Category Archives: Polemics

Polemics

Pastors vs the Bible: should men be shamed into marrying?

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Recently, a book was recommended by Ligonier Ministries that tried to shame men into marrying. Here is a review of that book on Amazon.com – currently rated the “most helpful” review, because it quotes the book and cites the page number, so you know this person actually read the book.

Some quotes from the book, which is written by a pastor:

“it is imperative for your well being that you be married, to move beyond the “not good” status of single adulthood” (pg59).

“And the first step for many of us in becoming the men God wants us to be is to become married, so that we will leave behind our selfish ways and begin fulfilling our masculine calling through our relationship with our wives.” (pg64)

“It does not work very well when a man remains unmarried” (pg57)

“to realize how vitally important it is (in the vast majority of cases) that you become married” (pg59).

“Today, when God looks on single males and says, Not good, He undoubtedly has in mind a long list of truly unfit helpers, among them the pornography, video games, sports obsessions, and empty pizza boxes that are intrinsic to so many young adult male lives, even among Christians” (pg60).

“The best thing a young Christian man can do… is to marry a godly woman” (pg59)

“If you have shied away from marriage, let me urge you to reconsider and (perhaps)
to commit to the necessary growing up” (pg59).

“God says the same thing about single adult men today. He looks into their apartments and refrigerators and sighs, Not good” (pg57)

“But it is especially good to have to rise up in masculine virtue and strength for the sake of my wife, leaving behind a self-focus that was, at best, only intended for a temporary season of singleness” (pg64)

“If you are single, what is keeping you from marriage? Pray for God to enable you to take a wife and for God to provide you with a wife.” (pg158)

Keep in mind that Paul was single. Was he able to obey and serve God while being single? According to this pastor, Paul was a self-centered failure who needed to grow up, man up and get married so he could serve God instead of being an irresponsible, messy, immature loser. Paul needed a godly wife to civilize him, but he failed in life because he stayed single and immature. This view is probably the majority view in churches today, and it probably explains why men can’t be bothered with church. According to most pastors, women are already fully qualified to become wives, it’s only that the lazy, useless men like Paul are not mature enough to abandon their video games and pizza boxes and get civilized by their saintly wives.

But what does the Bible actually say about men and marriage?

Let’s look at this exegesis of the Bible from Unmasking Feminism.

Excerpt:

And then there is this: 1 Corinthians 7:25-27 and 32-38

Now concerningthe betrothed,I have no command from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy. 26 I think that in view of the present distress it is good for a person to remain as he is. 27 Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife.

Some Christians will say the “present distress” cited is not the same distress as our modern times and therefore we can reject this, but yet the bible is suppose to true at all times and all situations. There is and will always be a constant undertone of distress in our fallen world. If there wasn’t, this would be Eden. The distress we are in now, which is clear to any red-pill thinker, is obviously the burden of feminism, liberalism, socialism, et al and the strains it has be put on our society. Under those strains,  is it wise to seek a wife?  Yes, if you have passions that will prevent you from being celibate, but if you can manage that, under the present distress, is there a point in taking a wife? See “Note” below for more on celibacy.  Because there is no going back–these are hardcore, legitimate verses that men need to consider when pondering marriage.

32 I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. 33 But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife,34 and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. 35 I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.

Again, if you have your passions under control, a life free of the worldly distraction (known as learning/managing/pleasing your wife) is the better, anxiety free route, to living a life that pleases the Lord.  As it is said, “no man can have two masters”.  Either a Christian man is single and devoted to the causes of the Lord or married and devoted to the causes of Lord and wife.  A distraction for sure, but necessary if his passion burns. He will just have to learn how to keep his wife from becoming a second master.

36 If anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly toward his betrothed, if his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes: let them marry—it is no sin. 37 But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity but having his desire under control, and has determined this in his heart, to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well. 38 So then he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better.

Those who refrain from marriage with their passions under control will do better. They will be more focused and dedicated on the Lord. That is very clear and Christian men need to hear that in order to weigh marriage properly. There is nothing wrong with marriage, just that it can be burdening. There is nothing wrong with being single, just that you can’t have sex, but as you will see in my “note” below that marriage may entail no sex anyway.

I say all this not to be a downer and to sway men from marriage, but so they can make an informed decision. Wives are not always sunshine and lollipops.  The modern Christian message is to just man-up and marry any Christian looking woman and instantly your life will be transformed into this Garden of Eden haven. Don’t be fooled. There will be no heaven on earth. A wife can be a blessing if she is a good wife, one that does not place undue burden and strain on her husband. One that does not cause anxieties. But, and its a big BUT, there is no guarantee that marriage for the sake of marriage will make a woman a good wife or that any given wife will not be wearing sheep’s clothing. Its a gamble and tolerance for risk should be considered.  A single, celibate life is for those averse to risk. If you can manage yourself, its smooth sailing and a life with minimal anxieties. That is all you have to control.

