News

Doug Wilson explains the meaning of love and respect

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Does government provide incentives for people to get married?
Women need love, men need respect… what does it really mean?

So, Dina sent me an audio book called “Reforming Marriage” by that Calvinist weirdbeard Doug Wilson. It actually sat on my ironing board for some time not being listened to, (I don’t iron, I have all wrinkle-free everything). I just finished listening to Bernard Cornwell’s classic on the battle of Waterloo, so I decided to pick this one up next.

I listened to the first CD, and I found something amazing in chapter 2. I want to make two points about what I heard. Fortunately, I was able to find the entire passage at one of Doug’s online haunts.

He writes:

Now the Scripture plainly gives us our duties. Wives are to respect their husbands, and husbands are to love their wives. But there is more. When we consider these requirements and look at how men and women relate to one another, we can see the harmony between what God requires and what we need both to give and to receive.

The commands are given to our respective weaknesses in the performance of our duties. Men need to do their duty with regard to their wives they need to love . Women need to do their duty in the same way they need to respect . But men are generally poor at this kind of loving. C.S. Lewis once commented that women tend to think of love as taking trouble for others (which is much closer to the biblical definition), while men tend to think of love as not giving trouble to others. Men consequently need work in this area, and they are instructed by Scripture to undertake it. In a similar way, women are fully capable of loving a man and sacrificing for him, while believing the entire time that he is a true and unvarnished jerk. Women are good at this kind of love, but the central requirement given to wives is that they respect their husbands. As Christian women gather together (for prayer? Bible study?), they frequently speak about their husbands in the most disrespectful way. They then hurry home to cook, clean, and care for his kids. Why? Because they love their husbands. It is not wrong for the wives to love their husbands, but it is wrong to substitute love for the respect God requires.

We can also see the commands which are given have regard for our respective weaknesses in another way. Men have a need to be respected , and women a need to be loved . When Scripture says, for example, that the elders of a church must feed the sheep, it is a legitimate inference to say that sheep need food. In the same way, when the Scripture emphasizes that wives must respect their husbands, it is a legitimate inference to say that husbands need respect. The same is true for wives. If the Bible requires husbands to love their wives, we may safely say that wives need to be loved.

But we are often like the man who gave his wife a shotgun for Christmas because he wanted one. When a wife is trying to work on a troubled marriage, she gives to him what she would like, and not what God commands, and not what he needs. She loves him, and she tells him so. But does she respect him and tell him so?

We have difficulty because we do not follow the scriptural instructions. When a man is communicating his love for his wife (both verbally and non-verbally), he should be seeking to communicate to her the security provided by his covenantal commitment. He will provide for her, he will nourish and cherish her, he will sacrifice for her, and so forth. Her need is to be secure in his love for her. Her need is to receive love from him.

When a wife is respecting and honoring her husband, the transaction is quite different. Instead of concentrating on the security of the relationship, respect is directed to his abilities and achievements; how hard he works, how faithfully he comes home, how patient he is with the kids, and so forth.

The specifics may cause problems with some because he thinks he might not come home, and she thinks he doesn’t work nearly hard enough. But love is to be rendered to wives, and respect to husbands, because God has required it, and not because any husband or wife has earned it. It is good for us always to remember that God requires our spouses to render to us far more than any of us deserve.

So I bolded the two parts that I want to talk about.

First thing is about the removing troubles view of love. Now, I had never really consciously thought of this before, but I was thinking about how I treat Dina and suddenly it became clear that this is exactly what I am trying to with her. She hurts her hands, has OCD, wants to vacuum up cat fur, has to lift a heavy vacuum up and down the stairs… I buy her a cordless hand vacuum! She likes to cook with a wok several times a week, uses a horrible, cheap broken-handle wok that has to be washed and dried or it will rust… I buy her a Circulon wok! She hates to iron, has to iron baskets and baskets of clothes with her hurt hands… I buy her a steam iron that makes quick work of ironing! And on, and on, and on. After all, why should she have to suffer when she is trying to do her work so she can clear her schedule in order to do other things, like care for the elderly as a volunteer? She already has a stressful job at work, she doesn’t need more stress at home. My job is to make her life easier, and that shows that I care about what her life is like. I don’t want her to be struggling, I want her to be able to do good for God without being burdened by troubles.

