BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Midwives, denominations, abortions, and my present political philosophy...

I don't write much about Indiana politics and government but it's caused me no small sadness to contemplate the term-limit-departure of our fiscally excellent governor a little over a year from now. Gov. Mitch Daniels will have completed his second term and will have to leave office.

If I am comforted in our loss of Mitch's magnificent fiscal leadership, my comfort comes from this: that his likely successor is a man, Representaive Mike Pence, who promises to govern with the same fiscal commitments while adding a theological framework to those commitments that promises to extend far beyond fiscal discipline, on to principles concerning many other areas of governance including the battlefields on which the destroyers of our nation and its states are focussing their revolution: sexuality, the Image of God in man, the origin and nature of sexuality and marriage decreed by our Creator in His Order of Creation, and so forth.

As you read through Daniels' penultimate State of the State Address delivered yesterday evening, you will gain a hint of why I respect him. He has been unflinching in disciplining the educationists of our state by a host of private initiatives that have finally brought competition into public education. True, he brags about over half of our state budget going to edcuation, and he seems to see higher education as an unqualified good. I disagree with both things as I disagreed with President Bush on similar matters. Mitch Daniels is not a wild-eyed enthusiast. He's a realist who really changed our state. Definitively. And reading, you'll see what difference it makes to each citizen of the state.

But there's something else I want to say, here.

Some thirty years ago, I was at the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly to oppose their denominational abortion policy. My dear Mary Lee was pregnant and, since we were in the habit of having home births, I'd called the midwest representative of the PC(USA)'s self-funded independent medical insurance plan to ask if they'd cover the cost of our midwife? It was awkward. He hemmed and hawed and said he didn't know and would have to get back to me on it...

Feminism, homosexism, and veganism: The Grand Conspiracy

An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule on their own authority; and My people love it so! But what will you do at the end of it? (Jeremiah 5:30, 31)

You may want to dismiss it as looniness, but this assault against God's Order of Creation is rebellion against the God Who made us. It's not naive or misguided. It's evil. Attacks on God's Creation Order are all around us and we must recognize that each of them is a part of Satan's conspiracy to grease the descent to Hell.

Feminism is a Satanic conspiracy against God's Creation Order. God made Adam first, then Eve. Thus those who conspire to place woman in positions where she teaches and exercises authority over man are rebels against Almighty God. They are false prophets calling souls to Hell.

Homosexism is a Satanic conspiracy against God's Creation Order. God made Eve--not Steve--for Adam. Thus those who conspire to legalize sodomy and promote sodomitic unions are rebels against Almighty God. They are false prophets calling souls to Hell.

Veganism is a Satanic conspiracy against God's Creation Order. God created adam alone--both Adam and Eve--in His Own Image. He did not create animals in His Image. Thus those whose morality has descended to Veganism and the claim of personhood and legal standing for animals are rebels against Almighty God. They are false prophets calling souls to Hell.

Satan has conspired to paint each of these revolutions a pretty face. Feminism is a long-overdue correction of patriarchal oppression. Homsexism is a long overdue correction of homophobic oppression. Veganism is a long-overdue correction of speciest oppression.

Satan has also conspired to silence the Church of Jesus Christ... 

Another (yawn) minced confession at the PCA's Redeemer Presbyterian Church...

"To be wrong, and to be carefully wrong, that is the definition of decadence." - G. K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men

Here we have a wedding ceremony of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Manhattan.

Presiding over the service on the congregation's right wearing a suit is a male pastor (Scott Sauls) who formerly held his credentials in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church--a Reformed denomination that approves of female pastors and elders.

Presiding over the service on the congregation's left wearing a minister's robe is a female pastor.

Wedding ceremonies not being sacramental among us Protestants, one might argue it doesn't matter much if female pastors co-officiate with male pastors...

The death of an eighteen-year-old brother...

The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he should bear The yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone and be silent Since He has laid it on him. Let him put his mouth in the dust, Perhaps there is hope. Let him give his cheek to the smiter, Let him be filled with reproach. For the Lord will not reject forever, For if He causes grief, Then He will have compassion According to His abundant lovingkindness. (Lamentations 3:25-32)

(NOTE: Since posting this a few hours ago, I've made a couple corrections and added some text at the end.) Back in 1964, my brother, Joe, went off to Swarthmore on a (rare) full ride National Merit Scholarship. He was a philosophy major, ran on the Cross Country team, and loved the Lord. He planned to go on for a Ph.D. and serve in foreign missions.

Meanwhile Dad...

Like a weaned child...

A Song of Ascents, of David. O LORD, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty; Nor do I involve myself in great matters, Or in things too difficult for me. Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child rests against his mother, My soul is like a weaned child within me.

O Israel, hope in the LORD From this time forth and forever. - Psalms 131

Last night in an elders meeting with a couple suffering a troubled marriage, we were reminding the couple that God's goodness calls us out of our romantic idolatry of our husband (or wife) by shoving our nose in the truth of his sin. And ours...

Seeing our husband's sin exposes our own sin, also, as the Holy Spirit leads us away from worshipping man to love and adore God Alone.

The discipline is difficult. And if we are tempted to reject it and continue to hold our idolatry precious, it is the love of our Heavenly Father to intensify it until we unstiffen our necks. In that context we told of the warning Thomas Watson gives in The Ten Commandments that God sometimes disiplines a father's idolatry of his child by taking that child's life. This is God's love.

