Hello friends and happy Saturday. Chaplain Mike here. For once I’ve dragged my lazy butt out of bed on a Saturday morning to be with you all.
I’ve enjoyed writing about the Slow Church book this week, but today I’m ready to spread my wings and ramble. Our regular Rambler, the renowned Pastor Dan, is visiting the Promised Land in Arizona this weekend to wish his mom a happy 80th birthday. So while he rambles for real, we’ll do our weekly tour of the good, the bad, and the ugly from cyberspace. And today we go video style.
We begin with a story that Pastor Dan will love.
Dan’s family used to run a restaurant at the base of Mt. Rushmore, and our gastronomically gifted pastor grew up working there in the presence of those iconic images. Well, in honor of “National Jerky Day” this past Thursday, June 12, Jack Link’s Jerky company built a replica of Mt. Rushmore covered with beef jerky. That’s right, they made Meat Rushmore, and they did it “to celebrate our nation’s longstanding relationship with meat snacks.”
Roll the video —
Second, before I start getting hate mail, I owe you an apology. We’ve been discussing a variety of religious issues here at Internet Monk over the years, but apparently we missed one of the most significant matters of our time. However, thanks be to God and to Martyn Ballestero, someone has finally displayed the courage to confront what may the most destructive practice the church has ever known.
That’s right, we’re talking about . . .
. . . facial hair on Pentecostal men.
Brother Ballestero has really given this a lot of thought, as evidenced by his incisive and convicting blog post that poses the following questions.
This is NOT Martyn Ballestero, nor would Martyn Ballestero approve the use of this image in connection with his post. We’re putting it here anyway, because this guy has an undeniably AWESOME beard.
My Question Is, Why The Facial Hair Comeback?
Why now?
What for?
What is gained in the Spirit by men wearing facial hair?
How is the church strengthened by that acceptance?
Do Pentecostal men wear them because it’s popular in the world?
How does it further our outreach?
Why did our new converts shave their beards and mustaches off when they got the Holy Ghost?
Why the long absence of facial hair in conservative Pentecostal Apostolic ranks?
If it was deemed wrong then, why is it ok now?
Should we apologize now to all them who shaved their beards off when they got in church, because now it’s ok if you find the ‘right’ church?
If Facial Hair Today Is So Proper, Why Then Does It Cause Men Of Honor To Distance Themselves From All Those Who Permit Such? Why Then Does It Separate Good Men? There’s A Reason!
What are it’s wearers trying to prove, and to whom?
Doesn’t it make its wearers look more like what they used to be?
How Does This Help Identify Us As Apostolic?
If We Took A Poll And Asked Pentecostal Men Why They Are Wearing Beards, What Would Be Their Response To:
Are you going Charismatic? No.
Are you backslid? No.
Are you in rebellion to holiness standards? No.
Are you wearing it because you think it makes you look cool? No.
If you are not wearing it out of compromise, rebellion, or from a backslidden state, and you are wearing it just because you think it looks good on you, then would you say it is pride issue with you?
Does Your Facial Hair Tell Others That You Have A Flaming Pride Issue?
If you don’t think pride is involved in wearing of facial hair, just try to preach it off of those who have it. Every wearer I’ve met is fiercely defensive.
When Apostolic Pentecostal Churches And Organizations Say It Is Ok To Wear Beards, The Question Soon Arises…
Why?
What do they hope to gain?
Does that bring revival?
Is this in anyway related to the same spirit of rebellion of the Hippies?
What is the purpose?
In some twisted way does the wearer feel it makes them more like Jesus? How?
Isn’t pride part of it?
What Other Area Of Their Lives Is In Line To Be Changed Next?
Remember The Biblical Statements:
“It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us”
“Here we have no such custom”
Where Will These Two ‘Facial Hair’ Roads Go? Where Will They Take Us?
Where will these “Facial Hair” roads go? At the risk of causing my brothers and sisters to stumble, I must point out that our world has already sunk to a degree of debauchery unimaginable to the Pentecostal patriarchs. Witness — if you dare — the following trailer of a recent feature film on the subject.
WARNING: explicit facial hair.
Martyn Ballestero doesn’t mention it, but with the follicle folly that has beset the church also comes the danger of becoming — gasp! — Roman Catholic. Like this dude on the right. I may be a heretic, but I love his music anyway.
So that leads to the next thing. We can’t speak of beards and music without giving a shout-out to one of the great bearded icons of CCM, David Crowder, who now just goes by “Crowder” (see what a beard will do to you?) He has returned to roots music on his latest album, Neon Steeple. (You can read the CT review if you’ll click the link on the IM Bulletin Board.)
Here’s a good ol’ gospel pick-me-up for your Saturday from, er, Crowder. Hey wait! Is that Martyn Ballestero in the crowd?
Let’s talk about something serious, huh?
Russell Moore, President of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, takes a clear position opposing homosexual behavior, believing that it is sin. However, he thinks that Christian parents shouldn’t shun their gay kids. Moore argues that those who advocate alienating a child who comes out as gay have bought into the lie that our sexual orientation defines us. Rather, Moore defends giving such a child one’s continuing love and attention: “. . . what doesn’t change is your love and care for this child. Don’t panic and don’t reject them. Say explicitly that you love that child, no matter what, and mean it. Your relationship wasn’t formed by the child’s performance, and that won’t start now.”
On the other side of the courtroom, as attorney for the prosecution, here is our good friend John MacArthur, pastor and teacher on the curiously named radio program, “Grace to you.”
Wow. And a happy Father’s Day to you, John.
Are you ready for some futbol?
The Fifa World Cup has begun, and in the opening match, Brazil came from behind to secure a hard-fought 3-1 victory over Croatia. One of those who has been making predictions about the games is Cabecao the Psychic Turtle. Here’s the replay of the astute terrapin picking the winner of that first match.
Finally, Happy Father’s Day. Tomorrow families will gather on decks and in backyards all around this great country of ours, pass the burgers and potato salad, and say “thank you” for the love and wise counsel we’ve received from dear old dad over the years.
In his honor, we conclude with a matchless example of paternal sagacity, featuring my all-time favorite TV dad.
Your replies for the most part are exactly what I am talking about. You don’t even explore the possibility that some women are terrible wives and divorce for trivial and shallow reasons. That doesn’t even come up on your radar. It happens all the time and I’m sure is reflected in the 60%+ of female initiated divorces.
By your own admission “Most women want the fairy tale.” This is the kind of stuff that leads to divorce. When they find out that their man isn’t perfect and that there is no fairy tale, they become disillusioned,often looking at or sampling ‘greener pastures.’ or complaining and nagging bitterly.
As for ’emotional neglect’, not only is it not found in the Scriptures, it is a vaguely defined term that is used like a bloody club, being retrofitted to whatever behavior the dissatisfied wife finds annoying. It is a catch-all phrase used to justify the threat of divorce. Can you imagine if men started divorcing their wives for lack of sex? ( A real ‘need’ as defined by biology, psychology, and the Apostle Paul.) Or for a constant nagging and bitching? ( Emotional abuse,anyone?)
Your comments are a show case for the very thing I was pointing out.
We’re not talking about simply sinning here. We are talking about a heretical belief that sin cannot be overcome. And we’re talking about not only a person who is gay committing a sin, but living a lifestyle that accepts and embraces sin, with a refusal to come into line with scriptural truth. At that point, excommunication may be warranted.
The question then becomes, is the family autonomous from the Church or an extension or foundation of it?
OK, agree with you there, he wasn’t pining for Arizona. Just looking for a better life after the twister came through to blow away the lies that leave you lost and brokenhearted. 🙂
I don’t think disagreement is allowed. It says at the bottom: “Readers attempting to post opposing viewpoints would be better served debating their opinion elsewhere, or maybe even by getting their own blog. Thank you for reading.”
My own experience as a father has shown my desperate need for prayer. I’m terribly imperfect. My parenting skills were woefully lacking early on, and my temper often got the better of me. I have spent some time with my eldest, expressing my sorrow concerning my behavior, and encouraging him to be aware of the tendencies he learned or inherited from me, and not to take them into his own upcoming marriage.
I was simply commenting on the need for balance. My most recent comment displayed a little bitterness but reflected my generalization of how church cultures address this. Generally, from the pulpit, there is tiptoeing, qualification and nuance when criticism of mothers is undertaken. Not so with fathers. That’s when straight-shooting tough love is rolled out. My point is that often the pastor has a wife to go home to, at least in my denomination, and not a husband. None of us like to deal with an angry wife.
The book I mentioned above, Why Do Christians Shoot Their Wounded, also points out another sad phenomenon:
If a Non Christian starts going to church, say, a drug addicted, alcoholic, long haired, hard-living Hell’s Angel motorcycle gang member, the church people are all cool with the guy, they won’t correct him if he uses swear words… they understand he’s not “saved” yet, so they overlook the guy’s shortcomings.
But the minute that same biker guy accepts Jesus as Savior, the same church people expects him to walk into church two weeks later (or two months later, or eight months later, or 2 years… it varies from church to church), to be clean cut, have his tats removed, should be totally sober, no more drugs, be wearing a suit and tie.
I have noticed that just from reading blogs and being around Christians.
Many of them will show more grace and tolerance for the Non Christian guy who’s into drugs or hard living but show no patience for slip ups, sins, etc, to the person who converts. Lots of Christians expect newbies to the faith to be 100% sanctified two seconds after they accept Jesus.
The bottom line is, some churches are so unloving or legalistic, they don’t permit people – long time Christians – to stumble and fail. If you are a Christian, you are not allowed to make mistakes, feel sad, or have trials and problems.
I know the Bible indicates that yes, you should be able to see some sort of improvement in a person’s life if they claim to be a Christian, they should more or less be godly on a fairly consistent basis after years … but some churches carry that to unreasonable expectations.
I also think Soup Nazi guy was on the TV show Seinfeld?
I never really watched that show. I tried to when it first came on, but it wasn’t my type of humor. I did find Soup Nazi mildly amusing, but that wasn’t enough to get me to tune in every week for the show.
P.S.
To further clarify. Where I first said above,
“That’s probably another reason there is a 60% rate of divorce with women initiating most divorces.”
I was not trying to say that all cases of the 60% are due to the husband being financially irresponsible, having a dirty magazine habit, and so forth.
I don’t know what percentage of the 60% those cases comprise. It could be 3 percent. It could be 20, or 23, or 45%, who knows?
My point was not to try to nail down a specific figure but to say, if women are initiating 60% of the time, the majority of them must have dang good reasons for doing so.
They are reasons you might not personally agree with, but reasons they feel they can no longer endure personally, or they don’t want to waste the next X decades of their lives trapped in a horrible or loveless marriage.
Most women want the fairy tale. Most women want to marry a man who loves them, who is stable, provides a stable home life, who offers meaningful consistent companionship, etc.
