Watch this video.
Who is to blame for this woman’s troubles? Well, I agree with Driscoll that her family, the church and other Christians were to blame for not telling her the truth about sex. On that we all agree. Christians do a lousy job of explaining sex to young people, because they don’t want to talk about “dirty” stuff, and they don’t want to use arguments and evidence, and they don’t want to go outside the Bible to give real reasons and evidence. But thumping the Bible is a poor response to peer pressure and pop culture.
But she and Mark Driscoll also seem to think the man is to blame. Is the man to blame?
Well, the man certainly did bad things, but I think that none of these bad things could have happened to this woman in particular if this woman had not first chosen this man from all the other men that she knew, and then given him the opportunity to do these bad things. Without her own free choices, she would never have been harmed. So her own bad choices played a part in her suffering but she didn’t mention her own choices at all. So, let me take a look at how she could have made better choices below.
Can women expect a non-Christian man to act like a Christian man?
Women need to be careful to realize that they should avoid being alone with non-Christian men, especially when they are not even old enough to be dating men at all. That’s what courting is designed to prevent, by the way – the man has to go through the father to get to the woman, and they need to be accompanied by a chaperone at all times. And in any case, a woman can get love without touching a man just by listening to the man’s words, reading his writings, letting him serve her, washing a car together, and accepting gifts from him.
Women: you don’t go to a deserted beach with a non-Christian man. Don’t take risks like that. Especially when you have probably already done a lot with the guy. And don’t drink alcohol, it impairs your judgment. The purpose of men is to marry them, not to have a good time with them. No alcohol is allowed!
Paul says that you cannot expect non-Christians to act like Christians, which is exactly what many Christian women do.
9I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—
10not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.
11But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.
12What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?
13God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked man from among you.”
And, 2 Cor 6:14-16:
14Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
15What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?
16What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
Christians should not pursue non-Christians romantically – it’s disrespectful to God to leave him out of your romantic operations.
Women can stop a lot of the bad behavior of men just by choosing authentic Christian men by using rigorous objective criteria to evaluate men. If a woman chooses a non-Christian man, then she cannot complain if he acts like a non-Christian man. And there is more to a man being a Christian than just saying that he is, memorizing Bible verses and singing praise hymns in church. Christianity is a worldview. It has to be applied across the board. Christian women need to study to develop a Christian worldview of their own so they know how to evaluate the worldviews of candidate men.
What else can we learn from the video?
Here are a few more things that stood out to me in the video:
- She should take more responsibility for their actions, instead of blaming others
- She should study these things (not just the Bible!) on her own before she starts dating, to know why God puts these boundaries in place to protect her from harm
- Her parents should have studied these things (not just the Bible!) more, and helped her more by being more convincing, to know why God puts these boundaries in place to protect her from harm
- The church she grew up in should provide her with extra-biblical arguments and evidence from the objective external world so that she could resist ideologies like atheism, postmodernism, liberalism, feminism, etc. – she can’t act morally unless she believes that God exists and that morality is real
Women should also know that the decision to have sex before marriage with a man who isn’t a Christian doesn’t magically change him into a Christian. Sex isn’t magic. It doesn’t cause a man to like a woman, or to fall under her control.
Women go to school for 4 years to learn a trade and they need to put some effort into studying courtship rules so they can be wise about their own choices with men. Jumping into a car and trying to drive it without lessons is a good way to get killed. And emotions, intuitions, peer-pressure and pop-culture don’t help you to know how to drive a car. Be careful, think for yourself.
I also recommend that young, unmarried women become informed about anti-family, anti-father policies. If women don’t want to be hurt by men, then vote for stronger families, lower taxes, and policies that promote good husbands and good fathers. Girls need to see love modeled between a husband and wife as they grow up, and they need to have fathers in the home. Good public policies encourage men to marry and stay married.
Women need to get better criteria for choosing men
A while back, I posted on some of the criteria women have for choosing men, and here are a few:
- Being tall
- Being aloof and disinterested
- Playing a musical instrument
- Well-dressed
- Stylish shoes
- A deep voice
- Handsome face
What do women expect when they choose men based on criteria like that? It makes no sense to blame a bad man for being bad. He’s BAD! Don’t go near him, he’ll be bad to you, too!
Shouldn’t women judge themselves first, before judging a man?
Shouldn’t women begin by removing the plank in their own eye before removing the speck from the man’s eye?
I think an excellent first step would be for Christian women to take a good look at the music they listen to, the movies they watch, and also what they read. Are they listening to Melissa Etheridge, watching “Thelma & Louise”, and reading Margaret Atwood? Are they informing themselves about truth in many areas, like economics and cosmology, so that they can make informed choices of men? Are they building resistance to cultural trends?
UPDATE: Two more things I thought of.
1) Shouldn’t this woman have put some effort into testing out the claims of her parents and the church by reading the Bible itself? I mentioned reading extra-biblical stuff but even the Bible doesn’t ground anything that she was doing or anything the church was telling her to do that was wrong. Driscoll seems to think that women are not obligated to read the Bible, and that if someone in the church tells them a lie, then the church is to blame. But shouldn’t we expect people who attend church to test these things out for themselves? I realize that she wasn’t a Christian, but in order to take responsibility, she could have said “I should have checked things in my Bible and so I share the blame”. She doesn’t say that because she doesn’t blame herself at all for anything that happened. Well, probably she went to church for the singing and never read what the Bible had to say – or didn’t take it as an authority. But she never blames herself for either one of those.
2) I noticed that she claims that if the church tells her something and she does it, then the church is to blame. Well, the church (or at least her parents) undoubtedly told her not to have sex before she was married, but she didn’t mention that in the video. Why not? Well, she only mentions things that other people tell her to blame them. When they tell her the right thing and she doesn’t do it, she doesn’t mention what they told her. Because she won’t blame herself for any reason. And Driscoll has nothing to say about that, either. Any time the church tells her something bad and she does it… it’s the church’s fault. Any time the church tells her something good and she DOESN’T do it… she just doesn’t mention it because she isn’t responsible for anything she does – it’s always the fault of someone else.
I don’t mind if she explains the circumstances surrounding WHY she made bad choices. I don’t even mind the bad choices, because I make bad choices. I just don’t like her blaming other people, I especially don’t like her blaming bad men. Bad men are bad. Don’t blame them for not being good – it’s your fault for choosing them. There are other men who are good who get no attention from women at all.
We need to learn from Theodore Dalrymple
Remember this post?
Excerpt:
With increasing frequency I am consulted by nurses, who for the most part come from and were themselves traditionally members of (at least after Florence Nightingale) the respectable lower middle class, who have illegitimate children by men who first abuse and then abandon them. This abuse and later abandonment is usually all too predictable from the man’s previous history and character; but the nurses who have been treated in this way say they refrained from making a judgment about him because it is wrong to make judgments.
And again:
Why are the nurses so reluctant to come to the most inescapable of conclusions? Their training tells them, quite rightly, that it is their duty to care for everyone without regard for personal merit or deserts; but for them, there is no difference between suspending judgment for certain restricted purposes and making no judgment at all in any circumstances whatsoever. It is as if they were more afraid of passing an adverse verdict on someone than of getting a punch in the face—a likely enough consequence, incidentally, of their failure of discernment. Since it is scarcely possible to recognize a wife beater without inwardly condemning him, it is safer not to recognize him as one in the first place.
This failure of recognition is almost universal among my violently abused women patients, but its function for them is somewhat different from what it is for the nurses. The nurses need to retain a certain positive regard for their patients in order to do their job. But for the abused women, the failure to perceive in advance the violence of their chosen men serves to absolve them of all responsibility for whatever happens thereafter, allowing them to think of themselves as victims alone rather than the victims and accomplices they are. Moreover, it licenses them to obey their impulses and whims, allowing them to suppose that sexual attractiveness is the measure of all things and that prudence in the selection of a male companion is neither possible nor desirable.
Read the whole thing, you young women. And judge men hard. It’s good to judge them beforehand so that you don’t have to condemn them for being bad later.
Related posts
- Does being a virgin before marriage affect marital stability?
- What is the meaning of white roses?
- Is Mark Driscoll afraid to hold a woman accountable for her own choices?
- The Wintery Knight’s greatest fears about the future
- How to communicate requirements to a Christian woman during courtship
- How feminism made women unsuitable for marriage and parenting
- Why men should refuse a woman’s offer of casual sex
- What has Michele Bachmann got that third-wave feminists haven’t got?
- How Christian women can make Christian men marry without using sex appeal
- John Piper’s questions to ask before you get married
- Does a man’s decision to marry negatively impact his service to God?
- The rules for friendship and courtship between Christians
- What Christian men want from Christian women… in paintings!
- Why Christian men should be chaste
- Should Christians marry non-Christians?
WINTERY KNIGHT 
Ohforgoodnessakes. This could easily be turned around to say, can a nonChristian woman be expected to act like a Christian? Being raised in a Christian home doesn’t save you any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
What one can easily infer from this testimony, however, is that this woman’s parents (and in particular her father) did not teach her what being a real man means – either by religious legalism or passive indifference.
