The Straw Man is Strong With This One

I'm back to write more about the horror I'm reading on Visionary Womanhood. Natalie Klejwa has done a complete 180 on everything she believed about womanhood and being a wife. This is sad for her, of course, but what is disturbing is that she is now convinced that she has discovered the truth and is encouraging other Christian women to follow her path. She thought she knew the truth for 40 some odd years, in one or two days she finds out she had it all wrong, and NOW women should trust that she knows about that of which she speaks? She doesn't doubt herself even the tiniest bit after following the wrong path for 4 decades? Scary. How about some humility and spending some decades testing your new theories before you call other women to join?

But today I'm here to expose one of her straw men. It is a common tactic on her blog whereat she states some false teaching and then  proclaims it is false. She's not very thorough at knocking down her own straw men, but then, most of them are so ridiculous that she's counting on you to dismiss them for being outrageous based on basic common sense and the most rudimentary understanding of the gospel. The problem is, the false teachings that she is protesting don't actually exist within mainstream or orthodox Christendom. Since I have written somewhat extensively about 1 Peter 3, I'll just talk about her suffering-wife-straw-man. Here is a quote from her blog post The One Sure Sign You are in an Emotionally Abusive Relationship:

There are some people who think a wife needs to suffer for Christ even if it means physical beatings. Christ’s suffering wasn’t enough for her. She’s got to complete it for Him. Total rubbish, of course.

I find it interesting that she provides no link, no citation, to ANYONE who says that a Christian man or woman needs to complete Christ's suffering for Him. Jesus was pretty clear when He said "It is finished" that nothing more needed to be done. His work was complete. For her to suggest any Christian leader teaches that is just, oh, I don't know -- stupid? But wow, she really knocked that one out of the park by proclaiming it to be "total rubbish." Duh.  While setting up this straw man though, she is also treading dangerously close to saying that women are entitled to a marriage free of suffering, or that it is outside of God's will for Christians to suffer, and suffer deeply. Even within marriage. If she is going to talk about Christ's suffering, and about women suffering in marriage, I would think it would be the perfect place for her to direct her readers to the book of 1 Peter, when the apostle actually addresses the very issue. But, no.  So, I'm going to go there.

Let's look at what Peter had to say about suffering wrongfully:

¹⁹ For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.
²⁰ For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.
²¹ For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:
²² Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth:
²³ Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:
²⁴ Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.
²⁵ For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.
3 Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;...
¹³ And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?
¹⁴ But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled;
¹⁵ But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
¹⁶ Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.
¹⁷ For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.
¹⁸ For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: ...

4 Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;

² That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.

This selection starts in 1 Peter 2:19 and goes through to 1 Peter 4:2. I specifically selected the verses that are most applicable to the topic at hand, whether it is within the will of God for Christians to suffer and why. It starts out stating that it is "thankworthy" to suffer and grieve. This means a person who is in the midst of suffering should be thanking God. If a person is to thank God, that means  God is sovereign over our suffering. No need to question what kind of God would permit such a thing (Romans 9), just thank Him.

Then Peter goes on to say that this thing, this suffering, this grief is something to which God has specifically called us. Did you hear that? God called us to suffer. But before he called us to suffer, He did another thing. He caused His own Son to suffer so he (Christ) could serve as an example to us for how to do it. Is there any disagreement about what is being said there? It isn't ambiguous, right? He starts out addressing servants and their mistreatment by masters. He is describing this mistreatment, not as inconvenient, but as suffering and grieving. It's bad.

Peter tells the servants how to suffer. Without reviling. Without threatening. Without sin and without guile. The servants don't need to fear because God is seeing all of that and is judging with righteous judgement. They don't even need to attempt to make their own case.

Here comes the amazing part to me, as a woman. Chapter 3 starts out with the words "likewise ye wives..." We know Peter didn't write this as a separate or stand alone chapter. He wrote it as one long narrative and verse 1 of Chapter 3 follows up the advice to servants to suffer righteously by addressing wives and telling them to also suffer in the same manner as the servants, and to follow Christ's example. We don't "complete Christ's suffering" as was comically asserted as a common teaching by Natalie Klejwa at Visionary Womanhood, instead we suffer in His footsteps, following the example He set. Peter said that some wives will SUFFER at the hands of their husbands who do not obey the word. And was his advice to those wives that they should take a test to see if their husband is an emotional abuser? Nope. Peter's advice, it might even be considered a command, is for the wife to make herself subject to her husband. Not because he is loving her like Christ loved the Church, but precisely because he IS NOT.

And did you see verse 14? Again, I am amazed. God's ways are not my ways. He says that if I, as a wife, suffer at the hands (or mouth) of my husband I should be happy, I should not be in terror or be troubled. Why? Because of the hope that lies within me. The hope of the gospel. The sure knowledge of God's love and His righteousness. Then we see in verse 17 that my suffering, if I suffer for good, IS the will of God! God wills that I suffer! Can this be true? I assure you, it is. And Peter urges us to have the mind of Christ in this matter (in the same way Paul urges us to have the mind of Christ in Philippians 2), to not live in the flesh, and to live "to the will of God." Amen.

Natalie Klejwa would have you believe that if your husband does not obey the word, you are in a "destructive relationship." But the Word of God tells you to believe that God's will, which sometimes includes suffering in marriage, cannot destroy you.  So, who is telling the truth in this matter?