If 60% of women are leaving marriages, there are good reasons for it. Most women (and I don’t think most men) are not going to divorce lightly, or for frivolous reasons, and not within two weeks of getting married.
And for some reasons women might have for divorcing, that might include everything from physical abuse, regular emotional or verbal abuse, to financial irresponsibility, to constant emotional neglect (e.g., husband prefers watching football to spending time with the wife), and anything and everything in between.
Most women allow abusive or bad relationships to drag on for much too long. Women are conditioned from the time they are girls to invest everything they have to relationships. They have a hard time ending relationships.
Most women will do everything to make a relationship work, and at that, for years, before they throw in the towel.
Women will try to work at and improve the relationship. If women are in a romantic relationship where they feel unhappy, their usual strategy is to talk to the sweetie pie about it and to try to get their man to work with them to improve things.
But as I said above, most men I have read about, and in my own personal experience (I was in a long term serious relationship), are apathetic and lazy about working hard to improve a relationship.
Many men, based on what I have seen, experienced, read about, and heard from female friends/family, are fine with the status quo in the relationship.
A lot of men don’t feel or see a need to change and improve, I have seen this, read about it, and experience it myself time and again. Many men don’t take their wife’s (or girlfriend’s) pleas to step up, to get counseling, or spend more time with her (or whatever the issue is) seriously.
They tend to condescendingly dismiss the woman’s concerns and wave her off with one hand and resume giving all their attention to drinking beer and watching the football game on the TV.
We only get one life down here, and I will not waste mine on some guy who does not appreciate me, takes me for granted, or would rather spend all the time at the golf course or with his nose in dirty naked women sites on the internet, than spend a bit of time with me.
I hate it when Christians club people with the “biblical grounds” crud, because it’s used as a weapon to keep people (men and women) into stuck in horrible marriages, or guilt and shame them into staying. There’s more concern for the institution itself than for the people who are in the institution.
The Bible’s teaching on marriage and divorce has also been misunderstood anyway, see stuff like, What God Has Joined
2/3rds of the time? That is not true. I know more marriages ended by adultery on the part of the women (‘Christian ‘women) than those that are ended by men’s adultery.
I don’t recall saying a specific number. Did I say “two thirds” or are you putting words in my mouth?
(You seem to be taking my posts on this awful personal. Did your wife divorce you, and you’re steamed about it? Otherwise, I am not getting where the animosity is coming from. You seem to hate all women everywhere and blame them.)
I also never said women do not have affairs.
BTW, I totally agree that some married women have affairs.
One of my pet peeves is that most conservative Christians maintain gender stereotypes, including the one that
1. women do not like sex, do not want sex,
2. women are emotional and not visually stimulated by sexy looking men,
and that
3a. married people are impervious to sexual sin
but that
3b. single adults are horn dogs who sleep around all over the place.
I have come across story after story of married people who cheat on one another – usually it’s a man cheating on his wife – but I come across stories in Christian news reports and blogs about married women who cheat on their husbands.
Women, contrary to what Christians teach, do like sex, want sex, and married women (and married men) do sometimes have affairs. Married people have affairs.
There is a chunk of adult singles who live celibate lives, we are not fooling around.
But it remains true that a sizable chunk of Christian married men are cheating or involved in other sexual sin.
Every other day Christian news sites report more and more stories, interviews with, or surveys about, how married Christian men are hooked on dirty sites, dirty movies, using prostitutes, having affairs – including ones who work as preachers.
As a matter of fact, one reason I no longer subscribe to the “be not yoked to an unbeliever” teaching in my quest to get married eventually, is I repeatedly see online stories of CHRISTIAN men who cop to having affairs, using dirty nudie sites, etc. I take it from this I am just as well off dating Non Christian men and marrying a Non Christian.
Yep, Patrick, sometimes men are to blame for relationships falling apart.
You said, Since when is watching sports too much, being inattentive, or even being lazy scriptural grounds for divorce?
Because you are neglecting your wife. That is emotional neglect and neglect of the relationship.
What would you think of a man and woman who are married who spend all day getting high on drugs, or spend all day drunk or partying, who don’t spend time nurturing their children, reading stories to them, hugging them, helping them with their school work, etc? That is neglect too, and CPS might take kids away from parents who are like that.
You should read the book “Boundaries” by Cloud and Townsend, they get into this a little bit, they even use examples.
As their book explains, there are some people (they cite an example of a husband) who does not feel obligated to meet his wife’s emotional needs.
Yeah, if you don’t even attempt to meet your wife’s emotional needs and spend all day watching NFL or constantly go on fishing trips – you are neglecting your wife and your relationship, so don’t be surprised if or when she dumps you or has an affair with a man who pays attention to her.
Conversely, the same thing happens in marriages where the husband wants to spend more time with the wife, but she gets into spending all her time on Facebook playing “Farmville” and “World of Warcraft.” Those marriages dissolve too.
You must have a very sad, warped view of marriage to think it’s just two people living under the same roof not sharing their lives, to think it’s okay for the man to ignore the wife when he gets home, immediately flip on the TV and watch football and not ask the wife how her day was, etc.
You said, “That’s like saying a guy can divorce his wife for being bitchy, or letting herself go physically.”
No, it’s not the same thing. Getting one’s emotional needs met is a legitimate need. It’s something you owe your partner (see the book “Boundaries” by Cloud and Townsend I mentioned above).
Yes, CC, there are some anti-Calvinist biases here, and I’m sure you’re aware I tend to push back on Calvisim some. However, in this instance, I hope you realize my criticism here of MacArthur isn’t because he’s Calvinist, Lutheran, Arminiam, or whatever he is. It’s because his preaching in this instance SUCKS. (Truth be told, the “what theology is MacArthur” question didn’t even enter my mind as I listened to him and responded. If anything, he seems to be “MacArthurian,” that is…he’s created his own theology.)
HUG, et al., these are superficial similarities, not substantive ones. It is is unfair to compare Calvinism with Islam simply because both have a strong sense of God’s sovereignty.
If you care to discuss the matter further I can give you several examples of why commonality in one respect (at the surface, that is) does not translate into commonality of essence.
Patrick, I don’t doubt that you know more marriages are ended by adultery on the part of the woman, but this is purely anecdotal evidence. Are there studies that prove this out on a larger scale?
My anecdotal experience strongly suggests that if a woman is deeply loved, honored, and respected, rarely does she find a need to look elsewhere.
“Maybe the husbands are serial cheaters, dirty magazine/movie addicts, they are physically abusive, emotionally negligent, financially irresponsible, etc,” 2/3rds of the time? That is not true. I know more marriages ended by adultery on the part of the women (‘Christian ‘women) than those that are ended by men’s adultery.
So it’s really all the man’s fault again. Since when is watching sports too much, being inattentive, or even being lazy scriptural grounds for divorce? This is the stuff I was talking about. Threaten divorce because your ‘unhaaapy.’ Adultery and abuse are grounds for divorce. This other stuff , not so much. That’s like saying a guy can divorce his wife for being bitchy, or letting herself go physically.
It is curious, isn’t it, that most churches gladly welcome the wounded into their church, but if they become wounded while already IN their church, well…OUT THEY MUST GO!!!
The “It’s Prophesied, It’s Prophesied” guy with the keyboard and YouTube videos?
The blog I use for following him shows no activity regarding him for around a year since “Celebrating Five Years of Crazy” after he Prophesied about an End Time fulfillment in “OPPA GANGNAM STYLE!” Yes, Top 40 Korean Rap as End Time Prophecy.
“It’s Prophesied, It’s Prophesied,
What happens when your brains are fried…”
Musical instruments are also forbidden in Islamic services. This is said to date from a Fatwa issued by Mohammed after a big fight over what music to use in Mosque; since nobody could agree and the feud was starting between the factions, Mohammed just ruled against them all and said “vocal music only”.
Both Calvin and Mohammed were really into God’s Omnipotent Will and Predestination, and both ended up with political power as theocrats. Both also seemed to have an obsession with theological details.
That John MacArthur dude is also against Christians using anti depressant medications or seeing psychiatrists and psychologists, at least this is what I have read in books by other Christians including “Why Do Christians Shoot Their Wounded.”
(See this link, page 30 of “Why Do Christians Shoot Their Wounded.” I believe there are also J Mac quotes in that book on page 15-16 where he denounces psychiatry, says there is no such thing as psychological problems.)
I used to have depression, still deal with anxiety, and I am so tired of Christians acting like having a mental health issue is due to personal sin, or, they are hypocrites who will pop an aspirin for a headache but tell someone with clinical depression not to take Zoloft.
J Mac, like a lot of other Christians, has no sympathy or understanding regarding mental health problems.
There is no end to the calls to ‘man up’. Even though over 60% of divorces are initiated by women, the culture, and even the church, find a way to blame men for the current crisis in marriage
While I do find the “man up” type sermons irritating… I’m not so sure about everything else in your post.
I frequently see men bring the point up that women initiate divorce more often, but I’m interested in knowing why women do so.
Maybe the husbands are serial cheaters, dirty magazine/movie addicts, they are physically abusive, emotionally negligent, financially irresponsible, etc, and the wives get fed up with this crud after “X” years of marriage.
(These women who initiate divorce – do these studies say how long into the marriage before they file? Is it two weeks or ten years or 20 years? That to me would be another point of interest)
A lot of times what happens with such marriages, is that wife will tell the husband,
“Honey, we need to talk. I am not satisfied in this marriage because of X, Y, Z reasons. We really need to work on this, or I cannot stay with you.”
The usual male reaction (based on the millions of times I’ve seen this scenario in real life or blogs by ladies) is to brush it off with an absent minded, “Sure, uh huh, honey,” while he then goes back to watching the game on TV.
Months later, marriage has not improved. So wife chats with honey again about the same topics. And this cycle repeats over X months/years, and the husband keeps ssaying, “sure sweetie, uh huh, whatever you say, I’ll start working on that tomorrow…” and resumes watching the NFL.
Finally, the wife has enough of this complacency and files for divorce.
Then the man in these cases has the astounding claim to make to his pals, “I never saw the divorce coming!! I thought we were so happy together!!! I never in a million years thought that the wife would leave me!!”
– but here the wife was warning the dude for months she was miserable. The truth is, he was not willing to make any changes to keep the marriage going.
From what I’ve seen, women are rarely secretive with their sweetie pie if they are miserable in a relationship.
Sooner or later, the wife (or girlfriend) will tell their sweetie they are unhappy (or drop some major hints if they are the sort who is afraid of direct confrontation), but the man chooses to be lazy and not listen or act.
That’s probably another reason there is a 60% rate of divorce with women initiating most divorces.
Churches never acknowledge the childless, the child free, and the never-married (nor the divorced who are still single, nor the widows).