Her testimony is powerful, though, and shows the greatness of God through pain and suffering. He truly is a father to the fatherless!
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OK OK. I get it. Yeah, that sort shoots my whole post down though so now I have to go re-write it from that perspective. Before anyone finds out what an idiot I am to have missed the fact that this woman was even a really committed Christian and so OF COURSE she would have made bad choices. I even said that she probably wasn’t a Christian and that non-Christians can’t be expected to act like Christians!!!! AAAARRRRRGGGHHH!!!! I’m so embarassed. Let me just go fix it up quickly and hopefully no one will notice.
Probably I should assign the father more responsibility.
Her testimony is powerful – I agree with that. I just don’t think she should be blaming everyone constantly in it. Some women suffer and yet they always take the responsibility for their own decisions, and you have to tell them – “oh but so-and-so is to blame, too, don’t you see that?”. Why can’t this woman be like that?
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I heard something different, WK. I heard a story about a young woman who grew up in an evil household and an evil church who used Christ’s name to create an environment of abuse and vain religion.
I heard a story about a young woman who made a lot of devastating mistakes which have had real and meaningful impact on hear life.
I heard a story about a woman abused and taken advantage of, because she had been raised by a family and by a church that programmed her to accept that abuse.
I heard a story about a young woman whom God gave strength enough to break free from the bondage of those lies, and through it, she discovered the true and living God and came into a saving relationship with him. She has found a loving community where she knows a loving God.
At no point in time did I ever hear Driscoll excuse or minimize her role. Nor did I hear him apply any pressure towards it. I just think you’ve taken an odd angle.
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Yes, see I had someone help me to fix it. It’s not as bad now.
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I know someone with a story that is pretty much exactly same. Except the last part :(
I’m still working on her.
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Yes, I think you had mentioned her before. I remember.
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Much better. It would be better still if you provided bullet points on what Christian women should look for in a Christian man, and vice versa.
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mknz, I love what Alistair Begg has to say on the topic. I recommend listening to his sermon on the matter.
Here is a summary from http://www.marriagemissions.com/what-should-you-look-for-in-a-mate/
WHAT SHOULD A WOMAN LOOK FOR IN A HUSBAND?
1. The man should be committed to growing in his relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Do not take on a fellow as a discipleship project. Don’t take on a husband who has merely mastered Bible trivia. Look for a husband who is serious about growing in grace and in his knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Imagine that he is going to be, in part, your shepherd and your guide; that he is going to be the spiritual leader of your home; that he is going to be the nurturer of your children together.
2. A husband should be an individual of obvious integrity. If you find him in an employee/employer situation fudging the issue in his sales calls, telling somebody that he can get the product to them in two weeks when he comes afterwards and tells you that actually he knew that he couldn’t get it there for four weeks, but he said that because he didn’t want to lose the sale — on the day he tells you that, you need to have a long, serious conversation with him. And if he seeks to under-gird his deceptiveness with argumentation, you should probably kiss him goodbye. You need a husband who is honest to the core, to a fault.
3. Look for a husband who is able to lead boldly. Look for the kind of man who can think for himself, who can weigh options, and who can make good decisions. A girl should never settle for leadership that is selfish, bombastic, and domineering. The leadership of the Lord Jesus Christ, as espoused by the Apostles, is a leadership that is marked by an attitude of servanthood, an attitude that submits to the leadership of others. The flip side of it, is that a young woman should be more than a little concerned if the fellow that she’s dating has to check with his mother all the time – “I need to phone my mom about that,” and all he’s trying to decide is where he should buy the large or the medium t-shirt – you’ve got a problem there.
4. Look for a husband who displays the ability to love sacrificially. For example, watch, at the end of an evening with friends, to see if this character is quick to organize and spearhead the cleanup, or whether he waits for everybody else to clean up. Observe the way he relates to children and to strangers. See if he possesses a willingness to hold doors for passersby with full arms. Watch his attitude to waitresses and to other people who are involved in serving the public.
5. A husband should be able to laugh heartily. Humor is a vital element in preventing marital failure. The ability to laugh doesn’t mean that he’s the class clown or even a joke-teller. In fact, he may be hopeless at telling jokes. That may be the funniest part about him. But it is important that he likes to laugh, and a key trait to look for is his willingness to laugh at himself. If he takes himself too seriously, look out.
6. A husband should model genuine humility. Simply put, a good husband shouldn’t be stuck on himself. Genuine humility keeps its focus on others. And if you find yourself in the company of somebody who cannot be an understudy, who can’t sit in the second chair, who has always got to be the theme of the story, the joke of the party, the success of the event, I want to suggest to you, girls, that you might want to take a long, hard look at whether you’re in the company of the person with whom you want to spend the rest of your life.
WHAT SHOULD A MAN LOOK FOR IN A WIFE:
1. A good wife must have a personal faith and trust in the Lord Jesus. Don’t enter into an intimate relationship where one person is a Christian and the other is not. The Bible is clear – don’t get unequally yoked.
2. Look for a wife who possesses beauty that is deeper than the skin. It is less important to find a woman whose beauty comes from time spent in front of a beauty parlor than from time spent in the presence of the Lord Jesus.
3. Look for a wife who is an initiative-taker with an attitude of submission. This simply parallels what we said previously about a man being a sacrificial leader. Any wise fellow is looking for a woman with ideas, abilities, hopes, plans, gifts, dreams, the whole panorama of abilities that she brings to marriage, because in entering into marriage in more areas than we are prepared to admit, we, as the husbands, will be dependent upon their knowledge, upon their insight, upon their courage, upon their faith, upon their expertise.
There will seldom be a day, as a man, when we do not have occasion to depend on multiple levels upon the wisdom, insight, initiative, grace, courage, faithfulness, integrity, skill, giftedness, of our wives.
4. A wife should build her husband’s confidence. Trustworthiness stems from character. A woman’s intrinsic qualities are revealed by her actions.
5. Look for a wife who displays kindness that touches others. Women don’t have the exclusive ownership of the characteristic of kindness, but often they do a much better job in expressing compassion than most men. If you think about it, women that have marked our lives have often marked our thinking on account of their tenderness.
6. A wife, like a husband, should have a sense of humor that braves adversity. The ability to laugh will get couples through more than a few rough spots.
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Thanks for that Mary, that’s good stuff!
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Wintery Knight,
You consistently have the most intelligent and thought provoking posts out there. I think yours is arguably the best christian blog among a crowded field. Keep it up. You’re making a difference and I think God is pleased with your work.
Mark
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Thank you, I had help editing this though! It was a real mess before my editor got hold of it. Now I owe her a trip to the zoo.
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I’d like to offer my thoughts on the problem of women giving themselves away; http://sanityinanupsidedownworld.blogspot.com/2010/05/young-ladies-dont-give-yourself-away.html
The main thing is that women are looking for love and security, and they too often think that giving themselves sexually will secure this from the guy.
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I realize that we all make mistakes WK, but I think your general view is still intact because I’ve seen glimses of it before in other posts. I think that you are having your cake and eating it.
You believe that in the household, the headship should be with men and I agree with you. You believe that the men should be the leaders because that is what the Bible says on numerous occasions, and because that is what functions best. I agree with you.
However, you seem to be saying that even though the man is the leader and should be the instigator, the woman should take the most responsibility when something goes wrong. I realize you may have not meant this to the extreme in this post, but I’ve seen it in other posts as well. Yes we all make bad mistakes, but as far as I can see this woman only made one bad mistake and that was going to the beach with that man that night. Everything else was either instigated by this man, her church or her family. The man is the one who abused her and took advantage of her. Her Father is the one who is supposed to be the leader and the person looking after and looking out for her. He should have been teaching her about life, love and God and his wife and he should have been setting a model example of how a relationship should be.
The church leaders should NOT have been such false teachers, deceiving people with empty religion and even passing terrible judgements on those who God holds so dear. It was the men who were the leaders in this church who had created the whole atmosphere, practically forcing her to get married to this man and stay with him all that time. Can you imagine what it would have been like for her not to have married this man??
She had had it imprinted on her brain that she would have been going to hell, and her leaders must take FULL responsibility for this. The Bible teaches that those in leadership and teaching will be given extra responsibility because they will have been influencing and guiding other people. God clearly holds these leaders more responsible than this young lady because they have created a continuing, consistent atmosphere of false teaching whereas this one young lady made one mistake and tried to make up for it by doing what she thought God wanted her to do.
So I think you are having your cake and eating it if you think that men should be the leaders and the head of the household but still hold women more responsible for things like relationships going bad and men not being real men.
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Hear hear!
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I wish you wouldn’t say hear, hear. This is exactly why I cannot marry. If women cannot recognize how their own actions lead them into trouble, and they just blame men for everything, then a man would have to be out of his mind to marry. Who wants to marry a man-hating victim who thinks herself justified in living her life ignorantly and recklessly? Men should fly far from feminism.
