Tag Archives: Marriage

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Frank Turek lectures on the case against same-sex marriage

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About the speaker Frank Turek:

Dr. Frank Turek is a dynamic speaker and award-winning author or coauthor of four books: Stealing from God:  Why Atheists Need God to make their Case, I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, Correct, Not Politically Correct and Legislating Morality. As the President of CrossExamined.org, Frank presents powerful and entertaining evidence for Christianity at churches, high schools and at secular college campuses that often begin hostile to his message. He has also debated several prominent atheists including Christopher Hitchens and David Silverman, president of American Atheists.

Frank hosts an hour-long TV program each week called I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist that is broadcast Wednesday nights on DirecTV Channel 378 (the NRB Network). His radio program called CrossExamined with Frank Turek airs on 122 stations every Saturday morning at 10 a.m. eastern and is available continuously on the free CrossExamined App.

A former aviator in the US Navy, Frank has a master’s degree from the George Washington University and a doctorate from Southern Evangelical Seminary.  He and his wife, Stephanie, are blessed with three grown sons.

Frank Turek is one of my favorite speakers, and I admire him for being willing to take a public stand on controversial issues like gay marriage. He’s actually had to pay a price for that in his professional life, and I blogged about that before.

Here’s the lecture on gay marriage, featuring Christian apologist Frank Turek.

Outline:

Outline of Frank Turek's lecture on same sex marriage
Outline of Frank Turek’s lecture on same sex marriage

Introduction:

  • how to present your case against marriage safely
  • Christians are required to go beyond tolerance
  • loving another person can mean opposing the person when they want to do something wrong, even if they hate you
  • what did Jesus say about marriage? (see Matt 19:4-6)
  • what did Jesus say about sexual morality? (Matt 15, Matt 19)

Summary:

  • the same-sex marriage debate is about whether to compel people who disagree with the gay lifestyle to validate and normalize it
  • P1: the government has an interest in marriage because it perpetuates and stabilizes society – this is the purpose of marriage
  • P2-4: government can take 3 kinds of stances towards behaviors: promote, permit or prohibit
  • government promotes behaviors when it has an interest in them
  • same-sex relationships should be permitted, but not promoted
  • Q1: if same-sex marriage had serious negative consequences, would you reconsider their position?
  • Q2: are heterosexual relationships the same as homosexual relationships?
  • Q3: what would society be like if everyone married according to the natural marriage definition: one woman, one man, for life?
  • Q4: what would society be like if everyone married according to the same-sex marriage definition: man/man and woman/woman?
  • Should Christians care about law and politics? or should they just preach the gospel?
  • They should care because people often get their cues about what is moral and immoral based on what is legal and illegal
  • Many of the social problems we see today can be traced back to problems with marriage and family
  • Children do much better when they have a relationship with their mother and their father
  • Same-sex marriage necessarily destroys the relationship between a child and its mother or its father
  • When a country embraces same-sex marriage, it reinforces the idea that marriage is not about making and raising children
  • same-sex marriage shifts the focus away from the needs of the children to the feelings of desires of the selfish adults
  • does homosexuality impose any health and mental health risks?
  • what has the impact of legalizing same-sex marriage been in Massachusetts to individuals, schools, businesses and charities?
  • how same-sex marriage poses a threat to religious liberty
  • how should you respond to the view that homosexuality is genetic?

And at the very end, he shows this short video, which is only 5 minutes and explains the logic of opposing the redefinition of marriage:

My biggest concern is religious liberty, and we are seeing how same-sex marriage has proven to be incompatible with religious liberty. But I also care about children… I want them to have mothers and fathers who put their needs first. Marriage is about a commitment – it is the subjugation of feelings and desires to responsibilities and obligations. It is a promise. A promise to commit to love your spouse and children regardless of feelings and desires. It requires more self-denial, self-control and self-sacrifice. Not less.

News

Can a man marry a woman who thinks that all male leadership is “sexist”?

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These days, many people of both sexes graduate college with a lot of student loan debt and no marketable skills at all. What do they learn? Well, they don’t learn anything, but they are brainwashed to believe in secular leftist dogma. And they’re also brainwashed to dismiss all opposition to secular leftist dogma by labeling it as “sexist”, “racist”, “homophobic”, “xenophobic”, etc.

I wrote previously about how men don’t like to marry non-virgins. I argued that women with a lot of sexual experience have proven that they prefer men who have “no-commitment” abilities. And those women also avoid men who have commitment abilities. I argued that if a man marries a woman with a lot of experience of giving no-commitment men sex, then she probably wouldn’t respect and admire his marriage-oriented skills enough to let him lead the home.