"Suzy did not want a leader for a husband..."

(Tim, w/thanks to Michael F.) The men over at Pyromaniacs do excellent work. Read them regularly. Today, Dan Phillips posted "Are You Sure You Want a Husband Who...".  Don't miss it.

I'll call you a a Christian if you'll call me a scholar...

(Tim) Our American-African correspondent, David Wegener, just sent in this review of John D’Elia's A Place at the Table: George Eldon Ladd and the Rehabilitation of Evangelical Scholarship in America (Oxford University Press, 2008).

This biography is a parable of the dangers of seeking the approval of the world. Didn’t our Lord say, “For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (Mk 8:36). Yet this is what Ladd sought, and along the way he lost his soul. He was one of the most respected evangelical Bible teachers of the mid-twentieth century. Nobody from my generation can teach on the kingdom of God and not quote George Ladd. Yet he craved the acceptance of the world and, when he did not attain it, his life fell apart. Didn’t the Apostle write, “The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so” (Rom 8:7). The world will never accept us. It can’t.

Ladd became a Christian as a young man, sensed a call to the Christian ministry, trained at Gordon College and then entered the pastorate. Somewhere along the way, he changed direction and began to pursue further education so that he could do scholarly work on the Bible...

How to get a wife (with a note on F. D. Roosevelt)...

(Tim) Men, the article below by Joe Sobran gives you the secret of married men's success. If you're single, you might not yet know that perseverance is everything. Learn it now! If you're married, either your parents arranged your marriage or you've already learned it. Otherwise, how do you explain that you're married? Surely you see my point?

* * *

How do you get to first base with the ladies? It may be easy if you're as dashing and dynamic as my old friend Taki. He is still handsome, athletic, fearless, and funny after all these years, and is married to one of the most beautiful women this side of Helen of Troy. But what about us ordinary mortals? Is there any hope for us?

Good news, guys! The encouraging answer is a resounding yes. The secrets of success with women are laid out clearly in...

The antepenultimate wedding...

(Tim, w/thanks to Mike) Refusing to wait for a man, Taiwan's Chen Wei-yih is marrying herself. Wedding costs for the pics, the dress, the wedding planner, and the reception hall are running over $5,000. "I haven't found a partner, so what can I do?" Chen said. "I was just hoping that more people would love themselves. If I had a steady boyfriend, I wouldn't do this--it would be offensive to him anyhow."

Reminds me of the feminist, Gloria Steinem, quipping during a college commencement address that feminists like her had "become the husbands we wanted to marry."

If this is the antepenultimate, what are the penultimate and ultimate, you ask?

Take a guess.

Live by faith, vow a marriage, have babies, plant a church, start a school, college, and seminary...

(Tim) Back in 1993, I wrote an article on a conflict over the policy of Westminster School in Atlanta that required board members of this private Christian school to be confessing Christians. The New York Times had done an article on the controversy and I took the piece as a jumping-off point to say a few things about home, public, and Christian schools. Since then, Mary Lee and I have educated our five children (as well as several other children who lived with us through the years) in each of those ways--home, public, and Christian school. This is the final year we have a child at home and Taylor, our youngest, is finishing high school at the school my wife Mary Lee, with a couple others, founded and served as principal--Lighthouse Christian Academy.

It's been years since we've had a child at LCA. When it put up a building, we watched its former commitments decline. It seemed bent on becoming the sort of Christian school that, from the beginning, we'd worked hard to avoid. But this is the ho-hum way of all institutions, Christian or otherwise, and there have been some encouraging changes at LCA the past couple of years--hence Taylor's presence there this year.

But as I point out in the article below, the best antidote to school decline is the founding of a new school. It worked with Yale as a reform of Harvard, Princeton as a reform of Yale, and it's still working with schools like New St. Andrews being a reform of Wheaton, Westmont, Gordon, and Covenant.

Tired and timid souls always laugh at the upstarts...

"There will never be another Annie."

(Tim, w/thanks to Kamilla) Honestly, about as beautiful as it gets here on earth without Christ. And because God allows His rain to fall on the just and the unjust, that's pretty incredibly beautiful.

 

Let her works praise her in the gates...

(Tim) For some forty years, now--during all the years I've loved her daughter, Mary Lee--Mom Taylor has been one of my heroines. A couple weeks ago, Mary Lee and I travelled back to Wheaton to attend a banquet held in Mom's honor by the Crowell Trust upon the occassion of the Trust awarding Mom their Susan Coleman Crowell Award.

Mary Lee is number nine of ten and her next older sibling, Mrs. Bob (Gretchen) Worcester, gave a short sketch of Mom's life and character. She did such a good job, I asked if she would send a copy of what she'd said.

Here then is Gretchen's bio of Mom. All of us in the Taylor clan rise up and call Mom blessed. May our Heavenly Father continue to provide His covenant children with such godly mothers as He provided us in Margaret West Taylor. (And for the record, our next to youngest, Hannah Weeks, just gave birth to Mom's forty-seventh great grandchild, and Lord willing, any day now our eldest, Heather Ummel, will give birth to Mom's forty-eighth (Mary Lee's and my tenth grandchild).