I had to develop my own worldview against my mother, father, relatives, church, friends and school. I was bombarded with lies and had to learn the truth about everything myself, as part of my relationship with God and his drawing me to him and my freely responding to him (I’m not a Calvinist). I had to study and work through these issues, and it made me very lonely and unpopular, but that was OK with me – I wanted to know the truth and I didn’t care what people thought of me, and I wasn’t trying to be happy. I was trying to be good.
This woman believed everything that was told to her, never picked up a book and she slept with a non-Christian prior to marriage – something that I’m sure her parents and her church would NEVER have approved of. She shows no remorse at all. And it terrifies me to hear you take her side. If that is the way that women really are, then I want nothing to do with them. It’s like there is a fundamental rationality and morality gap between men and women.
I’m not blaming her for sinning. Everyone sins! I’m blaming her for blaming others and not taking responsibility for her own decisions. I could forgive Satan himself if he was really sorry and confessed his sin and blamed himself and wanted to change. I don’t see her accepting any responsibility for her choices. I don’t even mind if she wants to explain it, but she only ever talked about other people’s culpability, never her own. It’s narcissism.
Having said that, I do think that she worked hard to make the best of a bad situation after the fact, and I would not take that away from her. But why can’t she just admit that her own decisions are… HER OWN DECISIONS. It will make me like her more, not less.
She chose this guy! She passed on a million other guys and slept with this guy.
Do women have the responsibility to inform themselves about things premarital sex (oxytocin) and cohabitation (50% increased divorce rate), etc.? Or are they just allowed to go through life avoiding all reading, and then just blame men for everything? (And then vote for more and more social programs and bigger “compassionate” government)
And the fact that Driscoll is oblivious to her narcissism is disturbing – what kind of father can he be if her refuses to set boundaries and to tell the truth about personal responsibility, even if it’s not popular? Is he even willing to tell people right from wrong when they don’t want to hear it, or is he swayed by the swooning of the victims? I cannot abide moral relativism and cowardice in a man. I can only speculate as to his motives.
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I think you misunderstand me and Michael. Of course she is to be held accountable for her actions. She gets that. We get that. But to make women almost entirely responsible for the actions of a man like this towards them is unfair. And has it occurred to you that it makes women not want to marry if they are blamed for everything. Nobody’s hating men. But this particular man is a pretty bad specimen. There’s no justification at all of what she did here. She doesn’t hate men. We don’t hate men. She doesn’t think that her behaviour was justified either. But sometimes those who are sinful are also victims. That is the case here.
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BUT SHE CHOSE HIM!!!!! There were other men who were not this man. If she hadn’t chose him, none of this would have happened to her. She chose to engage in a long-term relationship with him.
If you go to the pet store and bring home a crocodile instead of a cockatiel, then YOU ARE TO BLAME WHEN IT EATS YOU FOR DINNER.
And it’s ridiculous to then blame the pet store owner, your parents, Julius Caesar, etc. – everyone but you – for OWN DECISIONS.
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A crocodile is an animal. This man is a human being with a capacity for making moral choices not afforded to other creatures.
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Oh you’re one to talk – you’re a lobster-pirate! Didn’t you see the picture of you that I sent you?
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Darn. My cover is blown. I shall have to attempt to infiltrate humankind by other means. [starts scheming…]
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LOL! I love scheming!
Do your antennae wiggle nervously when you scheme?
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Every time. And I have a nasty habit of pinching passers by with my pincers when frustrated.
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Ah, Wintery… *sigh* You misunderstand. And I can see you’re worked up: you keep updating your comment. :-P I’ll wait for it and you to settle…
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OK, I’m really done.
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Ok, reading your updated comment, I think I might be seeing where you’re coming from. You would like to see a more explicit acknowledgment from her of her own moral failure and the part that played in contributing to her life being as awful as it was. I can agree with you on that.
I do still think the guy was way worse and shouldn’t be all but absolved of his responsibility in this matter. I still think he is more to blame here.
But yes, it would be good if she made a more direct confession of her own guilt.
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BUT SHE CHOSE HIM!! He was just minding his own business, being a non-Christian, and then she came along and said “I’ll bet if I have sex with you then you’ll turn into a good husband and father. Why? Because my intuitions tell me so, that’s why. No, I don’t want to read a book on oxytocin. And I don’t care what the Bible says, either. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll just blame you and Driscoll the feminist will back me up because he’s scared of me.”
I appreciate you being concilatory, though. Actually, I think that the parents are to blame more than the young woman. Both the mother AND the father made the decision to have a child and they FAILED to parent her. It’s not even the church’s job, it was their job. They failed. I blame them the most. Both of them.
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You don’t know how the conversation went down. Maybe she was just minding her own business being a non-Christian who thought he and she were both Christians. Then this “Christian” guy from the Christian university tells her she’s the nicest thing since sliced bread and just too irresistible and that if she loves him she’ll surely go along with having sex. And maybe she was silly enough to not have thought about it much because she was letting her emotions rule her. And maybe she fell for it like millions of other women before her and like Eve when she listened to the snake in the Garden of Eden.
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Thank you. Well, maybe her parents were to blame in that way. Maybe goes way back. They possibly didn’t understand Christianity properly themselves. But it started somewhere – like with the nation of Israel not knowing God as the generation of Moses did.
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Glad to see you’ve improved this from when I read it earlier. Kudos to mknz.
I would disagree that this woman has not mentioned the role of her own choices. In fact, she refers to it as “sin” in the letter. She married this appalling man out of the guilt she felt for that sin. She acknowledged her sin every day, living with that monster. She just came to a horribly wrong conclusion of how to deal with it.
It’s an absolutely heartwrenching story. She had a warped idea of what Christianity was and met this man who probably claimed to be “Christian” (seeing as he abused God’s law as a way to manipulate her). She acknowledges that she did wrong (by calling her action sin). But what she suffered after that far exceeded the sin on her part. In fact, it’s far worse than the behaviour of most non-christian men I know. He raped his sister, for crying out loud! So to claim that this is what she should have expected from a non-christian man is an exaggeration. She is most certainly entitled to complain about his actions.
I think we should view this poor woman with compassion and grace. And we should be thankful that she has been led to an infinitely better life and has discovered what real Christianity is and what real Christian men are like.
Mark Driscoll is right on target with this one. We need more men like him in this world.
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I’m baaaack!
You knew I couldn’t stay away for long. :)
You also know that Mark Driscoll is NOT one of my favorite dudes. His Bible exegesis stinks. And often his attitude toward dudettes, uhm, I mean “chicks” turns me off. Sometimes, I get the feeling when he says the word “chicks” it leaves a bad taste in his mouth. And I’m not the only woman who has felt it. I have comp. friends who share this feeling.
HOWEVER.
This video has given me a better respect for Driscoll.
Yes, Wintery, the woman in question IS responsible for her own mistake.
But sometimes the church heaps on women extra responsibility that God does not heap on them, making them pay with the rest of their lives for one mistake, staying married to a man even when she has clear, biblical reason for divorce.
Sometimes churches take away all authority from women, making men their rulers and keepers, and then lay all the blame and responsibility on these women.
It IS a sort of ‘have their cake and eat it too’ set up in these churches for these men. They want all the leadership and none of the responsibility. I’m glad the Micheal Baldwin and the others don’t operate this way even though I don’t agree with their position.
Also, watching this video, I see that Driscoll doesn’t fall into this, at least not here.
I do think women should be responsible for their choices. But I also think many homes and churches fail to teach women that they have this sort of responsibility, this sort of authority over their own lives and choices. Some churches are so obsesses with men being in charge they teach their women ‘learned helplessness’.
These things should not be. Women need to know their own responsibility and authority so they CAN make responsible choices.
I think a book that should be read by all is the Boundaries books by Cloud and Townsend.
I may have mentioned this book before.
But even if I have, it’s okay to mention it again. The book is THAT good. It teaches responsibility.
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Mara, this comment is fine. I actually encourage women to outthink men on these issues. I am chastising this woman in the video precisely because she is abrogating her responsibility to study and puzzle about these things, in the Bible and out of the Bible. A woman’s got to stand alone on her own two feet, and to heck with everyone else. If they lied to her, she should say so. But in the same breath she has to say that it was also her responsibility to look into these matters for herself. (As a Christian OR as non-Christian – she should be interested in the truth or else she should expect to be whammered by life, in accordance with God’s sovereign will to bring her to a knowledge of himself through suffering). The fact that she has this “victim” mentality to this day makes me wonder whether she thinks that knowing the truth, and conforming her will to the truth, has any value at all, even now.
