Patriarchy

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The World We Made: Coming soon...

UPDATE: There’s been lots of interest in this podcast, with about 2000 listens from 30 countries and counting! If you haven’t subscribed yet, we’ve added a few links to make it easier for those of you who aren’t on iTunes, which is most of you. (Welcome non-Apple fanboys.) Don't miss an episode. Scroll down and subscribe now.

"These are the confessions of American Christians recovering from American Christianity. This is the world we made."

Warhorn Media is pleased to announce a new podcast hosted by Jake Mentzel and Nathan Alberson and featuring Tim Bayly. The World We Made is designed to help ordinary American Christians think through the difficult issues we face in our culture today. Season 1 is about homosexuality.

Over the course of the first season, we talk with Tim about how we went from having anti-sodomy laws in all 50 states (just 50 years ago) to where we are today. What are the changes Tim has seen in his lifetime? What exactly do they mean? What part did the culture play and what part did the church play? How are regular Bible-believing Christians supposed to respond? What has Tim learned as a pastor to help equip us for the challenge of ministering to men and women tempted by homosexuality?

These are the questions we'll be unpacking over the course of eight 20-minute episodes. We'll start out slow and easy, and things will pick up steam as we get closer and closer to the end. You won't want to miss it, so check out the trailer (above), and go ahead and subscribe now in iTunes or Android (or wherever you listen to your podcasts—Google Play Music, Stitcher, TuneInRSS feed) so you're ready when the first episode drops (July 17). 

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Daddy Tried audiobook now available...

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Warhorn Media is pleased to announce that Tim Bayly's Daddy Tried is now available as an audiobook. If you haven't had a chance to read it for yourself, swing over to Audible.com or Amazon.com, download a copy, and have Tim read it for you.

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We're also pleased to offer a free download of the Chapter 1 audio to Baylyblog readers.

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You really must read this piece on Trump's closest advisor, Steve Bannon...

Yesterday, I asked Mary Lee if she'd read the piece about President Trump's advisor, Steve Bannon, I'd linked to at the end of the hillbilly post?

The stream of hatred the press passes off as news about Bannon makes him out to be President Trump's Rasputin. Rosie O'Donnell agrees, so this morning she announced she wants to play the man on SNL. The man Bannon, you understand.

Mary Lee said she hadn't read the Bannon profile. If you haven't read it either, you simply must.

Some teasers. After introducing Bannon as a man who is "embracing... a fringe cast of ultra-conservative figures," the piece goes on to define Bannon's fringe ultra-conservatism...


The crisis in complementarianism...

Dr. Carl Trueman has just proclaimed that “complementarianism as currently constructed would seem to be now in crisis.”

He’s right, but not for the reason he gives.

Conservative Evangelicalism is not in danger of abandoning the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. That doctrine is so well-established Scripturally and historically that I am confident clear-headed argument will correct those who err. So if Trinitarian orthodoxy is alive and well, what is the true crisis among complementarians?

The real crisis is...


Patriarchy: lessons from Bethlehem...

Over the years, I've often repeated a truism I'd heard as a younger man concerning the sins typical of men during our youth, middle, and old age: we begin with sex, then move on to money; but we end with pride. The past few years this has come home to me with great intensity as I've watched men I respect suffer because of their pride. They have lost others’ respect for them. Their church or religious organization has imploded. Their leadership has become grossly attenuated. Their families have privately suffered severe conflict.

I’ve talked with my wife and closest pastor friends about this quite a few times the past couple of months and we have come to wonder whether we have not gotten things wrong with respect to what God hates? We think He hates rebellion and antinomianism—which He does, of course. His Word tells us that rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.

But then this...


I don't want it...

Desiring God just posted an article about Holly Holm. She is the woman who beat up Ronda Rousey on Saturday night during an Ultimate Fighting Championship match and sent Rousey to the hospital. One might think that, given what the Scriptures teach and Desiring God's commitment to the Biblical view of women, that this article would be decrying the fact that Americans get their jollies by two women beating each other into a bloody pulp in the ring. But no. Instead this article praises Holly Holm for her humility and selflessness. 

