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How feminist pastors like Mark Driscoll and Kevin DeYoung undermine marriage

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Disclaimer: I agree with Mark Driscoll and probably KevinDeYoung on the vast majority (like 99%) of what they teach, and I applaud them for being conservative in their theology. This post is attacking them from the right – I don’t think that they are conservative ENOUGH. I disagree with all the people who attack pastors from the left. However, I do think that it is OK to attack them and expose them on the right. Mark Driscoll and Kevin DeYoung are liberal on some issues, because they are uninformed about men and marriage, and influenced by feminism. They need to be held to account. And I will do that now.

At Dalrock blog, I found an interesting assessment of a column by the famous feminist man-blamer Mark Driscoll. (H/T Fred, straightright)

Excerpt: (links removed)

Several readers have asked that I share my perspective on Pastor Mark Driscoll’s recentWashington Post piece “Why men need marriage”.  Driscoll opens his contribution to the man up and marry career gal sluts genre with an anecdote about a middle aged career woman who never married:

She was smart, funny, interesting, successful, attractive, kind, in her 40s, and still single.

A man of biblical wisdom would recognize that this woman had squandered her youth chasing a feminist dream of career and/or fornication.  Were he a wise man, a story starting this way would be a cautionary tale to young Christian women not to make the same mistakes this woman did. However Pastor Driscoll is steeped in the foolishness of our feminist culture and not biblical wisdom.  He finds no fault worth mentioning in this woman’s own choices, and instead looks for a man to blame for her terribly mismanaged life:

After my wife Grace and I spent some time with the woman from our church, we could not fathom why no one had married her.

She has been of marriageable age for over twenty years, yet she never married.  Pastor Driscoll seems to think this is because men have failed her.  It is far more likely that she followed the feminist advice to delay marriage until at least her 30s, while in all likelihood riding the carousel.  As a result she may well have lost the ability to experience love and attraction for a normal man.  Note that amongst the marriageable attributes he mentioned about this woman he left two out;  he didn’t say she was a virgin, and he overlooked entirely the fact that she is almost certainly no longer able to bear children.  In fact, notice that all of the attributes he lists are what one would normally advise a woman to look for in a husband (smart, funny, interesting, successful, attractive, kind).  He seems to have gone out of his way to cleanse his mind of traditional views of the sexes in marriage.  Why else would he refer to a woman using only terms which would apply to a man?

More: (links removed)

But Driscoll is apparently entirely unaware of the trends of the last 40 years.  Instead he coins a new euphemism for the carousel (fools parade) and ladles out a healthy serving of the Apex Fallacy.

Eventually, some get tired of the fools parade and settle for some guy who is more likely to act like a baby than help raise a baby. These guys make the worst husbands: gambling away the money, out late with the boys a lot, unfaithful, can’t seem to fit a full-time job in around his hobbies, and eventually trading in their 40-year-old wife for two 20-year-old girlfriends.

He sees women thinking with their genitals and seeking out men with dark triad traits and instead of holding them accountable for the devastation they cause their children he blames men in general.  Then he trots out the canard that men are driving the divorce epidemic by divorcing older wives when the data proves that divorce rates plummet as wives age.

He ignores the epidemic of women kicking fathers out of their children’s lives committing frivolous divorce and divorce theft and doesn’t warn men to be extremely careful when choosing a wife.  Like any other form of addict, he will do or say anything to get his next fix.

Men are like trucks: they drive straighter with a weighted load. Young men are supposed to load themselves up first by being responsible for themselves and not expecting their mom to fill up their sippy cup with beer and push them in a stroller to the unemployment line. Young men who take responsibility for themselves are then ready to marry and take responsibility for the life and joy of their wife.

But what about young women? Do these pastors think that women have “load themselves up” with anything that men might expect them to know? Should they have strong informed views favoring chastity, opposing divorce, and really really opposing fatherlessness? Of course not – because Mark Driscoll is afraid to tell women that there are things that they ought to be doing in order to be prepared for marriage. I have a whole list of things that women should be encouraged by pastors to load themselves up with, but none of those are on Mark Driscoll’s list.