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maybe it’s everyone’s fault. :O
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Two more things I thought of:
1) Shouldn’t this woman have put some effort into testing out the claims of her parents and the church by reading the Bible itself? I mentioned reading extra-biblical stuff but even the Bible doesn’t ground anything that she was doing or anything the church was telling her to do that was wrong. Driscoll seems to think that women are not obligated to read the Bible, and that if someone in the church tells them a lie, then the church is to blame. But shouldn’t we expect people who attend church to test these things out for themselves? I realize that she wasn’t a Christian, but in order to take responsibility, she could have said “I should have checked things in my Bible and so I share the blame”. She doesn’t say that because she doesn’t blame herself at all for anything that happened. Well, probably she went to church for the singing and never read what the Bible had to say – or didn’t take it as an authority. But she never blames herself for either one of those.
2) I noticed that she claims that if the church tells her something and she does it, then the church is to blame. Well, the church (or at least her parents) undoubtedly told her not to have sex before she was married, but she didn’t mention that in the video. Why not? Well, she only mentions things that other people tell her to blame them. When they tell her the right thing and she doesn’t do it, she doesn’t mention what they told her. Because she won’t blame herself for any reason. And Driscoll has nothing to say about that, either. Any time the church tells her something bad and she does it… it’s the church’s fault. Any time the church tells her something good and she DOESN’T do it… she just doesn’t mention it because she isn’t responsible for anything she does – it’s always the fault of someone else.
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This video is really too short of a snippet to give it so much.
I think it’s simply understood that what she did was wrong. That’s all.
Are you wanting her to grovel or something? We all here know it was wrong and she paid dearly for it. She will pay for this mistake for the rest of her life as a single mother taking care of her two children.
What more do you want?
How can you expect it to be done in a five minute youtube video?
You don’t think perhaps she cried out at night for God’s mercy and forgiveness?
Just because it wasn’t specifically stated in a 5 minute video doesn’t mean she didn’t do it.
I would venture to guess that she did cry out for forgiveness. And in seeing this, God met her and pulled her out of her pit.
What need do you have for her to display this before you?
That’s between her and her God. You aren’t part of that, nor entitled to behold it. You are only seeing the end result and her praising God.
Psalm 40:1-3 talks about how God pulls us out of the miry pit so that those who see will praise God. That’s what this is. A story of God’s faithfulness to an imperfect and broken human, not a story of a groveling woman to please some man’s need to support his views of what’s wrong with women today.
P.S. love ya, Wintery…
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She should say: “the church i grew in taught me some crappy doctrine, my parents didn’t care about my worldview, and I was too busy smoking pot and chasing hot beach volleyball guys to care what the Bible said”. She said the first two parts, I want her to say the third part. And then to say “But I’m taking responsibility for testing everything I hear in church now, by reading the Bible and apologetics stuff, too”.
I don’t think the man is to blame at all! He’s innocent – he was bad when she met him, and she chose him over all the other men. It’s her fault.
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Wow.
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Ok I don’t mean he’s innocent, I mean he’s guilty, but she cannot blame him for causing her pain since he could not have caused her any pain unless she had allowed him to enter into this relationship with him.
Like I said, what sense does it make to go to the pet store, look at all the animals, bring home a crocodile, and then complain when it eats you? It’s not the crocodile’s fault – it’s an evil, nasty creature and it’s not meant to be kept as a pet.
Neither is this demonic man meant to be chosen by any woman for a romantic relationship.
People have to accept the consequences of their choices, not to complain about them and blame crocodiles for being lousy pets. If you wanted a pet, you should have chosen a cockatiel.
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Yeah I see what you’re saying but you’ve got to be careful not to exaggerate a lot of the time. You tend to lean into extremes when trying to make a decent, common sense point and I think it’s unnecessary. I don’t know if you say those things because you want to be controversial or whatever.
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Surely that’s Dricsoll’s wife’s fault for choosing such a bad pastor for a husband. :P
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No, no. This is his fault, such as it is. Not her fault.
Driscoll isn’t really bad. I’m just mad at him. If you watch his other sermons and read his material, he is fearless and he knows everything. He’s just wrong on this issue and I want him to think it through and apply his brilliant mind and steel-backbone to this problem a second time.
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@mknz: Hehehe. ;-)
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“If you watch his other sermons and read his material, he is fearless and he knows everything. He’s just wrong on this issue and I want him to think it through and apply his brilliant mind and steel-backbone to this problem a second time.”
And it’s this attitude, in any man or woman, that scares me. Nobody knows everything. Those who claim to, lie. Those who think their leaders do, set themselves up for serious trouble.
I think the woman who wrote the letter thought her leaders knew everything. Therein lies one of the problems of leadership.
I’m seeing grace and mercy, God-like traits in Dricsoll toward this woman. And it’s a breath of fresh air.
But you see error.
I really don’t think he’s saying that it’s okay what she did. I think he is simply pointing to God’s grace and mercy and trying to use it to teach men how to express this grace and mercy.
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He blames the bad men that women freely choose for mistreating them. That’s messed up!
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you can’t blame bad men anymore? What’s this world coming to?
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Not if you choose them. You can blame Saddam Hussein for invading Kuwait. But you can’t freely choose to marry him and then blame him for beating you up. He’s a dictator! Don’t marry a dictator!
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So it’s her fault he raped his sister?
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No, she should just have left him alone, not had a relationship with him, and then she would not have cared what he did. Women need to just let bad men GO. Don’t let them near or they hurt you. She started a relationship with this guy! And I am sure that he did not talk about Calvinism vs middle-knowledge or flat tax vs fair tax on their dates, either.
I’m not saying that he is a GOOD GUY. He’s a BADY GUY! HORRIBLE! What I am saying is that a woman cannot blame a bad man for treating her badly if she chooses to trust him in a romantic relationship.
Although it is the father’s job to vet boyfriends. Where was he? Why was he choosing to get married and have daughters if he wasn’t going to raise them?
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It’s ok Wintery, I agree with you.
The whole line about “met on the beach, both breaking rules to be there and he took of advantage of me” definitely attempts to pass blame. She might have a leg to stand on if he had raped her, but this was completely consensual, and so she’s at fault for allowing it to happen.
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The woman was much too young to get married, period! She needed alot of growing up to do. Her bad marriage was simply due to lack of maturity and probably indoctrination by her church to marry young and have alot of children.
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Well and back to the original point of her not being a Christian. Good points, all, though. Glad this is being discussed, because I’m sure we all need to hear it at some point.
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There seems to be a lot of comments on this thread based on what different feelings were evoked for different people by watching this video, and feelings aren’t exactly a great criteria for trying to work out moral responsibility.
It also seems quite clear that deriving a whole lot of meaning out of a 5 minute clip from an hour long sermon is exactly the same as reading a Bible verse out of context.
So I just watched the whole sermon here http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/luke/jesus-forgives-a-sinful-woman (it starts from 13:40 btw).
This whole sermon is not about how the woman made a bad decision, how she is sinful, how she should have thought before she acted, how wrong she’s been etc etc. This is about BROKEN people coming before JESUS so that HE can heal them from their brokenness and cleanse them of their sin. This is about the filth of RELIGION which was saturated in her “church” (it doesn’t even deserve the title) and how they judged her for not being holy like they were. This is about how SHE came before God broken, knowing that she could not heal herself, knowing that only God could restore her to existing in His image. This is about God’s grace, how he forgave her completely, and even chose to forget her sin as if it had never happened.
This woman was clearly not a disciple of Christ before she had been listening to sermons from Mars Hill, this is clear from when she talks about how God opened her eyes to the lies she had been taught. She clearly did not know God before this, she did not know forgiveness, redemption, reliance of Jesus or about God’s grace.
This woman had made some bad choices, but she clearly felt guilty for those choices. I think this can be seen from the facts that i) she felt like she had to marry this guy after being taken advantage of, if she had not felt guilty about sleeping with him then she wouldn’t have felt like she had to marry him. ii) she felt the need to come before Jesus and be saved, clearly this means that she realized she had made wrong decisions.
To get a really biblical view of accountability it might be a good idea to look at the Bible. I think everyone should read Hosea, from start to finish right now. Seriously, it is SO eye-opening. That gives us a good idea of what accountability is like. This is another key point right here: just because Hosea married the prostitute doesn’t mean that he is accountable for her decisions, just because God was like the husband to the prostitute Israel DOES NOT mean that GOD is somehow responsible for ISRAEL’S dirty promiscuity.
Also I go back to the point male headship. Can you identify which part of this argument which you disagree with?
1) The bible teaches that leaders, teachers and those with the most responsibility (those in headship) will be held most accountable and will be judged the most severest.
2) The bible teaches that men should take primary (and not complete monopoly on) leadership and headship in the church and in the home. They should also be the instigator and those most responsible for relationships since they are supposed to be the head.
3) Therefore, men will be held most accountable for relationships and false teaching.
OBVIOUSLY I’m not saying that this woman isn’t responsible for her actions. OBVIOUSLY she made some really bad decisions, but she was ALSO abused by her church leaders who gave her perverse, filthy doctrine, she was abused by her father and mother who completely neglected her, she was abused by this man who was clearly a sexually aggressive, narcissistic, cowardly and violent animal of a man.