The article cites Proverbs 16:18, "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." Ronda Rousey was the arrogant, loud-mouthed, braggart, while Holm is the humble woman who overcame all odds. The author ends his article by comparing Holm to Jesus...


The Church is responsible for Obergefell v. Hodges, and now we must get it right...

With our Clearnote Fellowship Conference a few hours away, I won't have much time the next few days to engage with this issue, but I've had some nagging thoughts as I've read the debates going on among church officers in the wake of Obergefell v. Hodges.

Any stand Christians take in opposition to the enforcement of Obergefell v. Hodges across the nation must be in light of God's Creation Order in its entirety. If we single out sodomy as the place we draw the line of civil disobedience concerning sexuality, we must ask ourselves why there? Is it really because sodomy has taken our culture to a whole new level of rebellion against God? Yes, but also no...


Better shut up about male hormones...

Classical Christian schooling and Classical Conversation homeschooling moms have been freaking out over what they claim is my promotion of feminism here. I've tried to defend myself, saying I didn't mean them harm and I really wasn't fomenting feminine rebellion, but they won't listen...


Baltimore's shame...

John Blake wrote a piece titled "Lord of the Flies Comes to Baltimore" in which he laments the absence of older men in his native city, Baltimore:

...I talked to a 27-year-old black man named Juan Grant. He knew Gray, whose death in police custody lit the fuse in Baltimore. Grant stood no more than a foot from me, but as he talked, he yelled at me in frustration, spittle coming from his mouth. He said Gray's death had convinced him and his friends to stop "ripping and running" the streets. They wanted boys to respect them as men. But they didn't know how to get that respect because their fathers had never been around. He described their dilemma with a bitter laugh: "It's men learning on the job trying to teach young men how to be men."

Blake quotes Robert Boyd, pastor of Beacon of Truth Church and Ministries in West Baltimore:

Now we as men are fearful when we walk through a group of boys. When we were boys, when we walked through a group of men, we felt secure. Something is wrong.

Blake summarizes Baltimore's shame...


Reformed pastors and Hillary: the cat got our tongue...

Reformed men today are fond of calumniating John Knox, particularly for his work, The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. On the occasion of Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton's candidacy for the presidency being officially packaged and released by video, here is a short excerpt from Knox's work which does a good job explaining why Reformed pastors today ought not be silent concerning the violation of God's Order of Creation of women exercising authority over men...


Paedocommunionists and Redeemerites agree...

NOTE: Likely I should add that I don't really believe the statement quoted below is characteristic of paedocommunionists while I am certain it is characteristic of Redeemerites. I should have done a better job on the title of the piece.

* * *

A federal vision, paedocommunion, PCA pastor writes that in 1Corinthians 11:2-16: "Paul speaks to the men and women in the church about issues of headship. In certain defined relationships, men are the heads of women (e.g., in marriage and in the church). The woman is the glory of the man, having been created from the man and for the man. This is an order of authority that arises from the creation itself. Since Christ came to redeem the creation and set it back on God’s intended track, the order established in creation matters. The whole issue before us about head-coverings has to do with observing that order."

"Men are the heads of women" only "in certain defined relationships," and that headship is because the Creation Order "matters" and Christ came to set that order "back on God's intended track." The Creation Order was established in the state of perfection in the Garden of Eden, prior to the Fall, but it now has application only "in certain defined relationships." In other words, there is no connection between sex and authority anywhere but "in marriage and in the church." This is the teaching of both Federal Vision paedocommunionists and Tim Keller Redeemerites.

When we deny that sex and authority have any connection outside the home and the Church, we are limiting God's Order of Creation to the private spheres where the doctrinal commitments of Christians may remain hidden from the sight of unbelievers. Thus we change our Lord's command...


Wheaton College's Arthur F. Holmes on the bride's vow to obey...

As an indication of how quickly decadence arrived at Wheaton College, when I was in high school, I was friends with Paul Holmes, the son of the patron saint of his generation of Evangelical philosophers, Arthur F. Holmes. And at that time, Prof. Holmes wrote an essay for Inter-Varsity Press titled "Marriage as God Planned It" in which he said:

A home is never satisfactorily united through mere physical or economic motivation. A home is united through common interests, common prayers, common purposefulness. This, too, emerges quite clearly from Ephesians 5, where the unity of the home is patterned after the relationship between Christ and the Church. This sort of unity is built upon love and mutual honor. It is unity that knows leadership in God's appointed way. The wife's vow to love, honor, and obey is Biblical.1

Try to imagine a Wheaton faculty member—say Doug Moo—uttering this basic truth of father-rule today...