IMO, if Christians are going to honor or recognize one type of life stage or marital status in a church service, they need to do them all, or none.
I’m a never married, childless adult and feel very left out any time I’ve been in a church and they ask all the moms to stand to get a flower, etc. etc.
Also, my mom is dead, so I hate mother’s day for that reason. I’ve heard of Christians who hate mother’s dad because their mother was abusive.
I would imagine some people take exception to Father’s Day being made a big to do in churches for similar reasons.
Most of Christian culture venerates the ever lovin’ crud out of motherhood, fathers, and having children as it is year round, and they perpetuate the myth that a woman’s only or most godly calling is to marry and have a kid, I don’t know why churches also insist on venerating parenthood one day a year on Mother’s Day and on Fathers day.
In fact, I agree that mothers have been exalted to a nearly idolatrous (I hesitate to use that word, for fear of drawing the wrath of Adam Tauno Williams) height by our culture. Women are not the perfect, nurturing, always kind,always gentle, always giving figures that popular culture makes them out to be, and neither are mothers. We left Father Knows Best fifty years ago; now, the Mother idol is even bigger than the Father one used to be.
It was. I started listening to Tullian’s teachings long before I ever heard of Kennedy, and when I read up on him, I was amazed that CRPC would hire a pastor who wasn’t a flag-waving culture warrior. But I think Tullian’s emphasis on the Gospel over sectarian political concerns is spot-on.
Wow, Fr. Weejus, Patrick Kyle, Kyle!!….Given all that you say Dad’s are up against, you don’t want them to be prayed for, especially the ones who have fallen into bad, even evil, habits? Or are you saying there are no dads who have done evil things to their own offspring? Or that they don’t deserve to be prayed for?
I made a comment without generalizations; the responses, however, were replete with them, and knee-jerk defensiveness.
No, he was in Utah in that song, but singing about his hope for the “Promised Land,” which was elsewhere. Could it have been Arizona? Nahh, it couldn’t be; the Boss would never set his sights that low…
Sorry, I read it wrong. (You meant my hypothetical blog, not *this* blog.) I’m not actually Orthodox, but in my experience this would be considered a pastoral issue, between the person involved and his confessor. Judging by the recent news from Russia, I’d say that the Orthodox do not dispute that homosexuality exists among them, though some of it may blame it on Western influence. Of course there would be a broad consensus to the effect that homosexuality is sinful.
They might have actually been right. At least that was apparently the style of the time. (Unless Jesus grew it long as a Nazarite thing. Hard to know at this point.)
My time in the CofC was marked by at least one controversy because the song leader asked one side of the auditorium (no sanctuary in their buildings!) to hum a portion of one of the songs while the other side sang the lyrics.There was no end to the raging newsletters flying about the area concerning this. This was in the dark ages ie pre email days. (Same gentleman used a pitch pipe. That issue had been cleared up in years past by the elders. Since it was used prior to his starting the singing, and not during the singing, it made the cut.)
The big issue that this MacArthur guy just forgets about is, what if your gay kid starts going to a different church than you? Are you supposed to go lodge a complaint about his gayness with somebody in the Unitarian or Episcopal hierarchy?
(1) It’s what their wives and mothers buy for them.
(2) Maybe some weird form of cultural color-blindness? Even Amy Tan complained about how her mother thought it was fine to wear yellow and pink during the winter. (Her parents were Baptists, by the way.)
In some non-instrumental Churches of Christ, controversy has arisen over the issue of scat-singing. In other words, since musical instruments are forbidden, what about imitating musical instruments with the human voice by singing things like “a-boom bop a-boom bop a-boom bop”? (They call it the Glee heresy.)
“Unfortunately, this doesn’t make them magically less gay,…”
This is the key to the whole debate. So long as you belief being gay to be a medical or psychological condition to be cured or a choice that can be renounced, then going all church discipline on them is at least rational. I have know too many gay people who are, or were at one time, desperately unhappy because of their being gay to believe this. The idea that they decided to be gay so that they could get it on with lots of other guys in the bathhouse is simply absurd. No less absurd is the idea that they can decide to be straight. Being gay is who they are, and a natural part of the human condition.
Once you reach this conclusion, everything changes. Liberals routinely use the language of civil rights when discussing the topic. Conservatives routinely roll their eyes at this, considering it a cheap claim to the moral high ground with a weak analogy. The thing is, once you accept being gay who they are rather than what they do, then the language of civil rights isn’t an analogy or a metaphor. The claim is not that gay rights is like the civil rights movement. It is a continuation: a piece of unfinished business belatedly being addressed.
“Baptists turned against dancing when the culture changed from Lawrence Welk to Elvis Presley.”
It was much earlier than that. I just did a quick search in Google Books on “Baptist” and “dance” and found a book titled “The Kentucky” published in 1942. In a chapter on the Hard-Shell Baptists there is this:
‘Sins included in the Hard-Shell category are many, but most cardinal of them, perhaps, is that of dancing. One brother condemned it in ringing criticism. “Thar dancin’, and thar foolin’, and thar drinkin’, and thar gamblin'”, said he, “does the devil’s work hyar.”
It goes on to discuss how the hatred of dancing led to the outlawing of the fiddle, and by extension to all musical instruments, such that Hard-Shell Baptists only sang hymns unaccompanied. Such things always bemuse me, as the groups in question invariably claim to be devoted to Biblical literalism, and the Bible is quite enthusiastic about musical instruments. That is a mighty heavy load of interpreting, coming from people who claim not to interpret the Bible.
Perhaps they used to, but over here in China I see a surprising number of men wearing pink shirts, and I’m pretty sure at least some of them must be Party members.
But not carrying umbrellas. That really would be effeminate.
You’re exactly right. It means, keep the mask on that you’re not a sinner (or at least, a not a sinner of the particular sin in which MacArthur is focused on), keep pretending you’re something that you aren’t, and begin living the lie, just so you aren’t shamed and cast out.
Also, MacArthur’s approach seems to mean you can come into my church building as a sinner and we might show you grace (not sure about that, given the speech, but let’s assume that for now), but if you’re a Christian and sin (particularly a sin which we’re focused on AKA homosexuality while we’ll ignore some of those other ones that most of us do), well…out the door you go!
I hate to think of the tragedy in many families where MacArthur has been enshrined as authority, and a child realizes that he is to be sacrificed by his family in accordance to the word of MacArthur.
Ok… so imagine this scenario, based on John’s advice:
Your unbelieving adult kid finally pushes past their fear and admits to you they are gay. You confrontationally but lovingly keep at them with the gospel. They respond to this approach, and become a Christian. Unfortunately, this doesn’t make them magically less gay, so now… you go church discipline style on them until they are pushed out of your life? And all of this just for telling you the truth, with no mention of how to respond to how they then choose to live their life.
I won’t go quite as far as “nutter” in my judgement of this particular advice, but I will say with no doubt that he is ill informed to speak on the topic. He should have never fielded the question.
I’m tempted to reply, but I’m afraid I will just go all Martyn Ballesteros on Johnny Mac. He’s worse than a nutter, he’s a fundamentalist who’s never been wrong about anything in his life.
I don’t know about the conscious break from Western norms. St. Robert Bellarmine, Pope St. Pius V, Popes: Julius II, Paul III, Clement VII, Julius III, Cardinal Contarini, St. Ignatius of Loyola, etc. were all prominent bearded Catholics prior and during the Reformation. The beard seems to ebb and flow in the West.
First, let me say that I’m not a fan of MacArthur, for all the reasons that have been stated above in other comments. That said, I will say that after pondering what was being said by Johnny boy, may actually have some merit, theologically (or at least ecclesiastically). Points to keep in mind here: 1) The “child” in question is an adult, not a minor. 2) The family is an extension or even the foundation of the Church 3) MacArthur doesn’t go into it much at all, but I think it’s a given that Grace should be extended and extended some more in the attempt to realign the wayward child with scriptural truth. One should make every effort to give grace and behave gracefully. 4) His advice to completely cut them off from intimacy with the family may actually at some point be warranted if the child is still professing to be a believer and yet continues in sin knowingly, willingly, and unrepentantly.
Honest question here: Should we not view our home and family as an extension on the Church? We know that excommunication is a biblical practice that must occasionally be utilized. That being the case, is he really wrong? Or do we just not like it? (I know I don’t like it and my first inclination was to call him a nutter and be done with it).
Could it be–just a thought, mind you, as I have not researched this–that women who do not like beards are victims of BEARDS (Beard Envy Acquired Retrospectively Dysfunctional Syndrome)? Is this even a recognized psychosis by the APA? If not, it should be! If for no other reason, psychiatrists and pharmaceutical industries could use some new business. And perhaps with the right treatment and meds my wife will let me grow a foot-long beard.
This kind of thing really grates on me. Robert F., I am sorry that your experience of fathers/being a father has been less than optimal. That is tragic… However, this culture paints men, and fathers in particular, as bumbling no- accounts. On TV and in sermons we are portrayed as fools and the root cause for all that ails the church, families, and society at large. There is no end to the calls to ‘man up’. Even though over 60% of divorces are initiated by women, the culture, and even the church, find a way to blame men for the current crisis in marriage. No quarter is given for the fact that every day men like myself battle a shrinking economy and a dying culture, while we try to raise our children in the faith. In addition we get to endure the recriminations of the culture and the church while we struggle. I would put $1000 in the offering plate of the church where I heard a sermon calling women to account for doing a crappy job raising their kids, rebuking them for using the threat of divorce to manipulate their husbands, and for dressing like whores and using their husbands hard earned money on boob jobs. My money is safe however, because no pastor I know has the balls to commit vocational suicide like that. It’s easier to give another ‘man-up’ rant, chastising men for their porn use/video gaming/sports watching/emotional unavailability/failing marriages, and all around lack of spirituality.( We ‘man up’ and take these criticisms in stride, not tearing up the church or making the pastors life miserable.) No doubt some commenters will reply that not all women are like that, and this is true. Neither are all men. So why is it acceptable to speak in sweeping generalizations about men and fathers, but every criticism of women must be qualified and nuanced, to assure the public at large we are not speaking to women as a class?
Same with my darling….we both love the look of him with some facial hair (especially now that his cranium is totally devoid of anything but shiny pate…) BUT the wee facial forest traps pollen and other allergens that make him miserable (and me, as well, by default!) SO…he looks like Mr. Clean’s slightly older brother, minus the earring and with pectoral muscles that might have shifted south about 22 inches….
@Ted….yes, isn’t the grace and love just dripping from this McArthur clip?? How convoluted can he get…if your gay child is not a Christian, well, what do you expect from them??? The world says gay is just peachy, so he or she doesn’t KNOW any better and you can still be “allowed” to love them.