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Her boyfriend, whom she chose, was not her spiritual head. So he isn’t responsible for her. She chose him. He was just some guy she liked, and not for any good reasons, obviously. Also, she chose her church, and she could have searched the Bible and compared what they were saying with what the Bible said. Can you find any of those weird beliefs in the Bible? If not, then why didn’t she just ask them and then leave them? Can we at least say that she could have opened the Bible and read it herself? I went through that phase of asking questions and leaving churches. But none of that was mentioned in the video, which made her out to be a helpless victim, who somehow could not ask questions of men, nor read the Bible. And that was the point I was making. She is without some responsibility, and making her out to be a victim is not fair. Her own choices contributed to her problems.
She can’t choose her parents, and that’s where I fix the majority of the blame. Like 90%.
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Well I agree with you on that on I guess. But I was getting at a vibe I’ve been getting off from quite a few of your other posts as well, not just this one, about how it’s a woman’s fault that men are doing this and that, a woman’s fault that men don’t man up etc etc, when I absolutely disagree.
And anyway I don’t think that you can be disappointed in Mark Driscoll for not giving an exposition of this testimony to the church because the point that you are getting at is completely different from the point of his sermon. Your point, about accountability, is needed of course, but i’m just saying that you can’t expect him to give a nice big critique of this woman’s attitude when that was not at all the point of the sermon, and he was just giving it as an example in their church of God’s healing power, and the difference between religion and God’s grace.
This whole sermon is not about how the woman made a bad decision, how she is sinful, how she should have thought before she acted, how wrong she’s been etc etc. This is about BROKEN people coming before JESUS so that HE can heal them from their brokenness and cleanse them of their sin. This is about the filth of RELIGION which was saturated in her “church” (it doesn’t even deserve the title) and how they judged her for not being holy like they were. This is about how SHE came before God broken, knowing that she could not heal herself, knowing that only God could restore her to existing in His image. This is about God’s grace, how he forgave her completely, and even chose to forget her sin as if it had never happened.
So in all fairness to him, not only was it not at all the point of his whole sermon, but it was just an example he was giving right at the end of his sermon, literally right before he prayed the closing prayer.
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It’s good that you listened to the sermon and could tell me about that. I actually think men are horrible these days. I would like it if they did take more responsibility and focused on loving women chastely as a way of serving God. But I think the best way to fix them is get women to call them to a higher standard instead of rewarding the bad ones. That’s why I pick on the women. The way I work on the men is by showing them stories about all the smart and good women. Bachmann, Morse, Blackburn, etc.
When you put the clip into context, it makes it sound a lot better. I’m just sensitive to women picking a bad man and then blaming the man for acting bad. Men don’t change, and sex doesn’t make them commit. Women have to court them and make them prove themselves over 18 months. Then a 6 month engagement.
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I can see your approach. But I also think that Mark Driscoll’s approach of mainly targetting men, getting men to take responsibility and man up, lead the relationships and- most of all- show women what they want from them, is most effective. I’m a bit puzzled why we’re still talking about this cos you actually AGREE with me!! In almost all of those related posts above you give nice long lists and expositions of what you want from a Christian woman if you are to be interested in her. And that’s exactly how Christian women respond.
For example, I only know like one christian girl who is interested in politics and who I could have an intelligent conversation with on the subject. But when I say to my female friends that I think politics and philosophy and subjects like that are really important for christian women to study and discuss, they are suddenly really open to learning about it and they want me teach them what (little) I know. When they hear a christian guy saying this is what I think christian women need to show to attract christian men, they are very interested in doing those things.
So the ernest is on the men to show that this is what they want and to show that they are very attracted by women who look into these things. I hold men far more accountable when they are sitting in their rooms wasting their lives playing video games, they should get up, get out, read a book and start discussing philosophy with christian girls.
Guys and girls obviously should demand a lot from each other if they are to engage in a relationship, but I think that since men are supposed to be the head in the relationship, they should be leading by example, setting out clearly the criteria that needs to be met by christian women.
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I just got word from someone who attended Driscoll’s men’s conference in Calgary, AB. She said that Driscoll does say that the woman in these scenarios DOES have some part to play in the damage that is done to her. She is responsible.
So it turns out that he DOES agree with me on that.
But he still didn’t mention the mother’s role in choosing a defective husband to father their daughters. I think that the mother should bear SOME responsibility, although the father also chose HER and so he bears responsibility, too.
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Of course you are right that the woman needs to take some responsibility, and I wouldn’t have picked up on the lack of personal responsibility thing in that testimony so kudos for that, I’ll try and look out for that kind of thing in the future.
But I still stand by everything I said about feminization of the church and problems in relationships being due to men not stepping up (which is what Mark Driscoll is also very passionate about and speaks often on).
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Driscoll is quick to fault men for going to strip clubs, as he mentions early on in the video. But nothing about the women that actually work in these clubs. Driscoll would like everyone to believe that the women are the victims. The women that work there do so under their own free will or choice. They are not being forced to work there. Men are 100 percent at fault, and the women are poor helpless victim, according to Driscoll.
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I suspect you fellows are good capitalists.
Ya ever heard of supply and demand?
As long as there is a demand, there will be a supply. Period.
Strip clubs and sex trafficking would both end if men stopped supporting them. But men are not slowing down. Business is booming.
The trafficked women have no choice.
The strip club girls? Well, what can I say? For a poor girl with no future and no hope, pole dancing sure is easy money… For a while. Most of them aren’t in it because that’s what they wanted to be when they grew up.
Now here’s a man I can respect. He takes responsibility for his part. His words are healing to women who have been abused by the system and our culture that exploits women, reducing them from human beings down to play things.
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Mara, I would agree that there is a demand, but I would also state that the supply is caused by fatherlessness which is caused by feminism in government which results in social programs that push men out of the home. I could go on, but it would probably be all new to you, e.g. – no-fault divorce, punitive divorce courts, etc. There are incentives that were put in when feminism became reflected in government, law and education. The incentives oppose fathers in the home and so women are raised without them.
The out of wedlock birth rate is 40%. These are not rapes. Today, many women choose to have sex before they are married and they choose to raise children without fathers because the secular feminist government pays them to do it, and the schools teach them how to do it in sex education classes. And of course marriage is the single biggest factor preventing poverty for children, but feminism is OPPOSED to marriage because of the unequal gender roles. Feminism is anti-Christian and anti-marriage.
And now we see the results of feminism for women. Feminists, and not men, did this to innocent young women. Feminists oppose moral norms like modesty and chastity. Feminists oppose gender differences. Feminists opposed romantic love. Feminists opposed chivalry. Feminists opposed courting. Feminists opposed marriage. Feminists caused this suffering. And feminists are totally responsible for the harm that is being done to women today.
This wasn’t happening in the 1950s, before feminism. It’s happening now because feminism is the majority view. So deal with the results of your worldview. Explain to the young women why you paid their mothers to raise them without fathers. Explain to the strippers and prostitutes why fathers are not needed because marriage promotes sexual inequality. I want to hear you explain to them why your ideology is more important than their lives and dignity.
Your side said that marriage was a “comfortable concentration camp”. So deal with it. Get used to having a world without marriage.
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Wintery: “Feminists, and not men, did this to innocent young women.”
Wintery: “This wasn’t happening in the 1950s, before feminism.”
I think you don’t really understand history.
This has ALWAYS gone on. Isn’t it said that prostitution is the oldest occupation.
There has always been a demand.
There has always been a supply.
There have always been fatherless daughters… and sons.
There have always been daughters abused by their fathers, step fathers.
Even in the fifties.
There has always been exploitation.
I know feminism is your favorite enemy. But I think you hate it so much you can’t see straight.
Why is there so much sexual sin?
Blame feminists all you want.
But sexual sin doesn’t originate with the feminist. It has always been there, long before the first feminist was ever born.
And beating feminists isn’t going to make the sexual sins of men go away.
Wintery: “I want to hear you explain to them why your ideology is more important than their lives and dignity.”
What the heck?
My ideology is Bible based. Men and women are human beings. There should be no sex outside marriage.
Fathers should not molest their daughters or abuse their wives. (duh! but it goes on because of bad theology)
Men should look upon their wives as partners and not as someone to be ruled. Wives are fellow heirs, not jr. partners.
Christian theology that reduces women in the eyes of men is an ideology that is destroying Christian marriages, left and right. It’s happening now.
And theology that is encouraging child abuse is killing children.
http://lauriemo.blogspot.com/2010/02/in-which-i-speak-of-unspeakable.html
I know your mind has been poisoned by certain teachers to believe egalitarians are the same as any secular feminist, which is a shame.
Because instead of finding solutions for the world we live in now, you want to go back to a fairy tale that never really existed in the first place, except in fifties propaganda designed to get Rosie the Riveter to forget how much help she was during WWII and make her think she was only good for mindlessly cleaning a house and making the perfect souffle.
Or did you not know that 50s propaganda was a backlash against women learning they were strong and well able to help(meet) during WWII.
And the sixties was a backlash against the fifties stiffling and nonsensical propaganda that made women feel caged.