* * *

Tribute to Mom – Susan Coleman Crowell Award

I’ve been asked to share about our mom tonight from a family perspective – how she has been influential as a wife and mother.

The first thing to understand about Margaret Taylor as a wife and mother is that she was married to the same man for 65 years, and that she raised 10 children! Those are both amazing numbers! But probably even more amazing than the number of children was our spacing.

Wedding liturgies: having sown the wind...

Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female... (Matthew 19:4)

(Tim) Saturday, Mary Lee and I attended a wedding that wasn't much different from the weddings readers of Baylyblog attend each week. Which is to say the wedding was unisex in everything but appearance. The woman wore a dress and the man, pants. The maid of honor and bridesmaids were women; the best man and groomsmen were men. But the doctrine?

Preached through the liturgy, it was scrupulously androgynous. The bride wasn't commanded to obey her husband and the husband wasn't commanded to love his wife. Every word was addressed to persons; never man or woman, husband or wife.

Until about thirty years ago, pastors presided over wedding ceremonies drowning in the beauty of sexual diversity...

Wedding vows, the Sacraments, and shacking up...

(Tim) If you'll overlook his mention of your scribbler, here is a foundational post by Doug Wilson that opens up the relationship between the Sacraments, marriage vows, and submission. Note the parallel between a man and a woman shacking up and professed believers who reject the Church's authority by neglecting vows of submission to any particular congregation. And of course, Doug's final point must be noted by those who accuse all F-V men of being sacramentalists. Here's one of them--and a rather large one at that--who is no such thing. No such thing at all.

"Duh!" studies...

(Tim, w/thanks to Kamilla) The Canadian Medical Association Journal just published a study showing that, among women, "increasing parity is associated with decreasing rates of death from suicide." In other words, the birth of children causes women to be less likely to kill themselves.

Yesterday, Mary Lee and I visited two young mothers--one home with her day-old firstborn, and the other at about twenty weeks in her pregnancy, in the hospital fighting to stop premature contractions. Here's our observation: godly mothers love their children and live for them.

And although I'm a romantic who believes very much in conjugal love; generally speaking, married women who have no children would not take as much inspiration from their husbands.

Next month, CMAJ will be publishing a study documenting higher marital satisfaction among couples with no prior history of adultery.

Joke.

Degreed, but only rarely pregnant...

(Tim) Over at ClearNote Blog, my number two daughter, Michal Louise Crum, has people gasping for breath with her modest proposal that a college education isn't a prerequisite for godliness or contentment. Poor benighted Michal, barefoot but not pregnant. The most intense hissy fits are over at the bump: the inside scoop on pregnancy. Take a gander.

A word to church planters about the danger of adultery...

(Tim, w/thanks to Kamilla who gave me a heads-up and has done several good posts on the subject) Here's the setup. Mrs. Frank James (who prefers to be known as Carolyn Custis James), was teaching a group of pastors how better to utilize women in positions of authority when one pastor asked her, "If we work with women, won't we be tempted?"

Mrs. James wasn't pleased with the question or what followed. She writes:

What followed (the question was) a laundry list of precautions to safeguard oneself from moral hazards when working or dealing with women. Women find this kind of thinking offensive, and rightly so. This low view of women conflicts with the Bible's high redemptive view of us.

So now, a word for church planters and new pastors. When I took my first call, Dad forwarded an article about a youth pastor who had given a young woman a ride home after youth group. Later, he was sued by the young woman's parents for some sort of sexually predatory behavior--which he denied. At the top of the article, Dad had scrawled, "This is a warning. Never give a woman a ride in your car, alone. Never counsel a woman, alone. Have a woman present or keep your door open and stay within sight of your secretary."

When we built our church-house a couple years ago, we put lights (windows) in every door as protection for everyone, everywhere...

The pleasures of patriarchy, part II

How many times have we checked our Facebook page to see who has responded to a recent status update (“Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!”)? How often have we opened a cupboard door, looking for something to pop into our mouths to enliven our spirits as the day drags on? -Anne Jones

(Tim) A wise wife and mother writing under the pen name Anne Jones posted The pleasures of patriarchy, part II on the ClearNote Blog a few days ago, following up on her earlier post, The pleasures of patriarchy, part I. Here's a teaser:

This series of blog posts, as the title indicates, is about how women of God can, should, and must enjoy the pleasures of patriarchy. Last time, I promised that “for the next several months, Lord willing, we will look at how patriarchy is a place of pleasure for God’s woman.”

We will do that… but not this month. This month, we are going to take a step backward and consider if pleasure itself is worth pursuing, whether within patriarchy or anywhere else.

If you love Scripture, the word “pleasure” most likely sets off some fairly loud alarms in your spiritual ears. The Word of God is filled with warnings against pursuing pleasure...

The beauty of Christian marriage brings cheer to Mayo Clinic...

(Tim, w/thanks to Doug) This Sunday, Mary Lee and I will celebrate our thirty-fourth wedding anniversary. If we reach their age, I'm trusting God He will give us the grace and sweet spirit toward one another of Marlow and Frances Cowan. Take the time to watch this video, then the one on the next page which is much shorter and delightful.

Leaving sphere sovereignty in the dust, back to those Dark Ages...