BUT…if your gay kid is a Christian, please do everything you can to drive them straight out of your home, your church, and all of Christianity, if possible!!! Regardless of how confused and conflicted they might be, whether or not they are sexually active or not, and how much prayer and struggle they are undergoing….curse ’em and toss ’em OUT!! This is clearly EXACTLY what Jesus would do, don’t cha know????
While I haven’t been clean-shaven since high school, neither my wife nor my pulmonologist are keen with me growing it long. The latter says it will make my CPAP less effective. I keep threatening the former with going all Gandalf with my beard once it’s fully silver, though!
There have been some really funny controversies and rules about beards throughout church history. I think in the end, it ended up pretty strongly in East/West terms. In the East they were all about beards and long hair. In the West they were not. In fact, some of the pictures of Calvin and Cranmer and other of the Reformers with long beards seems to have been part of a conscious break with Western norms.
I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it again. While I’m not a Calvinist/Reformed, my favorite preachers are all Reformed Presbyterians. My least favorite are all Reformed Baptists. I think you hit on the issue, HUG: the tendency of the latter to combine Darby and Calvin.
I’m all in favor of church discipline, but if you define it to include family shunning, you’re doing it wrong.
One might argue that as soon as the Father saw the prodigal son, indicating that he was coming home, then repentance was already seen, after which he ran and embrace the son. Of course, I’m not gonna say either way how exactly to interpret that story, ’cause it doesn’t seem to line up either way with my systematic theology. 😛
I have commented to friends on the differences in Mother’s Day sermons (Thank God for mothers who never gave up on us. For those mothers whose self-sacrifice for her children knows no bound… Etc.) and Father’s Day sermons (you lazy, no account bums, you’re falling down on your God-appointed duties as spiritual leaders of your families, get off your self-absorbed rumps and be Godly men!). of late it has been better, and mothers’ and fathers’ day sermons stick to the readings from the pericope.
Not that there isn’t a place for each, but a little balance please. Of course, to be critical of mothers in any way is as incendiary as suggesting moving the flags to the narthex, as recently covered here at imonk.
My son recently photo-shopped one of those foot-long, rather narrow Eastern Orthodox-like beards onto a picture of me and emailed to me (he and his wife are Byzantine Catholics). I must say I thought it looked elegant on me. And all I have to do is to abstain from shaving–even I can do that.
But my wife said “no way”! And so I suppose I will have to settle for a simple mustache, which she allows but only of a certain length, no-frills, and definitely wax-free. Where’s that “freedom in Christ” I hear so much about! He had a beard, why can’t I?
Sigh!
PS: To her credit, she reluctantly allowed me to grow a “soul patch”, aka, “mouche” (a small patch of facial hair just below the lower lip and above the chin). Small consolation, if you ask me!
I remember the “NO! JESUS HAD SHORT HAIR!” knock-down-drag-out of the Sixties and Seventies, including retouched pics of a Crewcut Christ. The Holy Wars of flying Anathemas and calls for Jihad over Christ’s hair length. (At least both sides retained the beard…)
Speaking of Fathers’ Day… My father hated beards and long hair (on men) because they reminded him of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, et al. When the hippie thing took off he used to joke that men with long hair should be given a haircut with a machine gun. He moderated his views some when I let my hair grow long in the early 70’s.
Happy Fathers’ Day, Pipo! Thank you for–among many other good things you taught me–passing on your Cuban sense of humor to me!
I can see nothing good coming out of MacArthur’s combination of Calvin and John Nelson Darby. Calvin plus Dispy combines the worst parts of both — Utter Predestination and Rapture Fever. (Only problem is, if The World Ends Tomorrow at the Latest, why bother with Culture War? But the Communists had the same dichotomy — if the Inevitable Dialectic of History leads inexorably to the Perfect Communist Society, why spend all the time and energy and blood Bringing Forth The Revolution?)
Neo-Reformed, Truly Reformed, Reformed-Reformed, More Reformed Than Thou…
All ends up the same way: “Who needs Christ when We Have CALVIN!” (In’shal’lah…)
Some have criticized him for unnecessary backtracking but since I don’t think anyone outside of a select few in TGC knows what actually went on I don’t think you can judge him for that. I perceived Tchvidjian as having the moral high ground basically the entire time, but if he thinks he went about handling things unwisely then I’m not going to argue with him. It looks like he was also trying to avoid burning bridges with some of his friends at TGC, which I don’t blame him for.
I believe quite a few left the church, but most stayed on. I’m amazed that Tchvidjian got the position. Kennedy must not have done such a good job at inculcating his values in the leadership of the church, despite his best efforts.
I think the clean-shaven look of conservative Christians, including the “Bapti-costal” churches I grew up in, was a reaction to the hippie counter-culture of the 60’s and 70’s. Baptists turned against dancing when the culture changed from Lawrence Welk to Elvis Presley. By the time of Woodstock in 1969, wearing a clean shave and a clean shirt defined you as part of the establishment; wearing long hair, a beard, and sandals identified your rage against the machine. If you hated the war in Vietnam and didn’t trust the government, your style of dress, music and lack of shaving (and bathing) signified that. It was the era of sex, drugs, rock-n-roll and epic beards. Burning your draft card and tossing your razor were equally valid forms of protest. By the early 80’s restaurants began displaying signs requiring shirts and shoes. Despite the claim of being required by the health department, my dad was thoroughly convinced it was to keep out dirty hippies.
Times have changed, we respect our veterans and their service to our country, and facial hair – or lack thereof – no longer makes a political statement.
Crowder? Bluegrass? NO! It looks like he has gone the way of Duck Dynasty as a marketing tool. As for bluegrass style it is a poor substitute, and I say that as a bluegrass fan. In itself the music may be fine but it is the artiface that turns me off.
The issues behind Tulian Tchvidjian leaving The Gospel Coalition makes for a real mess; however, I think Tchvidjian nailed what many of us have been trying to say for a long time regarding the organization’s utter lack of self criticism when he described it as “critical, very, very quick to point out what’s theologically wrong out there, very slow to pick apart what’s theologically wrong in here in terms of their own position … and I think people pick up on that.”.
Actually, I recently started wearing white shirts again, because it was too difficult to guess when someone would show up with the exact same color or pattern of shirt. These days, blue seems to be sort of the new white for business shirts.
Tony Campolo has said that he wouldn’t make a good pastor. One time when he was preaching he closed with a prayer that offended somebody, and she told him so later, on the way out the door. He said, “I wasn’t talking to you anyway!”
The equivalent of that prayer has been offered two years in a row during the prayers of the people on Mother’s Day in the church we attend. People went on an inquisition to find out who the person was who requested the prayer, but the pastors protected confidentiality.
Wow. Can you imagine the backdraft that would result if you said Mother’s Day was “a day to pray for those moms (and their children) who haven’t cut the mustard, who have fallen seriously and even tragically short of the goal, who have abused and abandoned their children, and who may not even acknowledge to themselves or others their terrible and destructive failure”?
At least MacArthur is making allowances for the non-believer. Too often Christians forget to do that, giving the free pass to the believer while shunning the non-believer. His lesson follows 1Corinthians 5:9-13 more closely than it does Matthew 18.
No grace to you, though, nor to anyone else. Let’s remember that that the father of the prodigal son came running toward him before he heard of any repentance, not afterward.
Ought to happen, but it won’t. The reasons why are because MacArthur has a large church and a large media presence in the small evangelical media pond (which makes him “influential”), and he repeats most of the proper “neo-reformed” shibboleths and hangs out with the Neo-Reformed Conference Gang (which endears him to the Young, Angry and Reformed types). All this means he gets a pass for being a rock-ribbed YECer, near-tea-totaller, dispensationalist, and separatist culture warrior. He’s a classic fundamentalist in all but name.
It’s amazing that Ballestro admits that clean-shaveness among Pentecostal men is a recent development, less than a century old, and then goes on to ask his inquisitorial questions as if the latest custom is immutable and written in stone. He betrays his own captivity to cultural conventions, even as he pretends to make light of the subject. Perhaps he should ask himself some of the same questions about his clean-shaveness that he asks the bearded..
Father’s Day: Yes, a day to say thank you for all the love and wise counsel we’ve received from dear old dad over the years. Also, a day to pray for those dads (and their children) who haven’t cut the mustard, who have fallen seriously and even tragically short of the goal, who have abused and abandoned their children, and who may not even acknowledge to themselves or others their terrible and destructive failure.
Read on down in Brother Ballestero’s post on the problematic nature of male facial hair to the comments where they move on to the (seemingly) equally as troublesome issue of Pentecostal men who were “colored shirts.” I could be wrong about this, but I thought the Spirit was supposed to release people from legalism. Full disclosure: I have a tattoo (of a triquetra), as well as a goatee … and I wear colored shirts (red is my favorite color FWIW).
Somewhere out there, some Eastern Orthodox blog is wrestling with the issue of whether it is ever permissible for a man to shave, and what are the clean-shaven trying to prove, anyway? Do they have contempt for the face of Christ? Are they TRYING to look like a woman?
Of course John MacArthur had to turn it into a Matthew 18 issue, which it is not. If I hear someone twist Matthew 18 to fit their agenda one more time, I think I’m going to barf.
He also completely failed to make the distinction between sexual orientation and sexual practice, which is obviously not the main issue with his message but is another pet peeve of mine.
What bothers me most about McArthur’s comments is that he is speaking about your own child, he totally disregarded the family component of the question. It was as if you treat your child no different from anybody. Let’s excommunicate him/her!
What’s amazing is that John MacArthur can say the words he says while the logo “Grace to You” floats right beside his head. It might be appropriate for someone to alienate him from his fellow Christians (as he calls Christians to do in response to homosexual Christians) for his graceless approach.
Martyn Ballestero doesn’t mention it, but with the follicle folly that has beset the church also comes the danger of becoming — gasp! — Roman Catholic. Like this dude on the right. I may be a heretic, but I love his music anyway.
The Internet Monk Archives 
I can’t think of any logical structure that could possibly take me from what I said to what you said.
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Your replies for the most part are exactly what I am talking about. You don’t even explore the possibility that some women are terrible wives and divorce for trivial and shallow reasons. That doesn’t even come up on your radar. It happens all the time and I’m sure is reflected in the 60%+ of female initiated divorces.
By your own admission “Most women want the fairy tale.” This is the kind of stuff that leads to divorce. When they find out that their man isn’t perfect and that there is no fairy tale, they become disillusioned,often looking at or sampling ‘greener pastures.’ or complaining and nagging bitterly.
As for ’emotional neglect’, not only is it not found in the Scriptures, it is a vaguely defined term that is used like a bloody club, being retrofitted to whatever behavior the dissatisfied wife finds annoying. It is a catch-all phrase used to justify the threat of divorce. Can you imagine if men started divorcing their wives for lack of sex? ( A real ‘need’ as defined by biology, psychology, and the Apostle Paul.) Or for a constant nagging and bitching? ( Emotional abuse,anyone?)