I believe that the brainwashing that women get when they do non-STEM degrees in liberal arts programs in college is the cause of their resistance to the leadership of marriage-minded men.

How does a marriage happen? Basically, a marriage-minded man prepares himself for marriage by denying himself “fun” in order to position himself to be a husband and father. He studies hard STEM subjects in order to get good jobs. His resume is gap-free. He started working early, and didn’t take summers off. He saves his money. He understands beliefs that are incompatible with marriage, such as pro-abortion, pro-divorce, etc. and he is able to argue against them. When he meets a woman, he presents his preparations to her, and tries to get her to focus on behaviors that will put her on a path to becoming a wife and mother. If she follows his lead, then she becomes safe for him to marry. He is able to see how she listens to his marriage plan, and adjusts her behavior in order to help him to execute the plan.

So what does this leadership look like? Well, in my case, I’ve tried to get women to switch from non-STEM to STEM degrees. To quit easy jobs like waitress and teacher and get hard jobs like IT Project Manager or Software Engineer. To stop wasting money on thrill-seeking and instead pay off loans, then invest. To stop watching TV and movies, and start reading good non-fiction books about marriage, parenting, apologetics, economics, etc. And to inform themselves about marriage related topics, e.g. – divorce, infertility, child development, homeschooling, daycare, school choice. Basically, getting them to drop childish anti-marriage and anti-family behaviors, and take up mature pro-marriage and pro-family behaviors, so that they become useful partners for a marriage enterprise.

But what about non-STEM college programs? What does college teach young women about this marriage-focused leadership from marriage-minded men? It depends on what she studies. If she does a STEM degree, she’ll have been forced to be accountable to reality in her assignments and exams. She’ll get a decent job and pay off student loans, allowing her husband to quickly buy her a house and give her children to raise while she’s still young. But, if she does a non-STEM degree, then not only will she probably have student loan debt and a useless degree and low-pay jobs, but she’ll also have been brainwashed with all sorts of anti-marriage and anti-family beliefs and behaviors. That’s because non-STEM programs are nothing more than brainwashing in secular leftist dogma. And I have an example of how this works in real life.

Everything too hard for her to learn or do is “sexist”

In the example below, a male expert on climate science corrects a female journalist about climate science. She dismisses his correction (not shown) as sexism.

Feminist journalist shames science expert as "sexist"
Feminist journalist shames science expert as “sexist”

Here is the biography of the male PhD in meteorology:

Ryan Maue is a research meteorologist. He has developed and maintained a popular weather maps and climate data service based on the world’s best numerical weather prediction systems. During his graduate studies at Florida State University, he researched extratropical and tropical cyclones, utilizing mesoscale models and large reanalysis datasets, and published multiple peer-reviewed articles. After his PhD in 2010, Maue was awarded a National Research Council postdoctoral associateship at the Naval Research Lab in Monterey, California where he focused on global weather prediction and verification.

And here is the biography of the female journalist with the BA in journalism:

She has a BA in journalism, and knows literally nothing about climate science, and has achieved literally nothing of value in the field of climate science that anyone would be willing to pay her for.

Crying “sexist” is literally everything that her degree in journalism taught her to do. She has one skill: how to dismiss expertise in reality-based practical disciplines as “sexist”, and therefore inferior to her feelings and intuitions.

Should marriage-minded men marry feminists?

So let’s ask and answer one simple question: should a marriage-minded man marry a woman who dismisses leadership from qualified men as “sexist”?

Let’s review the red flags of secular leftist feminist women:

  • she’s pro-abortion, so she thinks murdering an innocent child is how selfish adults escape the consequences of their own reckless actions
  • she’s pro-divorce, and will not hesitate for a second to break a commitment that makes her unhappy
  • she’s an atheist, so she can’t rationally ground the basic requirements of morality: free will, objective moral laws, etc. and therefore cannot be relied on to behave morally against her own self-interest
  • she’s a socialist, so she views money earned by the husband as the property of the secular left government
  • she’s a feminist, so she believes sex is recreational, and need not be reserved for a husband and wife in a covenant marriage, and she thinks that newborns should be tossed into daycare then public schools
  • she believes in same-sex marriage, so she thinks that children can be deprived of a relationship with their biological mother and/or father, for the benefit of selfish adults
  • etc.

Does this sound like she’s ready for a husband and children?

