All posts by Wintery Knight

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News

How does church appear to someone raised in a non-Christian home?

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Church sucks, that's why men are bored there

My friend Wes posted an article about how communication is set up in the church, and why it’s not effective at equipping Christians to defend their worldview in hostile environments. The article describes what I encountered in church, after I was raised in a non-Christian home and become a Christian on my own by reading the New Testament. The view presented in the essay is how I viewed the church, and is probably how most outsiders view church. I think it explains why young people leave the church in droves once they move out of their parents’ houses.

The author writes:

On the Internet, one soon discovers that many respected church leaders are quite unable to deal directly with opposing viewpoints. In fact, many of them can’t even manage meaningful engagement with other voices. Their tweets may be entirely one-way conversations. They talk at their audiences. They can talk about other voices, but fail to talk to them, let alone with them. Their representations of opposing viewpoints reveal little direct exposure to the viewpoints in question.

[…]Around this point, it can start to dawn on one that many church leaders have only been trained in forms of discourse such as the sermon and, to a much lesser extent, the essay. Both forms privilege a single voice—their voice—and don’t provide a natural space for response, questioning, and challenge. Their opinions have been assumed to be superior to opposing viewpoints, but have never been demonstrated to be so. While they may have spoken or written about opposing voices, they are quite unaccustomed to speaking or writing to them (not to mention listening to or being cross-examined by them). There are benefits to the fact that the sermon is a form of discourse that doesn’t invite interruption or talking back, but not when this is the only form of discourse its practitioners are adept in.

Many church leaders have been raised and trained in ideologically homogenous cultures or contexts that discouraged oppositional discourse. Many have been protected from hostile perspectives that might unsettle their faith. Throughout, their theological opinions and voices have been given a privileged status, immune from challenge. Nominal challenges could be brushed off by a reassertion of the monologue. They were safe to speak about and habitually misrepresent other voices to their hearers and readers, without needing to worry about those voices ever enjoying the power to answer them back. Many of the more widely read members of their congregations may have had an inkling of the weakness of their positions in the past: the Internet just makes it more apparent.

One of my friends who comments here as “Wintery’s Friend” actually did his M. Div, and I think it was he who told me that his seminary had dropped the lone course in apologetics that had been part of the curriculum. Now seminary grads don’t learn any opposing views. They just pre-suppose that the Bible is true in the same way that Mormons pre-suppose their Bible is true. It’s a Mormon epistemology that’s been adopted by Christian seminarians.

More:

If one’s opinion has never been subjected to and tried by rigorous cross-examination, it probably isn’t worth much. If one lacks the capacity to keep a level head when one’s views are challenged, one’s voice will be of limited use in most real world situations, where dialogue and dispute is the norm and where we have to think in conversation with people who disagree with us.

The teachers of the Church provide the members of the Church with a model for their own thinking. The teacher of the Church does not just teach others what to believe, but also how to believe, and the process by which one arrives at a theological position. This is one reason why it is crucial that teachers ‘show their working’ on a regular basis. When teaching from a biblical text, for instance, the teacher isn’t just teaching the meaning of that particular text, but how Scripture should be approached and interpreted more generally. An essential part of the teaching that the members of any church need is that of dealing with opposing viewpoints. One way or another, every church provides such teaching. However, the lesson conveyed in all too many churches is that opposing voices are to be dismissed, ignored, or ‘answered’ with a reactive reassertion of the dogmatic line, rather than a reasoned response.

You can imagine that the first questions that you’ll be asked by a non-Christian co-worker would be things like “why think God exists?” and “why think the Bible is history rather than legend?”. What I’ve learned from listening to pastors is that very few are equipped to answer those questions. Most just assume that God exists and that the Bible is inerrant. And they don’t show their work, because they haven’t done the work. Moreover, they actively oppose apologetics as “divisive” and “prideful”. And so their flocks can attend church for 20 years and never learn a single useful piece of information that can be used in a real-world discussion. If you’re wondering why kids raised in married Christian homes start getting drunk and shacking up with atheists the minute they hit college, then look at the pastors who mocked their honest questions instead of preparing to answer them with evidence.

More:

I believe that there are various problems in the Church that are exacerbated by this. Where they are led by voices that can’t cope with difference or challenge, churches will tend to become fissiparous echo chambers, where people are discouraged from thinking critically about what leaders are saying and doing. The integrity of the Church’s theological conversation will not be tested through criticism and challenge. Churches that are led by such leaders will habitually develop polarized oppositions with their critics.