Your comments are a show case for the very thing I was pointing out.
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No no.. the child in question is a believer from the start. Not a non-believer. That throws a monkey wrench in the whole thing.
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We’re not talking about simply sinning here. We are talking about a heretical belief that sin cannot be overcome. And we’re talking about not only a person who is gay committing a sin, but living a lifestyle that accepts and embraces sin, with a refusal to come into line with scriptural truth. At that point, excommunication may be warranted.
The question then becomes, is the family autonomous from the Church or an extension or foundation of it?
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So you claim the family is autonomous? Outside of the Church?
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OK, agree with you there, he wasn’t pining for Arizona. Just looking for a better life after the twister came through to blow away the lies that leave you lost and brokenhearted. 🙂
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I don’t think disagreement is allowed. It says at the bottom: “Readers attempting to post opposing viewpoints would be better served debating their opinion elsewhere, or maybe even by getting their own blog. Thank you for reading.”
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We have here only five loaves of beard and two fish…
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Yep. And then churches just end up trading and passing around damaged souls.
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Point taken. Sorry. An explanation:
My own experience as a father has shown my desperate need for prayer. I’m terribly imperfect. My parenting skills were woefully lacking early on, and my temper often got the better of me. I have spent some time with my eldest, expressing my sorrow concerning my behavior, and encouraging him to be aware of the tendencies he learned or inherited from me, and not to take them into his own upcoming marriage.
I was simply commenting on the need for balance. My most recent comment displayed a little bitterness but reflected my generalization of how church cultures address this. Generally, from the pulpit, there is tiptoeing, qualification and nuance when criticism of mothers is undertaken. Not so with fathers. That’s when straight-shooting tough love is rolled out. My point is that often the pastor has a wife to go home to, at least in my denomination, and not a husband. None of us like to deal with an angry wife.
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That’s exactly where ties belong: on the wall , rather than around my neck.
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@ RickRo, yep. That happens.
The book I mentioned above, Why Do Christians Shoot Their Wounded, also points out another sad phenomenon:
If a Non Christian starts going to church, say, a drug addicted, alcoholic, long haired, hard-living Hell’s Angel motorcycle gang member, the church people are all cool with the guy, they won’t correct him if he uses swear words… they understand he’s not “saved” yet, so they overlook the guy’s shortcomings.
But the minute that same biker guy accepts Jesus as Savior, the same church people expects him to walk into church two weeks later (or two months later, or eight months later, or 2 years… it varies from church to church), to be clean cut, have his tats removed, should be totally sober, no more drugs, be wearing a suit and tie.
I have noticed that just from reading blogs and being around Christians.
Many of them will show more grace and tolerance for the Non Christian guy who’s into drugs or hard living but show no patience for slip ups, sins, etc, to the person who converts. Lots of Christians expect newbies to the faith to be 100% sanctified two seconds after they accept Jesus.
The bottom line is, some churches are so unloving or legalistic, they don’t permit people – long time Christians – to stumble and fail. If you are a Christian, you are not allowed to make mistakes, feel sad, or have trials and problems.
I know the Bible indicates that yes, you should be able to see some sort of improvement in a person’s life if they claim to be a Christian, they should more or less be godly on a fairly consistent basis after years … but some churches carry that to unreasonable expectations.
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If you want updates on Third Eagle or whatever, Chris Rosebrough of “Fighting for the Faith.com” does regular updates on the dude.
Third Eagle has his own You Tube channel, that’s where Rosebrough seems to get most of his 3rd Eagle material/updates from.
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@ HUG.
I also think Soup Nazi guy was on the TV show Seinfeld?
I never really watched that show. I tried to when it first came on, but it wasn’t my type of humor. I did find Soup Nazi mildly amusing, but that wasn’t enough to get me to tune in every week for the show.
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P.S.
To further clarify. Where I first said above,
I was not trying to say that all cases of the 60% are due to the husband being financially irresponsible, having a dirty magazine habit, and so forth.
I don’t know what percentage of the 60% those cases comprise. It could be 3 percent. It could be 20, or 23, or 45%, who knows?
My point was not to try to nail down a specific figure but to say, if women are initiating 60% of the time, the majority of them must have dang good reasons for doing so.
They are reasons you might not personally agree with, but reasons they feel they can no longer endure personally, or they don’t want to waste the next X decades of their lives trapped in a horrible or loveless marriage.
Most women want the fairy tale. Most women want to marry a man who loves them, who is stable, provides a stable home life, who offers meaningful consistent companionship, etc.
If 60% of women are leaving marriages, there are good reasons for it. Most women (and I don’t think most men) are not going to divorce lightly, or for frivolous reasons, and not within two weeks of getting married.
And for some reasons women might have for divorcing, that might include everything from physical abuse, regular emotional or verbal abuse, to financial irresponsibility, to constant emotional neglect (e.g., husband prefers watching football to spending time with the wife), and anything and everything in between.
Most women allow abusive or bad relationships to drag on for much too long. Women are conditioned from the time they are girls to invest everything they have to relationships. They have a hard time ending relationships.
Most women will do everything to make a relationship work, and at that, for years, before they throw in the towel.
Women will try to work at and improve the relationship. If women are in a romantic relationship where they feel unhappy, their usual strategy is to talk to the sweetie pie about it and to try to get their man to work with them to improve things.
But as I said above, most men I have read about, and in my own personal experience (I was in a long term serious relationship), are apathetic and lazy about working hard to improve a relationship.
Many men, based on what I have seen, experienced, read about, and heard from female friends/family, are fine with the status quo in the relationship.
A lot of men don’t feel or see a need to change and improve, I have seen this, read about it, and experience it myself time and again. Many men don’t take their wife’s (or girlfriend’s) pleas to step up, to get counseling, or spend more time with her (or whatever the issue is) seriously.
They tend to condescendingly dismiss the woman’s concerns and wave her off with one hand and resume giving all their attention to drinking beer and watching the football game on the TV.
We only get one life down here, and I will not waste mine on some guy who does not appreciate me, takes me for granted, or would rather spend all the time at the golf course or with his nose in dirty naked women sites on the internet, than spend a bit of time with me.
I hate it when Christians club people with the “biblical grounds” crud, because it’s used as a weapon to keep people (men and women) into stuck in horrible marriages, or guilt and shame them into staying. There’s more concern for the institution itself than for the people who are in the institution.
The Bible’s teaching on marriage and divorce has also been misunderstood anyway, see stuff like,
What God Has Joined
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Patrick K said,
I don’t recall saying a specific number. Did I say “two thirds” or are you putting words in my mouth?
(You seem to be taking my posts on this awful personal. Did your wife divorce you, and you’re steamed about it? Otherwise, I am not getting where the animosity is coming from. You seem to hate all women everywhere and blame them.)
I also never said women do not have affairs.
BTW, I totally agree that some married women have affairs.
One of my pet peeves is that most conservative Christians maintain gender stereotypes, including the one that
1. women do not like sex, do not want sex,
2. women are emotional and not visually stimulated by sexy looking men,
and that
3a. married people are impervious to sexual sin
but that
3b. single adults are horn dogs who sleep around all over the place.
I have come across story after story of married people who cheat on one another – usually it’s a man cheating on his wife – but I come across stories in Christian news reports and blogs about married women who cheat on their husbands.
Women, contrary to what Christians teach, do like sex, want sex, and married women (and married men) do sometimes have affairs. Married people have affairs.
There is a chunk of adult singles who live celibate lives, we are not fooling around.
But it remains true that a sizable chunk of Christian married men are cheating or involved in other sexual sin.
Every other day Christian news sites report more and more stories, interviews with, or surveys about, how married Christian men are hooked on dirty sites, dirty movies, using prostitutes, having affairs – including ones who work as preachers.
As a matter of fact, one reason I no longer subscribe to the “be not yoked to an unbeliever” teaching in my quest to get married eventually, is I repeatedly see online stories of CHRISTIAN men who cop to having affairs, using dirty nudie sites, etc. I take it from this I am just as well off dating Non Christian men and marrying a Non Christian.
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@ Patrick K
And I replied to your bitter post below, but mine is currently sitting in moderation.
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@ Patrick Kyle.
Yep, Patrick, sometimes men are to blame for relationships falling apart.
You said,
Since when is watching sports too much, being inattentive, or even being lazy scriptural grounds for divorce?
Because you are neglecting your wife. That is emotional neglect and neglect of the relationship.
What would you think of a man and woman who are married who spend all day getting high on drugs, or spend all day drunk or partying, who don’t spend time nurturing their children, reading stories to them, hugging them, helping them with their school work, etc? That is neglect too, and CPS might take kids away from parents who are like that.
You should read the book “Boundaries” by Cloud and Townsend, they get into this a little bit, they even use examples.
As their book explains, there are some people (they cite an example of a husband) who does not feel obligated to meet his wife’s emotional needs.
Yeah, if you don’t even attempt to meet your wife’s emotional needs and spend all day watching NFL or constantly go on fishing trips – you are neglecting your wife and your relationship, so don’t be surprised if or when she dumps you or has an affair with a man who pays attention to her.
Conversely, the same thing happens in marriages where the husband wants to spend more time with the wife, but she gets into spending all her time on Facebook playing “Farmville” and “World of Warcraft.” Those marriages dissolve too.
You must have a very sad, warped view of marriage to think it’s just two people living under the same roof not sharing their lives, to think it’s okay for the man to ignore the wife when he gets home, immediately flip on the TV and watch football and not ask the wife how her day was, etc.
You said, “That’s like saying a guy can divorce his wife for being bitchy, or letting herself go physically.”
No, it’s not the same thing. Getting one’s emotional needs met is a legitimate need. It’s something you owe your partner (see the book “Boundaries” by Cloud and Townsend I mentioned above).
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@ Nate.
What a condescending come back.
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Hey, I just noticed. Not one comment in reference to Meat Rushmore.
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Eat this beard in remembrance of me.
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Yes, CC, there are some anti-Calvinist biases here, and I’m sure you’re aware I tend to push back on Calvisim some. However, in this instance, I hope you realize my criticism here of MacArthur isn’t because he’s Calvinist, Lutheran, Arminiam, or whatever he is. It’s because his preaching in this instance SUCKS. (Truth be told, the “what theology is MacArthur” question didn’t even enter my mind as I listened to him and responded. If anything, he seems to be “MacArthurian,” that is…he’s created his own theology.)
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HUG, et al., these are superficial similarities, not substantive ones. It is is unfair to compare Calvinism with Islam simply because both have a strong sense of God’s sovereignty.
If you care to discuss the matter further I can give you several examples of why commonality in one respect (at the surface, that is) does not translate into commonality of essence.
Methinks there are anti-Calvinistic bases here….
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He’s Church of Christ, but not “We’re the only ones saved” type.