But more than the worldview issues are the practical issues. A woman with a non-STEM degree didn’t want to study subjects that are accountable to reality. She didn’t want to be a pharmacist, a nurse or a software engineer – those jobs would require her to produce work that corresponds to reality, and has value in the real world. People like her who graduate with non-STEM degrees don’t understand anything about how the world really works. They don’t understand economics, so they’re socialists. They can’t be reasoned with, because their views are determined by what makes them feel good, look good to peers, and what gives them maximum autonomy to pursue pleasure with minimum accountability. When secular leftists feminists crash and burn at self-sufficiency, they blame everyone else instead of themselves. All of these character traits make them really difficult to get along with in a marriage.

Can women like this be fixed up for marriage and motherhood? Well, that would require them to be open to marriage-minded men who would be able to lead them towards marriage and motherhood behaviors. But how did Emily respond to leadership from a male with real-world demonstrated ability in a practical area? She called his attempt to lead her “sexist”. And that is the standard response of secular leftist feminist women to male leadership. If you tell them to study computer science, you’re “sexist”. If you tell them to stop wasting money, you’re “sexist”. If you tell them to stop getting drunk, you’re “sexist”. If you tell them to read a book on economics, you’re “sexist”. If you tell them to watch a William Lane Craig debate, you’re “sexist”. If you tell them to eat healthy and lift weights, you’re “sexist”. If you tell them to get a challenging job, you’re “sexist”. If you tell them to stop having recreational sex with bad boys, you’re “sexist”. Every attempt to focus a secular leftist feminist woman on preparing for marriage and motherhood is called “sexist”.

If women would only listen to what men ask of them as future wives and future mothers, and build themselves up for wife and mother roles, then women would never struggle to find husbands. No man in his right mind can risk marriage to a secular leftist feminist. There is no “secular leftist feminist” path to marriage. No amount of immodesty and premarital sex from a secular leftist feminist is enough to trick a man into marrying her. That might work on some men to get sex, but it’s not going to work to get her to marriage and children.

Mentoring

Why do Christian men prefer to marry virgins?

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Here's some helpful advice for women about choosing a man
Here’s some helpful advice for women about choosing a man

Some Christian women argue that chastity is an “idol” that detracts from Jesus’ “gospel of forgiveness”. Basically, they claim that although premarital sex is a sin, it shouldn’t stop a man from marrying them, because they can just make the sin disappear by asking Jesus for forgiveness. But does this really address the underlying concern that men with have marrying a non-virgin?

Let’s start with an example (reported by Daily Wire), then analyze what is going on here:

Though “The Bachelorette” star Hannah Brown has been open about her Christian faith this past season, she also openly boasted about premarital sex as if it were no big deal.

“I have had sex, and, honestly, Jesus still loves me,” Brown said on Monday’s episode.

[…]Brown later spoke with Entertainment Tonight about her religious views on Christ, which boil down to a “personal relationship with Jesus” without doctrinal accountability.

“Regardless of anything that I’ve done … well people might think, ‘Oh, that deserves a scarlet letter.’ That’s not how it works. I can do whatever — I sin daily and Jesus still loves me. It’s all washed and if the Lord doesn’t judge me and it’s all forgiven, then no other man, woman … can judge me,” Brown told Entertainment Tonight.

So to start with, Transformed Wife has a spiritual reflection this, which you can read. The Bible teaches that sex outside of marriage is rebellion against God, and Jesus tells people who sin that they are forgiven, but that they should “sin no more”. Sinning no more is hard. But what should be easy is not telling everyone that sinning is OK, like Hannah Brown did. She doesn’t think that the Bible has the authority to say NO to her feelings and desires. Already, this is a red flag for men who feel that they can’t trust a woman who is willing to throw out Bible verses when it goes against her desires.

Even among Christians, premarital sex is the rule, not the exception:

As many as 80 percent of unmarried evangelical young adults have had sex, according to an analysis of a study on sexual activity in the upcoming October issue of Relevant, a Christian magazine.

Young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 who identify themselves as evangelicals are almost as sexually active as their non-Christian peers, according to the article “(Almost) Everyone’s Doing It.”

This study from Live Science makes clear that young people see avoiding commitment as an intended benefit of premarital sex.

Two-thirds of participants said they had been in a “friends with benefits” relationship, and 36 percent said they currently were in one. The main advantage of such a relationship was “no commitment” (reported by 59.7 percent of participants), which was followed closely by “have sex” (55.6 percent).

Let’s decide what premarital sex tells marriage-minded Christian men about a woman.