Pastors don’t ask the right questions of women. They somehow have gotten the idea that Christianity only imposes obligations on men. It is so bad that Mark Driscoll actually blames the non-Christian men that “Christian” women choose have relationships with when they act like non-Christians! Pastors shouldn’t tell women that it’s not their fault if they choose bad men – it makes them think that they are victims and that they are not responsible for their  own decisions. That will not protect woman from making more bad decisions in the future. We don’t want women to get the idea that they don’t need to have informed views on these issues so that they will make better decisions.

Here’s Mark Driscoll explaining how men are to blame for single motherhood:

Part of it is the unintended consequences of divorce. Forty percent of kids go to bed at night without a father. Not to be disparaging toward single moms, but if you’re a single mom and you’re working 60 hours a week, and you’ve got a boy, and he’s home all by himself with no parents and no dad, he’s just going to be hanging out with his buddies, feeding himself pizza rolls.

The number one consumer of online pornography is 12- to 17-year-old boys. What that means is he’s home eating junk food, drinking Monster energy drinks, downloading porn, masturbating and screwing around with his friends. That really doesn’t prepare you for responsible adulthood. That’s a really sad picture, especially if you’re a single gal hoping to get married someday. You’re like: “Seriously, that’s the candidate pool? You’ve got to be kidding me.” That’s why 41 percent of births right now are to unmarried women. A lot of women have decided: “I’m never going to find a guy who is actually dependable and responsible to have a life with. So I’ll just get a career and have a baby and just intentionally be a single mother because there are no guys worth spending life with.”

Single motherhood is no problem for Mark Driscoll – which implies premarital sex. It’s all totally OK – for women. Because he thinks that men are to blame for the decisions that women freely make. But I think that the men that Driscoll is complaining about are produced by the conditions that he refuses to condemn – like premarital sex, which is a risk factor for divorce, and single motherhood. So, he is basically supporting fatherlessness, and then complaining about the results of the fatherlessness that he supported. In his rush to avoid condemning women, he creates the very situations that result in men who do not do well in school, do not work and do not marry. All because he doesn’t think that the Bible’s moral teachings apply to women – but only to men.

What men expect from women when we pursue them is that they will be passionate about identifying the causes of social phenomena like the decline of men , and then demonstrate to us what actions they have taken in order to defeat those trends. We expect women to talk about no-fault divorce, shared parenting, cohabitation, hook-ups, binge drinking, day care, single motherhood, gay marriage, school choice – to show men that they have some familiarity with the issues that they would face as mothers and wives. But when pastors respond to the real problems facing men with “man up” and women believe them and accept the view that they are not responsible for solving these problems, then we all lose. Women today are complaining that the sons of single mothers and divorced mothers from yesterday will not man up. But where did these single mothers and divorced mothers come from? Surely pastors who refused to confront women about the morality of premarital sex (which reduces the stability of the marriage, leading to divorce) and single motherhood by choice deserve some of the blame?

Men are getting 40% of the undergraduate degrees in many universities. Is it incumbent on pastors to read books like Christina Hoff Sommers’ “The War Against Boys” and find out the root causes of this effect? Is it incumbent on pastors to read books like Stephen Baskerville’s “Taken Into Custody” and find out another root cause of the marriage strike – no-fault divorce? Or should pastors just remain ignorant and lazy, and refuse to confront women with the causes of the decline of men? It seems to me that pastors like Kevin DeYoung and Mark Driscoll just dismiss these problems with the slogan “man up”, because they are just not intelligent enough to be able to read books by Christian scholars that explain the causes for the decline of men. It’s much easier to write blog posts bashing men, with no citations, and get accolades from the feminists in their churches, who are only too willing to blame men for problems that they themselves have caused by embracing anti-marriage, anti-family ideologies.

Pastors think that Bible doesn’t apply to women

Here’s my view:

  • Bellow “How Dare You!” to men who have premarital sex and have babies out of wedlock and get divorced.
  • Bellow “How Dare You!” to women who have premarital sex and have babies out of wedlock and get divorced.

Here’s Driscoll’s view:

  • Bellow “How Dare You!” to men who have premarital sex and have babies out of wedlock and get divorced.
  • Tell women that it’s not their fault if they fornicate and have babies out of wedlock and divorce because they are not happy, and then bellow at men to “Man Up” and marry women who think that the Bible doesn’t apply to them.

