarion”, 1913

    LikeLike

27. I have seen Driscoll’s whole sermon; I have also heard him explain how husbands have the right to decide how many children the family has, if the wife is allowed to work or homeschool, etc, etc. So he really says that the husband makes all the decisions and establishes that if the wife wants equal say in these matters she is in the wrong. I don’t think any of this is helpful.

    LikeLike

28. Very nicely put.

    LikeLike

29. While Driscoll’s rant has drawn quite a bit of ire on this comment thread, I’d just like to say that having watched the entire sermon (but not the series – yet), it’s appropriate. To just watch him yell is, while startling and attention-grabbing, taking his frustration and exhortation out of context. If you’ve got 45 minutes, head to the church’s website and watch the whole sermon.

    LikeLike

30. Maybe part of what is missing here is a public/private distinction. Where someone is truly guilty, there are places for the keys to be used. I see that as being in a different category from a public sermon. The public sermon is, by definition, public. It is to be heard by everyone. When I was younger I had a youth pastor who was in his thirties who would go off on the crowd for the actions of a few. I remember gathering one morning and one of the girls in the group (not one of the guilty ones being addressed) was crying. I wondered if she was so confused she thought she had been addressed. I was surprised by what she then said, “He must feel miserable.” She felt sorry for the pastor. I didn’t. I thought he was trying to reach some people he didn’t know how to reach otherwise. Matthew 18 seems to suggest that when things are really serious, though, that we keep matters in a smaller circle and deal directly. Then you don’t have a bunch of strangers wondering just what happened to elicit the extreme behavior. Many have noted that we don’t know the context of this clip. True. YouTube is probably another reason to keep a distinction between public and private. An outburst is interesting and is likely to make it to YouTube without context. Yet another reason not to plan to have one in public.

    LikeLike

31. With regards to people using the “spare-the-rod” teachings in ways that lead to abuse of their kids: I have seen this first-hand. There are books out there on “biblical child-training” that would part your hair.

    I distinctly remember being at a gathering and accidentally happening upon one of my close friends (a very kind, gentle woman ordinarily), whaling away with a stick at the bottom of her two-year-old child (she had pulled the diaper down). This is what the books said she was supposed to do– spank until the child’s “will was broken.” No matter how long that takes, and no matter how hard it is to tell when it’s supposed to have happened in the mind of a two-year-old! Knowing my friend, I bet she hated doing it– but she was following what she’d been told the Bible teaches.

    I also remember others in my church laughing and talking with great enjoyment about how they’d spanked their kids. How they’d put the fear of God into them. They had special spanking tools which they smirkingly named things like “Swift Justice,” or “the Board of Education.” That horrified me. I could see how my girlfriend in the above story could feel that the Bible told her she had to spank that way (even though it was really just a book with a specific interpretation of the Bible that told her that). What I couldn’t understand was people doing it with apparent relish.

    When my husband and I had kids, we decided we had to use “a rod,” because the Bible said so, and we couldn’t just swat with our hand. But we also decided we could see no justification in the Bible for “breaking the will” with prolonged whipping, so we didn’t. No more than 5 strikes with a wooden spoon– that’s what we decided. Usually it was more like 2.

    Nowadays, we read the Bible in a way that takes the cultural assumptions of the original audience, more into account. But I know for a fact that my experience of watching my friends “train up a child” was not isolated only to my group.

    Should the writers of these books be held accountable? Absolutely. Obviously they should not be prosecuted for the actual child abuse that others did– but they should be held accountable for what they wrote, and the message they put forth.

    Should the writer of a book whose approach to marriage teaching clearly de-humanizes the wife, be held accountable for the message of female dehumanization, even if they’re not specifically condoning abuse?

    Absolutely.

    LikeLike

32. It helps. Thank you.

    I came out of a church backgroud very similar to Driscoll’s. I remember going home from church one Sunday while in college (long, long ago) so beaten down and demoralized that I literally cried tears of frustration.

    Even if he got around to preaching gospel, the damage would have already been done. I’m sure he was trying to wake up the complacent or self-righteous; but typically the only effect that such preaching has is to crush the bruised reed.

    LikeLike

33. This article – “Violence against women, female teens, surgers on TV” – is quite the eye-opener and has some pretty scary statistics:

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091028/tv_nm/us_violence

    Ah…we live in such a broken world…

    LikeLike

34. Dumb Ox,
    The keys may well have to be applied at some point to a man who abuses his wife. There is an issue here of knowing he is doing it or not. And there is the greater question of whether he is repentant of it or not. And I don’t know that there is a blanket response, or a no tolerance line that needs to be drawn.
    And it isn’t that I take issue with Driscoll for preaching law. Again it was a snippet of the sermon, he may have gotten around to Gospel. I don’t know.
    However the yelling had many problems with it. For one it came off a bit like a shtik, a show. Second the frustration. I get frustrated too, I’m a sinner. But I might recognize that in myself before I start preaching law. Here it seems to be that Mark may actually be more frustrated in his failure to change the behavior of these men, than that they are sinners. We should recognize the uselessness of the law in changing the behavior of sinners, it actually tends to reinforce it.
    I also fail to see how you go from a couple turtledoven in the front row, to the couple guilty of premarital sex, to the man beating his wife in such a blanket banner of abuse. Though I can see it as abusive to a girl to engage in sexual intercourse with her before marriage, their is usually a bit of dual culpability in that sin, they are in effect abusing each other. Turtledoveing in the front row, is a bit tacky but tell that to the twitterpated couple. My guess is the guy isn’t the most culpable one there. And to lump these two things with beating your wife is a bit preposterous. Sin is sin in God’s eye, that is true, but then maybe Mark has a few he should repent of that he can lump in with abusing his wife. There are some distinctions to be made between how we treat sins in this world. Can’t lock up everyone for lust now. Perhaps in our sermons we should be careful in how we treat sin. Mark seemed to be more upset that these men had lost their masculinity, then that they were abusing their girlfriends. It was an assault on their manhood, not the fact that they were failing to love as Christ loves us. I might actually agree with him about true masculinity, but the gospel isn’t about, nor is the law about, being a man. Christ died for women too.
    I don’t know if any of that rambling answered your questions. No gospel isn’t the first thing I think of when I see abuse either. And sometimes I wonder if us Christians are sometimes more concerned about the fate of the criminal, verses the fate of the victim. But that said i also try to keep in mind that God called me to be a pastor, not a judge. I don’t think that the repentant sinner should be given a lighter sentence here on earth. But where the fate of his soul is concerned grace should abound.

    LikeLike

35. The idea of shaming a bully into good behavior is laughable. Because they have no shame. I remember keenly my fourth grade teacher, frustrated to the point of rage with boys who sadistically bullied me and others, calling them on the carpet in front of the class and trying to shame them into leaving us be and find out why they did what they did. They just, shrugged, laughed at her, and went out and abused me and other weak children two hours after the lecture. Grown men who abuse their wives are the same breed, and certainly the same mind. And as to their ‘good qualities’? Everyone knows that many species of predatory animals and insects know how to skillfully hide from their prey. Either by skill or inherent camouflage. Hunters who walk on two legs have more and better tools than those who walk on four.

    LikeLike

36. I was think about what Bror said in his comment above. I agree whole-heartedly. I need to understand better from the perspective of a Lutheran pastor how one knowingly administers the sacraments to someone who is abusing his wife. I know all sin in God’s eyes is the same, so my question is a bit moot. Where do the keys come in, when an abuser is released (ex-communicated or denied communion) until he or she repents? It is part of the catechism – next to the part about the sacrament of the altar.

    I also wonder if this clip needs some context. Does Driscoll get around to Gospel later? I know Walther was particularly keen on breaking the will with law before administering Gospel. Luther himself in his writings comes across pretty hot against the licensious.

    Just wondering. I have seen family members suffer through abusive marriages. I have to admit that gospel is not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of the abuser. In all fairness, I know I have put my wife through hell out of my sheer stupidity and self-centeredness more than once in our marriage. Such a tough subject.

    LikeLike

37. Pingback: Vilification as a modern tool | OrthoCuban

38. I think this is beautifully written, and I really, really like the things you said here.

    LikeLike

39. I’m curious about the first point you made. Having worked as a dv advocate and as a responder to DV complaints, that was not my experience at all, either in rural appalachia or in a large Northwest city.

    I’d also argue that feminism, while it does (i agree) play a role in today’s bad gender relationships, plays a role insomuch that it is an ongoing attempt to deal with problematic gender relationships which definitely predate feminism. By centuries. And that it’s sort of an umbrella term, which embodies camps which are very pro-male (particularly young feminist professionals, whose theory seems to be more of a “if you can’t beat them, join them!”) as well as camps which are really alientated from men, males and maleness.

    The culture of chivalry is a two way street. An internal brake on men, sure, but also an external restraint on women. Perhaps it was in need of breaking?