(Tim, w/thanks to Kamilla) From London's Daily Mail, this Valentine from Anglican Rector Angus MacLeay and Curate Mark Oden who both called for wives to submit to their husbands. How did their female parishioners respond?

One huffed: "How can they talk that way in the 21st Century?"

Another, who wished to remain anonymous, said: "We’re supposed to let our husbands talk for us and remain silent? What kind of medieval sermon is that?"

True.

Well-known feminist, Bishop N. T. Wright, has initiated disciplinary procedures against both men.

Not.

Top ten books on sex...

(Tim, w/thanks to Mick) Here's a top-ten reading list for those looking to reform their understanding of the meaning and purpose of the sexes as God created them.

1. Scripture, starting with these texts
2. Henrik Ibsen: A Doll's House
3. Paul King Jewett: Man as Male and Female
4. Stephen B. Clark: Man and Woman in Christ
5. Walter Neuer: Man and Woman in Christian Perspective
6. Steven Ozment: When Fathers Ruled
7. G. K. Chesterton: What's Wrong With the World or The Thing
8. Doug Wilson: Reforming Marriage
9. George Eliot: Middlemarch
10. Ivan Turgenev: Fathers and Sons

Now, ten explanations...

Of trees and marriage...

(Tim) This from David Wegener who teaches church history, theology, and Scripture at the Theological College of Central Africa under the PCA's Mission to the World. Terri is David's wife and John his son.

* * *

Many days in our rainy season follow a pattern. It is very hot and sunny during the day but toward late afternoon, the sky clouds over and we will have an evening rainstorm. On December 10th it was a little different.

Terri came into my room around 5:30pm and asked if I wanted to let Mr. Robby go home early so he could beat the rain. As I walked outside, Robby was rushing around. I asked if he wanted to go home now and he said he thought he’d stay.

I could tell why. The rain had already started and something sounded like a train coming from over our back fence...

Men and marriage: follow the money...

I note Letha Scanzoni who has betrayed Biblical Christian faith so she may promote sexual immorality is directing readers of her "Web Explorations" list to come here and read what she terms this "anti-feminist Christian blog." She's right: this blog is Christian; and we are utterly opposed to the heresy of feminism, seeking in every way possible to warn souls to flee this path of evil that ends in Hell.

But make no mistake: my brother, David, and I are great lovers womanhood and femininity as God our Father created it; and we are loved by and love our mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters in Christ.

Anyhow, welcome! We hope you will take time to explore this blog and to find all the reasons to turn to Christ, and away from Letha Scanzoni along with all those others who make a living off calling good evil and evil good.

Here are a couple posts (one, two, and three, and four) I thought you might particularly appreciate.

* * *

(Tim, w/thanks to David C.) After an extended period of time trying to get our Executive Director to accept a salary increase she richly deserved, the other board members of a non-profit I served asked me to find out to find out what was behind her resistance to the increase. Tearing up, she said, "I don't ever want to earn more than my husband again."

She had been a pro-abortion feminist, but now that she had turned in faith to Jesus, she was unwilling to return to a position or salary that she judged might jeopardize her submission to her husband or her obedience to the Word of God. I was shocked and have never forgotten that day.

This brought to mind by a Pew Research Center Report released today showing that men benefit from marriage more than women do because more men than women marry up...

The invisible woman...

(Tim) My friend Bob Patterson forwarded a pre-release copy of the Winter 2010 issue of The Family in America: A Journal of Public Policy which he edits, and it's the point of this essay to get you to subscribe. For many years I've been reading this and other publications of what is now called the Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society, and they've been foundational to my work as a preacher, pastor, and father.

This particular issue's cover article details how, over the past thirty years, homemakers have been forced to subsidize the lives of privilege lived by other women who have forsaken marriage, the home, and childbearing for degrees and professions.

Professional women with salaries high enough to allow them to pay for day care and still turn a profit have not simply been content to leave their homemaking sisters behind, but have built their lifestyle on the backs of those sisters and their hardworking husbands. To anyone who matters, these homemakers are invisible.

Equal Employment Opportunity laws have piled up a legacy of systemic injustice throughout the wage earning world, leaving half the fairer and weaker sex to raise the children the other half will depend upon for their Medicare and Social Security payments when their life of childless privilege is drawing to an end. Meanwhile, the husbands of these housewives and mothers are in free-fall, trying to support the mother of their children as she gives herself to work that, despite those bright boys and girls in Economics Departments, still hasn't shown up on their gross domestic profit tally sheets...

"She always feels regret when she sees her husband with a black eye..."

(Tim, w/thanks to Dan) The violence and victims literature tells us women are every bit as violent as men, and lesbian couples are the most violent of all. Even when asked to report on prior heterosexual relationships, lesbians report their present homosexual relationship to be more violent than any prior heterosexual relationship. I've written of this before, pointing out how religious feminists exploit spouse abuse as if it's a uniquely male crime and produced by biblical sexual order (hierarchy, that is).

This is one of the most wicked deceits of religious feminists, and many (if not most) of them do this knowingly. They are well aware women and mothers initiate violence and beat their husbands and children as often as husbands and fathers, but only the violence of men is of any use to them. So they write books about wife abuse--not spouse abuse--thereby exploiting half the victims of domestic violence for the sake of promoting their own rebellion against God.