Many women who claim to be Christians are very sympathetic with the government handing out goodies to women who don’t care what the Bible says.

It seems to me that what pastors like Driscoll are saying is this:

  1. Women should not be told not to have babies out of wedlock
  2. Women should not be told not to have premarital sex, which often leads to divorce (marital instability)
  3. The poverty that results should be fixed by government redistribution of wealth

Where does government money come from for all of the social programs to deal with broken homes (112 millon per year)? It comes from men who work. We have to pay higher taxes to subsidize women who get into situations that are very expensive for working men to pay for. This in turn reduces out ability to afford to get married and have children.

And Mark Driscoll comes along and bellows at us “How Dare You Complain About High Taxes For Sin Subsidies! Man Up and Marry Those Sinners! Pay for their social programs!”

Here’s what one devout Calvinist Christian woman just wrote to me:

I know there are some men who start out being really nice and sweet and they get the woman crazy about them and then slowly, little bit by little bit they persuade her that if she “really loves them” she’ll sleep with them and they’re “going to marry” her and they “love her” and all that rot. And one night she gives in because she’s weak. But she doesn’t really want to. But she’s bad at resisting the man and he’s manipulative.

And he lied. He didn’t mean it. She did mean it. She believed him when he whispered sweet nothings in her ear.

Yeah, she’s not too bright to fall for the liar. Yeah, she should be vigilant. Yeah, she should think logically instead of emotionally.

But often she’s younger than he is and she falls for his good acting. It’s Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf.

Between her and the liar, I’m with Driscoll.

See? The Bible doesn’t apply to women. It only applies to men. That’s what pastors have been telling women and this is what creates an entire generation of fatherless children, who the pastors then bellow at to “man up”. If the pastors had been man enough to challenge women with the Bible in the first place, we wouldn’t be in this mess. They caused this by refusing to believe what the Bible says.

Making men better without nagging

I sometimes wonder if pastors think that men are just there to serve women, and not to serve God. Pastors seem to have no idea where men are really needed in this society – to counter anti-Christian ideologies – and how to get them there. Pastors are supposed to inspire and encourage Christian men to become effective and influential in the areas where we need them to be, and to inspire women to select those men who are having an influence over non-Christian men who are just good looking and fun. But they fail miserably at these tasks. The don’t seem to be able to look at an effect (declining men) and trace it back to causes, and then address those causes.

 Here are a few things that pastors could talk about in the church:
  • how should schools change to help men to learn better?
  • what sort of education policies will help parents educate their boys?
  • what sort of books should boys be reading?
  • what should parents be doing to make their
  • what should a single man be doing to please God – not women?
  • what economic policies encourage job creation?
  • how does socialism (social programs) minimize the roles that men play in a family?
  • how do we make church more interesting for men?
  • how has feminism changed law and government to be more hostile to men?
  • how has feminism changed the workplace to be less accessible to men?
  • how can we convince women to stop getting drunk and hooking up?
  • how can we get men to be able to understand the truth of Christianity?
  • how can we get women to affirm men in their traditional roles?
  • how can we point men towards careers in science, engineering, math and technology?
  • how does the culture undermine strong Christian men?
  • what are some areas where Christians are needed to be influential today?
  • who are some of Christian men who are effective and influential?
  • what academic disciplines should men focus on in order to have an influence?
  • what laws and policies are hostile to the Christian life plan?
  • how can we get men to speak intelligently about Christianity and how it relates to other areas of knowledge?
But questions like this never occur to most pastors. They often can’t even talk  about things like apologetics and politics for fear of being “divisive”. Instead of complaining about men, pastors need to start thinking about how to solve the problem. That will involve deliberate study and taking action to address the root causes of the decline of men, providing men with a positive vision instead of just nagging them, and holding women accountable for their own sinful actions, like premarital sex (a risk factor for divorce) and single motherhood, which both cause their children to be raised without fathers.

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28 thoughts on “How feminist pastors like Mark Driscoll and Kevin DeYoung undermine marriage”

  1. “In fact, what do Christian women learn in the church that has any value for a Christian man who plans to have an influence? They don’t learn anything about what they ought to be doing. They are just feminists, like any other non-Christian woman.”