    Having read and seen the Vagina Monologues, I think it’s less about the oversexualazation of women and more the acceptance of women’s bodies and sexuall experiences. (I think it’s meant to be women coming to terms with their own sexuality, rather than placing their value in being seen as a sexual creature for another’s pleasure).

    LikeLike

40. Such a good thread- thank you, imonk, for hosting it!

    This is only tangentially related, but I think it becomes problematic when complementarianism is pitted against egalitarianism as if one or the other is the absolute sanctioned way of relating that God approves of and condones, because it forces people in either camp to protect or defend the problematic aspects. It seems so divisive to me- not at all in the spirit of what God (I think) craves for us and wants from us.

    I was talking with my future brother in law a few days ago. He is a really bright, really thoughtful young man who was raised in a complementarian household, and I think this is the relationship model that makes the most sense for him. I am marrying his brother, who was raised in an egalitarian (well, actually, single mother) household. My fb-i-l is in his final year of college, attending a Bible college, and we got to talking about what he sees as being the role of men in the world, morally, culturally, etc. It really brought home to me that this is a young person who is terrified of the responsibility of being the “lord” of the house, and who would much prefer to have a partnership where that kind of responsibility is shared with someone who has equal responsibility for the moral and spiritual decision making. I never properly understood how lonely complementarianism can be for men until speaking with him, and it seems to me sad that this young man feels an agony over potentially failing as a man, when really, his fears and concerns seem valid and normal to me. Just as it can be too much power for one person to be the “lord” of the home, it also seems that for some people it can be too much responsibility. And to create such loneliness!

    I am not a biblical scholar, and only sort of dancing around the tent of Christianity, honestly, but it seems to me strange that the same creator who made such tremendous diversity in the natural world, and such obvious diversity in creating the personalities of us humans, would require a strict adherance to any particular prescribed plan of relationships. It seems that the creator would take more delight in allowing us to use our creativity and our freedom and our ability to share and communicate to craft the most loving, sane relationships for us possible. Some, like my future brother in law, would probably flourish best in a more egalitarian relationship. Some, like my fiance and myself, seem to flourish best in a slight complementarianism. I feel strongly that my fiancee and I are right to figure out what works best for us, what allows us the best cohesion and strongest relationship, and greatest opportunity to love and serve each other, and at the same time I think it’s ridiculous that i need to defend that this is the best fit for every other person. (In a similar fashion, I certainly don’t submit my *fiance* is the best partner for every other woman!) .

    Likewise, simply because it works best for us to have a defined “head” of the house and a defined process of making decisions that leans towards a division of labor that is kind of traditional, I feel no compunction about criticizing those who would use the notion of complementarianism to allow men to have complete power (or women complete abnegation of responsibility)- and I feel pretty ok with criticizing the tenents within complementarianism itself that led in that direction.

    LikeLike

41. I am suspect of any marriage and the people in it where the couple feels that they have to identify with a certain theological/doctrinal/social paradigm to explain how they treat one another. Complementarian, egalitarian, whatever.

    “One anothering” is the key. If both are “one anothering”, then that pretty much covers it scripturally. The problem is that we, as human beings, are constantly looking for excuses to not “one another” the other person in the marriage. I guess it’s pretty convenient that some are told that the other is simply a “field” or a “vessel”. There is no need to “one another” a field or other “object”, right?

    I believe the real issue is control, and while men don’t exactly have a corner market on trying to control women (although they are historically way out in front on that), as some women certainly seek to control everyone in their lives, including their husbands, at least they don’t turn to scripture to try to justify it. Abuse is all about control and power, whether it be physical, sexual, psychological, or spiritual abuse.

    I don’t understand what satisfaction any grown man gets out of bossing around his wife, a full-grown adult who is supposed to be his partner. What kind of man does this? I ask myself, even though I grew up surrounded by them. I thankfully married a much more secure man than that, so for me personally, it is just a distant memory.

    From my own marriage of more than 27 years, I can definitively say that there is no need for anyone to live like that, no matter what any pastor or author says. While we have certainly had the difficulties that any lengthy marriage has, I can honestly say that I feel loved and honored every day, and try my darndest to do the same for him. We don’t do a lot of worrying about “who is in charge”. Someone asked one of our young college-age sons recently who was in charge in his home when he was growing up, and it was reported to us that he hesitated and furrowed his brow a bit, and said, “It depends. My dad is in charge of the things that he’s good at and my mom is in charge of the things that she’s good at. For everything else, they drew straws!”

    His dad and I laughed, but were proud of his answer. It showed us that our son recognized that we were operating under what separate giftings we had been given, and the rest just managed to get done somehow – LOL.

    I “don’t do” Driscoll, mostly because from other things he has preached and written (he unfortunately preached at my church’s annual conference two years ago), I do not consider him to be any friend of women. So I have not watched the clip, but from other commenter’s posts, I gather that he is pretty much into shaming and screaming at the husbands. The real issue has to be gotten to, however (which is largely a spiritual issue), which has a lot more to do with them figuring out why they feel the need to belittle and abuse another person, no matter who it is. They must recognize and repent of this sin.

    LikeLike

42. I’m ready to be convinced otherwise, but my understanding of who Jesus is, and what HE did, means that

    1. there is NO shame on me (even when I’m caught in sin)
    2. there won’t be shame on me when I approach the Father in JESUS’ name next week or next month; shame is my PAST; the righteousness of JESUS is my PRESENT.

    if this is so, then what’s to be gained by yelling “Shame on you brother BOB, for……..” ?

    Am I missing something here ??

    LikeLike

43. Driscoll’s tone is not useful. He needs to respectfully tell women to deal with their own lives, to get help, to leave an abusive situation, etc. He needs to tell women that the whole submission thing is for another day.

    LikeLike

44. Absolutely. I shout AMEN to ya…

    LikeLike

45. Others above(Chutney, “Commenter”, etc) have mentioned this but I think it bears repeating. While abusers are responsible for their own actions it does not absolve teachers of being accountable for what they write. Both are accountable. If Wilson writes that the man is to be “Lord” of the “field” then its small consolation that he somewhere else says “be nice” or even “serve” your wife. If you are constantly denying your wife any kind of personal choice or expression then at what point does how nicely you do it start not to matter?

    One thing that I don’t think has been brought up is how your learn not to trust your intuition or common sense. I’ve heard people say “Just use your common sense. Of course [insert author here] didn’t mean that. You’re taking it too far”. And some people no doubt do. But systems are created which teach you to doubt your common sense and substitute some other authority. Maybe a husband, spiritual leader, author, etc. Whoever it is, you have been convinced that your reasoning cannot be trusted and theirs must be instead.

    LikeLike

46. Shtik, you are right. that is the way it comes off, and may be the real danger here. It is if he might not really be serious about this.
    Then when he starts off talking about having your hands all over your wife in church, and goes from that to abusing women, well you are sort of left wondering. I think every pastor has had the new couple in church who are a little more affectionate than the seniors in public. And it may not make for the best decorum, and may even be a bit distracting. But why would you start there if you want to address abuse?

    LikeLike

47. Okay, rowing in with the Roman Catholic position here. You all know that we do not permit divorce and remarriage; a valid marriage is only terminable by death of one of the spouses:

    Can. 1141 A marriage that is ratum et consummatum can be dissolved by no human power and by no cause, except death.

    Does that mean you have to grin and bear it if your spouse is abusive, adulterous, or otherwise a jerk? Heck, no! Separation and severance of conjugal living (though not severance of the marital bond) is permissible under certain conditions, including:

    Can. 1153 §1. If either of the spouses causes grave mental or physical danger to the other spouse or to the offspring or otherwise renders common life too difficult, that spouse gives the other a legitimate cause for leaving, either by decree of the local ordinary or even on his or her own authority if there is danger in delay.

    So a husband or wife who is being abused by his or her spouse is perfectly entitled to resort to all that civil law permits, including barring orders, restraining orders, and even (in exceptional cases) civil divorce. You don’t have to remain with someone who is physically or mentally abusive, or is a drunkard, adulterous, etc. It’s preferable to make every effort to save the marriage, but you’re not stuck.

    The inhumanity (or otherwise) of not permitting divorced people to remarry, or to receive the sacraments (if they instigated the divorce for insufficient reasons, or were the guilty party) is a fight for another day.

    LikeLike

48. I tried to respond to the post yesterday. I feel the need to to at least relay my experience.

    It is refreshing to hear someone say it is not always the man’s fault. My wife accused me of all kinds of abuse. We went to the elders and asked for help and they sent us to a good Christian woman counselor. ( I had my reservations) However, after 3 sessions with this counselor it was pointed out to me and my now ex-wife that she was the abuser. She refused to go back after this and I had to continue in counseling for another year. I will say that I married someone who was mentally and verbally abusive. However, my dad was verbally and mentally abusive to me growing up. I thought the abuse was normal. My dad now lives with me and has change significantly over the past few years but he is in an accountablity group at his local church.