Second thing is about how a woman can give a man respect. Well, an important part of what a man does in a marriage is to give a woman security. And this is not something he can finesse at the end of his life, he has to be thinking about giving her that at the beginning of his life… when he is in school, when he is starting to work. The most praiseworthy way of getting money is by earning it in the private sector, by supplying the needs of consumers in a competitive free market. In order to learn how to do that, you have to study things that are valuable. to others, like mobile devices, petroleum engineering, etc. So when it comes to your education, you don’t get to study what you like or what makes you feel good. You have to study things that will allow you to earn money, money that you can use to give your wife security and freedom. Money that is saved should be invested, so that you earn more than you can even get by working. When a woman comes along, she must recognize which men have done hard things to prepare for her – hard things that were not fun. Choosing a man who understands the role of earned money in a marriage is a way of according him respect. No, he did not do what he felt like. No, he did not win the lottery. No, he did not receive money from his parents. Recognizing those sacrifices and the value others get from them is respect.

I’m going to keep working through this book and see if there are any other secrets for me to find in it. So far, so good.

News

Attorney General Loretta Lynch vows to crack down on anti-Muslim speech

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Don't worry, the real threat to America is climate change
Don’t worry, the real threat to America is climate change

Here are some more details about the murderers in the San Bernadino shooting that emerged on Friday and over the weekend.

From the radically leftist CNN:

[…]Farook traveled to Saudi Arabia for several weeks in 2013 on the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims are required to take at least once in their lifetime, which didn’t raise red flags, said two government officials.

[…]Farook himself had communicated by phone and via social media with more than one person being investigated for terrorism, law enforcement officials said. A separate U.S. government official said the 28-year-old has “overseas communications and associations.”

No red flags, because they’re not Christian pro-lifers or conservative Tea Partiers. That would raise red flags with this administration.

NBC News reported this:

Tashfeen Malik pledged allegiance to the leader of ISIS just before she and her husband carried out the San Bernardino massacre, law enforcement sources told NBC News.

Malik posted a statement of support for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Facebook “just before the attack,” one official familiar with the issue said.

And CBS News:

A law enforcement source tells CBS News that the bombs found in the couple’s home are near carbon copies of explosives shown in an issue of al Qaeda’s on-line magazine “Inspire,” which printed instructions on “how to build a bomb in the kitchen of your mom.”

Fox News points out that the woman passed a screening from the Department of Homeland Security:

Officials said Thursday that Malik underwent and passed a Department of Homeland Security counterterrorism screening as part of the process of getting the K-1 visa.

And it was unlikely that they could afford all of their weapons and explosives on their own:

Among the weapons found were three rigged-together pipe bombs at the social service center, each equipped with a remote-control detonating device that apparently malfunctioned; more than 1,600 rounds of ammunition and multiple pipe bombs in the rented SUV where they died; and 12 pipe bombs, tools for making more, and over 3,000 additional rounds of ammunition at a family home in the nearby town of Redlands.

[…]As part of the complex investigation late Thursday, authorities were trying to piece together a money trail that would have enabled the suspects to acquire over $30,000 worth of guns and explosives. Public records show that Farook made approximately $51,000 per year as an employee of the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, making it unlikely he could have afforded such an arsenal out of his own pocket. There is no evidence that Malik had a job.

So, does this sound like Islamic terrorism to you? If it does, then the Obama administration might have to prosecute you for hate speech. Let’s see what the government thinks this attack was, then we’ll see what they’ll do to you if you disagree with them.

Is it workplace violence?

First, none of this evidence proves that it’s Islamic terrorism, Obama says:

Maybe it’s workplace violence, because get off your high horse and stop judging. Remember the Crusades? Yeah, so shut your racist mouth.

There was another attack at Fort Hood a while back, and it was proven that the attacker was in contact with Al Qaeda. Obama called that one “workplace violence” as well.

And then there was beheading by a radical Islamist in Oklahoma, and Obama called that one “workplace violence” as well.

And the attack on the recruiting station in Chattanooga, TN was never labeled as terrorism by the Obama administration, either.

I could go on and on and on, because we’ve had a lot of attacks by radicalized Muslims under Barack Obama in the last few years, but everything is going to be fine now, because the Democrats have announced a bold new plan to fix everything.

The Obama administration’s plan to protect us

So, there is a plan to protect us from these sorts of activities, and it was announced by Obama’s attorney general, Loretta Lynch. Are you ready for the plan? This is the great plan that moral relativists on the secular left are offering to protect us. Are you ready?