1 Corinthians 7 is the chapter that many a pastor cannot afford to take seriously. He cannot accept the plain meaning of the text as it is written. If he did, he would offend many people in the church who believe that the primary purpose of men is to please women, not God. In church, a man has no right to evaluate a women for marriage and then decide for himself whether a prospective marriage is worthwhile for God or not. He has no right to ask a woman questions or lead her in order to see whether she can perform what he needs her to perform in order to make the marriage serve God. Many pastors believe that a man exists to serve a woman, and not to serve God.

When these feminist pastors cannot find support in the Bible to make the case for their “blame men” view, then they resort to shaming men without the Bible. “Man Up” they bellow to single guys – as if marrying a woman were something that could be accomplished by spending more time in the weight room. Or that flexing muscles protects a man from the threat of no-fault divorce. “Single guys: don’t overlook the single moms” as one particularly foolish pastor recently advised. It’s very important to understand that many women who attend church today do not look to the Bible as an authority on morality. Many are also not prepared. Men have to be encouraged to select a woman who is ready for marriage, not be forced to rush into marriage with just any women.

According to polls, women are more likely to support gay marriage than men, for example, which shows that many women don’t really understand the need that a child has for a mother and a father. So that needs to be checked. And women are less likely to know how to defend their faith than men, as well. So that needs to be checked. Some Christian women are attacking the Bible’s teaching on fornication, saying that they should be allowed to have premarital sex if they are “in love”. So that needs to be checked, too. Instead of holding them accountable for being wrong on these issues, many pastors just urge men to “man up” and marry women, as is. But not all women are worth marrying, and so it may be better for a man to stay single if he can’t find a good one.

The best thing for a Christian man to do with a woman is to ask her questions to see exactly how she has applied the Bible to her own life, and whether she has taken on obligations and duties in order to serve God that were not easy or pleasing for her. It’s not enough to ask simple questions and await easy answers, you need to see that she has done the work to move from opinions to convictions. If she hasn’t done the work, then it’s better to stay single (and chaste). As 2 Timothy 2:4 says, “No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer.”

Polemics

Mark Regnerus: will same-sex marriage hurt the institution of marriage?

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From the Public Discourse.

Introduction:

Lots of changes in marriage have, and will continue to, come about. What should we expect next? That’s the question Liza Mundy pursues in her cover story in this month’s Atlantic Monthly. “The Gay Guide to Wedded Bliss” explores the ways in which same-sex marriages may very well school those of us who have already entered—or someday will enter—the hallowed and embattled institution. Mundy is confident that such unions “could help haul matrimony more fully into the 21st century,” and that real influence is possible. This is in stark contrast to the politically tailored message that same-sex marriage will change nothing.

“What if same-sex marriage does change marriage, but primarily for the better,” she wonders aloud. How would this work? By giving us “another image of what marriage can be,” she asserts. What sort of image? According to Mundy, it’s the cardinal virtue of equality, or egalitarianism. Sameness and fairness.

Before we prematurely declare this image worth mirroring, consider for a few moments the side effects Mundy identifies on the way to the egalitarian utopia she praises. Three in particular stand out.

He continues by going over the three issues, but this one is the one that everyone needs to know:

Mundy first explores the instability—or “dynamism,” if you’re an optimist—of lesbian relationships. Don’t want a divorce, Mundy asks? “Don’t marry a woman,” she warns. University of British Columbia economist Marina Adshade concurs. The author of a new book—Dollars and Sex—on the fascinating economics of relationships, Adshade notes the dismal science around breaking up in Britain, where “62% of civil union dissolutions (i.e., divorces) in the UK are between women despite the fact that lesbian relationships only represent 44 percent of civil partnerships in that country.” The greater instability, she reasons, is simply about gender differences in relationship preferences, and nothing more. I tend to agree.

The elevated breakup rate among lesbian couples has been an open secret for a long while. Even NYU sociologist Judith Stacey—no fan of marriage in general—noted it back in 2000 in small, nonrandom studies of upper-middle-class, educated white lesbian parents, demographic factors historically associated with stability rather than dissolution. Stacey and her colleague Tim Biblarz attributed the instability to, among other things, the participants’ “high standards of equality.” In Mundy’s words, “women are just picky, and when you have two women, you have double the pickiness.”

