Tag Archives: Mark Driscoll

Is lenience towards women increasing domestic violence against men?

First of all, let’s see what’s happening with domestic violence rates.

Excerpt:

Data from Home Office statistical bulletins and the British Crime Survey show that men made up about 40% of domestic violence victims each year between 2004-05 and 2008-09, the last year for which figures are available. In 2006-07 men made up 43.4% of all those who had suffered partner abuse in the previous year, which rose to 45.5% in 2007-08 but fell to 37.7% in 2008-09.

Similar or slightly larger numbers of men were subjected to severe force in an incident with their partner, according to the same documents. The figure stood at 48.6% in 2006-07, 48.3% the next year and 37.5% in 2008-09, Home Office statistics show.

The 2008-09 bulletin states: “More than one in four women (28%) and around one in six men (16%) had experienced domestic abuse since the age of 16. These figures are equivalent to an estimated 4.5 million female victims of domestic abuse and 2.6 million male victims.”

In addition, “6% of women and 4% of men reported having experienced domestic abuse in the past year, equivalent to an estimated one million female victims of domestic abuse and 600,000 male victims”.

Here’s a typical case: (from the same article)

Ian McNicholl, 47, has painful memories to remind him of the terror he endured when he found himself a male victim of domestic violence.

His then fiancee, Michelle Williamson, punched him in the face several times, stubbed out cigarettes on his body, lashed him with a vacuum cleaner tube, hit him with a metal bar and a hammer and even poured boiling water on to his lap. That at 6ft he was almost a foot taller than her made no difference. He still has burn marks on his left shoulder from when she used steam from an iron on him. Williamson, 35, is now serving a seven-year jail sentence for causing both actual and grievous bodily harm.

During the trial last year McNicholl told the court that, during more than a year of attacks and intimidation, he had lost his job, home and self-respect. He had been too scared to go to the police and had considered suicide. She was only arrested after two neighbours saw her punch him.

Sentencing her at Grimsby crown court last year, judge John Reddihough told Williamson: “Over the period of time you were with him you destroyed him mentally and seriously harmed him physically, leaving him with both physical and mental scars.”

Why is this happening? Well, even women who seem to be nice on the surface can turn violent when they placed under stress (like from work or pregnancy or their periods) that they are not prepared for, and when they perceive that there is no cost to becoming violent with a man. This is especially problematic when the man has no leverage in the relationship to negotiate with because of anti-male bias in social programs, police and courts. How is a man supposed to negotiate with someone who holds all the cards? She can just do whatever she wants, and the whole system is rigged against him.

Look at this news story.

Excerpt:

Judges have been told to treat female criminals more leniently than men when deciding sentences.

New guidelines declare that women suffer disadvantages and courts should ‘bear these matters in mind’.

The rules say women criminals often have poor mental health or are poorly educated, have not committed violence and have children to look after.

‘Women’s experiences as victims, witnesses and offenders are in many respects different to those of men,’ according to the Equal Treatment Bench Book.

‘These differences highlight the importance of the need for sentencers to bear these matters in mind when sentencing.’

The controversial advice comes from the Judicial Studies Board, which is responsible for training the judiciary.

[…]The Bench Book tells judges that the problem ‘consists mainly of violence by men against women’. It adds ‘the reality is that some of the most physically violent incidents are committed by men on female partners’.

The document also suggests that aggression against men by women is rare, saying that ‘men and partners in same-sex relationships might also be victims of domestic violence’.

[…]Updated guidance on how to sentence female criminals was distributed in April in a new section on ‘gender equality’.

It told judges: ‘Women remain disadvantaged in many public and private areas of their life; they are under-represented in the judiciary, Parliament and senior positions
across a range of jobs; and there is still a substantial pay gap between men and women.’

On women accused of crime, the guidance quoted Judge Baroness Hale, the only woman among the 11 at the Supreme Court, who describes herself as a ‘soft-line feminist’.

She said: ‘It is now well recognised that a misplaced conception of equality has resulted in some very unequal treatment for women and girls.’