Here it is from the Daily Wire:

Speaking to the audience at the Muslim Advocates’ 10th anniversary dinner Thursday, Lynch said her “greatest fear” is the “incredibly disturbing rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric” in America and vowed to prosecute any guilty of what she deemed violence-inspiring speech.

“The fear that you have just mentioned is in fact my greatest fear as a prosecutor, as someone who is sworn to the protection of all of the American people, which is that the rhetoric will be accompanied by acts of violence,” she said.

[…]After touting the numbers of “investigations into acts of anti-Muslim hatred” and “bigoted actions” against Muslims launched by her DOJ, Lynch suggested the Constitution does not protect “actions predicated on violent talk” and pledged to prosecute those responsible for such actions.

Obama has his global warming, and Lynch has her “greatest fear”.

This is the same woman who declined to charge Lois Lerner for using the IRS as a weapon to persecute conservative groups in an election year.

Do you feel safe now? Do you think that the Democrats are serious about the threat of Islamic terrorism? Do you think that you should elect the Democrats again in November 2016?

Mentoring

The surprising pro-masculinity message in the “Far From the Madding Crowd” film

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A man leading a woman upward
A man leading a woman upward: another in a series of posts designed to defeat feminism

So, I have about a half-dozen older and/or experienced Christian women who advise me and assist me in various ways. The wisest and most experienced is calm and thoughtful Dina. She has a very stressful job dealing with demanding women, and what she admires most in men is “masculinity”, which she defines as a man’s ability to tell a woman what is right and wrong, what God expects from her, what she should be doing with her life, and guiding her and providing for her through the steps to get there.

What makes Dina angry is when a man makes a fool of himself for youth and beauty, abdicating his role as moral and spiritual leader because of attraction / lust. According to Dina, men who have self-control think about what a woman should do that is morally right, with the goal of her producing a return for God. Men who are swayed by youth and beauty are willing to give up that leadership role in exchange for attention and/or sex.

So, with that said, Dina asked me to watch a recent movie called “Far From the Madding Crowd“, based on a novel by Thomas Hardy. I immediately said “no” because I know about Thomas Hardy from Tess of the D’Urbervilles, where he presents Tess as the helpless victim of Providence. I really hate that view of women, where they can do reckless, selfish things and then blame everyone but themselves for the destructive consequences of their own free-will decisions. But Dina said “wasn’t I right about the debate between David Robertson and Matt Dillahunty?” I said yes, and watched the movie. And of course, she was right, as she almost always is. This movie is a punch in the face to radical feminism, and the leading man is indeed a masculine leader, according to Dina’s definition of masculinity.

Here is a review of the movie by another lady I admire, Rebekah, up at her blog “The Thoughtful Christian Parent”.

Rebekah writes:

What does this 19th century tale offer to modern audiences?  This latest rendering emphasizes something actually surprising and unexpected given that it is made in our age of radical feminism.  It is Gabriel Oak’s character that shines the most, not the proto-feminist Bathsheba.  […]In Bathsheba and Gabriel we see how men and women support one another in such a way as to ensure a flourishing in any role that fate might thrust on them.

[…]The relationship between Gabriel and Bathsheba, though unequal in earthly terms of authority and wealth, is one of mutual dependence.  We see Oak taking on a role of both counselor and conscience with Bathsheba – roles that in her striving towards independence she struggles to admit her need for.  She is not unlike the modern feminist in this regard, nor is she unlike all of us in our relationship with the Lord.  Her struggle is best seen in the various times she repels Gabriel only to find herself in desperate situations in which only he can help.  The filmmakers’ clever use of a recurring theme of Bathsheba galloping after Gabriel on a horse when he is needed is particularly moving (and surprising) here.  In the end, the film resists the urge to pander to our more extreme modern views on what women require to thrive.

Gabriel Oak also seems to be an embodiment of the biblical virtue of selflessness.  We see in his actions towards Bathsheba the Philippians admonition to refrain from “being motivated by selfish ambition or vanity,” but rather “in humility, be moved to treat one another as more important than yourself.” Indeed, vanity itself can be seen as a fateful character flaw of every major character apart from Gabriel.  He alone is able to move past rejection and carry on.  In fact, he is required to go so far as to be under the authority of the very woman who rejected his offer of marriage and, despite his continuing affections for her, witness her being courted and then married by another far less worthy man, Frank Troy.  No other major character is able to accomplish this challenge to their pride.  Though Bathsheba does eventually overcome the rejection of her husband, she only does so after tremendous tragedy and with the selfless and steady support of Gabriel.