Who cares about a man who lets a woman beat him up, anyhow; it's his own fault. If he were a real man, he'd put a stop to it, wouldn't he?

Taylor Isaiah Bayly I...

(Tim) Taylor played varsity soccer this past year and this pic ran in the Bloomington paper. Am I proud of my son? Yes, I am. More for his heart than soccer, though. He submits to authority! Can you imagine that? No matter how normal it is to you, it's always amazing to me. After all, I was his age a few days ago, and submission wasn't ground zero in my character traits.

If your daughters are home schooled and you think he's handsome, just send me an e-mail with proposed dowry. We're building a house.

JK.

Historical markers along the path of sexual perversion...

(Tim, w/thanks to James) Thinking beyond the obvious, those who have trained themselves in discernment will see where the wickedness of our culture will lead us and our children in the coming years. Seeing the mile markers that have flashed by, the trajectory before us will be clear.

First, the church embraced fornication; then it was on to divorce and sinful remarriage. Next came the weekly consumption of soft pornographic television shows in our families' living rooms, followed by the ubiquitous secret viewing of internet pornography by the church's sons and husbands.

On the other side of the sexual divide, women wanted relationships and children so we stopped blushing at the mention of artificial insemination and single parent adoption. It became perfectly respectable for women with little prospect of marriage to choose to become mothers...

Equally yolked...

(Tim) For the person who just arrived here from links provided the Google inquiry, "How can I tell if we are equally yolked," here's my suggestion. Eyeball the yellow parts and see if they look about the same. Simple as pie, actually.

PS: My wife, Mary Lee, thought this post was mean. I reassured her that, actually, it was written about four years ago, and I only just published it today. She was relieved that "equally yolked" isn't around any more.

McDonalds surrounded by haute cuisine...

(Tim: Under the post, What godly eldership looks like with a 30something single man..., PCA teaching elder and church planter in Taiwan, Joel Linton, made this comment. It's so good, I'm promoting it to the main page.)

* * *

If men pick godly, mature Christian young women, these women would not be turned off by lack of money.

The question I think for the women (if they are mature and secure in the Lord) is are these men "with it" in the sense of being responsible for their personal lives and for others -- or are they barely getting by as single men. I think women do not want to have to be "moms" to these men. Women want to find men to whom they can willingly submit and follow.

I meet so many single 30's men who are passive, do not take the initiative or responsibility, and just seem lost as far as what their life is all about. They might hold a steady job (some do not), but they are just working to work. They might have a decent car and a decent house and lots of videos, video games, sound systems, etc. installed in their homes, but they do not really know what to do with each day...

What godly eldership looks like with a 30-something single man...

(Tim) Kevin Offner is a longtime friend who does grad student and faculty ministry in the Washington D.C. area under Inter-Varsity. Recently, a Christian magazine known for its love for heterodoxy and its dabbling in heresy shocked the world by publishing a piece that promoted early marriage. Flying in the face of the magazine's egalitarian feminist commitments and subscribers, fur flew in the big kerfuffle.

Which brought Kevin to the defense of marriage, and what I thought a very sweet testimony to God's kindness in his own life leading him to repentance. He kindly allowed me to post his testimony here. (He's responding to one of the comments posted under aforesaid article.)

* * *

I’ve never met you but found your comments here good and helpful.

I don’t have much to add other than that I thought the author over-emphasized the sexual in the article (very good that this was discussed but a bit overkill, I thought).

But his general, somewhat radical, thesis is, I think, spot-on:  we really do need to be encouraging *earlier* marriages these days. Our churches should be intentionally counter-cultural here. In the 1950s this was all the rage, and perhaps the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s rightly reacted some to this. But the pendulum has swung way to the other side now. It should be rare, rather than the norm, for 30-somethings to be single.

My special concern here is with the 30-something single male...

A good piece by Bob Patterson on Republicans and marriage...

(Tim) "Marriage Matters" on National Review Online is by my good friend, Bob Patterson, who writes:

Republicans resent the presence of social conservatives in the party and, even more, the fact that in 30 states social conservatives have succeeded in defending the legal status of matrimony against elites who want America to be more like socially liberal Europe.

...In 1776, (Adam Smith) noticed how men and women on this side of the Atlantic were twice as likely to marry — and at younger ages — and had twice as many children as their European counterparts.

An interview with Elisabeth Elliot...

(Tim) During four years in the late nineties and early two-thousands while pastoring Church of the Good Shepherd, I also led the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood as its Executive Director. My brother, David, joined me in that work and was a great help, designing our first web site and providing invaluable counsel while also serving in the pastorate.

Part of my work was editing CBMW's journal. Periodically, we ran interviews--one being with my hero, Elisabeth Elliot. Naturally, I did the interview myself.

Growing up, the Bayly family had a long personal association with the Howards of Philadelphia--particularly Dave Howard and his sister, Elisabeth Elliot. A couple months ago, Elisabeth's husband, Lars, wrote me telling of a recent trip he and Elisabeth had taken to visit family down in South America. For those of you who know and love them, Lars and Elisabeth are doing well.

So then, here's the interview from CBMW's Journal, Volume 5, No. 1.

* * *

PLAIN AND SIMPLE: AN INTERVIEW WITH ELISABETH ELLIOT

JBMW: We are delighted to be able to speak with you. Why do you think you've been a lightning rod in the evangelical world on this particular issue?