    However, that being said I have been involved with a lot of single parents in the church. Over the last 3 months I finally just had to take a break. I would love to play this video to men in my class as most of them are on prowl you would not believe the amount of excuses I have heard for their actions. I still agree that a lot of women and children suffer because men don’t submit to God. I have also watched women abuse men. I just want people to know there are 2 sides to every story. If you have friends who say they are being abused if possible talk to both of them and find a good counselor.

    LikeLike

49. <>

    Really? I disagree. Sin is the real enemy. The Enemy is the real enemy. We’re all sin sick sinners in desperate need of Christ — even the abusers.

    LikeLike

50. I feel equally out of the loop: who is Wilson, who cares about Driscoll, what is egalitarian, what is complementarian? Different worlds, here, for some of us.

    Not to minimize what “commenter” and others been saying about her plight, I just want to make a different point, all together. There once was an article in our newspaper. The headline was screaming something about the rate of abuse and even murder in marriages. When you read the entire story, however, it turned out this high rate was for people living common-law not in traditional marriage. Different groups have different frequencies. Perhaps this would be worth exploring, along side this topic.

    As to the Driscoll clip, above, I am not as offended by it, though I have no context for what the man says otherwise. Jesus got pretty steamed at hypocrites walking all over ordinary people and people who lead little ones astray. There are times to let someone really have it, especially when you are defending someone more vulnerable, even if only then.

    LikeLike

51. Must we view all things through the lens of our theology? Can we not have a sociological or cultural thought? Who are you to judge the men on the cross? Were they scum? I don’t know. I do know that men who abuse women and children are the lowest forms of life. My salvation brought by Christ does not stop me from pointing out their sin, or from punching their face. i know what I am Ken, just a sinner saved by grace, but we can not become silent and impotent as men, so as to allow the weaker vessels among us to be exploited. God Forbid! I could use your comment to justify the silence that pervades the Bride on issues of child molestation and spousal abuse, but in my neighborhood , under my watch, a scourge is knotted for the bully, the beater and the rapist, and I will wield it with all the strength of my arm. Men of the church need to shelter the weak. It is why God has given us strength.

    LikeLike

52. I’m really struck by the fact that you were supposed to view your husband as your “Lord”. Head of the house is one thing, but being told to see your husband as your lord seems something else altogether. We only have one Lord, and that is Christ. I’m concerned anyway with letting one fallen person have such absolute power and control over another fallen person. People, even devout Christians, can be very bad at abusing power. We are all fallen sinners.

    Even though I do believe that the husband should be the head of the household and I believe in wifely submission, I definitely feel that it is possible for people to take this to an extreme. Especially somebody who is an abuser anyway and wants to use it as an excuse to abuse. I don’t think the husband being the head of the household means that he should be able to order his wife around and tell her what she can read, think, feel, or do, and I don’t think a woman should just quietly submit if her husband starts doing that to her. Being the head of the household is one thing and a huge responsibility, but setting yourself up as the god of your household is wrong, and not at all scriptural.

    I’m sorry all of this had to happen to you, and I agree that one way of stopping abusive men from taking advantage of complementarianism teachings and misreading them would be to have teachers and other men talk more about abuse and how wrong it is and that complementarianism isn’t about abusing your wife but is instead about how you are suppose to love her as Christ loves his church. There needs to be more education in the church as a whole about the topic of abuse, both violent and nonviolent.

    LikeLike

53. I was saying that egalitarians who naively assume they have the answer might want to go to public schools where their values are promoted and see how gender relations are developing.

    Like what happened recently in Richmond, CA?

    LikeLike

54. OK, grrls.
    1) It is specifically not true that men more often abuse women. In cities that have adopted mandatory arrest policies for domestic disputes, they have discovered, to their PC horror, that they arrested more women than men. Oops.
    2) Feminism does indeed play a role in today’s bad gender relations.
    a) It routinely devalues every characteristic associated with maleness
    b) It attacked and destroyed the culture of chivalry which was an internal brake on men.
    c) It does indeed foster the oversexualization of women. I refer you to the Vagina Monologues, for starters. It is no accident that many of the programs sponsored by Women’s Centers on college campuses revolve around sex, blatant sex.

    LikeLike

55. Don’t yell at the church.

    If you know who these men are, then you or the other elders confront them in person.

    If you know who they are (and by what you are saying, you do know who they are – or else you’re creating fictitious “You guys…”), then SHAME ON YOU, Mark Driscoll Mr. Hot Shot Yeller Shouter Guy, for letting them come to church week after week and year after year and take communion week after week or month after month and not doing or saying anything about it to them in person.

    If you know who in your church is sinning and you don’t know how to confront them Biblically, then it’s YOU who need to repent for running a misguided church.

    LikeLike

56. No doubt in my mind that this issue is important and needs addressing, and I see what Driscoll is trying to do, but I have to say I don’t appreciate his tone, or the fact that he pretty much simply berates but offers no concrete positive alternatives of what these guys can do, and what the guys who aren’t engaging in this behavior can do to help them. In other words, how the community can help free these men and bring them out of their darkness. Hope that happens outside the sermon, but a hint of it from the pulpit would have been nice. Agree with some of the posters that there could have been a little more grace in the presentation.

    But maybe it’s just me. I’ve always had a problem with preachers who yell, so that may be part of it. It’s especially weird to be in church and have the preacher yell at you for something you’re really not doing. This past week at our church it was about being distracted from God by interested in celebrities, pop culture, etc — something I truly don’t have a problem with. On the whole we need fewer lists of dos and don’ts and more focus on who we are to be — our identity — as followers of Jesus and citizens of his kingdom.

    LikeLike

57. quote from Commenter: “A Focus on the Family site had a blog post up a while back that literally came right out and said that, yes, it’s true, some women get kind of controlling husbands, but, well, that’s their lot in life, and whether they like it or not, husbands have the right to decide whether their wives will or will not have children—and how many, whether they will or will not homeschool them, whether they will or will not work outside the home, whether they will or will not live in a certain location, whether they will or will not allow their dying child to recieve one treatment or the other…and that it is a wife’s role to submit graciously.”

    This is not new teaching.

    Back in the very early 1960s…well, before that, actually…more like the late ’40s/early ’50s…I had an Aunt who was married to a man who insisted on a large family. They were Catholic. My Aunt, however, suffered severe complications after her first couple of children and was counseled by her Dr (a Catholic practising at a Catholic Hospital in Chicago) and her Priest to limit her family to what she had. In other words, they were counseling my Aunt to be sterilised. But, in those days, her husband had to give his permission as well.

    He refused.

    My Aunt suffered greatly with miscarriages and carrying children too close together.

    When I was in the second grade, 1961/1962, she died. She was pregnant. My Father, her Brother, was with her as her husband was ’round the corner at the local.

    She left nine living children including toddler twins and an infant.

    In those days, the Church counseled my Aunt to preserve her health. But my uncle refused. In those days, the law of the State, Hospital policy, and their insurance was on his side requiring his permission and the surgery could not be performed without his consent. We are living in very different times for which I thank God…

    This is not new teaching…abuse, misogyny, selfishness has always been a part of the human condition whether it has manifested itself in a “quiverful” of children or a “houseful” of indebtedness.

    My Father grieved his last living family member greatly; that made an impression upon me as did the condition of my cousins as they grew-up.

    But again, let me re-emphasise: the Church’s teaching was correct; that my Aunt stop bearing children to her detriment. It was my Uncle that was wrong and the civil law, the hospital’s policy, and their insurance appeared to be on his side, requiring his permission. In refusing it, he was able to forestall her surgery. I would have thought, today, we would have come much further in protecting women and their health…as well as the health of their children. :sigh: The more things change, the more they stay the same…

    LikeLike

58. I really like what driscoll said here and how he called them out. But a part of me felt like his whole angry rants persona is just kind of a shtik. Im sure he is sincere but part of me felt like the “who do you think you are” was kind of a show.

    LikeLike

59. Wow!
    Being Lutheran we are out of the loop with what is happening in the “reformed” world. (We Lutherans use that term the same way the Amish use “English” to mean everyone that isn’t us or Catholic. And I use it all the more when I hear men like Horton object to it being used that way.) In any case Driscoll is not a man I follow. I don’t follow anyone who in the middle of the sermon talks of the Lord’s Supper representing the body and blood.
    I know he was giving a sermon on the abuse of women, but I kind of was wondering if he wasn’t abusing his congregation. Why is he surprised that Sunday after Sunday his congregation is full of sinners? Why is he frustrated that the same sinners show up? Does he really expect the law to change them? I know this was just a snippet of his sermon. But in all that yelling I didn’t hear any gospel. He even made the Lord’s supper into Law! Didn’t Christ shed his blood for the forgiveness of sins? But then Lutheran suspicions are that the sacraments become about law the minute they become representations.
    Eugene Peterson talks somewhere in “The Contemplative Pastor” about pastors beating their congregations over the head with law and expecting them to change. Something about them doing that for centuries with the same results. What is the definition of crazy?