What a woman’s choice to have recreational premarital sex tells a marriage-minded man

What kind of men do women choose for recreational premarital sex? Well, they choose men who don’t commit to marriage before sex. It’s not as if women are choosing these men because they are good at commitment behaviors; sobriety, fidelity, charity, protecting children, etc. A premarital-sex woman thinks that a no-commitment man is the best man. If she thought that a marriage-minded man were best, she’d be giving him sex – after marrying him. She uses her temporary supply of youth and beauty to reward the no-commitment man for his “superiority”. What makes him superior? A bunch of superficial traits like height, tattoos, piercings, arrogance, etc. – basically, he’s fun in the moment.

The commitment man is bad, because he just wants to burden her with a “boring” marriage commitment. Commitment requires moral boundaries that would reduce her fun. For example, the commitment man might tell her “these research papers say that it’s best for our newborn if you quit your job and stay home, instead of putting them into daycare”. Or he might say, “we can’t afford your shopping” or “your smoking is bad for our pregnant baby”. And she doesn’t want to deal with this “controlling” behavior – not right now, anyway. Her youth and beauty needs to be used to chase her real priority, which is fun with the hot bad boys. Marriage is not her first priority, it’s her last resort.

Marriage-minded men can’t lead a family if they marry a woman who does not respect them

So, suppose that a woman passes up marriage-minded men during her young and pretty years. Should a marriage-minded man pursue her after she’s done having fun?

Well, what does her past decision-making reveal about her character? She prefers no-commitment men, and her goal is fun.So how can a woman who chose no-commitment men suddenly change herself completely around and start to like men with commitment skills, (chastity, sobriety, frugality, mentoring, etc.). Marriage-minded men marry in order to lead. But will a woman who prefers no-commitment men and fun allow a man she sees as “boring” and “controlling” to lead her? A wise commitment-man must choose a woman who respects his preparation for and focus on commitment.

Now the woman might say that she’s changed, and now she is ready to get serious with a real man. But what reasons does a man have to think that her change is genuine? What has she read to change her mind? What actions show that she wants a man to lead in moral and spiritual areas? What evidence is there that she is now an activist against feminism, promiscuity, abortion, divorce, socialism and single motherhood? Isn’t a man entitled to ask for some evidence of what caused her to change her mind about which men are good, and what relationships are for?

Suppose that her sudden change is just because she recognizes that her recreational premarital sex approach to getting a no-commitment man to commit hasn’t worked. So she hasn’t changed which men she is attracted to, but now she just wants financial support and the social respectability of marriage. From a man she doesn’t admire, doesn’t respect, will not support, and will not follow. Is that a good value proposition for a commitment-man?

Marriage-minded men don’t marry in order to give a woman who prefer no-commitment men financial support and social respect. We marry in order to lead a family with the support of a woman who respects our focus on marriage and commitment. We don’t trust last-second conversions to the pro-patriarchy position. We have to be convinced that a woman really repented of her past, and now has a deep, Christian understanding of men, marriage and parenting. This is a nearly impossible task given the myths about men and marriage that are floating around in this secular leftist culture of feminism and misandry. In order to accept that the woman has changed, we expect to see the work you did to change your behavior patterns and beliefs from anti-marriage to pro-marriage. I have met a few women who have done this, including some of my trusted advisors… but it’s rare.

The importance of evidence in making selfish, reckless behavior unthinkable

My female advisors are always telling me to be more positive in my writing. “You must tell women what to do after mistakes have already been made!” OK, women: the solution is simple, and it’s found in Romans 12:1-2. You have to change your criteria for men, and your vision of marriage by consuming evidence that makes your prior decisions unthinkable. You must train yourself to disregard your feelings, your desires and cultural pressure. And then you must put your new mind into practice with your actions, including promoting your new vision for men, sex and marriage to other people in public. These actions will signal to men that you are serious about marriage.

So, I’ll just link to my previous posts about peer-reviewed scientific research, which shows the scientific backing for the Bible’s teaching on this topic:

The evidence is necessary because evidence helps everyone to do the right thing, regardless of feelings, desires and peer approval.

You wouldn’t waste your money on tattoos, alcohol, cigarettes and travel if you understood the financial demands of retirement and how to invest in order to be ready for retirement. Knowledge of investing and retirement overrides feelings, desires and peer pressure. If women do not prioritize learning the “boring” evidence about best practices for men, sex and marriage, then they will decide how to live based on their feelings, desires and the culture. In a secular left culture like this, a man with chastity and a good fortune will be attracted to women who have deliberately walled off sin by strengthening their ability to be good at marriage with evidence.

If you’re looking for somewhere to start, I recommend “The Sacred Search” by Gary Thomas and “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands” by Dr. Laura Schlessinger.