EE: I didn't know I was! I have just proceeded the way I've tried all my life to proceed-by studying what the Bible says and living by it. If I'm asked to talk about it, of course I have a responsibility to talk about it. It is from this that I have learned that I'm not wanted in many circles...

Robert and Phama, meet Scott and Marcy...

(Tim) Just received by e-mail today...

For all our readers with fond memories of Scott and Marcy Naylor, as well as readers with sons who soon will be seeking a helpmate, preferably with a full head of red hair and the spirit that normally accompanies such glory, this picture of Scott and Marcy's quiverful is, as one son used to say, the bomdiggity!

If woman is man's glory, Scott's heavy duty glorious.

By the way, the Naylors are paedo--not credo--although some find that cross-polination isn't the worst thing in the world. Still, it's better to have the husband paedo and the wife credo so the husband is able to exercise that thing Tim Keller says is the center of the Creation Order of sexuality, "tie-breaking authority."

A pastoral word to critical wives...

(Tim, but written by Curt--an Evangelical Free pastor and dear friend of mine) I have noticed a trend that I find to be instructive and disturbing. Over the course of my pastoral ministry, I have been approached by a steady stream of women who are upset with the church and more specifically its men for not chastising their husbands for some spiritual problem or lack of spiritual qualities. Typically, I have taken such criticism to heart, admitting that we have not done enough to hold men accountable. Clearly, this has not been an area of strength in today's church.

But lately, my thinking has shifted. I have found myself being defensive about our church and its men. I see them as being faithful in modeling, and preaching, and teaching, and mentoring, and confronting, and offering assistance, and even hand holding when necessary. Time and again, they have given of themselves, often at the expense of their own families to help others. And yet, I've noticed that the criticism comes the next time as if no help had been provided or offered in the past.

Soft pillows, comfy chairs, and holiness...

(Tim) Entertainers are the only ones permitted to be honest, today. But sometimes, scientists are cut some slack and are allowed to speak their minds, too. In that vein, did you notice yesterday's news that women are hard wired not to lose weight as easily as men. WebMD titled their article on the study, "Hunger Control: Women the Weaker Sex?" Turns out if we pay scientists to study the difference between the sexes, one of the results we'll get is that the sex that carries and nurses our children is hard wired to...

Well, to what?

Amazingly, to carry and nurse our children. Brilliant! Which got me thinking...

Anyone who's viewed a Reubens has to be skeptical of the cult of the thin body rampant in the American church. Only the perfectly naive would see it as a battle for holiness, the repentance of those who recognize their god is their belly.

When I was in Africa several years ago, David Wegener cautioned me to watch how I spoke about weight. Over there, he explained, any reference to one's weight (if one is adipose, as I am) is seen as arrogance. In other words, Africa is normal across history in thinking a fat wife contented and prosperous. Not sinful.

Through the years, I've had a number of wives come to me and ask me to pray that they'd lose weight...

A novel that's "a moving tribute to marriage"...

(Tim) When Bill Mouser speaks, particularly on sexuality and marriage, I listen. So our first book recommendation for 2009 is Ellis Peters' An Excellent Mystery which Bill says, "is one of the best and most moving tributes to marriage I've ever read in my life."

Wives and mothers going against the wind...

(Tim, w/thanks to Mary Lee) Being a wife and mother has always meant years of thanklessness, followed by more years of babysitting grandchildren and warily anticipating a husband's retirement. Lately, it's also meant suffering the disdain of other women--even sisters in Christ--who have chosen, themselves, to have their primary orientation outside the home.

Fathers and husbands can't be too careful inoculating their daughters and wives against the envy, bitterness, and fear attendant to such vulnerabilities. Praise, love, a little G. K. Chesterton read aloud every now and then, and gifts of gratitude will go a long way to defend the weaker sex against the enemies within. And occasionally, we'll find others coming alongside to help with the work.

I'm so proud and grateful to the Lord for the women of Church of the Good Shepherd, this blog, and my own family who serve the Lord faithfully, not resenting the call of God upon their lives. Remember, it's our Lord's promise that, in the Kingdom of Heaven, the last shall be first and the first, last.

Happy as-far-from-Valentine's-Day-as-a-day-can-be-Day...

(Tim, w/thanks to Anne) With some slight editing, here are entries to a Washington Post competition asking for a two-line rhyme with the most romantic line first, the least second:

My darling, my lover, my beautiful wife: Marrying you screwed up my life.

I see your face when I am dreaming. That's why I always wake up screaming.

"I think you want a wife" revisited...

(Tim) My daughter-in-law, Heidi Bayly's poem, "I Think You Want a Wife," drew some of the most vitriolic responses this blog has ever received. Most of the ruckus happened in places none of our readers would have any reason to know about or read--a news site run by and for sodomites where special attention is given to the biblical doctrine taught in reformed churches (how's that for exotic, huh?); and several other blogs where women talk to each other about how much they hate God's order of creation.

Contrary to what some think, David and I are not impervious to slander and hatred. It bothers us when people misrepresent our doctrinal commitments, attribute to us statements we've never made and convictions we've never held, claim that we delete comments disagreeing with us, and so on. Having learned long ago that some fools shouldn't be dignified with an answer, we dont' respond, generally speaking. We're fond of the old barnyardism, "Don't wrestle with a pig in mud because a pig likes mud."