    Well, last summer, we read Ephesians and learned to submit to our husbands. Perhaps you would know better than me what a feminist would think of that. The married women organized a book study on what women should know before they get married including details on how to care for our husbands and children. We’re currently being taught how to keep ourselves chaste. Are you saying none of that stuff is useful? Perhaps you’re thinking of some other churches.

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    1. I am thinking of other churches, this church sounds much better.

      But I do have to tell you that I have been chastised by women who were big fans of Mark Driscoll for my chastity and sobriety. Somehow, these women have gotten the idea that chastity is not a requirement for Christianity, and they get it from pastors like Mark Driscoll, who accept that women have premarital sex, and rather than challenging them on that, they turn to men – men who are clearly NOT CHRISTIANS – and they demand that those men marry these women. He is turning traditional courtship on its head and normalizing sin as a normal part of courtship. And he does this because he finds it impossible to blame women.

      You can see him telling a woman in this video that her decisions are not her fault, and that she should expect happy results from her own bad decisions:
      https://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/is-mark-driscoll-afraid-to-hold-women-accountable-for-their-own-choices/

      Ironically, it is this lowering the bar for women by well-meaning, but cowardly, pastors that encourages women to get themselves into bad situations in the first place.

      Women use premarital sex to make men like them because they don’t want to have to make men like them by allowing men to lead them to study things like apologetics, economics, etc. Sex shuts men up. And what Mark Driscoll is saying is that women don’t have to read the Bible, they don’t have to do what it says and be chaste, they don’t have to avoid men who want premarital sex, they don’t have to prepare themselves to be able to test men with difficult questions to see if they really area Christians. No. Driscoll thinks that women should be able to choose a man who claims to be a Christian, have sex with him before marriage and then pressure that man to marry her. WHERE IS THAT IN THE BIBLE?

      What Driscoll and DeYoung seem to be saying is that all women need to do to be ready for marriage is to get a job and be attractive and funny. Is that what Christian men expect? Or do they expect women to have applied the Bible to many other areas of like, like politics and science, and to have taken the Bible seriously on issues like chastity and divorce?

      When men ask women questions to see what they believe, we are looking to see how much effort has been put into studying the issues. We don’t want a one word answer. What have pastors done to prepare women to sound convincing on issues like chastity and divorce and so on? Have women studied this issues? Are they passionately opposed to premarital sex, no fault divorce, cohabitation, feminism, day care, public schools, fatherlessness, biased domestic violence laws, and so on? Are they informed enough to be convincing? Do they have a deep sympathy for men and a spirit of submitting to male leadership? These are some of the things that men want from women – we want to be sure that they will support us and raise children well. And just them saying they will is not convincing. What have the pastors done to prepare them for these questions?

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      1. I never thought I would hear you praise a church, WK. Seriously, you shouldn’t be so hard on them. I’ve never been to any like you’ve described but then, I find my churches through people who attend two or more bible studies per week so it’s no surprise.

        I can understand your feelings about this, though.

        That said, I would like to say I take issue with a certain comment of yours. You said, “Women use premarital sex to make men like them because they don’t want to have to make men like them by allowing men to lead them to study things like apologetics, economics, etc.”

        Actually, I think lots of men give the impression that what they want is sex, not discussions about the state of the economy and the women are scared and lonely and ignorant enough to think that is the way to go. Not because they are lazy or hate apologetics. Granted, there are some nice ones out there and the women should be stronger Christians and choose partners wisely but the problem isn’t just the women here. Understanding that might give you some perspective. They aren’t (all) demons.

        One key thing you seem to have missed is that God created us to need each other. That means that some women feel that they need to get married and will do whatever they need to in order to get that – including premarital sex. Like our minister said (in slightly different words), when men start praising women about important things (rather than beauty and sex), the women might start to think of those things as important.

        In my opinion, they deserve our pity.

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        1. I already deleted that comment. In fact I deleted everything I could think of that picked on women. I wanted to beat up on those two pastors because they are hard on men, easy on women, and they have no positive ideas about how to push for social changes that might make men better in school, better at finding work, and more willing to marry. Some of those changes are to laws and policies, but in some ways, women need to change. And they definitely need to vote more conservatively.