    LikeLike

60. “The commenter” But if people clink on the link for your name, they find out your identity. 🙂

    LikeLike

61. For the record, as a previous poster already mentioned, “Spare the rod and spoil the child” has definitely been used by abusers as a support for their abuse. I’ve seen a tearful parent rage at a a child for hours and then pull out their Bible so that the child can see they must be whipped “because it says so” and proceed to leave welts and bruises and a very confused child who no longer remembers what the whipping was for. I’ve heard of many more cases as well.

    This does not mean Proverbs needs pulled out of the Bible, but I think it would help to better understand what Proverbs was actually saying. What is the “rod of correction” anyway? The “rod” carried by the shepherd of Psalm 23 was a comfort to the sheep. Is this a stick to beat them with? Or perhaps it is not the same thing.

    LikeLike

62. Hi Commentator,

    Thank you for speaking up so clearly. Yes, many abusers think they are doing what they’re ‘supposed to be doing’ as leaders of the home, and they’ve got lots of ‘evidence’ from Christian teachers to prove it. They think it’s for the good of all concerned. They think it is what God has called them to do and – in the case of husbands holding abusive authority over their wives – some of them even think it is the only way to ‘save’ their wives and families. They hear that ‘as Christ loved the church’ and conclude that their wives should obey them as the church is to obey Christ – after all they love her enough to die for her if need be!

    And many women who are abused believe that the only option they have is to try to live up to all their husband demands of them. Some I’ve known (I tried this myself) have bent over backwards in every matter that was not a ‘matter of conscience’ and then are pushed to bend their consciences too. Yet, as they are to submit, they will keep bending, so as not to be rebellious and stiff-necked.

    Neither position – of controller or submitter – provides a sound basis for healthy relationships. Both cause brokenness and both need a Savior – who heals the brokenhearted and sets the captives free.

    Blessings,

    Mary

    LikeLike

63. The following is from the doctrinal statement of a local church. The last statement really scares me, as it teaches people that according to the Bible, there is no option in an abusive situation. And someone with a tender heart towards God, will believe this and live it.

    “We teach that divorced men and women and the broken homes that result, are the tragic consequence of sin (Matthew 19:6) and as such, these men and women are the victims of a shattering life-long blow that requires love, warmth and a source of stability from which to rebuild their lives. God says, “I hate divorce” (Malachi 2:16). The Bible never condones or encourages divorce, He only recognizes that divorce will happen, because of man’s sin.

    We teach that marriage is an exclusive and permanent union that can be separated by nothing but death before God (Matthew 19:6; Romans 7:2,3). It is the will of God for those who marry to remain married until death separates them. Thus, all marriage counseling must be toward reconciliation and restoration of the marriage relationship. However, there are several, narrowly defined exceptions as a result of sin. These may constitute a Biblical divorce. A Biblical divorce may occur if one of the following situations are present: 1) there is sexual immorality (Matthew 19:9) and the offending party is not interested in repentance or reconciliation; or 2) a non-believing spouse divorces a believing spouse (1 Corinthians 7:10-13). “

    LikeLike

64. It call comes down to discussing things based on what each side is actually saying, doesn’t it? Not putting things in the other side’s mouth and attacking that (i.e. the straw man).

    And let’s be clear – for both sides, the abuser is the real enemy. Let’s not pretend the other side is on the side of the abuser. There’ll be a few miserable souls who are, but most of us aren’t and it doesn’t help matters to pretend otherwise. The “us versus them” is the easy argument to make and its also the argument that undermines us.

    LikeLike

65. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.
    (Jer 17:9-11)

    Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing. For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it. For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?
    (1Pe 3:7-13)

    LikeLike

66. Imonk, thanks very much for not politicizing a difference of opinion. And, just for the record, though you summarized it very well already yourself, I hate what many men have to their wives and families in the name of “submission.” And, as a matter of record, as a church that practices church discipline, we have never disciplined a woman for “lack of submission.” We have disciplined for a husband’s abuse.

    LikeLike

67. don’t much like Focus, haven’t for years now. After reading your note I like them less.

    Wilson is someone I just discovered of late and just can’t stomach the guy. Man, he makes us reformed folks look like kooks.

    Sorry about your experience Commenter.

    LikeLike

68. don’t apologize. I did a pile of dishes earlier, know that feeling. I have learned to dislike Focus since I woke up a few years ago—now reading your comments—just more fuel for the fire. And the last couple months I have been on Wilson’s blog (not because I like it—not hardly. Didn’t know who he was, don’t like the guy an once even if he is my brother in Christ… man he gives reformed jerks like me an even a worse name).

    I’m sorry about what has happened to you Commenter… wish I could help.

    LikeLike

69. What I don’t see is teaching from a woman about how a woman must think in order to deal with abuse when it happens. Women are actively taught submission, they are derided for rebellion and taking a stand. But the victim of abuse needs to be actively taught that she is of the same value and ability as a man. She needs to know that she can take on the provider and protector role. She needs to be taught assertiveness, She needs to have every teaching of complementarians about how women are to behave carefully deconstructed. That was how I was able to escape and take on being a single parent and caring for my family.

    LikeLike

70. My pastor had an attitude very similar to Driscoll’s and I don’t think it helped me at all. What I needed most was a way to understand that I had not been created for the purpose of obeying my husband. I needed to have every single teaching of complementarianism broken down and utterly destroyed in my head before I could even begin to make a plan to escape.

    For example, if I said that I wanted to speak to a marriage counsellor, my husband said that it would be like my being a whore because I would talk about private matters of our marriage with a strange man or woman. He did not give me permission to go to a counsellor and I didn’t go. I had never lied to my husband, and I was completely unschooled in lying and deceit. I did not think I had the right to do those things.

    It was only after I realized that as an adult I actually had equal authority with him before God and no theology could deny this thatI had to accept that all I had ever been taught was a lie. I had to realize that submission to abuse always reinforces the abuse. The preaching of submission does cement the abusive relationship in serious ways. It is an evil teaching.

    Steven Tracy is adamant on this, and Susan Hunt, both complementarians – have demonstrated how much harm the complementarian teaching does.

    Complementarians are the same as anyone else. They are not more abusive. But, when someone is abusive, complementarian teaching make life many times worse.

    I needed to make my own decisions, defy my husband, deceive him, run away without his knowledge or consent, and get a no fault divorce. I had to do a lot of reading on divorce. I thought I would be a kind of half alive person if I was divorced. I had no way of imagining a life as a single parent.

    All of this, I needed to change before I could even break the 30 year silence I kept. I didn’t get help earlier because my beliefs, the teaching of the church and everyone in my life, kept me in the marriage and silent.

    Once I asked my minister’s wife for books on abuse, “for a friend” and she said that there were no abused wives in our church so she had no resources and offered no help. Later after I left, I went once and talked to my minister., He put on a great show of emotion just like Driscoll. He asked how he could help. But all I could say was that it was too late. I had needed help before, but now I was out, and no one in the church had helped me;

    As I left he sat there muttering about how Grudem had proven that the husband was the head of the wife. My daughter remembers shortly after that in the young peoples, the leader teaching the group how some fathers were the heads of the family and other fathers were not. Some men are good and have authority and others are no good and don’t have authority. What a disgusting shame that was. I felt nauseated. How dare they tear down her father,. He was still her father. He had never hit her actually, and although I have never seen my ex since, I have supported the kids seeing their dad and respecting him with reservations of course, but they call him dad. He is neither mentally ill nor all out evil. He had been taught male enititlement and he swallowed it whole.

    To me the teaching I experienced does not cause abuse, but it makes the life of an abuse victim hell – pure hell. It is like living in a terrorist state. I lived mainlining the chemicals of fear for thirty years. And about one in five of the Christian women I know were also physically abused. But those who, like me and Molly believed truly, were bound by beliefs about male authority, we suffer the most internally.

    I feel that every time an egal male in the blogosphere associates with a teacher of male authority and admires him, then women are devalued. I believe that women like myself are just not considered as worthy of having a life of normal human dignity. We are just beside the point.

    For example, 30 years ago, women were three times more likely to be violently raped, assaulted and suffer domestic homicide. Who made the laws change? Feminists. Who wants to undo those laws and go back 30 years in how women are treated? Complementarians. See the gender blog today. They want to go back in time to when women were truly honoured … and raped and beat up and killed.

    I feel as if women who suffer violence are the trash of the trash to the Christian community. We have no value, and everyone wishes we would go away – according to Steven Tracy, complementarian, 10% of women – are simply not enough for men to seriously consider having a consistent gender ethic for dealing with their life situation.