PCA pastor says Jesus' manhood is catching up with the world's...

Presbyterian Church in America pastor Rich Bledsoe, one of Dr. Leithart's Theopolis Institute men, posted a piece on sexuality I take as typical of the posture of PCA and Oatmeal Stout Federal Vision pastors toward today's sexual anarchy:

PARAGRAPH ONE:

I would like to beat a very old drum here, one that I beat a lot, but only because it has proven so illuminating to me. Back to Barfield’s “original to final participation”. Along with everything else, masculinity in its original natural form is dying.

Masculinity in its "original natural form" was created in the Garden of Eden by God. It started dying immediately after the Fall of Adam when, speaking to God, Adam blamed his sin on "the woman You gave me." Masculinity's original natural form was created to bear responsibility—not claim victimhood—and so masculinity started dying with the Fall.

Yet masculinity has also been being reborn since the Fall, generation after generation as men are born again. As Scripture says, "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation," so throughout history the power of the Holy Spirit has been conforming men to the image of Christ. Certainly He is "masculinity in its original natural form."

Sadly, Rich doesn't say a word about the Holy Spirit's work renewing masculinity among men of God. He only says masculinity is dying...


What does God say to Eve...

(TB: Here's a good simple explanation of God's curse of Eve and her daughters given by our college minister, Alex McNeilly.)

I had a helpful conversation with a sweet young Christian woman last week regarding God's curse on Eve in Genesis 3. She pointed out that God says to Eve, "your husband…will rule over you," and then said, "See! It's part of the curse!"

First of all, we know from Scripture that man's authority over woman is not part of the Fall because we have other parts of Scripture which clearly mandate father-rule (1 Pet. 3, Eph. 5, etc.), even before the Fall (1 Tim. 2, Gen. 2, etc.). So why does God say, "he will rule over you," as part of the woman's curse?

Well, since we know the Creation Order of husband and wife existed pre-Fall, let's imagine what Adam and Eve's relationship would have been like without sin...


Dominic Aquila and Rachel Miller...

Dominic Aquila used to be on the side of the angels in the battles for the Biblical commitments of the PCA. Sadly, the past few years he has given up the fight and turned his Aquila Report over to a young woman who is working on a book opposing father-rule. Her name is Rachel Miller and she's quite typical of the sort of woman who claims to speak for women as she opposes God's Creation Order of patriarchy (lit. "father-rule"). Mrs. Miller explains her world-view:

I believe patriarchy to be emotionally abusive because it creates an antagonistic relationship between husbands and wives, men and women.

"Patriarchy [is] emotionally abusive?" Does she mean the rule of God the Father over all His creation—that Father-Rule? Does she oppose the rule of Adam, our federal head? The rule of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Think of the hubris of a woman who...


When you gonna wake up, and strengthen the things that remain...

Either she's right, or she's wrong. Choose you this day whom you will serve.

This was forwarded to me by a man in our congregation whose wife passed it on to him. It's hard to imagine a more accurate statement of the call of Christ. You may argue with some of the particulars, and certainly truly Christian marriage and family life does not flow from the sort of spiritual facades and manipulation evidently at work in this woman's former home and marriage. Nevertheless, look carefully at all the particulars and it becomes clear that, overall, what this woman hates is Christianity. She hates God the Father Almighty. And no, hate is not too strong a word.

Over the past five years I've noticed women taking an increasingly prominent role in exercising authority over men within the church. They don't hesitate to excoriate church officers publicly, often in forums governed by male church officers. And if anyone objects, weak men are vitriolic in their response: "You're a misogynist! This isn't the church—it's the internet! Do you think women should be silent on the web? What kind of an insecure power-trip are you on!?"