And on we go down to this day as you backlash against me and feminists.
Backlashing solves nothing.
It’s part of the problem, not part of the solution.
I live today, 2010. I want to meet the problems we have with real solutions, biblical solutions, not sweeping prejudice and blaming Eve.
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I can’t reason with someone who thinks that we had a 40% out-of-wedlock birth rate in the 1950s. We did not have a 40% out-of-wedlock birth rate in the 1950s. So, either we are going to discuss reality or fantasy. If it’s fantasy, then count me out.
My point is that there has been an explosion of social problems, not that these things did not exist at all. The relative proportions are VASTLY different now and then. Can you understand that?
I think your view is certainly the dominant view among women today, and that’s why we are were we are today. You wanted feminism, and now you have it. And it produces the results we see today: men don’t marry. You’re in the driver’s seat now, and the next generations of women are doing exactly what you told them to do when they have sex with men at increasingly younger ages, like single digits. It’s YOUR sexual revolution. Your side wanted sexual liberation from antiquated gender roles. Enjoy the results of it. But don’t expect free sex on the first date to cause men to want to marry.
Tune in tomorrow when I will explain the roots of feminism and the opinion of marriage shared by the authors of the movement.
Oh. Do you know what encourages child abuse? Feminism. That’s because feminism created single-mother welfare, no-fault divorce, and a host of other anti-marriage policies. And those policies result in men who are not the biological father of the children living with the children. Biological fathers don’t abuse children. But live-in boyfriends and stepfathers do. So once again, feminism, which is opposed to marriage and fathers, is to blame. All the misery that is being blamed on men is actually the result of feminism.
[UPDATE: Mary and Michael point out that biological fathers do abuse their children. But I meant that the rate is MUCH LOWER for bio-dads than for live-in boyfriends and step-dads]
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“All the misery that is being blamed on men is actually the result of feminism.” Puhleeeeeze!
I’m not a feminist. I don’t like feminism. I think it’s unhelpful, particularly in its form today. However, being reactionary and placing the whole weight of the messed up state of the world on the shoulders of feminists is simplistic and, frankly, a cop-out.
We live in a fallen world where men AND women are sinful and deal with the world in sinful ways. Both men AND women need to have their ideologies fixed. Let’s stop trying to exclusively blame the opposite sex. It achieves nothing.
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I mean gender feminism – third wave feminism. Not equity feminism,
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“Biological fathers don’t abuse children.” Unfortunately untrue. It’s probably true that *fewer* biological father abuse their children.
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You don’t know the numbers and I do. What compelled you to write a comment disagreeing with me without knowing the facts?
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So no biological father has ever abused his children?
That’s the only point she was making, wintery.
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Exactly. Thank you, Michael.
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I need only one example of a biological father who has abused his kid to disprove your statement. I have heard of several such examples. The truth (i.e. the facts) is what compels me to disagree with you on this point. Show us the stat that says that absolutely zero biological fathers have abused their kids.
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Mary and Michael, I need to explain better what I meant.
Consider these statistics.
Note that the statistics show that single mothers also abuse children even when there is no man in the home. That is because a biological father acts as a restraint on women’s natural tendency to use violence, which is born out by statistics showing relatively higher levels of domestic violence in lesbian couples, which I wrote about before. So it turns out that the numbers show that it is women’s decision to divorce (70% of divorces are initiated by women, most for trivial reasons), cohabitate or have out-of-wedlock births (40%) that is causing the soaring rates of child abuse. It is the marginalization of biological fathers (due to women’s embrace of a variety of feminist myths) that have increased the amount of child abuse. Later today I’ll explain who is responsible for the decline of marriage as an institution by citing the writings of leading feminists.
This way of addressing disputes with facts and logic is what men do. We study to learn the truth. We conform our beliefs to the external world. If we are wrong, we take responsibility and change our conduct. It is the feminists who refuse to study the truth and insist on holding up an ideology that causes these broken families to increase and greatly increased the amount of suffering. Feminists caused suffering to increase, because they don’t tailor their views to reality. And not just for millions of born children, but for millions of unborn children as well. Men are more pro-life and pro-child than women are, statistically.
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“This way of addressing disputes with facts and logic is what men do.” Thankfully there are men, like Michael Baldwin, who do just that. Now please actually read what I wrote instead of merely reacting. I agree that feminism is negative and that the incidence of abuse is higher in homes where the biological father is absent. All I’m saying is that it’s not zero in homes where there is a father. And I’m making the comment because I like facts and accuracy and I’d like you to be accurate.Stop being silly. :-P
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Alright I admit I was silly, and I fixed my comment to be a bit nicer. I… (grits teeth) … apologize. I was wrong and you were right.
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That was an extremely well argued reply there, Wintery. Of course it is true that children living with their biological father are far less likely to be abused than those who aren’t, however ALL we were saying is that you can’t say, “Biological fathers do not abuse their children.” Because, obviously, 28% of abused kids live with both biological parents. What you CAN say is that children are far, FAR more likely to be abused when their biological father is not living with them. But you can’t say that it simply doesn’t happen at all cos that just aint true!
Btw, you should make a post out of that comment, it was really good.
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I will turn it into a post later. Thank you for correcting me about what I meant to say. I added something to fix my comment to say the right thing that I should have said. Thanks for helping me to be more accurate.
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“Men are more pro-life and pro-child than women are, statistically.” Nonsense.
The figures are pretty close. In some ways women are more pro-life than men: http://www.afajournal.org/archives/24040000347.asp
Moreover, from http://people-press.org/commentary/?analysisid=88:
“Women’s greater concern about abortion is also seen in the extent to which they see it as a voting issue. On the pro-life side of the issue, a plurality of women favoring more abortion restrictions (45%) say they would not vote for a candidate who disagrees with them on this issue. This is significantly higher than among pro-life men (37%). The gender gap is somewhat larger on the other side of the issue, where 40% of women and just 30% of men who oppose further limits on abortion say they would decide their vote largely on this issue. Overall, men who oppose more abortion restrictions are the least likely to view this as a voting issue. Nearly six-in-ten men who oppose further abortion restrictions (59%) say they would vote for a candidate who disagrees with them on this matter, if they shared views on most other issues.” So women are more likely to give it a high priority in their voting than men are and men are more likely to compromise on this issue when voting because they see other things as being more important.
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I am going off the Gallup poll from last month. Mine is from 2010, yours is from 2000.
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Your poll is a study based on data from 1972 to 1994.
I am using the latest Gallup poll from May 2010, last month.
Also:
77% of young unmarried women voted for Obama.
http://wvwv.org/research-items/unmarried-women-change-america
Obama voted against the Born-Alive Infants Act TWICE as a state senator. That means that he wants babies who are delivered alive to be left unattended until they die. That’s what he voted for. TWICE.
He is more pro-abortion than Hillary Clinton. And 77% of young, unmarried women voted for him.
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Thank you for your apology.
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And thank you Mary for engaging him on this.
I, quite frankly, am tired and didn’t have the time or strength.
I’ve already said here, months ago that the rise and fall of civilizaions is a matter of history and has happened long before feminism.
Blaming feminists for EVERYTHING (they are guilty of some things but not all) is dishonest and counter productive.
Offtopic:
How the heck are you people able to type inside these tiny boxes!
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If you reply to the main post, it gives you more space.
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Note to Mario.
I’m so totally not a poor helpless victim. I have family and community support as my foundation.
Also, I am working with my girls so that they will not be victims. I want them to be powerful and resilent rising above any circumstance this world may throw at them.
My home is a safe place, a firm foundation for them. A place of refuge in case they get an emotional black eye and need a retreat.
They also know that if anyone messes with them to the point of exploitation, all my mild mannerism will go out the window. I’ll go after their attacker without mercy like Liam Neeson in the film “Taken”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taken_(film)
(Used this film to train my daughters on what NOT to do in order to keep safe. They must always be aware of their surroundings and never let strangers know details about their lives)
My sons also know this, though they are 21 and 19 and are now in a better position to protect me than I am them.
I say all this to let you know, I don’t want my daughters or any female to feel or be the victim.
However.
I used to work in a residential treatment facility for teens. And working there, I was able to read their histories.
Now I work in foster care and see first hand how broken families destroy their offspring and set them up for doing whatever it takes in order to survive.
Some of these girls end up dancing.
You say they have a choice.
I think you are locked in a middle class, Christian way of seeing things, thinking everyone else has grown up the way you have, have had the support you have had.
Sure there may be some girls from middle class homes dancing at these places. Perhaps they are spoiled and just looking for easy money. Or perhaps they are trying to escape a hell hole you and I could never imagine.
What kind of girls dance at clubs verses what kind of men pay to see them? I think you make the mistake of thinking they all come from the same circumstances. Who has the money? Who needs the money? Who has the power in this situation?
Oh, btw, the girls in the residential treatment facility I worked in did not have victim mentalities at all. They had hard-core survival instincts and street smarts out the wahzoo. And any one of them would not have had a problem dancing in a club to make money. They’d already been exploited by men without pay. Dancing is better, because at least they get paid.