    All the major Christian blogs are controlled by men and don’t want to deal with this topic.At least Internet Monk, you will talk about it, but I seriously believe that you do not understand the terror and violence some women live with.

    LikeLike

71. Michael, both of our children recently graduated from a public high school that had a wide range of diversity, economically, racially, academically, and politically. You make an assumption that egalitarianism is taught there, or the “value” of Gender Neutrality. (That’s the latest PC phrase, by the way, not reflective of biblical wisdom!) This just isn’t true; for all the hype about equal opportunity, there is constant spiritual work that needs to be done to undermine what comes naturally. What comes naturally is the alienation between male and female and the power-struggle dynamic that “entered creation” in Genesis 3, whether you read that text literally or metaphorically. Mutual and shared dominion under God was warped into competitive struggle for power over one another.

    It’s not “egalitarianism” that teaches women to dress provocatively or men to demean one another’s masculinity according to one’s cultural ideal of the male-ness (athletic over artistic, for instance).

    I was a director of a shelter for battered women and their children. The stories of what some men do to women cannot be exaggerated, although you might determine that some of the stories I knew first-hand may sound like an urban legend. (You won’t find them in newspapers, but you may find the stories in court documents — if the cases got to court, at all.) That being said, it seems to me that the power struggle is being ignored. Many women choose different methods of acquiring power than men. Where some folks won’t succeed in physical intimidation, they may turn to emotional, intellectual and/or psychological diminution.

    Where Driscoll fails, from my feminine perspective, is in his attempt to bully men spiritually into stopping their sin and abusiveness. I understand that some of you guys may be used to angry, pushy argumentation that many women would avoid. To me, Driscoll seems only to shift the playing field by methods not grounded in grace, but in human power:
    from male-v-female,
    to male-v-male, (Driscoll v abusive men)
    from physically/financially/etc-powerful-male -vs- less-powered female,
    to spiritually powerful male with a loud voice and large audience -vs- less-powered male

    Abusers have anger issues, to be sure, but the anger frequently originates in a sense of powerlessness and lack of control. Those feelings of powerlessness become warped into desires to exert control over other areas of life, including weaker loved ones (spouses or children). The answer of the Gospel is that God is our refuge, that none of us should be grabbing for Power-Over another person, but seeing God’s power made perfect in the cross of Christ, in our weaknesses, our lack of control, our serving and loving God and others, without compromising truth and grace by the power of the Holy Spirit.

    Men are more frequently the physical abusers of women and one another, and women abuse men and one another, too. Men have held more power than women in every culture of the world for millenia – physically, financially, economically, in education and in opportunity; however, that hasn’t stopped women from trying to obtain more power. We cannot ignore either gender’s abuse, nor rank one type above/below another type of abuse. All gendered humans need the message of God-in-Christ to be set free from this struggle for dominion, to the love and service of God and humanity.

    I appreciate Scot McKnight’s use of the word, “mutuality”, instead of “egalitarian.” Only when we value the worth and voices of one another and enable abusers and victims to be vulnerable and express their deep fears and anxiety will we be able to minister the balm of Gilead.

    I hope some men do change their ways because of Driscoll’s words, but I pray more that the Spirit of God will turn their hearts to love (despite Driscoll’s method).

    LikeLike

72. As a former public school teacher (high school), I’ve certainly witnessed the increasingly screwed up nature of relationships among young people. It almost makes one fear for the future of humankind.
    I guess the pertinent question is: What can we do as the church to help turn things around and foster healthy, Christ-centered relationships and marriages? I’m not too sure Driscoll’s “shame on you” approach is the best way to go. One could just as easily preach a “shame on you” sermon to women for their psychological and sexual manipulations of men. And I don’t think adopting the “correct” relational paradign — be it complementarianism or equalitarianism or some other ism — is going to do a whole lot of good either. The truth is that we’re all sin-infested jerks, and, left to our fallen relational default settings, we tend to treat each other like dirt — whether that involves a husband being an abusive tyrant over his wife or a wife using sex rationing as a power tool to get what she wants out of her husband. We all have the capacity and fallen predisposition to mistreat, dominate, manipulate, and neglect people we claim to love in the course of pursuing our own self interest.
    I agree with you, Michael, that the Gospel is the answer. So, how do we best apply the Gospel to relational disfunction in the church? Preach more sermons on it? Publish more books? Maybe, that might help some. But I suspect the main culprit is way too much relational disconnect, isolation, and annonimity out there in the pews — and too many shallow, Sunday morning relationships that begin and end at the doors of church buildings.
    Personally, I think a loving admonishment from a close buddy about how you treat your wife will have more positive effect than any “shame on you” sermon. And there’s a lot to be said for the power of example set by truly Christ-centered and transformed relationships. A solid, loving Christian couple can disciple other couples without the word “discipleship” ever coming into play.
    But before a church can minister to itself on a relational level, people actually have to get to know each other and form close relationships that go deeper than merely trading smiles, greetings, and handshakes immediately before and after church services. Of course, a certain number of real relationships will form in just about any social setting, church not excluded. But in order to fill all those empty, disconnected relational spaces, I think it’s going to require that church pastors and leaders put a very strong emphasis on the relational life of their congregations. And I mean more than just preaching about it a lot. I’m talking about actually moving some of their focus and effort from well-produced services and programs and redirecting their attention (and the attention of their congregations) toward forming and maintaining strong, Jesus-shaped relationships within the body. And part of that will inevitably require that pastors both give permission and encourage their churches to have a life that goes beyond organized services and programs and that they continue to exist and function as a self-ministering-and-edifying body throughout the week, even when the doors to the church building are closed.
    If we really want to turn the tide of broken and disfunctional relationships, then I truly believe that we’re going to have to place our central focus where both Jesus and the New Testament writers instructed the church to place it. I’m talking about living out the love of Christ in our relationships with each other and looking to His love — over and above doctrinal agreement, liturgical tradition, musical preferences, impressive facilities, or the preacher’s oratory skill — as the primary glue that binds the church together.

    LikeLike

73. This is brilliant, just what I was trying to say above but clearer, and more gracious :p Yes, abusers should be held to account for their abuse. But the Wilsons and Mahaneys and Driscolls and Tripps of the complementarian world, who style themselves as authorities on Christian life, also have to be held to account for what they say – good and bad. There are people hanging on their words and citing them like scripture. I have no wish to speculate on the state of these men’s marriages or families. But I don’t need to speculate about the effects of their words on the marriages and families I have observed. Situations in which wives and/or children are being abused – especially emotionally and verbally – are not rare or isolated, in my experience. Far from it.

    LikeLike

74. There are a lot of problems with this argument. For one thing, public schools are no more egalitarian institutions than most other institutions in our society, which despite the protestations of some remains deeply misogynist. Secondly, I hardly see what egalitarianism or, if I’m reading between the lines correctly, feminism have to do with young women being called bitches or baby mamas, or the commodification of female sexuality. Both are firmly opposed to such things. The poor state of gender relations in American society is not the fault of egalitarianism or feminism; it’s the fault of sexism, the fault of an attitude which denies women full humanity by refusing to see them as anything more than bodies and sex objects.

    I can’t speak all women who have grown up in complementarian communities, but my personal experience has been that the sexism I encountered when I was still immersed in complementarianism was in many ways just a repackaged and Christianized version of the sexism I have encountered in the “secular” world, including public school. Women were still reduced to their bodies and thought of as sex objects (modesty checklists, women constantly being reminded of their power to provoke lust, men treating women as ‘floating heads” because they were literally incapable of seeing them as anything more than just sexualized bodies). Women were still ostracized and punished for speaking their minds or having opinions. Women were still showered with contempt for being weak and emotional and unimportant. The major difference was that at church, people could hide behind God and the Bible as a defense for their misogyny. Gender relations in the church are every bit as broken as outside it.

    As for the clip of Driscoll – I might be more impressed with his denunciation of the abuse of women if his rhetoric on women in so many other circumstances were not so patronizing, dismissive, and full of contempt. I might be more impressed if he didn’t implicitly put partner abuse on the same level as consensual sex between unmarried adults. I might be more impressed if I didn’t personally know of so many circumstances where prominent complementarian leaders condemn abuse in public, in theory, but in practice turn a blind eye to abused women and children in need, blame victims for their abuse, even punish or ostracize them for talking about their abuse publicly. I know of too many cases where verbal and emotional abuse of wives and daughters in particular has been actively defended by complementarian pastors, ready with a scripture verse or book excerpt to explain to the abused why they are really the ones at fault (and I have personally experienced this myself). In my opinion this is spiritual abuse, and there are many, many cases of it in complementarian communities.