But when it's one of my daughters under attack and the attacks demonstrate such complete ignorance of anything having to do with Heidi or her husband, Joseph, it's much worse.

So readers may understand my delight when I read this kindness from Gwen. To have the integrity to actually call Heidi and find out who she is and what she thinks, and then to be so gracious as to say she's changed her mind about the poem? Well, really: I'm moved and very grateful. Thank you, Gwen.

I think you want a wife...

(Tim) I received a poem by e-mail this past week and asked its author if she would allow me to post it. Here we have a short summary, wonderfully conceived, of the two paths women choose today, one which ends in death and the other in life.

The last few days, our home has been graced by my mother-in-law, Margaret West Taylor, who's visiting for the week. As I think about her sacrificial life, I also look around at other women of my own family and church and I praise God for their godliness! It's hard to conceive of the full spectrum of leadership these women exert among the sons, brothers, pastors, elders, deacons, and husbands, let alone children and other women, as we watch them lose their lives.

Here, then, is the text I received:

* * *

I Think You Want a Wife

Written by, to, and for a woman who thinks far too much of herself to surrender her life for her husband; but ultimately, to God.

I think you want a wife, not a husband.
Someone to join with
you, to make
you into your true self, to follow
you wherever
your heart leads.

A man to validate
your feelings, make
you sure of who
you are.

You realize your full potential.

I think you want a wife, not a husband.
 

Roman Catholic and Protestant divorce and remarriage...

(Tim) Divorce is one of the most difficult questions pastors and elders face as we shepherd God's flock. Providing spiritual counsel in cases where husband and wife don't get along is relatively easy. Much harder are those cases in which husbands or wives physically abuse their spouses, fathers or stepfathers sexually abuse their children, husbands or wives commit serious sexual sin (what Jesus refers to as "porneia" in the exception clause of Matthew 19), or husbands demand their wives and children deny the faith. Each of these matters requires the most careful study of Scripture, prayer, and pastoral counsel. Sometimes the result is a session (board of elders) recommendation of divorce.

In the twelve years since Church of the Good Shepherd was founded, our session has made such a recommendation two or three times, each by unanimous consent. Sometimes it's hard to say whether the believing or unbelieving spouse is the one taking the initiative in the divorce. This is why it's impossible to say precisely how many times we've counseled divorce. We don't make the decision--the innocent party does. Yet neither do we abandon that innocent party to their own counsel. Our Westminster Standards are correct..

Joy tinged with sadness on a wedding day...

As I was in the prime of my days, When the friendship of God was over my tent; When the Almighty was yet with me, And my children were around me; When my steps were bathed in butter, And the rock poured out for me streams of oil! (Job 29:4-6)

(Tim) Lord willing, in a few hours our third daughter, Hannah Marie, will be married to Lucas Dee Weeks, son of Ron and Doris Weeks. This will leave Mary Lee and me with one child still living at home--Taylor, our fifteen year old son.

As I sit here writing the wedding sermon, it occurs to me that the joyful sadness Mary Lee and I feel as our Hannah departs is a graceful sadness...

Preparing for marriage...

(Tim) Of course, Mary Lee and I love our own flesh and blood best, so our third daughter, Hannah, has the jump on our soon to be third son-in-law, Lucas Weeks. Still, there's a certain obligation we feel to this earnest young man as he and Hannah anticipate their special day. Feeling that obligation, some fraternal warnings are in order...

Sadie Hawkins Day: Wooing as warfare's lighter side...

(This from our Denver correspondent, with a link to Relient K's Sadie Hawkins Dance)   In the English speaking world, it is a tradition that women may propose marriage only on leap years. While it has been argued that the tradition was initiated by Saint Patrick or Brigid of Kildare in fifth century Ireland, it is dubious as the tradition has not been attested before the 19th century.

Supposedly, a 1288 law by Queen Margaret of Scotland (then age five and living in Norway), required that fines be levied if a marriage proposal was refused by the man; compensation ranged from a kiss to £1 to a silk gown, in order to soften the blow. Because men felt that put them at too great a risk, the tradition was in some places tightened to restricting female proposals to the modern leap day, 29 February, or to the medieval leap day, 24 February. According to Felten: "A play from the turn of the 17th century, 'The Maydes Metamorphosis,' has it that 'this is leape year/women wear breeches.' A few hundred years later, breeches wouldn't do at all: Women looking to take advantage of their opportunity to pitch woo were expected to wear a scarlet petticoat -- fair warning, if you will."

Wooing as Warfare, part 5: protecting our daughters?

(David) A bedrock principle of the modern courtship movement is the father's duty to protect his daughter at the point of marriage. And it's true, fathers are called by God to be guardians of their children. But should fatherly protection take a radically different form for coming-of-age daughters than for coming-of-age sons? Well, yes and no.

Scripture reveals certain fatherly privileges that apply only to daughters. A father can veto his daughter's vows and God will hold her guiltless. More to the point, a father can refuse to give a seduced virgin to her would-be husband:

Exodus 22:16-17
If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged, and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the dowry for virgins.

Wooing as Warfare, part 4: triangulation

(David) Okay, a couple assumptions at the outset.