          I do encourage women to learn more stuff. I have a bunch of people, men and women, that I mentor, by sending them books. One of them is getting white roses on Valentine’s Day because she read 8 books in a row, and she is reading one now! She makes me very very happy and helps me to be better, too. She even helped me today, a lot! I do encourage women. I am a virgin and my goal with women is to build them up in to stronger Christians. I have a good record of making women better.

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      2. Wintery, I think you make valid points here and have raised some important issues, but…

        When I read this post, what stood out to me is that you seem to be making a case built around things that were not said. As if the absence of the message you wanted to hear towards women in the content you sampled was enough justification to assert that Mark Driscoll is a feminist and doesn’t think women are responsible for their sin.

        That seems like quite a leap to me, a rather unreasonable method for coming to conclusions, a method prone to inaccuracy and leading to conclusions based on fantasy rather than reality.

        I’ve watched a lot of Driscoll sermons, read several of his books, follow him on twitter/FB, etc (among many pastors). Based on that large volume of content I can tell you this:

        1. Driscoll is focused on (as in – his primary mission) young men. Just because he doesn’t address the role of women’s responsibility in a video geared towards men and marriage does not give adequate justification to label him a feminist and assert that he does not think women should be responsible for their sin.

        2. Driscoll is the least feminist pastor, and least effeminate male pastor you could probably find. Feminists don’t exactly love him, after-all he’s not egalitarian, but complementarian. Feminists want sameness with no difference, while Driscoll believes in “equal but different”.

        So while I agree that Driscoll doesn’t go after the women nearly as much as the men, I think you do need to realize that his mission is to reach the men. Something that has been equally ignored in the church for far too long as we’ve become ever so feminized. So it seems like an unfair tactic to stirr up more controversy over him for things he DIDN’T say.

        I don’t follow Kevin DeYoung so I can’t comment on him, but I can offer some thoughts based on my experience with the content Driscoll has put out there.

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  2. Mark Driscoll has been called a lot of things. Feminist, though? That’s a first.

    That said, I can see your logic. I love Driscoll as much as you do, but I think you raise some terrific points.

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    1. He’s one of the top 5 best pastors. But he needs to see that he should not be lowering the moral bar for women. This is what produces the boys who refuse to grow up that he is complaining about. Pastors need to hold women accountable to be chaste, to prepare for a lasting marriage by studying how marriage works, and to vote for marriage and man friendly policies.

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  4. Driscoll is losing respect from me (he should be worried right lol) because of stuff like you mentioned here and because of the latest thing with T.D. Jakes (prosperity oneness televangelist). He is probably catering to women because women attend church more than men (or that was the latest I heard – circa 2010), so of course he’s going to cater to the women you described in this post.

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    1. I’m getting a mix of e-mails from women. Some women are writing to me saying that women should be allowed to have premarital sex and to engage in single motherhood by choice, because it’s not their fault that there are no men. But one wrote to me horrified that anyone who claims to be a Christian could think that marriage was not a pre-condition for sex.

      The thing that I thought was interesting is that one of the women who wrote in favor of allowing women to have premarital sex and to have children out of wedlock is a strong supporter of taxing men more in order to equalize life outcomes for the poor. She doesn’t seem to be aware that the breakdown of marriage is a leading cause of child poverty and domestic violence.

      But the woman who wrote against lowering Biblical standards for women is a capitalist, and wants smaller government and stronger families.

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      1. That is interesting. The average Christian woman where I live is liberal on fiscal policies and conservative on social policies at the same time without realizing the liberal fiscal policies will not get her the social policies she wants.

        Conservative policy is the vehicle for liberal goals of peace and social justice, not liberal policy, but brainwashed women (and men mind you) can’t see that just yet because of the still tight hold liberals have on the mainstream media.

        Not to get too off subject here, but blogs like this, Redstate, lonely conservative, and others are getting the information out and messing with media establishment.

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      2. one of the women who wrote in favor of allowing women to have premarital sex and to have children out of wedlock is a strong supporter of taxing men more in order to equalize life outcomes for the poor

        So not fair. If I have to PAY for the sex, I ought to be the one HAVING the sex. But I don’t see ghetto single moms lining up to get pregnant by me. (Nor would I oblige them if they did).

        They have fun with thugs, get preggo by the thugs, and they want the tax man to stick ME with the bill, while I’m struggling to provide for my own 3 kids.