    The commenter’s story is just one of thousands, as is mine. It beggars belief that the leading complementarian authorities are not aware that their teachings are being used in this way. I know for a fact that at least some are aware of it in their own churches, under their own direct leadership, and remain silent.

    I would never say that all complementarians are abusers. I would never say that abuse is unique to complementarianism; it happens in all sorts of contexts and communities, and it isn’t restricted to a particular socioeconomic group or religion or political affiliation, etc. But I absolutely would say that *some* complementarian churches foster an environment in which abusers flourish, by putting a disproportionate burden for “good behavior” on wives and children, by constantly harping on the importance of male leadership and the subordination of women and children in every single aspect of marriage and family life, by discouraging female education and interest in the world outside church and home, by making comments as Bruce Ware as done suggesting that wife beating is just one sinful response to a husband’s authority being challenged . . . I could go on. Growing up in evangelical communities, I often heard the phrase “ideas have consequences” uttered as preamble to criticisms of other people’s beliefs. Well, they do. When you teach that women don’t reflect God’s glory as fully as men, that a wife should orient herself to her husband while he orients himself to God, that a woman’s task is to help her man accomplish his tasks, that it is selfish of her to think about her needs and personal fulfillment . . . how can one teach such things and honestly claim ignorance when those teachings are taken one or two or three steps further than what is being explicitly said?

    LikeLike

75. God bless you, my dear. God bless you for “paying it forward” with God’s grace to those who would be so easily ignored or worse. It’s a hard thing to do, but it’s the Gospel after all.

    LikeLike

76. Apologies, Ken. The commenter is me, regarding a comment I posted a few posts back. iMonk named me in this post, originally, and I was uncomfortable with that and asked him if he would consider removing my name. I still have a hard time knowing where the line is on how many details to give and how public I should be about it… I know that being silent was part of the problem…and yet I get very nervous when I am not silent, particularly the more public the forum. I really appreciate iMonk accomodating my request (breathed a big sigh of relief, is more like it-ha), even though I know it makes things a little confusing for those who weren’t following the conversation.

    LikeLike

77. Couple of thoughts…

    I appreciate the support (and some of you have been so kind—thank you, and thank you so much for your prayers as I navigate my way out of this mess), but (and I’m not meaning to pick on anyone here, so hopefully this is heard the way I mean it) but there is sometimes a disturbing turn here in this conversation, one that I certainly did not want to encourage….

    My husband wasn’t “a bad excuse for a man,” or “scum,” or some of the other things he’s been called here. Truly, if anyone here has reason to revile him, it’s me. And…I don’t. He was just a man. He was human. He was amazing in some areas…when I say his ministry changed lives, I am speaking the truth..and destructive in others…his “ministry” to me, for example…I am deeply damaged by what happened during those years. That’s true… But if you saw another side of him, you would be like many others who held him in awe and high esteem, and, in those areas, rightly so.

    In other words, good and bad were both there….like they are in *all* of us. His were just a little more extreme, but he was still human, is still your brother in Christ, and some of the comments here are crossing the line.

    The thing about abuse is that we paint caracatures of the “abuser” as this horribly rotten person, and “abuse” as this easy to spot thing. It’s not that way. In most cases, it’s terribly complex. The abuser is often a wonderful person…in some areas…the guy you’d never think would do anything like that. And the abuse is often balanced out by wonderful times, or, at least, seemingly healthy times… It’s not so black and white as it seems when it’s condensed into a little five paragraph story. 😦

    I love what Driscoll says and truly do appreciate his strong words against abuse. But yet, and I don’t think this is petty or just semantics, I cringe when he starts using abusive tactics to try and shame people into doing things the way he thinks they should do them. Maybe that’s part of the problem….that most of us aren’t aware that he just did exactly that. Shaming and belittling others is part of the problem, not part of the solution. We have a lot to learn, as a church, in this area. I know that I certainly did… (Speaking of which, a Must Read: “The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse” by VanVoderen)…

    Btw, when it comes to Wilson, in no way do I assign him or any of the other Biblical Patriarchy teachers the full share of blame. No, no, not at all. And yet they will be judged for their words. They feed abusive people… they take away the personal power of the women in such homes, the power to have a choice, to say no, to set down a boundary, to even know that abuse is abuse.

    That’s nice that Wilson tells husbands to be kind ot their wives. I’m thankful he says nice things like that. But he *also* tells a husband that he will and should sometimes do things his wife doesn’t like and he must be firm about it, that she should view him as her “lord” and that he should act like he is her lord and never forget that he is her lord even when he is being kind and loving to her, that he is a husbandman and she is his field and it is his job to decide what will grow there and it is her job to submissively and cheerfully accept what he chooses for her (or he is her wall and she must view things out of his window), that she was born needing to be led, that she is to find her identity in him, etc…? It’s all there, in the book. I’m not making anything up. It’s there.

    You take a person with NPD or a tendancy towards dominance (a hallmark feature of testosterone, so something many men will struggle with, especially as younger husbands) or abusive behavior or mental illness or just plain ordinary selfishness, tell them that they are the “lord” of their wife and that she is his field and that she is to be oriented to him while he is oriented to the calling God gives him and that he is to be her spiritual guide and teacher and show her how to see things correctly…..please, please, don’t put all the blame on the man when he takes that seriously and starts acting accordingly.

    A Focus on the Family site had a blog post up a while back that literally came right out and said that, yes, it’s true, some women get kind of controlling husbands, but, well, that’s their lot in life, and whether they like it or not, husbands have the right to decide whether their wives will or will not have children—and how many, whether they will or will not homeschool them, whether they will or will not work outside the home, whether they will or will not live in a certain location, whether they will or will not allow their dying child to recieve one treatment or the other…and that it is a wife’s role to submit graciously. This was from Focus. Not a fringe group in some little church somewhere. As far as I know, there was no retraction. Wives? You are in *sin* if you do not obey him.

    I’ve had people chide me because I had the children my husband told me to have. They said I should have known better, that I should have said no, that I should have known he was wrong. These are the same people who promote the very ministries and teachers that taught me that saying no was *sin*, that what brought down the human race was a wife making a decision without first getting approval from her husband (another mainstream teacher posits that, Ware, not some sideshow extremist)… My husband felt that God wanted us to have more babies. Who was I, a woman who was designed by God to need male leadership, a woman who was now filled with the fallen desire to rebel against her husband, a woman who is to view her husband as her lord and spiritual teacher, to say no?

    It’s not to say I remove myself from blame. Oh my….if I could only go back. It makes me sick to my stomach to even think about it. But that said, I *did* go for help. I probably read every complementarian and “biblical patriarchy” book on the market. I tried. You remember what happens when the blind lead the blind, though, right? 😦

    And then, because my husband went and did exactly what these ministries said he was allowed to do (and, in some cases, encouraged to do), people want the blame to land 100% on his back, they want to say that he was abusive or took things out of context, that the teachings had nothing to do with it…

    Well, yes, he was abusive. Absolutely. But he also had plenty of back up from plenty of teachers who did *literally* approve of many of the things he was doing. The teaching from Focus said quite plainly that whether or not a wife will have children, and how many she will have, is the husbands decision and a wife who does not obey is in sin. That’s not me grasping at straws or trying to blame someone. That’s just a fact.

    I agree with those who say that complementarianism does not necessarily make a man abusive. I never said it did. I know too many good, kind complementarian men to ever believe that. But, let’s face it. A Christian man who is inclined to be abusive and/or misogynistic is going to be drawn straight to complementarian and/or patriarchal teachings because they affirm the inner sense of the abusive person that *he* is supposed to be in charge of her, that he has the innate right to be in charge of her. It’s past time for patriarchal and complementarian teachers to realize this and preach accordingly, to start becoming educated on domestic violence in all its forms, to start studying the way abusive minds think and to start teaching women, the ones most vulnerable in the comp set up, what various forms of abuse are and when it’s okay to say no, that having boundaries is not a sin.

    Here’s something I’ve noticed and find interesting…and sad…and common (and as others have mentioned, this is very true in areas of marriage teaching *and* parenting teaching)… Many people can tell abused wives that they shouldn’t be confused by the kind and nice things their abusive spouse does—that they need to stand firm against the abuse, period. And yet these very same people can’t seem to seperate the abusive/destructive teaching from the good and kind teachings of a ministry or a leader that they like, and thus leap to their defense if someone points out the abusive nature of some aspects of the teaching…

    Like an abused spouse who has yet to figure out that it’s really and truly abuse, they can’t seem to see the destructive nature of the thing. They want so badly to believe the good, to believe that the good is the main thing and the destructive parts are just these little things that are best passed over, or will be fixed in time, or are just little silly things of no consequence…. I know how that is. I am a very loyal person. I *want* to believe the good…and when someone I love or am endeared to is being attacked (whether for real, or just percieved), my entire being gears up to defend. There are admirable aspects to having such a reaction….but not when the “attack” is made up of valid points, things that truly are troublesome, things that can and should be addressed, things that can and are damaging people, sometimes irreparably…

    The thing is, there are some very troubling things being taught by Wilson. This isn’t to say that Wilson himself is an abusive husband. We have no way of knowing that and to say that would be wrong. It’s also not to say that Wilson doesn’t teach good or wise things, or do good and wise things. It’s complex, remember? But the fact that he does good things in no way excuses the destructive things. And to say that he is teaching destructive things isn’t blame-shifting or taking a teacher’s words out of context.