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Patrick, I don’t doubt that you know more marriages are ended by adultery on the part of the woman, but this is purely anecdotal evidence. Are there studies that prove this out on a larger scale?
My anecdotal experience strongly suggests that if a woman is deeply loved, honored, and respected, rarely does she find a need to look elsewhere.
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Jerry didn’t wear ties, but he designed a line of ties. I bought every one of them to hang on the wall….
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Let us break beard together on our knees….
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Cast your beard upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.
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See your comment below to answer the question the article poses.
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“Maybe the husbands are serial cheaters, dirty magazine/movie addicts, they are physically abusive, emotionally negligent, financially irresponsible, etc,” 2/3rds of the time? That is not true. I know more marriages ended by adultery on the part of the women (‘Christian ‘women) than those that are ended by men’s adultery.
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For seven days you are to eat with it…..the beard of affliction.
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So it’s really all the man’s fault again. Since when is watching sports too much, being inattentive, or even being lazy scriptural grounds for divorce? This is the stuff I was talking about. Threaten divorce because your ‘unhaaapy.’ Adultery and abuse are grounds for divorce. This other stuff , not so much. That’s like saying a guy can divorce his wife for being bitchy, or letting herself go physically.
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It is curious, isn’t it, that most churches gladly welcome the wounded into their church, but if they become wounded while already IN their church, well…OUT THEY MUST GO!!!
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Jesus, the beard of life.
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Gee, I wonder why.
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The “It’s Prophesied, It’s Prophesied” guy with the keyboard and YouTube videos?
The blog I use for following him shows no activity regarding him for around a year since “Celebrating Five Years of Crazy” after he Prophesied about an End Time fulfillment in “OPPA GANGNAM STYLE!” Yes, Top 40 Korean Rap as End Time Prophecy.
“It’s Prophesied, It’s Prophesied,
What happens when your brains are fried…”
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I wonder if that’s the origin of the Appalachian folk belief that the fiddle is the Devil’s instrument?
Like Muslims.
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Or in the dark?
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The most bizarre fictional characters usually are.
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Musical instruments are also forbidden in Islamic services. This is said to date from a Fatwa issued by Mohammed after a big fight over what music to use in Mosque; since nobody could agree and the feud was starting between the factions, Mohammed just ruled against them all and said “vocal music only”.
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Or English.
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Just like Jews did not exist in the Third Reich, and for much the same reason.
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Both Calvin and Mohammed were really into God’s Omnipotent Will and Predestination, and both ended up with political power as theocrats. Both also seemed to have an obsession with theological details.
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Regarding the use of the Bill Cosby clip above.
Cosby has been accused several times over around a ten year period or so of preying sexually on young ladies.
Who Wants to Remember Bill Cosby’s Multiple Sex-Assault Accusations?</a
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That John MacArthur dude is also against Christians using anti depressant medications or seeing psychiatrists and psychologists, at least this is what I have read in books by other Christians including “Why Do Christians Shoot Their Wounded.”
(See this link, page 30 of “Why Do Christians Shoot Their Wounded.” I believe there are also J Mac quotes in that book on page 15-16 where he denounces psychiatry, says there is no such thing as psychological problems.)
I used to have depression, still deal with anxiety, and I am so tired of Christians acting like having a mental health issue is due to personal sin, or, they are hypocrites who will pop an aspirin for a headache but tell someone with clinical depression not to take Zoloft.
J Mac, like a lot of other Christians, has no sympathy or understanding regarding mental health problems.
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I think he’s reference the Soup Nazi guy. TV character who was based on a real life guy IIRC
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@ Patrick Kyle said,
While I do find the “man up” type sermons irritating… I’m not so sure about everything else in your post.
I frequently see men bring the point up that women initiate divorce more often, but I’m interested in knowing why women do so.
Maybe the husbands are serial cheaters, dirty magazine/movie addicts, they are physically abusive, emotionally negligent, financially irresponsible, etc, and the wives get fed up with this crud after “X” years of marriage.
(These women who initiate divorce – do these studies say how long into the marriage before they file? Is it two weeks or ten years or 20 years? That to me would be another point of interest)
A lot of times what happens with such marriages, is that wife will tell the husband,
“Honey, we need to talk. I am not satisfied in this marriage because of X, Y, Z reasons. We really need to work on this, or I cannot stay with you.”
The usual male reaction (based on the millions of times I’ve seen this scenario in real life or blogs by ladies) is to brush it off with an absent minded, “Sure, uh huh, honey,” while he then goes back to watching the game on TV.
Months later, marriage has not improved. So wife chats with honey again about the same topics. And this cycle repeats over X months/years, and the husband keeps ssaying, “sure sweetie, uh huh, whatever you say, I’ll start working on that tomorrow…” and resumes watching the NFL.
Finally, the wife has enough of this complacency and files for divorce.
Then the man in these cases has the astounding claim to make to his pals, “I never saw the divorce coming!! I thought we were so happy together!!! I never in a million years thought that the wife would leave me!!”
– but here the wife was warning the dude for months she was miserable. The truth is, he was not willing to make any changes to keep the marriage going.
From what I’ve seen, women are rarely secretive with their sweetie pie if they are miserable in a relationship.
Sooner or later, the wife (or girlfriend) will tell their sweetie they are unhappy (or drop some major hints if they are the sort who is afraid of direct confrontation), but the man chooses to be lazy and not listen or act.
That’s probably another reason there is a 60% rate of divorce with women initiating most divorces.
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@ Patrick Kyle
An opposing view:
Who Are the Fatherhood Cheerleaders Arguing With? No One Is Against Devoted Dads
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Churches never acknowledge the childless, the child free, and the never-married (nor the divorced who are still single, nor the widows).
IMO, if Christians are going to honor or recognize one type of life stage or marital status in a church service, they need to do them all, or none.
I’m a never married, childless adult and feel very left out any time I’ve been in a church and they ask all the moms to stand to get a flower, etc. etc.
Also, my mom is dead, so I hate mother’s day for that reason. I’ve heard of Christians who hate mother’s dad because their mother was abusive.
I would imagine some people take exception to Father’s Day being made a big to do in churches for similar reasons.
Most of Christian culture venerates the ever lovin’ crud out of motherhood, fathers, and having children as it is year round, and they perpetuate the myth that a woman’s only or most godly calling is to marry and have a kid, I don’t know why churches also insist on venerating parenthood one day a year on Mother’s Day and on Fathers day.
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Oh, I forgot! Of course, homosexuality barely exists in Eastern Orthodox cultures, unlike the West…
Homosexuality does not exist in Iran at all, says Iranian President Ahmadinnerjacket.
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“Pentecostal Men: I Mustache You a Few Questions…”
You’ve goatee be kidding me.
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I like dispensationalism and YECism, but I see both constantly bashed on blogs like this one. 😦
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. . . facial hair on Pentecostal men.
No, I’m pretty sure the latest controversy is Ladies showing their bare knees in church
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Man does not live by beard alone.
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I miss the good old days when a beard was just a beard.
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In fact, I agree that mothers have been exalted to a nearly idolatrous (I hesitate to use that word, for fear of drawing the wrath of Adam Tauno Williams) height by our culture. Women are not the perfect, nurturing, always kind,always gentle, always giving figures that popular culture makes them out to be, and neither are mothers. We left Father Knows Best fifty years ago; now, the Mother idol is even bigger than the Father one used to be.
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“Dancing Barefoot”?
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It was. I started listening to Tullian’s teachings long before I ever heard of Kennedy, and when I read up on him, I was amazed that CRPC would hire a pastor who wasn’t a flag-waving culture warrior. But I think Tullian’s emphasis on the Gospel over sectarian political concerns is spot-on.
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Fair enough. I’m glad to hear that it’s not one of the common cases of man-bashing mentioned by the commenters below.
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Wow, Fr. Weejus, Patrick Kyle, Kyle!!….Given all that you say Dad’s are up against, you don’t want them to be prayed for, especially the ones who have fallen into bad, even evil, habits? Or are you saying there are no dads who have done evil things to their own offspring? Or that they don’t deserve to be prayed for?
I made a comment without generalizations; the responses, however, were replete with them, and knee-jerk defensiveness.
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No, he was in Utah in that song, but singing about his hope for the “Promised Land,” which was elsewhere. Could it have been Arizona? Nahh, it couldn’t be; the Boss would never set his sights that low…
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Ahem. As a somewhat rabid Springsteen fan, I can assure you he was referring to Utah in that song.
Opening line: “On a rattlesnake speedway in the Utah desert…” 🙂
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Sorry, I read it wrong. (You meant my hypothetical blog, not *this* blog.) I’m not actually Orthodox, but in my experience this would be considered a pastoral issue, between the person involved and his confessor. Judging by the recent news from Russia, I’d say that the Orthodox do not dispute that homosexuality exists among them, though some of it may blame it on Western influence. Of course there would be a broad consensus to the effect that homosexuality is sinful.
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They might have actually been right. At least that was apparently the style of the time. (Unless Jesus grew it long as a Nazarite thing. Hard to know at this point.)
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Wow. Flashback time!
My time in the CofC was marked by at least one controversy because the song leader asked one side of the auditorium (no sanctuary in their buildings!) to hum a portion of one of the songs while the other side sang the lyrics.There was no end to the raging newsletters flying about the area concerning this. This was in the dark ages ie pre email days. (Same gentleman used a pitch pipe. That issue had been cleared up in years past by the elders. Since it was used prior to his starting the singing, and not during the singing, it made the cut.)
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Richard, you do know why we baptists are against pre-marital sex, don’t you?
—It can lead to dancing.
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Briefly, no.
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Or your life, for that matter.
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Ha ha. You are in rare form, my brother!
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The big issue that this MacArthur guy just forgets about is, what if your gay kid starts going to a different church than you? Are you supposed to go lodge a complaint about his gayness with somebody in the Unitarian or Episcopal hierarchy?
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Well played, sir 🙂
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Yes indeed.
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What an odd story. I’m not at all sure this professor’s firing was legal.
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It is–slightly–better to marry than to burn.
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Remember when classical music was called “long-hair music”
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(The above post is in reference to men who wear pink in China. Like Sun Yat-sen, it got cut off in the queue.)
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(1) It’s what their wives and mothers buy for them.
(2) Maybe some weird form of cultural color-blindness? Even Amy Tan complained about how her mother thought it was fine to wear yellow and pink during the winter. (Her parents were Baptists, by the way.)
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+1.
Why is criticism qualified and nuanced? Come on, we all know. He’ll hath no fury and all.
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In some non-instrumental Churches of Christ, controversy has arisen over the issue of scat-singing. In other words, since musical instruments are forbidden, what about imitating musical instruments with the human voice by singing things like “a-boom bop a-boom bop a-boom bop”? (They call it the Glee heresy.)
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Uh, is this a reply to me, or did you post in the wrong place?