Gabriel respects her independence, but, like a good shepherd, stays close by to protect and guide her.  Though he cannot protect her from her free-will choices, he does warn her.  He then remains faithful to her in the midst of the trouble she brings upon herself.  In this, he is not unlike our God, for he allows her to stray, all the while letting her know of a better course when asked.  And, she does ask.

In an important scene at a party, where Bathsheba must decide whether or not to marry a particularly obsessive suitor, when she asks, “Tell me what to do, Gabriel,” he simply tells her to “Do what is right.”  Is that not like our Lord?  Gentle shepherd, indeed, for our wild, independent hearts.  In this, I see Gabriel as most suitable for the role as the husband written of in the epistle to the Ephesians.  He loves Bathsheba “just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her…”

Men and women both struggle with self-centeredness, but men usually work themselves out of it by studying hard things in school, and doing hard work that pays. Men have a natural desire to provide for others, and it is actually a duty laid out for them in the Bible. As a result of studying and working at things they don’t like, men typically are better at resisting their feelings and desires. In fact, if you ever want to make a woman less self-centered and emotional, leading her to study STEM and work a demanding job is a good plan. Both Dina and Rebekah – like all of my female advisors – have STEM backgrounds, and demanding work histories.

I would be suspicious of men who don’t prioritize providing, especially as they get older, because it is the experience of self-denial and endurance that helps a man to want to lead a woman to do the same: deny her feelings and desires, and make prudent decisions that will allow her to love and serve others – including God – in a sustainable way. Over the long-term, this practice of effective, self-sacrificial love will be worth more to the woman than the short-term pursuit of fun and thrills. And men know this – we can look ahead and see where a woman needs to be, and then coach her on the interim steps, however difficult those may seem in the moment.

Dina’s advice to young women

I asked Dina to take a look at the draft of this post before I hit “Schedule” and Dina said:

What I would advise to all young women is not to expect a Gabriel Oak to be waiting for you at the end of your reckless years of hooking up, partying and wasting your youth on fun and men who have no desire to lead you to God or guide you to goodness. Don’t expect the hot stud that your friends approve of to turn into someone with the character of Oak with the magic powers of your premarital sex life. Find a man who doesn’t give in to your every whim, because if he does, you will only resent him for it, and blame him, for being what you thought you wanted him to be.  Find a man who leads, one who demonstrates self control, self denial, who can provide and protect. And most importantly, respect him for doing it.

Emphasis mine.

Sound advice from the Dina, young ladies. By the way, Dina’s favorite drama is the BBC production of “North and South” from 2004. I also give it a 10/10. If you’re looking for a good movie to get for Christmas, I recommend asking for that one.

Rebekah’s comments on the post

Rebekah wrote to me privately to react to the post:

I think you’ve touched on something important that’s a pitfall for women today – and really, men, too, but maybe less so – we live in a time of radical autonomy PLUS radical “feelings” orientation. Yes, I agree, women might be more prone to being affected by these because we do tend to be more feelings oriented. Plus, the pendulum has swung w.r.t. women’s rights compared to Hardy’s day.

Yet, can I say that from my virtuous single women friends I hear that it is hard to find a man that acts like a grownup? They are finding that many men watch porn and play video games after work each evening. They are not being responsible with their hearts – porn WILL affect their marriage one day. It’s a huge temptation for them. I think this is a major pitfall that men face today.

And, notice that each of these pitfalls – of men and women – feed and reinforce the other.

I would recommend STEM for everyone since the humanities have become so radicalized. I wanted to be an English major, as well, but my father wouldn’t let me because of the leftist values in those departments. STEM is a much safer bet and much surer return for the $$ spent.

That’s a generalization, though. I have a friend that majored in English at Hillsdale – a very conservative university. She’s amazing and brilliant. So, there are exceptions – I am sure you’d agree.

I am glad you liked the movie. And, I agree “North and South” is excellent – one of my favorite books and movies.

There are exceptions, I do agree.

Finally, I have some advice for Christian men. If you pick women who will advise you, don’t pick women who just want attention and control over you. Pick women like Dina who understand your male nature and will attempt to persuade you with facts and arguments, not feelings and sex appeal. And whatever you do, don’t marry someone who cannot communicate and disagree with you in an analytical way. That becomes a nightmare when they have the leverage of no-fault divorce to hold over you.