Unfortunately, in conservative churches, pious church leaders like Al Mohler, Russell Moore, Denny Burk, etc. oppose the use of evidence in apologetics, especially scientific and historical evidence. They don’t like the idea that humans can consider evidence rationally, and make a decision – even though Jesus regularly presents evidence to people who don’t believe in him in the Bible, and expects them to respond to it. The approach of pious Christian leaders to Christian teaching is to parrot Bible verses and hope that it has a magical effect of compelling faith in unbelievers. I call this the magic-words view of the Bible. For example, these pastors would not use peer-reviewed evidence from the social sciences when discussing moral issues like premarital sex, they would just cite the Bible’s teaching on it – to non-Christians!

I don’t know about you, but I think that a peer-reviewed paper on the dangers of premarital promiscuity has far more weight than something like this from Denny Burk:

If the Bible is the word of God, then it merely needs to be proclaimed. It has intrinsic power that cannot be nullified by the most hardened of skeptics. For that reason, we can have confidence in proclaiming it to anyone. And we can say “the Bible tells me so” without blushing.

That’s just fideism, and it’s the majority view among conservative church leaders. If you had to pick a single passage that explained the decline of Bible-based Christianity in America, you couldn’t find a better passage. What’s most surprising is that this fideistic view of Christianity is not even Biblical. The Biblical view of faith is that faith is trust in God, based on evidence. This is why Jesus offered his own resurrection as evidence to a generation of unbelievers. His miracles were also evidence offered to unbelievers. And the Old Testament is filled with examples of people like Isaiah presenting evidence to unbelievers. The fideist view sounds more like the Mormon “burning of the bosom” view.

I think the Mormon / fideist camp is just imposing their own man-made views onto the text in order to get out of the hard work of having to actually study and prepare to have debates with non-Christians. The motivation is laziness, and piety is just how they dress up their laziness to make it seem positive. Unfortunately, the product of this pious laziness is ignorance, and ignorance costs young people their faith. It doesn’t seem to bother these pastors at all that they can’t have meaningful engagements with non-Christians, or that they don’t equip young Christians to defend themselves. They’re oblivious to the world outside of the church doors.

In conclusion, we really need to stop giving respect to fideist pastors, if we expect to train up a generation of young Christians who are able to retain their faith and have an influence. We would never accept Mormon fideism as a sign of competence in any other real-world area of our lives, e.g. – auto repair, software engineering, surgery or tax law. We shouldn’t accept Mormon fideism as a sign of competence in teaching the Bible, either.

Positive arguments for Christian theism

Commentary

What’s the best book a woman can read to prepare herself for marriage?

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Does government provide incentives for people to get married?
A good marriage is more than fun and feelings – it takes planning and work

I found a great lecture by Sue Bohlin, who works at Probe Ministries. The lecture is about the book “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands” by Dr. Laura Schlessinger. I recommend this book more highly than any other book to Christian women. It really does a lot to give young women a different perspective on men and marriage. Don’t be thrown off by the funny title, it’s really good.

The MP3 file is here. (48 minutes)

Here is a blog post that Sue wrote that captures most of the material in the lecture.

Here’s the introduction:

Talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger has written a book that is improving thousands of marriages: The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands. We need this book because millions of wives either don’t know how to love their husbands wisely and well, or they’re too self-centered to see it as important. Dr. Laura credits this dismal condition to forty years of feminist philosophy, “with its condemnation of just about everything male as evil, stupid, and oppressive, and the denigration of female and male roles in families.” While the women’s movement certainly had a hand to play in the disintegration of relationships and the family, I believe the core cause is our sinful self-centeredness, just as the Bible says.

Which is why we need help, and God instructs older women to train younger women to love their husband and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands is a great resource for learning these important values and skills.

And here’s the first part I thought was most important:

A listener to Dr. Laura’s radio show named Edgar wrote, “There are a few things that men want so bad they would do anything for it. I think a good number of men want respect more than love. They like to feel they have some power. I nearly cry when you tell a woman caller to respect her husband. There is so much selfishness in the world—in marriages. Prosperity has allowed women to be so independent, and thus so selfish. I always feel as though I come last—my feelings come last, my needs come last.”