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  6. O Wintery Knight, you goon. We expect better scholarship from you of all people.

    After having watched most of Driscoll’s material over the past five years and reading nearly all of his books, I can honestly say that he is certainly not a “feminist” pastor, and deserves to be commended for his stance for Biblical, God-glorifying marriage that mirrors Christ and the church. He is also sound when it comes to God, the church, the Bible, salvation, hell, sin, beauty, virtue, objective moral values, and other core tenets of Christian faith. Two news articles do not an entirely thorough view make. I encourage you to watch things like “Mary and Elizabeth”: http://marshill.com/media/luke/mary-elizabeth. If you turn the volume way up in the middle, you can hear the women in the audience weeping, as he’s relatively harsh in it. Instead, he stops to pray in the middle of his sermon – the ONLY time this has ever happened before or since.

    Rebuking feminism to males and rebuking feminism to females are very different tasks. I don’t see any place, in his sermons or especially in the Driscolls’ recent book, Real Marriage, where the error is not refuted in an approproate way. Yelling at feminists doesn’t work; it only reinforces their prejudices. Instead, Grace, his wife, addresses the ladies in an appropriate way.

    That said, Driscoll may be tempted to be softer on women because he, unlike this blog’s author, is married to one. Their story is detailed in this most recent book, and it’s rather insightful into why he preaches the way he does, which only shows that he’s human.

    Ultimately it’s not Driscoll you need to look to for an example but Christ Himself. Compare how he dealt with the Samaritan woman’s sin, compared to some of the Sadduccees and Pharisees. There were no throwdowns of “you viper!” Compare his tone, expressing the same truth, and judge for yourself which was “more godly.”

    P.S. Go nuts:
    http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/how-planned-parenthood-hooks-kids-on-sex-warning-graphic-material

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    1. Ok that is a useful counterpoint to my views of Mark Driscoll, which I was not aware of. So maybe he isn’t as bad as I thought.

      I sort of understand what you are saying about not being able to bellow at feminists, but I do expect him to say something about the general moral rules. Those boundaries seem mean and unfair, but they are there for a reason – to protect everyone concerned. Especially the children, who need us to be careful with love and sex.

      If I were married, I would sound a lot more like Driscoll. So maybe it’s better that I am not, so that I can say things that will cause people to realize that protecting children from instability is the responsibility of men and women. Both sides need to work at keeping to the boundaries. There is a lot of love and romance that’s possible without getting physical, and it’s better to keep your head clear when you are evaluating someone for a lifelong commitment. It just might be the case that things like sentimentality, emotional roller-coasters, peer approval, and spontaneity are not the best guides for selecting a spouse. Maybe people should cool off and do some structured discussions, looking over financial statements, and so on. Why doesn’t anyone want to talk about the details of getting married any more? I like talking about marriage and how it would work and preparing for it.

      I get your point about Jesus’ style with women, as well. You of all people should know that I am not harsh in person, but only in my writings. Although I do use the silent treatment when women are bad.

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  7. I should also highly recommend The Meaning of Marriage, by Tim Keller and his wife Kathy. Both this book and Real Marriage, taken together, would be a sufficient pre-marital course all to themselves.

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    1. I must enthusiastically throw Douglas Wilson’s “Reforming Marriage” in here, for I don’t think it gets the recognition it deserves.

      “…two tenets (of modern feminism): 1. men are jerks, and 2. women should strive by all means to become like them.” – Doug Wilson

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  8. “Driscoll thinks that women should be able to choose a man who claims to be a Christian, have sex with him before marriage and then pressure that man to marry her. WHERE IS THAT IN THE BIBLE?”

    Passage from Deuteronomy 22:28-29: “If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days.”

    And this is not a case of a woman being raped. But yes, God put the responsibility on the man to marry the virgin he deflowered without having had the intention of marrying her. I post that because the question was asked, but I do still believe that women are accountable for the sin of fornication.

    Still, I don’t think Driscoll thinks that it is OK for a woman to sin. I do think he believes that “fixing things” is primarily a man’s responsibility. I actually think that Driscoll might be radically committed to the principle that men bear the responsibility, period. If you look at the example of Christ and the Church–which is the picture of marriage–God took the initiative to make things right and remains faithful even when Christ’s Bride is not. (see the story of Hosea and Gomer as well) Again, does that mean that women do not have to live righteous lives? Not at all–everyone is accountable to God for what they do. But I think he believes that women will follow if men set the standard (it does take two to fornicate and produce illegitimate children).