Well, speaking only for myself, no, I don't think women should be silent on the internet. And not to fear, they're not silent on the internet. At all. But I've been around the rat-hole of defining everything but corporate Lord's Day worship as "not the church" so that sex (gender) doesn't matter long enough to know that this article is the whirlwind we are reaping after decades of sowing the wind. And the sad thing is, we are now left with articles like this by women like this, many of whom were, in fact, homeschooling mothers committed to fruitfulness, and it's hard to figure out how to oppose it without simply proving the apostate's point. Which is to say, it's hard to figure out how a male church officer can oppose it without being called a misogynist.

You see the dilemma? Years ago I thought I was very smart, so I moved that the board of Presbyterians Pro-Life hire my friend...


Male and female He created them...

Those who believe and honor God’s gift and order of sexuality confess both the history recorded in Genesis and the New Testament texts that explain the meaning of Genesis. Here then is Scripture's revelation concerning God's gift of sexuality:

First, God created Adam and Eve “in His Own Image,” thereby revealing their essential equality.

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:27).

Second, God created Eve... 


Michael Farris misses the mark...

Homeschoolers can be a fractious bunch, so it's a wonder to behold how Homeschool Legal Defense Association's Michael Farris has been able to unify homeschoolers in supporting his work. For years now, he's spoken for homeschoolers as Tim Keller speaks for the Presbyterian Church in America and Bill Clinton speaks for the Democratic Party.

It's noteworthy, then, what Farris recently declared concerning manhood and womanhood in the wake of the fall of his fellow homeschool leaders, Doug Phillips and Bill Gothard. Posted to the HSLDA website, Farris starts by saying he doesn't intend to condemn Phillips and Gothard's sexual sins, but rather their teaching. It's a curious way to begin, but maybe his tack makes sense when you consider that Phillips and Gothard's teaching has been the same for many, many, years whereas their sexual sin is the new revelation hitting Farris now. You know, it takes him a while to decide what he thinks about things, so helped by the scandal surrounding their sexual sin, he's finally been able to come to an understanding concerning their teaching. You get my point?

Back around 1980, our Dad confronted Bill Gothard publicly in the pages of Eternity magazine. He wrote a column exposing Bill Gothard's teaching on authority and he took Gothard to task for his tolerance of sexual sin at Gothard's headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois. Which is to say Gothard's failures are very, very old. So why didn't Michael Farris condemn Bill Gothard for his bad teaching many years ago?

Because men who want...


On women's moral agency: Are women human?

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female he created them (Genesis 1:27).

The genesis for this post comes from many directions, some cultural, some from the church, and some personal (and thanks to Tim and Terri for helping with some examples).

Many times I have been in elders meetings where the topic of a failed or failing marriage has come up and, almost invariably, the man is the villain and the wife is the suffering saint. The frequency of this scenario makes you want to ask whether women are just more holy than men? Could any of the failures be the wife's fault? Even a little bit? Granted, as the head of the home, the man is responsible for the state of his marriage and the discipline and instruction of his children, but fault is something different. Although the man is responsible to deal with the sin in his home, he's not the only sinner.

In bringing up this topic, I am not trying to redress an imbalance by launching a backlash. That would be wrong and silly. Rather, I’d like to challenge the pastors and elders and teachers amongst us really to examine what we believe about the moral agency of women. If problems in the home are always the man’s fault, we don't really believe women are human. Part of being human is moral agency—making real choices that are right, wrong, or somewhere in between—and then being held responsible for those choices. God cursed Eve...


A dialog between a complementarian, a feminist, and a patriarch...

What does the word 'complementarian' mean?

Complementarian is a new word invented to point to the fact that the sexes, male and female, were created by God to complement each other. Dictionaries define ‘complement’ as “something that fills up, completes, or makes perfect.”

Back in the eighties, a group of scholars began to refer to themselves as “complementarians” in order to give a positive statement to the church that, in the matter of sexuality, tended towards conservatism. They talked and wrote about the mutual benefit of man and woman living together in such a way as to show God’s beautiful design of each sex. ‘Complete’ is the root of ‘complement,’ and thus Man complements woman as woman complements man. Their neologism, then, was "complementarianism."

Of course, the man who identifies himself as a “complementarian” has two problems...