    Long ramble. My apologies. Now, to go tackle a sink full of dishes..

    LikeLike

78. did I miss a post or something, cause I am unclear about “the commenter” is?

    LikeLike

79. speaking of scum on the cross… I think both of the men on either side of Christ as he hung on his cross were scum, and one of them was in Paradise with Christ later that day willoh.

    Be mindful, you are no better than that scum.

    LikeLike

80. Well, well. You posted something I didn’t think you’d post, you hadn’t yet anyways. This is old news as you know, and for your blog it’s ancient (you are on top of things in other words). We can “deal with it” as you say, or let me be more specific… I can. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a healthy discussion about it. We all like pointing out the guy who beat up his wife, makes us feel pretty d@*# good doesn’t it?… helps Driscoll seem pretty confident about himself here!… but somehow the gospel doesn’t give us lisence to do such (and for some odd reason we never read of Jesus searching out the non-abusive husband or man and giving him and ata-boy, why I wonder?)

    Driscoll has some good things to say. Some Godly things too. And yes, we need to hear more of some of what he says. But he’s over the top. And he’s full of pride here. Wouldn’t say so if I couldn’t see it. But I do. I have been so full of pride my eyes should have burst (and a 1000 times this month).

    I think your motive in posting this is to point out other things, but don’t open a can of worms if you don’t want worms I always think. Seriously. I’m with you on the evils of domestic abuse Michael. But believe it or not, some women abuse the system (as a few commenters have mentioned, and even if its the minority it’s worth pointing out, they get a pass just about everywhere cause we are “men”). As for the sickening fatherless boys at your school… sad, really. But that doesn’t erase the women who abuse their husbands (and please don’t start justifying that, cause a knife, and it surely is one, can cut more than one way).

    I have 3 awesome kids and have never hit a one of them—not even close. Two of them daughters, which God’s so kindly given me (16 and 19). Never was remotely tempted to abuse them in a way for which I’d knock someone else’s head off for (but have no right to lest I forget). I rarely raised my voice with my kids (but I did, trust me). Spanked them too little lookig back (left that to my ex-wife—who was a great mom—to do that, and a stay at home mom by choice). That being said, can’t say I was never abusive though. I was royally unfaithful to my wife Michael… and we divorced several years ago now (that being a major major factor). I’d say I am an abuser. I consider that abuse of the most heinous kind (and infidelity of any kind is abuse I’d argue—i.e., Jesus re-defined that for us so we ought to drop our stones—watching and drooling over the girls on the Super Bowl ads is such if you as me).

    Can only speak for myself when you get down to it. I certainly have acted impatiently with my kids. Been haughty with my kids. And have been mean spirited at times—even if you, my pastor, my parents, or the man on the moon never knew. I weigh 170 pounds, can’t say I’ve never abused food or my body. Worse than that, I have abused my friends (not to mention my enemies–even if I do pray for them, and I do). And then there’s this: I’ve abused Christ himself and his grace, what worse abuse than that?

    As a Christian these last 23 years I’ve abused more than I wish to admit.

    You might want to spell out a little more clearly what kind of abuse you “have no sympathy for” Michael, cause it’s a broad broad broad term—a broader one than the likes of Oprah, MSNBC, and even Fox might lead us to believe (amazing how abuse is so often defined one way but not another—people do have a funny way of defining “abuse” so long as it is the abuse by someone they don’t much like or someone who doesn’t applaud them).

    And then there is, God help him, the fallible Mark Driscoll. He’s the one to define abuse for us???… (after he beats men up who haven’t beat up a woman… maybe they had impure thoughts that morning and thought Mark must never… Sorry, but Mark is preaching condemnation here). I figure God is doing the defining (or has already done it), so I hate to be helping him try to do so, his standards are much higher than mine or yours!

    I never said “How dare you!” as I heard Mark go on here. Not hardly. We need to be men. More than that, we need to be Christlike (he’s not only “manly”, but he’s also Godly—hint hint). That being said, I do think Mark may have at some miniscule point disrespected his wife, his own mother, and even his own daughters if he’s honest… but you’d never know it by the way he carries on here (and for the record, I consider disrespecting those God has placed in our lives as abuse, call me difficult, but the road we walk isn’t the broad one).

    I thank God his grace doesn’t stop with Driscoll—it reaches down to me, an abuser. Thank God that you—me—and Driscoll don’t hand out God’s grace. I love Mark from a distance (listen to him almost weekly via podcast). But I often want to remind him that he wouldn’t be the model dad, husband, church planter, pastor, and preacher he is if it weren’t for Gods’ grace (undeserved favor for folks who may not be abusers but would be if it weren’t for his grace). Period. I do hope Driscoll gets a clue before he gets a dreaded wake up call.

    LikeLike

81. Thanks for posting this video, Michael. I needed it. I’ve always maintained that saying that complementarianism leads to abuse is about as fair as saying that egalitarianism leads to affirming homosexuality. I think we can notices certain tendencies and perhaps even a slippery slope or two in some cases, but the majority of adherents have well thought out boundaries in place to secure their position from falling into error.

    PS. I miss being able to spout off on the BHT, every now then, but I am a “nice guy” 😉

    LikeLike

82. I’m no fan of Driscoll, but I can’t fault what he said. I also agree that boys growing up without fathers or male role models don’t stand much of a chance. Church youth groups which resemble neverland don’t help. It isn’t just women who suffer, but employers, co-workers, landlords – anyone who enters a commitment, contract, promise, or friendship with one of these lost boys. It is more than preaching complimentarianism. It will take more than screaming and insulting. The church needs to do something that no one has: teach them by example what it means to be a man, and how to get there. It will take the lost art of discipleship.

    LikeLike

83. Egalitarians writing books about the evils of fundamentalism at Bob Jones

    You got somebody in mind? Really. . . . I need to know.

    LikeLike

84. Amen Driscoll! When a woman has a man who loves her as Christ loved the church, she would be a fool not to put him in the driver’s seat. the only one who ever loved me that much was Christ, and i submit to him as much as I can.
    Men who beat women are scum. Churches that allow abusers to sit as if they were members of the body allow scum to gather on the Cross.

    LikeLike

85. Thanks, Debbie. I appreciate your quick apology.

    I think The Commenter has done a great job modeling how to handle it. Whether people ultimately agree with her about Wilson and the effect of his rhetoric or not, she’s done a great job telling her story and why and how she thinks his rhetoric contributed to her abuse. So much good comes from when we tell our stories!

    Another option is to urge friends and family to steer clear. Or if you have a pulpit, and the issue has actual bearing on the congregation, to use it to urge them to steer clear. (But no one wants a sermon series on “all the books that I think went too far and why.”)

    Still another way is to confront the person with the irresponsible rhetoric personally, going the Matthew 18 route. The tough thing here, though, is when you’ve been wronged by someone’s public words. When you believe you’ve been hurt by those words, it’s only natural to want that confrontation to be equally public, if only because you want to give everyone else who heard them a chance to avoid being hurt themselves (and a whole host of less pure motives).

    Can you tell I love gray areas? 🙂

    LikeLike

86. That last sentence didn’t come out right… trying again.

    The difficulty you inevitably face is that if you are not expecting God to hold them accountable in His time, and you want it done in the here-and-now, you must allow someone, other than an holy, omniscient God, to judge what it true and right when you get into those gray areas.

    LikeLike

87. I’m sorry, Chutney. No offense was intended. I was merely using hyperbole to make a point. I see I didn’t use good judgment, since you don’t know me nor can you hear my tone.

    Regarding accountability, see my comment above.

    You are correct that “some things that are so offensive and vile that they should never be said from a pulpit or published in a book that purports to be teaching religious truth.”

    But my question stands: What do you do about it?

    The difficulty you inevitably face is that you must allow someone, other than an holy, omniscient God, to judge what it true and right when you get into those gray areas.

    LikeLike

88. So people don’t need to be accountable for their words? That’s not the lesson I’ll be teaching my son when he’s old enough to talk.

    There’s a world of difference between a book burning and expecting that those who fashion themselves spiritual teachers should be held accountable for their words. You’re being offensive by implying that I’m in favor of book burning, don’t you think?

    And some rhetoric encourages abuse even when read by the right person. My tradition practices freedom of the pulpit and freedom of the pew, so I’m willing to make wide allowances here. But there are some things that are so offensive and vile that they should never be said from a pulpit or published in a book that purports to be teaching religious truth.