The rules were prepared by a team headed by High Court judge Dame Laura Cox.

She wrote: ‘It is hardly revolutionary that judges should know of the matters central to the lives of those who attend courts and to aim to provide judges with that knowledge.’

And you can can easily see this in the divorce courts of Western nations where men are regularly taken to the cleaners. (Women get custody 90% of the time, 70% of all divorces are initiated by women, with 80% of them for no other reason than insufficient happiness – despite the fact that they made a vow to love that man forever). When you total up the costs of the marital home and property, alimony and child support, it really is prohibitive. The risks are too high!

And in more extreme cases you get things like this case.

Excerpt:

Three Missouri women convicted of murdering their husbands years ago learned today that they will be released from prison on parole because of claims of spousal abuse.

Vicky Williams, 55, and Roberta Carlene Borden, 65, will be released on Oct. 15, according to their lawyers and relatives. Ruby Jamerson, 57, will be released in 2013. All were serving life sentences from cases that date to the 1970s or 1980s.

[…]Borden was convicted in 1978 of conspiring with her lover to shoot her husband, Delbert, as he lounged in a chair in his Springfield, Mo., home. Jamerson was accused of hiring two teen boys in 1988 to stab her husband, Horace, to death in their north St. Louis County home. Williams was convicted of hiring someone to shoot her husband, Gilbert Lee, as he made his rounds as a security guard in a Chesterfield industrial park in 1979.

Lawyers for the three women later claimed that they had suffered years of mental and physical abuse, including vicious beatings. (See the attached link for more details on the cases.)

Many relatives of the slain spouses have disputed the claims of abuse and argued that the women were only conning their way to freedom.

The problem is that these charges of abuse are used regularly in divorce courts to tilt the table against the man – the charges of abuse are used to get custody of the children, but they never go to trial. The warrants for restraining orders are sworn out before the charges of abuse can be investigated, and custody rights are granted. Later on, the charges are dropped. But the damage has already been done – the woman has already been granted sole custody. Similarly, there is not history of abuse in many battered wife cases – the lawyers make them up after the fact to get their clients released. Sometimes, after only a few months in jail for murdering their husbands! And they get custody of their children after a few more months. Or sometimes women just take men to court to have their daughters groundings overturned. And the courts do it.

Men understand these things, and it causes them to stay clear of relationships with women that are regulated by the state. So, you may get a lot of men hooking up with women for sex, but men will not marry women and take the chance of coming under the authority of judges who think that women are always victims and should never be blamed or held accountable – even if they make false rape accusations or kill their husbands (that they freely chose to marry!). Some women believe that violence against men is justified because they have been indoctrinated to perceive themselves as victims. The victim attitude allows them to blame men for invented wrongs even when women themselves are the aggressors. And this is why men don’t commit to marriage anymore. It’s not cowardice. It’s that women have priced themselves out of the commitment market.

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Mark Driscoll explains what men are supposed to do

Mark Driscoll writes this article. (H/T Mary)

Excerpt:

When the man is trying to subdue and harness everything under his dominion to do what he desires for it to do, and it all fights against him, it teaches him about God: The ground is doing to the man what the man does to the Lord. The man asks, “Why is this so hard? Why is everything fighting me? Why is it in rebellion?” And God says, “Because you’ve sinned, and you’re doing the same thing to me.” So the man starts to understand the gospel as he’s working. The more a man works and takes responsibility, and becomes a husband and a father, and buys a home, and runs a business, the more likely he is to make sense out of the gospel. Because he’ll feel what it’s like to have something rebel against you when you’re trying to bring order out of chaos.

This will remind him that he is that way toward God, that he is thorns and thistles, and that God is trying to cultivate him. It brings a man to a place of humility. What this means for the men: Everything you try and do is going to be hard. Some men think, “Well, I’ll just find a woman, kids, job, house, or new car that won’t be a lot of work. But, they don’t make those! Nothing comes that way. Everything on this planet is a fixer-upper. And men are going to have to work hard to cultivate those things.