“A good number of men want respect more than love.” God knew this when He made us. His commands to husbands and wives in Ephesians 5:33 reflects each one’s deepest needs: “Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” Dr. Emerson Eggerichs of LoveandRespect.com points out that this verse commands a husband to love his wife. Why? She needs love like she needs air to breathe. This same verse commands a wife to respect her husband. Why? He needs respect like he needs air to breathe.

  • Respect means treating someone in a way that builds him up and doesn’t tear him down, never denigrating or attacking.
  • Respect means always treating the other person with the dignity they deserve as a person made in the image of God.
  • Respect means grasping that a man’s needs and wants are every bit as valid and important as a woman’s needs and wants.
  • Respect means not venting to others, especially the children. One woman wrote to Dr. Laura, “No emotional outlet is worth damaging my husband’s reputation.”

There are three A’s that men long for from their wives: attention, affection, and affirmation. Respect involves paying attention to what they do simply because they’re the ones doing it.

Yes, respect is very important to men, but the thing is, a woman can’t respect every man equally. She should choose a man who does things that are respectable. Then respecting him will be easy. Sometimes, women overestimate how easy men are to change after marriage. It’s better to just pick one who does all the important things instead of thinking that you can pick a good-looking one and make him do the important stuff like be faithful to you, hold a steady job, save money, argue without getting angry, etc. later. Men don’t change much, so pick one who does things that you respect and then give him respect.

And this part also seemed important to me:

A man named Roy wrote to Dr. Laura with some good advice for wives: “If you can’t accentuate the positive, at least acknowledge it. The world is full of messages to men that there are standards we don’t meet. There is always another man who is more handsome, more virile, or more athletic than we are. None of that matters if the most important person in our life looks up to us, accepts us as we are, and loves us even though we aren’t perfect. . . . All I know is that the husband who has a wife who supports him and praises him for the positive things he does is the envy of all the other men who have to live with criticism, sarcasm, and constant reminders of their failures.”

Men desperately want and need the support of their wives. This is reflected in what God reveals in His Word when He says, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” And through the apostle Paul, God instructs wives to relate to their husbands in a way that meets this need when He says, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.”

Submission is basically giving support with a willing, cooperative heart.

A wife’s submission includes knowing her gifts and strengths, and using them to serve her husband and family.

Service has a bad name, but both husbands and wives are called to serve God first and then each other; husbands are called to sacrificially love and serve their wives with Jesus as their pattern.

So what does support look like?

  • Believing in him. Telling him, “You have what it takes.” Being his #1 fan.
  • Cultivating a cooperative heart.
  • Being generous and openhearted—willing to use your gifts and strengths to help him succeed.
  • Understanding the importance of making him look good: never saying anything negative in public.
  • Creating a home that’s a safe haven from the world.
  • Having a warm heart with a positive, cheerful demeanor. Women set the temperature of the home; we are thermostats, not thermometers, of the family. (On the other hand, Proverbs says “A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day; restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand.”)
  • Being interested in him and his life.
  • Showing thoughtfulness. What does he like? Do it.
  • And though by no means exhaustive, it also means being a person of faithfulness and integrity. That means keeping your promises and being dependable. As Proverbs 31 puts it, “Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value.”

Support and encouragement is SO important to a man. A man can continue to function fine if the whole world opposes him, but not if the woman he loves doesn’t support him. When a man falls in love, a woman has to realize the enormous power she has over him, and be careful not to hurt him. Men are vulnerable to the woman they choose. Although they look pretty tough on the outside, they can easily be hurt by insults or discouragement.

Parting thoughts

So, this lecture and the book are good, but young women should also seek out the advice of older Christian women who have been married successfully for some time. Read Titus 2:3-4 – the Bible encourages older women to mentor younger women! This is really important because we are in a time where young women are often pulled by the culture in many wrong directions, and they need help from people who know what they are doing.

One last point – I actually bought the audio version of the Dr. Laura book and noticed that it was just over two hours long. It turns out that the audio version is abridged – it is not as complete as the actual book. I noticed that Sue was quoting from the book passages that I had not heard in the audio recording. So, if you want the full content, get the book, not the audio recording.

News

Viral Red State article answers: why don’t men want to marry any more?

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Here’s the article from Red State, written by Brandon Morse.