    LikeLike

89. I said it’s not the answer. I was saying that egalitarians who naively assume they have the answer might want to go to public schools where their values are promoted and see how gender relations are developing. I am saying that I understand why complementarians feel they have a better answer.

    I vote with egalitarians on the Biblical/theological side, but I respect what complementarians value: loving wives/children as Christ loved us.

    LikeLike

90. Of course rhetoric can encourage abuse, even incite abuse, when read by the wrong person. So, how do we fix this?

    I smell a good old fashioned book burning!

    When we start punishing people for their ideas we start down that proverbial slippery slope which will eventually destroy for *ourselves* the very liberty Jesus came to provide to us!

    LikeLike

91. If you listen to Mark, he’s a very patient teacher. Not a screamer. This is him out past the edge, genuinely angry at what he sees happening. I don’t condone his tone, etc. I just want the people who posted that complementarians tacitly support abuse of women to see this.

    LikeLike

92. He’s speaking to men. Cowardly men. Abusers. Rapists. Child Abusers. Manipulators. Liars. In short, unrepentant men. No one comes to the Gospel without the Law first to show them their sin. Mark was incredibly graceful to give them a chance to avoid God’s anger by preaching repentance. I’ve been abused by a few male members in my family, in several ways. God’s grace is true and beautiful, and often comes in soft ways to the tenderhearted,the pentinent, the “smoldering flax and bruised reed.” Such men are not those. They do evil, and they need to be come against. We worship a sad God if he does not do that. Just my two cents.

    Paul

    LikeLike

93. I never heard of “complementarianism” before I read about it on this site.

    Anthropologically, every society that we know anything about, past or present, has had some sort of sex-role distinction. For most of history, and in most of the world–certainly in the ancient Mediterranean–this has not even been an issue. Feminism and women’s equality were inconceivable until the industrial era.

    Probably current social trends are unsustainable, since these tend to interfere with effective child-rearing, and then the Mormons (or other “conservative” groups) will inherit the earth. Note that this has nothing to do with our happiness–my wife and all my female relatives probably prefer their current freedoms–and everything to do with the effective mobilization of resources.

    On the other hand, “complementarianism” as described here seems even more of a social experiment than the trends to which it is reacting. Since adherents are free to join, or leave, such groups without penalty, they may find it difficult to regulate member behavior as they wish. (A subculture is not a society.)

    Most groups, or ideologies, include elements which outsiders regard as offensive. To what extent it becomes legitimate to demonize the entire group, is an interesting question. We habitually do this with the Nazis and NAMBLA, but what about Muslims? Jews? Blacks? Americans? Should all be blamed for the actions of some, or where applicable, for the laws, policies, and overall qualities of the group? And what are we to do when the people seem nice, but the group has a “dark side”? How much of this is their choice and responsibility, and how much is ours?

    LikeLike

94. I can’t speak for imonk, but I understood him to mean that complementarianism when taught properly teaches men to “love their wives as Christ loved the Church.” Such a teaching is desperately needed in a culture that devalues women.

    LikeLike

95. My mother actually physically abused me using the “Spoil the rod” line as justification. It wasn’t just spanking. I was kicked, beaten, had things thrown at me – even stoned in some cases. I would go to school with swollen limbs and bruises. If I got a bad grade, I was beaten until I couldn’t stand it anymore. She beat me when my dog was still going through her “the-carpet-feels-like-grass-so-I’ll-pee” puppy stage, because she didn’t think I trained her well enough. Plus, she was ruining the carpet.

    And the last time she beat me, I remember. I was told to use some food in the freezer and put it back. I obeyed. She went out, came back, didn’t find the food in the freezer and beat me senseless, screaming “Who taught you to lie?” When she found the food in question, she started apologizing profusely.

    This was in Nigeria, where there’s no CPS. And beating your kid (not spanking) was promoted as a form of discipline.

    It’s one of the reasons I’m not that close to my mother anymore. I can never forget.

    LikeLike

96. I’m confused, last I checked it WAS the egalitarians (and feminists) who were calling out the problems of teenagers worshiping rap artists and jerks. One could certainly make the argument that that message is an extreme version complimentarianism.

    Driscoll does no one any favors emasculating and shaming men, he makes things much worse.

    LikeLike

97. “Egalitarians writing books about the evils of fundamentalism at Bob Jones and Christ Church, Moscow might want to visit their local public school- heck, visit their local Christian school- and see the state of things. See how the ideals of equality and respect are doing out there. If you can’t see why complementarianism makes sense in so many communities and sub-cultures, you’re looking past reality.” IM, you’ve totally lost me here. Are you really positing that in a culture like you’ve described where women are treated as objects, that suggesting that women be given equal respect and an equal voice in the church is counter productive? I really am unclear on how complementarianism is the answer to a culture that already devalues women.

    Don’t post often, but I love your blog and appreciate your ministry to those in the evangelical wilderness.For some, complimentarianism is part of the reason they’re out there.

    LikeLike

98. It seems to me the underlying question isn’t whether abusers will use any excuse handy to excuse themselves—of course they will–but whether or not rhetoric can encourage or incite abuse? And if it can, how do we know when it’s doing so and what is the responsibility of the person leveling that rhetoric?

    LikeLike

99. Personal responsibility.

    It’s not very popular. Never has been. We want to be able to blame “them” for our weakness. From the beginning it was so:

    “11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
    12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
    13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
    The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Genesis 3

    We live in a world where personal responsibility is the last option. We are fleshy people, not living in the Spirit, when we attempt to deflect and/or project our responsibility onto someone else.

    I have fallen into this mire many times.

    On the flip side:

    “1Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” James 3

    If teachers are in anyway remiss in there teaching, they will be held accountable for such. It is a huge responsibility to teach another, whether it be through your example or through your words (spoken or written).

    It’s a huge responsibility.

    LikeLike

100. Abuse usually comes from anger and temper issues. Wilson’s repeated exhortations to sacrifice for, honor, and love our wives have no place for cruelty and violence. I am sorry to hear The commenter’s husband was a bad excuse for a man; however I have no doubt that sad anecdotes can be provided on all camps on the gender issue.

     LikeLike

101. I do agree with you…people will use a crutch no matter what the given situation. I have used a crutch when needed. Just being honest. When I was at my lowest point, I used whatever means available to make it someone else’s fault or to justify my actions. Thankfully, my marriage was saved despite me and I’m better off for it.

     This was a good sermon piece from Discoll. I had it on my blog too and it reminded me to make sure my unfinished work got finished someday soon. It’s not something that will ever be finished (though I’ve come very far) I assume, in this world, but I want a head start on eternity now.

     LikeLike

102. “We are, in truth, more than half of what we are by imitation.” – Lord Chesterfield

     It is all of our responsibilities to model that which we want our children to become. I agree with your statement, Mike, “I believe the answer is the Gospel.” The best model by far is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But once we get to the Gospels, then we must live them out, we must model Christ. Unfortunately we must live model Christ while living in bodies that are of flesh. So the Holy Spirit must come into play, otherwise it’s impossible.

     Regarding the video…What Mark Driscoll seems to fail to understand is that he’s just a man, too, not God, and but for the grace of God he’d be the man that he’s yelling at. And but for the grace of God, one day he will be. So maybe a little more graceful approach might be warranted…?

     LikeLike

103. OK, lets try the line without the brackets.
     http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/superbowl.asp

     LikeLike

104. “But the fact of abuse doesn’t encourage me to buy into the characterization of complementarians as abusers any more than I believed the study that said men who watched the Super Bowl were the most likely to physically abuse their wives.”

     There was no study. At least not one that showed a “Super Bowl” effect. Turned out it was supposition that morphed into “fact”. When the issue WAS studied it was discovered that there was no up swing in abuse the next day/week. If anything there was a decrease.

     My wife was on the board of the local abuse shelter for several years. But she/we decided to resign when it became obvious that the staff at this and many other shelters take the position that the man is always wrong and need to be put in jail. No matter what the facts. And they were upfront that this was their position. And many of the stories being told about how bad some women have it turned out to be urban legends.

     We still support agencies that help out abused spouses but try and do so in ways that don’t support the extreme position taken by many who work in the area.

     Some details here:

     But Snopes isn’t the only source of this. We got our initial information from lawyers that specialize in the field.

     LikeLike

105. MIchael,
     I love your thoughts! You make me feel like I’m not alone.

     LikeLike

106. I followed a link from a recent Bill Kinnon/Achievable Ends post to an article on Narcissitic Personality Disorder. I don’t believe that all abusers have the disorder, but I recommend reading about the disorder not only for this topic, but it also helps identify abusive types in churches. Scott Peck used to say that evil people like the church because they can get away with so much–even in the name of Jesus.

     LikeLike