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Mara,
So are you saying that its OK for the girls to dance at the strip clubs because they have been abused/neglected/exploited by men?
If so, that is classic feminism. Blaming immoral behavior on everyone but yourself. I’m sure I’m either misunderstanding you or you are trying to play some type of practical joke because you like being the contrarian.
wgbutler777
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No, I’m saying, stop judging other people until you have walked a mile in their shoes. It has NOTHING ON GOD’S GREEN EARTH TO DO WITH FEMINISM. Stop with your obsession with feminism. It’s getting freaking annoying and you are missing the entire obvious points because of the huge, honking blinders on your eyes.
For these girls, dancing for money is not just a step up from the hell-on-earth they have already lived. It is an entire flight of steps up from that hell-on-earth.
I’m not justifying it. I’m saying, to whom much is given much is required. Much is required of my daughters. They have been given much.
God has mercy on the girls who’s very core has been destroyed and trampled underfoot by the sins of others. I’m looking for ways to get them out of all of it. Get them away from thinking that the only way they are going to get anywhere on this earth is by being playthings for men. That life, even on it’s best day in hugh hefner’s playboy mansion, reeks of rotting and burning flesh. Women were not designed to live that way. It destroys they very souls.
But their point of reference for good and evil is so low…
Wow, it’s hard to explain to middle class men who have never had to fight for survival as a female in a male dominated, sex-sin saturated world. (talking about the world these girls come from, not the worlds you live in.)
I really should just give it up. What’s making it hard is knowing the quality of reader here. It’s knowing that there’s a lot of decent people coming here to read. I just wish I could get some of you to see past the tired, old, worthless cliches and on into what might actually help a few of these girls.
I really just should give up. Arguing about it accomplishes nothing. Your minds are made up. You don’t want to dig into the issue. You are fine with scratching at the surface and getting no where.
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Mara,
Thanks for your reply. My response follows:
//God has mercy on the girls who’s very core has been destroyed and trampled underfoot by the sins of others.//
God has mercy on those who repent of their sins and accept Jesus as their Savior! We have all victimized others and have been victimized by others (male or female). That is part of the sin nature in all of us.
But no amount of victimization justifies the immoral acts of strip club dancers (or drug users or prostitutes or gang members). I realize that many of these ladies come from awful situations and they don’t know any other way of life, but such activity is still immoral and detrimental to all involved, especially the women. The cash gets spent on frivolous things, and then the women are used up and discarded once they become old and ugly and newer prettier women take their place, with nothing to show for it except a shattered life.
//
Wow, it’s hard to explain to middle class men who have never had to fight for survival as a female in a male dominated, sex-sin saturated world.
//
I’m not following you. Women in today’s culture have more rights and freedom than at any other time in history. Other than women who are kidnapped and forced into drug addiction (many of these are runaways), no one is forced to become a strip club dancer or prostitute.
Furthermore, the women that DO end up in this type of lifestyle usually come from broken homes and the absence of a father figure in their lives, something that is directly the result of the anti-male feminist culture that is destroying our society.
//
what might actually help a few of these girls.
//
What would help these girls would be a return of our culture to the traditional nuclear family where people waited till marriage to have sex, and didn’t divorce each other, and took care of their own kids instead of letting a day care do the child rearing.
wgbutler777
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WG, you wrote:
I agree with this, and this is what I am trying to get Mara to see. I don’t want to deal with cleaning up the spilled milk after it’s been spilled by redistributing wealth from intact families to address the damage caused by already broken families. I want to go to the root of the problem and encourage people to form and maintain intact families. Make men and women understand the value of marriage, by providing them with legal and financial incentives, (not by redistributing wealth, but with tax cuts), to get married, to stay married and to raise children. I want schools to stop teaching things like non-abstinence sex education, that men are bad and that marriage is bad.
We have to decide whether to tax an intact family to fix the symptoms of the problem, or whether to leave that money in the hands of working fathers to encourage them to stay married, and to let unmarried men see the financial benefits of starting families. I want to stop the courts and government from controlling and punishing men, and shift the responsibility for choosing a good man back onto women, and their parents. I’m for sitting down with men and asking them what they need in order to get married and stay married and raise children.
We need to stop the bleeding before we can think about painkillers.
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First Wg, I want to apologize for my sharp answer. You caught me on a bad day. And I want to thank you for your calm answer.
Even though I don’t agree with the onesidedness and one-dimensionalistness of it, I appreciate your straight forwardness.
The one dimension is holding feminism as mostly responsible while giving pornography a slight nod as another ‘possibility’ when pornography has been around longer and has a far deeper hold on our culture and world.
What would also help these girls would be to actually hold the predators accountable for their sins rather than shrugging the shoulders and saying, “Oh, well. Boys will be boys. They can’t help themselves.”
or worse, saying, “Rape statistics are inflated by feminists.” Thereby not taking serious the real damage done.
Pornography reduces women to things and men into animals with no self-control. Hugh Hefner started his magazine in 1953, fairytale land, and it has made him a Billionaire, supported by business men, fathers, brothers, uncles intact families, including Christian men.
If people are wanting to fight for the family, the gender feminist is small beans compared to organized crime, pimps, and pornographers. The predators that want to come and steal sons and daughters from even you intact, Christian families.
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Some data on the manipulation of statistics by feminists, by Christina Hoff Sommers. More data about the campus rape myth by Heather McDonald.
A shorter, less rigorous overview article from Probe Ministries.
Keep in mind that these myths are the basis of our current laws and social programs. Billions are being spent on these “problems”.
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You know, when I presonally knew a girl raped on campas who ended up leaving school due to the traunma and the school doing nothing, it’s hard for me to accept someone’s data when I know real victims who’s lives have been destroyed and a cover up put in place. I guarantee, her number wasn’t included in the statistics. She went away quietly and in shame. Pretty sure she’s not the only one.
I didn’t think much about this sort of thing until I saw the devastation from her point of view.
You can tell me until you are blue in the face that these statisics are inflated. It doesn’t change the reality of my friend who saw no justice because her life and future were deemed less important and of less value than that of a future sports star.
As long as the sins of men (including college sports figures with great potential to make money for someone) are swept under the rug and deemed false, don’t be surprised when women rise up and say enough and start going after the pocket book.
It’s too bad they had to inflate the numbers to get anyone to give a rat’s hiney. Men have a tendancy to not pay attention to the pains of nameless/faceless women until other women make it hurt the men somehow. Going after the pocket book hurts and gets attention. Little else does the job.
And so sorry about you fellows and your pocket books. Wish people weren’t trying to take your money away from you. I know you would be good stewards of it, not buying pornography and alcohol, but rather supporting your families, etc.
Really. No joke. I think this about you all. You are good men. For real.
And I agree with you all, that the feminist programs don’t work and won’t fix the problem. Again, no joke. The feminists are just adding to the problem, making things worse.
But at least the feminists were trying to do something about the problem. They refused to let the men continue to ignore it.
When the problem was left up to the men to solve, nothing got done. Nothing. It is swept under the rug. Boys will be boys. The kid’s got talent. Let him make it to the big leagues. His character doesn’t matter, only his sports ability. And you, little girl, you don’t matter at all.
But as sorry as I am about your money being taken for programs that don’t work, I’m more sorry about the actual lives of women being snuffed out by the pornograpy industry either directly or indirectly.
Guess the loss of life and dignity is no big deal to most guys if it’s nobody they know. Just so long as they can figure out a way to get feminist to leave their money alone.
The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. John 10:10a
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Mara,
//
First Wg, I want to apologize for my sharp answer. You caught me on a bad day. And I want to thank you for your calm answer.
//
No apologies necessary, Mara, but it is very classy of you to offer one regardless. Even though we sometimes disagree, I enjoy hearing your point of view and trying to understand where you are coming from.
//
The one dimension is holding feminism as mostly responsible while giving pornography a slight nod as another ‘possibility’ when pornography has been around longer and has a far deeper hold on our culture and world.
//
I only hold feminism as largely responsible for the increase in the divorce rates and thus fatherless homes. This data can be tracked fairly easily, as divorce was pretty much non-existent a hundred years ago.
I don’t hold feminism mostly responsible for pornography or prostitution (although it certainly doesn’t help there either) and I completely agree that men have a sin nature that contributes to these problems.
The fact of the matter is that men and women are equally evil. They just manifest that evil in different ways because they have different biological makeups. Men tend to be more brutal and violent, lecherous, and uncaring. That’s why the majority of prison populations are men.
I agree with you that there were plenty of problems in western society before the advent of feminism. But feminism has made the situation far worse. It’s somewhat like trying to put out a fire with gasoline. Sure you guys got a lot of attention, but the situation has greatly deteriorated.
wgbutler777
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Forgot to include a link about a 21 year old Aruba playboy and the result of his life of playboyness:
One girl he allegedly killed came from an intact family.
I don’t know about the other.