The first point he makes is that feminism teaches women to have character traits that make them unattractive to marriage-minded men. Feminism teaches women that evaluating men for marriage according to traditional male roles is “sexist”. There are no traditional male roles that women should prefer. Moreover, feminism teaches women that there are no female roles either. So, these women don’t understand men, and they aren’t prepared to be wives and mothers.

Brandon writes:

Even in modern families, men are taught how to treat a woman, provide for her, and work hard to keep her happy. Women aren’t taught how to treat a man or how to make him happy; they’re strictly taught what to expect from a man.

I can’t speak for all men, but in my case, I have definite plans for my marriage, and so a woman’s preparation and desire to be supportive is very important to me.

I’m trying to achieve these goals:

  • influence the church with apologetics
  • influence the university campus (students and professors) with apologetics
  • be involved in politics, advocate for conservative policy
  • open the house to students and neighbors to teach apologetics and demonstrate a loving marriage
  • raise 3-4 financially independent and influential children

And when I ask women what they bring to the table to help me to achieve all that, they often say that they’ve done nothing. Even the Christians try to get out of having to do anything hard by saying that God has a mysterious will that’s higher than my plans – plans which are designed to achieve specifically Christian goals. But if you look at the woman’s life, this mysterious God’s will never requires her to do anything difficult that would serve God. In practice, “God’s will” is just another word for doing what is easy, fun and peer-approved.

Brandon writes:

The sad truth is that many young women nowadays don’t know how to be in a marriage… they’re not taught how to treat a man, but what to expect from him… they’re flat-out dissuaded from providing anything but their presence to the partnership. They believe that offering their love to the man is sufficient and that men should just be grateful to have them.

What can you tell about a woman who has not prepared for tasks, like defending her faith, promoting conservative policies, or raising effective children? If she has not studied or practiced to do these things, then she isn’t suddenly going to become disciplined and effective after a wedding ceremony.

Men like when they set out to do something, and get support from their wives to achieve it. Can women today support men?

Brandon writes:

Along the lines of never learning how to treat a man, women are never taught how to value a man’s emotions unless they pertain positively to her. He must prove every day how much he values her for just existing. She expects this but is taught by our society to not reciprocate unless he earns it.

Men feel this weight, and the thing that would give them strength is withheld. Men suffer attempting to emotionally support the partner who has no interest in uplifting him in return. It’s a lonely existence in a relationship for two, making it, in truth, a relationship for one…her. What makes matters worse is that women are confused by their men’s lack of emotions. They were never taught how we think, much less appreciate it.

It’s rare for me to get support from younger women. Older Christian women can do it, but they are from a different time.

Now, people say to me “just go ahead and get married, and you can change the woman’s mind afterwards to value the things you care about”. But do young women today offer a way for men to change their minds about anything?

Brandon writes:

Now, let’s say you’re a young man entering into the stage of your life where dating to marry becomes typical. Looking at your prospects for marriage you see career-oriented women, some of whom make more money than you do and are very proud of this fact…. their opinions on any given subject seem more trendy than well thought out. They seem shallow as a result.

You see these women in your dating pool consistently exhibit opinions about your sex that are less than kind on social media. They’re taught they’re your intellectual superiors, that they’re right in any given argument no matter what… Very rarely do they display any joy in being giving or of service to their men. Even more rare are displays of humility. It reeks of narcissism.

One of the questions that I ask women to see if they are teachable is “where do you get your political news”? This question is to see if they care about anything other than their own feelings and social standing. I also ask “have you ever read any non-fiction that caused you to change your mind”? This to see whether she changes her mind about anything by increasing her knowledge.

But what I get from the Christian fundamentalists AND the career-focused feminists is the same: “I don’t read news, and I don’t read non-fiction”. If she doesn’t form her beliefs by gaining knowledge, then what method does a man have for leading her? She will only do what she feels like or what is pleasing to her peer group. If she doesn’t respect knowledge in general, then she doesn’t respect a man’s knowledge.

Brandon concludes:

Men want to feel welcome in their own relationships. Right now, they aren’t. They feel like passengers, or maybe even more accurately, chauffeurs. If women want men to marry them, then women will have to become marriage material and that means leaving behind the mainstream pop-philosophy and looking into the idea that maybe the feminists were wrong.

The schools, churches and culture are not doing anything to teach women how to be valuable to men. So why would a man marry? If I have to commit my time and money to being someone else’s slave / handbag then that will cause me to achieve goals less, right? As a Christian man, I don’t see how being a slave / handbag to a woman serves God.