I think this is something women need to understand about Christian men. When men try to change you to be more Christ-like and more effective, it’s not because we don’t like you – it’s because we do like you. We don’t try to teach apologetics to fishes, and we don’t try to turn feminists into fiscal conservatives and foreign policy hawks. We work on you like we would work on F-14 Tomcats. Because you’re valuable and awesome. And what happens to your worldview matters, ultimately. It’s not judging, it’s serving.

It might be worth checking out chapter 3 of C.S. Lewis’ “The Problem of Pain” as well, where he explains divine benevolence as a process in which the lover perfects the beloved, because he cares that the beloved is perfect. That’s why the best women are the ones who let you lead them.

And a little more Driscoll:

Men are built to learn and receive knowledge, and cultivate the mind and the soul by reading, learning, thinking. Not just in abstract concepts, but in practical life. Most men are practical theologians. They want to know about how to make money and work and life and have friendship and defend and have honor and nobility and dignity, all the themes of the Father to the Son in Proverbs.

And that’s why guys like me are always pushing women to learn more about the mechanics of marriage, economics, counter-terrorism, legal firearm ownership, etc. We are trying to live out what the Bible says here in the real world. And that means thinking about how the real world works. What really helps the poor? Cutting taxes, or raising the minimum wage? What really deters terrorists? A carrier battle group parked next to a rogue nation, or canceling missile defense programs?

Now I’m going to be silly to draw comments from Mary.

Regarding Driscoll himself – I like Driscoll, but I think he is a big frightened feminist coward when it comes to holding women accountable for their own choices. I think he is soft on his Bible and theology. You know, he has a flock to maintain and it’s probably like three-quarters women, so he might have to twist the Scriptures here and there in order to fix the blame on men for the bad things that women freely choose to do. Still, you might get something out of his article, even though I think his theology is Unitarian or Episcopalian or something. Oh wait, I remember – he’s Catholic. Oh, I mean he’s Calvinist. I get those two mixed up all the time because they’re so similar. He probably voted for Obama, too. Can anything good come out of King County?

UPDATE: I am totally kidding in that last paragraph. Please everyone comment saying they are not offended so ECM will know that Christians don’t get offended that much.

Understanding Calvinism with this funny little quiz

A quiz for Calvinists.

Here are my favorite questions:

Matthew 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.

Q: Why didn’t Jesus gather up those in Jerusalem, when he longed to?

  • A. Because they were not willing.
  • B. This is a mystery.
  • C. Hello pea brain. Jesus was speaking of general chicks, not effectual chicks

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Q: God loves what?

  • A. The world
  • B. The elect.
  • C. His glory.

Q: Who will not perish?

  • A. Whoever believes in God’s only son.
  • B. Let me get back to you on that, I need to look up the answer in “Desiring God”.
  • C. Francis Schaeffer won’t perish, but his kid Franky was decreed to go off the deep end.

Acts 16:30,31 [The jailer] then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.”

Q: What must I do to be saved?

  • A. Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.
  • B. Win the divine lottery.
  • C. The jailer was a Pelagian.

Romans 11:32 For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.

Q: Who does “all” refer to in this verse?

  • A. All
  • B. The elect
  • C. An unbiased reading of the text shows that the first all refers to everyone and the second all refers to only the elect.

1 Timothy 1:18,19 Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith.

Q: Paul says that some people have done what with their faith?

  • A. Some have shipwrecked their faith.
  • B. This is a hypothetical analogy with no real world application. It is merely used by God to ensure the perseverance of the elect.
  • C. Nice try. Obviously the ship was never floating in the first place.

1 Timothy 2:4 [God] wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Q: Who does God want to be saved?

  • A. All men
  • B. All men, but no women.
  • C. God really wants all men to be saved, but only in such a way that he damns most in order to maximize his glory.

I just found out recently that Calvinist scholar Alvin Plantinga believes in middle knowledge as the best way to reconcile divine sovereignty and free will. So it is possible for Calvinists to adopt middle knowledge as the mechanism for resolving the problem.

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