Nor do I know how many more he has done in without getting caught.
http://www.aolnews.com/crime/article/van-der-sloot-confession-police-say-dutchman-admits-killing-stephany-flores-in-peru/19507299?icid=main|compaq-desktop|dl1|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aolnews.com%2Fcrime%2Farticle%2Fvan-der-sloot-confession-police-say-dutchman-admits-killing-stephany-flores-in-peru%2F19507299
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WK,
I know that you are talking about third wave feminism. I do understand what you are talking about and I do agree with everything you are saying. Yes, these third wave feminists do more damage to the society (and to themselves) than good. They are playing a huge part in the ruins of the modern day society. BUT it takes 2 to play that game WK. What I find alarming is you singling them out as the sole reason for the degradation of society. Yes, co-habitation is harmful to children. What about the men involved in it? There are men who go along with it to absolve themselves of responsibilities just as much as these women. I am not even going back to the point when feminism rose to free women from oppression or blame the society then. I am talking about now and here. You say men change their conduct when they find that they are wrong. Do they really? Do ALL of them do it? Then where do these women find men who are willing to have sex with them outside of marriage? Where do they find these abusive boyfriends who impregnate them and then abandon them? Don’t tell me, women choose bad men and bad men will do bad things. That’s the worst possible excuse there is. Men are in equal parts responsible for all that’s happening in today’s world. You can’t say there will be bad men, women should be good. Doesn’t work that way. I am not saying women shouldn’t be good. I am saying men don’t get to have free pass to be bad either.
Now remember, I agree with you in everything you say about the third wave feminists. What I don’t agree with is how you are expressing it. Constructive criticism is what works, Wintery. You go accuse feminists alone, you are sure to get defensive responses from even the women who agree with you in principle.
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When I talk to men about why they participate in these bad things, they always feel guilty. It’s so hard for a man to resist sex, especially after the feminist-sanctioned sexual revolution. We ought to resist women’s offer of sex before marriage, but it’s almost impossible to go against our biology. This is why I read so much about feminism, it builds up my resistance to being led into trouble by women. Once you understand what causes women to want to be promiscuous without consequences, and the damage it causes to children, it’s a lot easier to resist them. (Just read a little on feminist web sites like Jezebel and Feministing, etc. to see what women are really like).
There have been around 50 million abortions since 1973 in this country, and 77% of young unmarried women voted it for it. A man has to understand the lengths that a woman will go to in order to pursue happiness in this life. Once a man understands how women really are, he doesn’t think of women the same way. He can resist them, knowing that what women want from him is wrong.
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I do wish you would stop generalizing about what “women” want. We’re not all the same, y’know.
And as for the “it’s impossible to resist” thing, that’s just nonsense. Men who say that are dangerous to marry because they’ll justify having an affair because the woman they met one day was just too much of a temptress. And what makes you think that women aren’t tempted sexually too? We must resist and you must resist. It cuts both ways.
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Yes, I am sorry about my generalizing. When I say women, I only mean 70-90% of YOUNG, UNMARRIED WESTERN WOMEN, like in Canada and the USA and the UK and Europe. Married women are much better.
I think that men are more tempted by sex than women. I wish women were more modest and chaste, it would help us men a lot.
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Thank you for clarifying the generalization.
I think that women are just as tempted by sex as men. I wish men would be more modest and chaste. It would help us women a lot.
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LOL!! I used to do that, Mary seems to be doing that now!!! What happened to your “No generalization” post-it note??
It’s a true testament to someone’s character when they resist temptation at it’s strongest. What’s good about someone bragging they haven’t sinned because the opportunity didn’t present itself?
And that argument doesn’t hold strong in so many levels. I’ve dressed modestly my whole life but I’ve still been teased a lot by men. Why do you think is that?
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Shalini, I disagree. I deliberately avoid situations where I am going to be tempted, which is why I don’t drink except for one beer per year, and I don’t go out. It’s best to draw a line when it’s easy instead of having to draw a line when it’s difficult. I prefer to draw the line when the temptation is weak.
I know what you are talking about when you say you dressed modestly and still got teased. I think that’s because some men are going to be nasty brutes no matter what women do. In that case, men are to blame. Some of the stories I’ve read about public transportation in India and Mexico really scare me. Yuck!
Although, I do think that it would help if we encouraged policies that promote marriage and fatherhood. Men do better when they see their fathers love their mothers in the home.
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Oh no!! You got me wrong!! Of course, I never deliberately put myself in tempting situations either!! What I am saying is that there is a possibility that we might be put in some very tempting situation despite our best efforts. It’s those situations I am talking about here. People who deliberately put themselves in tricky situations are nothing short of idiots!
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“Men do better when they see their fathers love their mothers in the home.”
That, I agree completely!!
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Wintery, I agree wholeheartedly with what you are saying here.
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Quite honestly, I enjoy going to strip clubs to talk to the dancers. The vast majority of dancers I’ve met do not consider themselves to be victims. Many (if not most) are bisexual or even lesbian and strip clubs give them the opportunity to meet other like women. They are realistic and know that they can work for only a few years – say from 19 to 25 or so. I haven’t met any that were abused. Actually, at upscale strip clubs the dancers pay to work there, to weed out those who don’t belong there. Hope this helps.
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I’m totally going to ignore your comment and just say something unrelated. The thing that scares me about this is why are you wasting your time on women like that? The kind of activities they do are NOT going to make them like men or trust men, and you need that in order to get married and to have a real companion who loves you and wants to help you, and lets you love her and help her. Trust is VITAL to a man, it’s the best thing a woman can do. There are other women out there who are filling their lives with goodness. Shouldn’t you spend time on them instead? I would. I love women. Well – I love Christian women who love God and love men and love children. And they have to be clever about how they do it, too – that’s what’s so great about women. They learn things when you aren’t paying attention to them and they come back better than before. They are lovable and helpful. You can have a relationship with them. They are like men, but different. You can take of them, serve them, give them gifts, and talk to them. And they grow and then use that strength to help you.
Honestly Mario, have you never had the joy of loving a woman in an unselfish, non-sexual way? It is an amazing feeling once you put some time and effort into it over a long period. Like building a castle. And you can kill dragons for her, too.
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Mario,
Be very careful about believing everything these women say. If they are dancers in men’s clubs, most likely they have a knack for knowing what men want to hear.
I’m not saying this is true of all the women you talk to, but there is a high chance that many of these women are master manipulators.
I work with a sector of society that includes some dancers. One, in particular, that our agency has dealt with was the best manipulator we have EVER seen. ESPECIALLY of men. And most especially of everyday, gullible men who aren’t accustomed to dealing with such worldly women.
Even we, at the agency, who are used to being lied to by clients on a regular basis believed her at first. She was very convincing. But her lies caught up with her. I could go on but will spare you the gory details.
Not everything is as they seem with the gals you meet at strip clubs.
To take things at face value is rather naive.
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I agree with Mara. I hear lots of nasty things about the way these women in strip clubs treat men. It’s horrible. They shouldn’t think of men that way, and men shouldn’t should be that way with women. I think the further that men and women go in these kinds of interactions, the worse it is. There are women out there that need love like a rose needs sunlight. I would prefer that men spurn the bad women and work on the good ones. Buy them gifts, talk to them, give them attention.
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Wintery: “I would prefer that men spurn the bad women and work on the good ones.”
I understand what you mean here, Wintery and agree on the level of, men should not encourage the bad behavior of these women.
I believe you mean, correct me if I’m wrong, spurn as in, not encourage any romantic relationship. And I whole heartedly agree.
And I would imagine that most/all young men need to stay far away from these gals because of their own risk of temptation.
But for the sake of these girls I have to remind people. Jesus was a friend to prostitutes and tax collectors. These girls are human beings, of value to God just as any other. Jesus died for them just as much as any well known preacher or evangelist.
There is a field white for harvest among these girls.
If a man cannot see past his own temptation, then don’t pass near the harlot’s house.
But even in keeping far away, don’t forget to pray for them that God will send laborers into the harvest to work on these girls, not for anything sexual or romantic, but for the salvation of their very souls and the uplifting of their lives from the pit they are in.
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I mean don’t pursue them romantically! You can be nice to them – but don’t court them! Just keep it friendly.
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This is a rather interesting story. In review, there are a lot missing details that are speculated.
With that being said – I have to agree with WN. She unknowingly chose him and therefore has to deal with the consequences of her actions.
Despite what she has done and the churches viewpoint of it (incorrect information given). Btw, I have to seriously doubt the validity of the revised information has been told in the video (I always doubt “absolutes”).
The GOOD NEWS is she OBVIOUSLY has repented and is turning toward righteousness ( This is a big turn on for God and . Hopefully God will continue to bring more truth to her and stop blaming the guy & the church and forgive them despite their errors (there is a lot more to learn here).
Despite what other people think – this is the typical Christian walk / “her daily cross” in which God will use to refine, instruct, and purify her. God uses our mistakes to bring about His purposes and teach us if we “endure to the end”….
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