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And what if you catch your son jerking off? Should you go get witnessess, or report it to the church?
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If God wanted men to carry an umbrella, He wouldn’t have invented the fedora.
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Well it’s sure as shootin’ ebbing on my chin…
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“Unfortunately, this doesn’t make them magically less gay,…”
This is the key to the whole debate. So long as you belief being gay to be a medical or psychological condition to be cured or a choice that can be renounced, then going all church discipline on them is at least rational. I have know too many gay people who are, or were at one time, desperately unhappy because of their being gay to believe this. The idea that they decided to be gay so that they could get it on with lots of other guys in the bathhouse is simply absurd. No less absurd is the idea that they can decide to be straight. Being gay is who they are, and a natural part of the human condition.
Once you reach this conclusion, everything changes. Liberals routinely use the language of civil rights when discussing the topic. Conservatives routinely roll their eyes at this, considering it a cheap claim to the moral high ground with a weak analogy. The thing is, once you accept being gay who they are rather than what they do, then the language of civil rights isn’t an analogy or a metaphor. The claim is not that gay rights is like the civil rights movement. It is a continuation: a piece of unfinished business belatedly being addressed.
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🙂 His one redeeming quality.
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“Baptists turned against dancing when the culture changed from Lawrence Welk to Elvis Presley.”
It was much earlier than that. I just did a quick search in Google Books on “Baptist” and “dance” and found a book titled “The Kentucky” published in 1942. In a chapter on the Hard-Shell Baptists there is this:
‘Sins included in the Hard-Shell category are many, but most cardinal of them, perhaps, is that of dancing. One brother condemned it in ringing criticism. “Thar dancin’, and thar foolin’, and thar drinkin’, and thar gamblin'”, said he, “does the devil’s work hyar.”
It goes on to discuss how the hatred of dancing led to the outlawing of the fiddle, and by extension to all musical instruments, such that Hard-Shell Baptists only sang hymns unaccompanied. Such things always bemuse me, as the groups in question invariably claim to be devoted to Biblical literalism, and the Bible is quite enthusiastic about musical instruments. That is a mighty heavy load of interpreting, coming from people who claim not to interpret the Bible.
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Perhaps they used to, but over here in China I see a surprising number of men wearing pink shirts, and I’m pretty sure at least some of them must be Party members.
But not carrying umbrellas. That really would be effeminate.
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You’re exactly right. It means, keep the mask on that you’re not a sinner (or at least, a not a sinner of the particular sin in which MacArthur is focused on), keep pretending you’re something that you aren’t, and begin living the lie, just so you aren’t shamed and cast out.
Also, MacArthur’s approach seems to mean you can come into my church building as a sinner and we might show you grace (not sure about that, given the speech, but let’s assume that for now), but if you’re a Christian and sin (particularly a sin which we’re focused on AKA homosexuality while we’ll ignore some of those other ones that most of us do), well…out the door you go!
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Sounds a little like Islam, doesn’t it?
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And he had a beard.
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Jerry Garcia used to wear black T-shirts and no tie. You’re in good company.
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I hate to think of the tragedy in many families where MacArthur has been enshrined as authority, and a child realizes that he is to be sacrificed by his family in accordance to the word of MacArthur.
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Not even chicken soup?
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Ok… so imagine this scenario, based on John’s advice:
Your unbelieving adult kid finally pushes past their fear and admits to you they are gay. You confrontationally but lovingly keep at them with the gospel. They respond to this approach, and become a Christian. Unfortunately, this doesn’t make them magically less gay, so now… you go church discipline style on them until they are pushed out of your life? And all of this just for telling you the truth, with no mention of how to respond to how they then choose to live their life.
I won’t go quite as far as “nutter” in my judgement of this particular advice, but I will say with no doubt that he is ill informed to speak on the topic. He should have never fielded the question.
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Pastel pinks are somewhat of the devil. Strong, bold pinks, however, rock for men of any skin tone.
Thank you, episodes of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and What Not to Wear.
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I’m tempted to reply, but I’m afraid I will just go all Martyn Ballesteros on Johnny Mac. He’s worse than a nutter, he’s a fundamentalist who’s never been wrong about anything in his life.
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I don’t know about the conscious break from Western norms. St. Robert Bellarmine, Pope St. Pius V, Popes: Julius II, Paul III, Clement VII, Julius III, Cardinal Contarini, St. Ignatius of Loyola, etc. were all prominent bearded Catholics prior and during the Reformation. The beard seems to ebb and flow in the West.
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First, let me say that I’m not a fan of MacArthur, for all the reasons that have been stated above in other comments. That said, I will say that after pondering what was being said by Johnny boy, may actually have some merit, theologically (or at least ecclesiastically). Points to keep in mind here: 1) The “child” in question is an adult, not a minor. 2) The family is an extension or even the foundation of the Church 3) MacArthur doesn’t go into it much at all, but I think it’s a given that Grace should be extended and extended some more in the attempt to realign the wayward child with scriptural truth. One should make every effort to give grace and behave gracefully. 4) His advice to completely cut them off from intimacy with the family may actually at some point be warranted if the child is still professing to be a believer and yet continues in sin knowingly, willingly, and unrepentantly.
Honest question here: Should we not view our home and family as an extension on the Church? We know that excommunication is a biblical practice that must occasionally be utilized. That being the case, is he really wrong? Or do we just not like it? (I know I don’t like it and my first inclination was to call him a nutter and be done with it).
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Could it be–just a thought, mind you, as I have not researched this–that women who do not like beards are victims of BEARDS (Beard Envy Acquired Retrospectively Dysfunctional Syndrome)? Is this even a recognized psychosis by the APA? If not, it should be! If for no other reason, psychiatrists and pharmaceutical industries could use some new business. And perhaps with the right treatment and meds my wife will let me grow a foot-long beard.
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This kind of thing really grates on me. Robert F., I am sorry that your experience of fathers/being a father has been less than optimal. That is tragic… However, this culture paints men, and fathers in particular, as bumbling no- accounts. On TV and in sermons we are portrayed as fools and the root cause for all that ails the church, families, and society at large. There is no end to the calls to ‘man up’. Even though over 60% of divorces are initiated by women, the culture, and even the church, find a way to blame men for the current crisis in marriage. No quarter is given for the fact that every day men like myself battle a shrinking economy and a dying culture, while we try to raise our children in the faith. In addition we get to endure the recriminations of the culture and the church while we struggle. I would put $1000 in the offering plate of the church where I heard a sermon calling women to account for doing a crappy job raising their kids, rebuking them for using the threat of divorce to manipulate their husbands, and for dressing like whores and using their husbands hard earned money on boob jobs. My money is safe however, because no pastor I know has the balls to commit vocational suicide like that. It’s easier to give another ‘man-up’ rant, chastising men for their porn use/video gaming/sports watching/emotional unavailability/failing marriages, and all around lack of spirituality.( We ‘man up’ and take these criticisms in stride, not tearing up the church or making the pastors life miserable.) No doubt some commenters will reply that not all women are like that, and this is true. Neither are all men. So why is it acceptable to speak in sweeping generalizations about men and fathers, but every criticism of women must be qualified and nuanced, to assure the public at large we are not speaking to women as a class?
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Same with my darling….we both love the look of him with some facial hair (especially now that his cranium is totally devoid of anything but shiny pate…) BUT the wee facial forest traps pollen and other allergens that make him miserable (and me, as well, by default!) SO…he looks like Mr. Clean’s slightly older brother, minus the earring and with pectoral muscles that might have shifted south about 22 inches….
🙂
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At about the 0:46 mark, David Crowder starts to sound a lot like “Boomhauer” from King Of The Hill.
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@Ted….yes, isn’t the grace and love just dripping from this McArthur clip?? How convoluted can he get…if your gay child is not a Christian, well, what do you expect from them??? The world says gay is just peachy, so he or she doesn’t KNOW any better and you can still be “allowed” to love them.
BUT…if your gay kid is a Christian, please do everything you can to drive them straight out of your home, your church, and all of Christianity, if possible!!! Regardless of how confused and conflicted they might be, whether or not they are sexually active or not, and how much prayer and struggle they are undergoing….curse ’em and toss ’em OUT!! This is clearly EXACTLY what Jesus would do, don’t cha know????
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While I haven’t been clean-shaven since high school, neither my wife nor my pulmonologist are keen with me growing it long. The latter says it will make my CPAP less effective. I keep threatening the former with going all Gandalf with my beard once it’s fully silver, though!
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Jacob, no you inferred it. I didn’t imply any such thing. 😉
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Two of my favorite perks about being a priest: Black shirts, and no tie!
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There have been some really funny controversies and rules about beards throughout church history. I think in the end, it ended up pretty strongly in East/West terms. In the East they were all about beards and long hair. In the West they were not. In fact, some of the pictures of Calvin and Cranmer and other of the Reformers with long beards seems to have been part of a conscious break with Western norms.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/september/wars-over-christian-beards.html
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I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it again. While I’m not a Calvinist/Reformed, my favorite preachers are all Reformed Presbyterians. My least favorite are all Reformed Baptists. I think you hit on the issue, HUG: the tendency of the latter to combine Darby and Calvin.
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I’m all in favor of church discipline, but if you define it to include family shunning, you’re doing it wrong.
One might argue that as soon as the Father saw the prodigal son, indicating that he was coming home, then repentance was already seen, after which he ran and embrace the son. Of course, I’m not gonna say either way how exactly to interpret that story, ’cause it doesn’t seem to line up either way with my systematic theology. 😛
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Boy, ain’t that the truth! Still, the woman is worth it.
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Blasphemy!
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OK, I will reluctantly grant you that one. But not for Cubans. Even Communists prefer red or olive green, but not pink.
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Freedom in Christ. Not freedom in marriage…
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I’ll take both, Christ and Calvin (sans the Dispy thing, of course).
PS: Both Christ and Calvin had beards and MacArthur does not, so, there!
PS-2: Fidel Castro has a beard, but that is an anomaly.
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Did I imply that his apology wasn’t sincere?
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Yes. This.
I have commented to friends on the differences in Mother’s Day sermons (Thank God for mothers who never gave up on us. For those mothers whose self-sacrifice for her children knows no bound… Etc.) and Father’s Day sermons (you lazy, no account bums, you’re falling down on your God-appointed duties as spiritual leaders of your families, get off your self-absorbed rumps and be Godly men!). of late it has been better, and mothers’ and fathers’ day sermons stick to the readings from the pericope.
Not that there isn’t a place for each, but a little balance please. Of course, to be critical of mothers in any way is as incendiary as suggesting moving the flags to the narthex, as recently covered here at imonk.
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Yes, the Orwellian redefinition of words is alive and well in some parts.