Writing in Slate last year, June Thomas highlights this predilection toward shorter, intense relationships, and wonders whether the marital shoe actually fits:

I’ve noticed that my visceral anti-marriage animus is particularly strong when I hear twentysomething lesbians talking about their wives and fiancees. Are they really going to mate for life, like swans in sensible shoes? That seems attractive at 35, but at 25 it’s positively Amish. Worst of all, it threatens the continued evolution of a talent perfected over the millennia as our relationships have gone unrecognized by church and state: a gift for breaking up. Lesbians tend to bond intensely and often.

The pattern is evident in the Netherlands as well as Norway and Sweden, where Mundy notes that the risk of breakups for female partnerships more than doubles that found in male unions. The actual study she cites estimates that in Sweden 30 percent of female marriages are likely to end in divorce within six years of formation, compared with 20 percent for male marriages and 13 percent for heterosexual ones. The study’s authors suggested that lesbian couples may be more “sociodemographically homogamous” than other couples, a fancy term for “too similar,” and speculate that this may be conducive to a high level of dynamism, but perhaps not to the kind of inertia that has long been a hallmark of marital stability.

Using nationally representative data on American relationships, Stanford demographer Michael Rosenfeld reported at the 2012 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association that lesbian couples report higher relationship satisfaction alongside higher break-up rates. The greater comparative instability among lesbian couples persists even after a lengthy series of control variables is included, including the presence of children.

Did you know that lesbian relationships are far more unstable than straight relationships? Children raised in such relationships would already be raised without a father, and without being able to observe the interaction of a man and a woman in marriage. But they are not likely to have even the stability of having their mother and the other woman raising the child. Lest you think that the birth mother would get custody, be aware that judges are assigning parental rights to the non-maternal woman in these cases. Is that fair to the child?

Polemics

Does science cause people to disbelieve in God? A look at the research of Dr. Elaine Ecklund

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Dr. Elaine Ecklund explains her research about scientists and their beliefs in this paper.

Excerpt:

Scholars talk a great deal about research done in the 1960’s that revealed differences in religious beliefs among members of different disciplines (especially comparisons between natural and social scientists). My findings, however, do not reveal vast discrepancies in religious belief and practice among disciplines and fields. The true difference lies between academics in these scientific disciplines and members of the general public. With little doubt, scientists at major research universities are less religious—at least according to traditional forms of religion—than members of the general public.

During public lectures about the study, the question inevitably asked first is: Do the professors you studied believe in God? When asked their beliefs about God, nearly 34 percent of academic scientists answer “I do not believe in God” and about 30 percent answer “I do not know if there is a God and there is no way to find out,” the classic agnostic response. This means that over 60 percent of professors in these natural and social science disciplines describe themselves as either atheist or religiously agnostic. In comparison, among those in the general U.S. population, about 3 percent claim to be atheists and about 5 percent are religiously agnostic. When it comes to affiliation with particular religions, scientists are also vastly different from members of the broader society. About 52 percent of scientists see themselves as having no religious affiliation when compared to only 14 percent of the general population. Scientists who are not religious justify their inattention to religion through language that stresses the irrelevance of science to religion. Those not raised in religious homes, the case for the majority of scientists without religious affiliation, also emphasize their lack of experience with religion.

[…]What are we to make of this lack of traditional religion? Is knowledge of science somehow in conflict with being religious? Childhood religious background, not exposure to scientific education, seems to be the most powerful predictor of future irreligion. Those scientists raised in almost any faith tradition are more likely to currently be religious than those raised without any tradition. In addition, scientists who describe religion as important in their families as children are much more likely to practice faith currently. When compared to the general population, a larger proportion of scientists are raised in non-religious homes. When one considers that many more scientists come from non-religious homes or homes that were nominally religious, the distinctions between the general population and the scientific community make more sense. A large part of the difference between scientists and the general population may be due more to religious upbringing, rather than scientific training or university pressure to be irreligious, although these other possibilities should be further explored.

I heard about this research in the latest episode of the Reasonable Faith podcast. You can listen to it to hear Dr. Craig’s comments.

I think this research raises an important question that we need to ask scientists who don’t believe in God. That question is: “which particular pieces of scientific evidence led you to doubt God’s existence?” And then we should have done our scientific homework about the Big Bang, the fine-tuning, the origin of life, the Cambrian explosion, the habitability arguments from astrobiology, and so on, to be able to make a positive case for God’s existence from science. Christians ought to be more excited about science, because we have nothing to fear – and everything to gain – from knowing a lot more about science than we know now.

You can see Ecklund’s book about her research here on the Oxford University Press web site. You can also buy the book here from Amazon.com.

UPDATE: Commenter Eugene has found a related lecture from Cambridge University featuring Dr. Ecklund.