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    1. Do you expect non-Christian men to accept the authority of Deuteronomy?

      One of the reasons that we are having a crisis of out-of-wedlock births is because pastors don’t communicate to women that the Bible applies to them. Instead, the majority of women in the church have premarital sex as part of their relationships with men, instead of staying chaste and making men prove themselves. Naturally, this causes problems because men who choose to have sex with women before marriage have no incentive to marry women since they are already getting sex for free.

      Women who claim to be Christian are not equipped to select men who will choose to marry, either. Women often don’t feel that they have to study apologetics, or develop a Christian view of economics, politics, marriage, parenting, etc. But a good worldview is necessary in order to be able to choose the right man for the job of husband and father. Women in the church today very often choose men using non-Christian criteria that they get from popular culture, which results in disasters. Since they choose the wrong men, they feel pressured to use sex in order to get the men to commit to them. But this has exactly the opposite effect.

      What happens when women try to snare the wrong men using sex? Disasters ensue. These women then blame the non-Christian men they freely chose for not acting like Christians. And that’s where we are today, with pastors calling on non-Christian men to act as if they are Christians.

      Women are responsible for their own choices. They choose not to study the Bible. They choose not to develop a Christian worldview. They choose to select men based on non-Christian criteria. They choose to have premarital sex instead of courting responsibly. Then they blame the men they freely chose and demand that those men marry them. And pastors back them up. It’s irresponsible.

      The solution is clear. Women need to develop a Christian worldview. They need to pick men who have Christian worldviews. They need to take responsibility to choose the right man for the job of husband and father. They need to stop using sex as a shortcut to marriage, because it doesn’t work.

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        1. Well, we agree on that. Look here, you. What would you tell me if I had sex with a crack-addicted stripper, got her pregnant, and then complained to Mark Driscoll that she wanted to abort our child?

          I’ll tell you. You would call me a fool for having chosen this woman to have premarital sex with. You would say I wasn’t a Christian, she wasn’t a Christian, and neither of us had any obligation to act like Christians, and I was a complete idiot for expecting her to act like a Christian, and I had NO ONE TO BLAME BUT MYSELF.

          What I should have done is to have chosen a different woman, tested her worldview carefully over a couple of years for [apologetics, economics, politics, marriage parenting,etc.], remained chaste all that time, interviewed her previous boyfriends, done 6 months of premarital counseling, saved up for a downpayment on a house, then married her. That’s what a Christian man does with a Christian woman.

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          1. In the meantime, what fills the vacuum? Nature abhors a vacuum. I’m sure God isn’t particularly fond of them either.

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        1. One sermon does not polish a turd, arid2385.

          If pastors are going to shame men, they need to shame women who act promiscuously repeatedly too. Otherwise, Christians are just left discussing why their congregations are little old ladies of both sexes, and the men seek refuge in the PUA Game or video games.

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          1. Mark Driscoll, a turd, really? Ironically, his congregation doesn’t complain of the things that you mention. He is probably doing something right.

            And it is always easier to criticize someone like Peter, for getting out of the boat and starting to sink, while ignoring the fact that Peter showed greater faith than anyone else who was just sitting there.

            I have nothing else to say on this matter. The fact that so many believers are unable to bring correction and admonition without completely tearing down the ministry of someone who has dedicated himself to God’s word is deeply saddening, especially as today His resurrection is celebrated.

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  9. Any Christian who is inclined to endorse sexual intercourse outside of marriage doesn’t know the bible or God very well ( show chapter and verse).
    There are many church goers who profess to be Christians but are not disciples of Jesus.
    Btw, before Peter got out of the boat He asked Jesus and Christ bid Him to come and Jesus bidded him to come ( too bad for the other disciples – they could have had a square dance if they had asked). Thats the problem, no asks for what He thinks.
    Not a bad idea to ask Jesus and find out what His thoughts are since in Him are “hidden” all treasures of knowledge and wisdom.
    Kudos WK – great article !

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