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My son recently photo-shopped one of those foot-long, rather narrow Eastern Orthodox-like beards onto a picture of me and emailed to me (he and his wife are Byzantine Catholics). I must say I thought it looked elegant on me. And all I have to do is to abstain from shaving–even I can do that.
But my wife said “no way”! And so I suppose I will have to settle for a simple mustache, which she allows but only of a certain length, no-frills, and definitely wax-free. Where’s that “freedom in Christ” I hear so much about! He had a beard, why can’t I?
Sigh!
PS: To her credit, she reluctantly allowed me to grow a “soul patch”, aka, “mouche” (a small patch of facial hair just below the lower lip and above the chin). Small consolation, if you ask me!
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I remember the “NO! JESUS HAD SHORT HAIR!” knock-down-drag-out of the Sixties and Seventies, including retouched pics of a Crewcut Christ. The Holy Wars of flying Anathemas and calls for Jihad over Christ’s hair length. (At least both sides retained the beard…)
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I beg to differ.
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Why apology in quotes? For the very reasons you elaborated.
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Ah, yes. Shaving is a SIN because God Created Man In His Own Image and God Must Then Have a Beard.
I remember reading about Tsar Peter the Great vs that folk belief.
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Speaking of Fathers’ Day… My father hated beards and long hair (on men) because they reminded him of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, et al. When the hippie thing took off he used to joke that men with long hair should be given a haircut with a machine gun. He moderated his views some when I let my hair grow long in the early 70’s.
Happy Fathers’ Day, Pipo! Thank you for–among many other good things you taught me–passing on your Cuban sense of humor to me!
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Could somebody get the Duck Dynasty guy to comment on this?
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Men of African heritage should wear pink a lot. It looks amazing. Why waste it on washed-out white girls?
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Who needs a Bible when you have Calvin’s Institutes and Late Great Planet Earth?
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I can see nothing good coming out of MacArthur’s combination of Calvin and John Nelson Darby. Calvin plus Dispy combines the worst parts of both — Utter Predestination and Rapture Fever. (Only problem is, if The World Ends Tomorrow at the Latest, why bother with Culture War? But the Communists had the same dichotomy — if the Inevitable Dialectic of History leads inexorably to the Perfect Communist Society, why spend all the time and energy and blood Bringing Forth The Revolution?)
Neo-Reformed, Truly Reformed, Reformed-Reformed, More Reformed Than Thou…
All ends up the same way: “Who needs Christ when We Have CALVIN!” (In’shal’lah…)
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It sure was!
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Why “apology” in quotes?
Some have criticized him for unnecessary backtracking but since I don’t think anyone outside of a select few in TGC knows what actually went on I don’t think you can judge him for that. I perceived Tchvidjian as having the moral high ground basically the entire time, but if he thinks he went about handling things unwisely then I’m not going to argue with him. It looks like he was also trying to avoid burning bridges with some of his friends at TGC, which I don’t blame him for.
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I’m good with colored shirts except for pink. Men should not wear pink (unless they’re clean shaved, of course, in which case it makes perfect sense).
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No soup for you
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I believe quite a few left the church, but most stayed on. I’m amazed that Tchvidjian got the position. Kennedy must not have done such a good job at inculcating his values in the leadership of the church, despite his best efforts.
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What did you make of TT’s “apology”?
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I wonder if that was why the transition was so contentious. Didn’t it cause a split?
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Has anyone heard from the Third Eagle of the Apocalypse and Co-Prophet of the End Times regarding the World Cup?
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I think the clean-shaven look of conservative Christians, including the “Bapti-costal” churches I grew up in, was a reaction to the hippie counter-culture of the 60’s and 70’s. Baptists turned against dancing when the culture changed from Lawrence Welk to Elvis Presley. By the time of Woodstock in 1969, wearing a clean shave and a clean shirt defined you as part of the establishment; wearing long hair, a beard, and sandals identified your rage against the machine. If you hated the war in Vietnam and didn’t trust the government, your style of dress, music and lack of shaving (and bathing) signified that. It was the era of sex, drugs, rock-n-roll and epic beards. Burning your draft card and tossing your razor were equally valid forms of protest. By the early 80’s restaurants began displaying signs requiring shirts and shoes. Despite the claim of being required by the health department, my dad was thoroughly convinced it was to keep out dirty hippies.
Times have changed, we respect our veterans and their service to our country, and facial hair – or lack thereof – no longer makes a political statement.
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How strange that Tchvidjian is the successor of D. James Kennedy, who most likely would have marched in lock-step with TGC.
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Crowder? Bluegrass? NO! It looks like he has gone the way of Duck Dynasty as a marketing tool. As for bluegrass style it is a poor substitute, and I say that as a bluegrass fan. In itself the music may be fine but it is the artiface that turns me off.
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Also notice that the comments section is an Amen! corner. No disagreement allowed?
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In conjunction with the beard, I give you our local beard related scandal.
http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/professor-says-csu-fired-him-for-appearing-on-a-beer-can/Content?oid=4930778
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The issues behind Tulian Tchvidjian leaving The Gospel Coalition makes for a real mess; however, I think Tchvidjian nailed what many of us have been trying to say for a long time regarding the organization’s utter lack of self criticism when he described it as “critical, very, very quick to point out what’s theologically wrong out there, very slow to pick apart what’s theologically wrong in here in terms of their own position … and I think people pick up on that.”.
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I’m starting to see an alternate meaning of “love covers a multitude of sins.”
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Actually, I recently started wearing white shirts again, because it was too difficult to guess when someone would show up with the exact same color or pattern of shirt. These days, blue seems to be sort of the new white for business shirts.
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I stopped wearing white shirts at work when I got tired of being told they made me looked like a Mormon missionary.
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Sovereign GRACE Ministry…GRACE to You. In the words of Inigo Montoya: “You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.”
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If MacArthur had had a hand in writing the Bible, angelophanies would probably have begun with the words, “Be very afraid!!”
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Just remember that cigarettes were once advertised as healthy.
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Ox, I think we’d get along just fine.
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Good for your wife.
Tony Campolo has said that he wouldn’t make a good pastor. One time when he was preaching he closed with a prayer that offended somebody, and she told him so later, on the way out the door. He said, “I wasn’t talking to you anyway!”
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I don’t like guys with beards, simply because I could never grow one.
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And what would cause children to stumble more than facial hair? 🙂
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The equivalent of that prayer has been offered two years in a row during the prayers of the people on Mother’s Day in the church we attend. People went on an inquisition to find out who the person was who requested the prayer, but the pastors protected confidentiality.
My wife requested the prayer.
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He would say that he only did that out of love.
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Wow. Can you imagine the backdraft that would result if you said Mother’s Day was “a day to pray for those moms (and their children) who haven’t cut the mustard, who have fallen seriously and even tragically short of the goal, who have abused and abandoned their children, and who may not even acknowledge to themselves or others their terrible and destructive failure”?
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Yeah, grace to you too, John MacArthur.
At least MacArthur is making allowances for the non-believer. Too often Christians forget to do that, giving the free pass to the believer while shunning the non-believer. His lesson follows 1Corinthians 5:9-13 more closely than it does Matthew 18.
No grace to you, though, nor to anyone else. Let’s remember that that the father of the prodigal son came running toward him before he heard of any repentance, not afterward.
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My wife had something about that when I read her your comment…
“Anyone who says white shirts are more godly than colored shirts OBVIOUSLY DOES NOT DO HIS OWN LAUNDRY.”
🙂
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Or “Fear to You.” Of course, they can always abbreviate the “Fear to” part with the letter “F.”
Just saying, there are no bad ideas in brainstorming.
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Ought to happen, but it won’t. The reasons why are because MacArthur has a large church and a large media presence in the small evangelical media pond (which makes him “influential”), and he repeats most of the proper “neo-reformed” shibboleths and hangs out with the Neo-Reformed Conference Gang (which endears him to the Young, Angry and Reformed types). All this means he gets a pass for being a rock-ribbed YECer, near-tea-totaller, dispensationalist, and separatist culture warrior. He’s a classic fundamentalist in all but name.
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It’s amazing that Ballestro admits that clean-shaveness among Pentecostal men is a recent development, less than a century old, and then goes on to ask his inquisitorial questions as if the latest custom is immutable and written in stone. He betrays his own captivity to cultural conventions, even as he pretends to make light of the subject. Perhaps he should ask himself some of the same questions about his clean-shaveness that he asks the bearded..
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I love to start Saturday with a good pun! 🙂
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And what do you think this blog would have to say about parents shunning their gay kids?
Oh, I forgot! Of course, homosexuality barely exists in Eastern Orthodox cultures, unlike the West…
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Father’s Day: Yes, a day to say thank you for all the love and wise counsel we’ve received from dear old dad over the years. Also, a day to pray for those dads (and their children) who haven’t cut the mustard, who have fallen seriously and even tragically short of the goal, who have abused and abandoned their children, and who may not even acknowledge to themselves or others their terrible and destructive failure.
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Maybe the logo should read “Hate to You”…
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“… visiting the Promised Land in Arizona…”
Was Springsteen singing about Arizona when he sang,
“…Mister, I ain’t a boy, no I’m a man,
and I believe in a Promised Land…”..?
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The difference between MacArthur and Westboro Baptist is one of degree, not kind.
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Read on down in Brother Ballestero’s post on the problematic nature of male facial hair to the comments where they move on to the (seemingly) equally as troublesome issue of Pentecostal men who were “colored shirts.” I could be wrong about this, but I thought the Spirit was supposed to release people from legalism. Full disclosure: I have a tattoo (of a triquetra), as well as a goatee … and I wear colored shirts (red is my favorite color FWIW).
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Somewhere out there, some Eastern Orthodox blog is wrestling with the issue of whether it is ever permissible for a man to shave, and what are the clean-shaven trying to prove, anyway? Do they have contempt for the face of Christ? Are they TRYING to look like a woman?
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Agreed! What a great goaltenders’ duel through the two overtimes.
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The Kings and Rangers may now shave.
What a great Stanley Cup final game!
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Of course John MacArthur had to turn it into a Matthew 18 issue, which it is not. If I hear someone twist Matthew 18 to fit their agenda one more time, I think I’m going to barf.
He also completely failed to make the distinction between sexual orientation and sexual practice, which is obviously not the main issue with his message but is another pet peeve of mine.
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Dear Martyn Ballestero,
Your piece would have been so much better had it been titled “Pentecostal Men: I Mustache You a Few Questions…”
Sincerely,
A bearded Papist
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What bothers me most about McArthur’s comments is that he is speaking about your own child, he totally disregarded the family component of the question. It was as if you treat your child no different from anybody. Let’s excommunicate him/her!
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What’s amazing is that John MacArthur can say the words he says while the logo “Grace to You” floats right beside his head. It might be appropriate for someone to alienate him from his fellow Christians (as he calls Christians to do in response to homosexual Christians) for his graceless approach.
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