First, a father has authority over the marriage of a daughter living in his home. This is demonstrated in Scripture by the father’s right to negate a marriage occasioned by a man’s seduction of his virgin daughter.

Second, nowhere ever is sex permitted outside marriage. However, it’s also the case that sex between unmarried adults establishes marriage when promises are exchanged and a father doesn’t veto.

Third, respect for authority is vital. But respect doesn’t require agreement. Nor does it necessitate absolute, unwavering, slavish obedience. Abigail respected Nabal by going to David with her caravan of goods, thus saving Nabal’s life—though he may not have seen it as respectful submission in the midst of his drunken stupor. Authentic authority is not always wise or godly authority. And just as we seek to change the hearts and minds of earthly rulers, so a suitor’s attempts to win a wife don’t necessarily have to come to a clanging stop at a father’s no, though the heart of the father’s authority over his daughter’s marriage must be respected.

Wooing as Warfare, part 3: strategy

(David) In warfare it's essential not to confuse primary and secondary objectives. Stalin's son was captured by the Wehrmacht in World War II. Stalin refused every rescue plan, unwilling in any way to take the focus off the invading Germans.

The primary objective in the war of love is the heart of the potential bride. A suitor can win a father's approval but that's not the ultimate objective. A young man can win all sorts of hearts--his beloved's mother's, sisters', brothers', dog's, even her third-grade teacher's--but if he fails to claim hers, he loses the battle.

One might hope that by winning the daughter the suitor will gain the embrace of her family. But it doesn't always work that way. David gained Michal without ever winning her father's heart; Jacob never truly brought Leah and Rachel's family on board.

Wooing as warfare, part 1...

Three things are too wonderful for me;
        four I do not understand:
the way of an eagle in the sky,
        the way of a serpent on a rock,
the way of a ship on the high seas,
        and the way of a man with a virgin.

(David) The way of a man with a woman is one of life’s great mysteries. From every perspective the process is mysterious, resembling a blindfolded sabre dance on uneven ground. The young man who pursues marriage enters a foreign land where he wages war. On the hinges of that battle lie happiness or shame.

But though a potential bride may be deeply loved, she’s also at some level the foe. To achieve victory the young man must not only win her, he must defeat her and her family, snatching her from their bosom, converting her to himself, breaking her natural bonds with father and mother, brother and sister, nurse and friend, dog and home. There’s little that’s tender about it. At funerals we cloak harsh reality in kind words and soft colors. So too, at weddings soft words and vibrant colors disguise a bloody truth. The wedding ceremony is really a mini-Versailles, an Appomattox-in-a-nutshell of capitulation and triumph, the surrender of one woman to one man, the victory song of groom over both bride and family.

Sensitive husbands...

Jokes highlighting the differences between men and women are dangerous, today, but they remain as delightful as ever. Honest and courageous men will not allow the sons of unfaithful women to wear them down (illegitimati non carborundum), but will continue to pass their favorites on to their own sons and daughters as they, in turn, received them from their fathers.

Here's a good one told by a Christian counselor, Dr. Michael Russell. And to the humorless among us, it reflects more negatively on the husband than the wife.

(Thanks, Steve.)

Too cool to marry...

Today's New York Times has an article on heterosexual couples who refuse to marry until homosexuals are granted the "right" to marry as well.

The Times would have us believe it's a burgeoning movement. In fact, as the article itself makes clear, it amounts to a few celebrity couples, several cohabiting engaged couples and a UCC minister, her two-decade boyfriend and their 18-year-old son in Massachusetts.

Interestingly, as the article continues, its fundamental conceit of couples' sacrificial-devotion-to-civil-rights-leading-to-delayed-marriage implodes before our eyes. The husband-to-be of one engaged couple says he'd rather go ahead and marry his fiance--leaving us wondering why his bride-to-be really refuses the formal ceremony. Meanwhile, the UCC minister and her man still refuse formal marriage despite Massachusetts legalizing homosexual marriage two years ago.

The obvious truth, folks, is that marriage has become an effete concept in American culture--an affectation, even a political statement rather than a one-flesh union. And Christians are as guilty of bringing things to this sorry pass as anyone. We have diminished the institution of marriage even as we've sought to aggrandize our individual unions. By delaying our own (and our children's) weddings until bride and groom are finished schooling, financially stable and established in careers, we make marriage out to be a valedictory, a statement of accomplishment rather than merely the first really adult act of most married couples' young lives; the start of life's hard work rather than its end; matriculation rather than graduation.

Even more fundamentally, we have diminished marriage by refusing to acknowledge the truth of God's Word that marriage is not a grand and complex thing uniquely tailored by each married couple to their own desires and circumstances, but instead, a Divinely-established monolith, a foundational institution established at creation by God through which those who marry submit to the will of God by conforming to the wisdom of the ages.

Finally, the insanity of a couple who have made commitments to each other and engaged in carnal union claiming they're not man and wife should be clear to all. That it's not is a serious indictment of the Church which is charged with being the pillar and foundation of God's Truth in this world. God's Truth says that these couples by engaging in sex and making promises have established a one-flesh union in His sight. Whether we call them married or not, God deems them man and wife. They will give an account to Him should they break their union as surely as all other adulterers. We are not promoting marriage by making it something more than it is Scripturally, we are diminishing the reality and danger of adultery.