Love Keeps No Record of Wrongs

I have some respect for Vyckie Garrison at No Longer Quivering for avoiding the intellectual dishonesty which would accompany her beliefs if she was still claiming to be a Christian. But she doesn't make such a claim. She admits the Bible says that women are to submit to their husbands, but she doesn't believe the Bible is the Word of God and doesn't believe women should obey the Bible. Her position is consistent.

This woman is different. And to her I say, if you believe you know the will of God apart from and directly in opposition to what He has revealed in His Word, you are deeply deceived and the truth is not in you.

Her name is Natalie Klewja. Here is a sample of her writing:

Although I had kept journals since I was in high school, I rarely wrote down bad incidents that happened in my marriage because I believed that the verse “love keeps no record of wrongs” meant if I loved my husband I would try to forget anything negative that happened between us.

She says this in her blog post entitled Three Things to Put in Writing (and Three Reasons Why). The first thing she tells wives is to "(w)rite down incidents that stir your emotions." She goes on to say, "You’ll want to write down everything you can remember. Body language, words used (on both sides), your emotions at the time, any background information, thoughts that were running through your head, things you suspect but don’t know for sure, as well as things you do know for sure"  I have to admit, this sounds a LOT like a woman who is keeping a record of wrongs. As a woman, I do this in my head all the time. It serves to feed negative emotions and the next thing I know, I am accusing my husband (in my mind) of hating  me and plotting my demise, because obviously if he loved me, he wouldn't have left that cabinet door open in the kitchen when I've asked him thousands of times to close it when he's finished, right?  I can't think of a worse idea for anyone, let alone a wife, than to write down the details of an incident that stirred her emotions. But my criticism is not based on whether the idea is stupid but rather, does it violate the Scriptures?

Natalie says that she used to feel bad about writing down negative incidents because of the verse "love keeps no record of wrongs." Let's look at that verse, in its context.

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
⁵ Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; ⁶ Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;⁷ Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.⁸ Charity never faileth

In case you aren't aware, we are looking at 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a.  It appears that Natalie used the NIV Bible, which translates the last phrase of verse 5, where the KJV says "thinketh no evil" as "keeps no records of wrongs." Does this passage seem ambiguous to anyone? Charity (translated as "love" in many Bibles) doesn't think evil. A wife who is trying to love her husband does not even think evil of him, let alone write down all of his perceived faults and "things you suspect but don't know for sure."

Allowing your emotions to lead you is the path to insanity. Unless you are planning to blow up your family like Natalie did, do NOT take her advice. Unless you are planning to disregard God's directions for behaving in love towards others, do NOT take her advice. The Bible is not a buffet. We don't get to eat what we want and leave the rest. If "love keeps no record of wrongs" does not mean what it says, then please explain exactly what it does mean. I don't see any way that it could mean, "Keeping records of wrongs is loving." That is just impossible. Impossible.

Inside the Mind of a Political Liberal

Vox Day says that the mindset of a liberal is "entirely alien" to him. I have to admit that is my experience as well. After reading this article I have a bit more insight into an ideology built almost entirely on feelings without logical support.

Men Are Different From Women - That Doesn't Make Them Evil

God made women different from men. Surprised? I hope not. These differences include being sexually aroused by different things. Also, men have a sex drive that can be near constant, believed by  scientists who study such things to be caused by higher levels of testosterone. A woman's sex drive is correlated with her fertility cycle. Men don't have fertility cycles. They are fertile all the time. In fact, within a man's gonads the production of  sperm and the other fluids that make up semen is perpetual. That's right, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, the man's body is preparing to procreate.

As a woman, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about men's issues, but sometimes they are thrown in my face. (I guess that's why they call it "facebook") Today, this happened. I was reading a wonderful little article which was talking about JRR Tolkien's private views on sex.  The article contained excerpts from letters he wrote to his sons, warning them about the temptations associated with sex and the dangers of friendships with women. The beauty of the article was not that Tolkien had said anything novel or remarkable, but he was describing ordinary men, and giving what should be ordinary advice to his sons. He placed sex acts in a religious context and admonished his sons not to become tools of the devil by perverting a good thing. He admitted that men are not naturally monogamous and would, if unguided by religion, mate with many women. He wasn't  promoting that, mind you, he was just letting his sons know that their urges and temptations were normal, but were not to be acted upon. My enjoyment of this article was ruined by some Christian woman coming in there and commenting that she felt sorry for men because they were so sexually depraved and had to live that way every day. Apparently, not having the same feelings and desires as women makes a man depraved? Nonsense.

Here is the quote:

 I really like this article, but it always breaks my heart to hear about a man's sexuality. It is really troubling to hear how a man has to fight to be faithful and has to control his lust and desire for other women. As a married woman, I find this issue difficult. I don't have to make myself faithful to my husband I just am. I don't fight desire for other men, I don't have them. Sometimes it is hard to realize that while I'm faithful because I want to be or just am, my husband has to fight to be? It just is heartbreaking. I would like to think a husband is faithful, not just merely fighting his way through everyday telling himself no to every possible sexual conquest.

She clearly has no concept of her own sin nature, first of all. And second, why is her heart "broken" about God's design? I wonder if her heart is broken over women who deprive their husbands of due benevolence? What about the women who desire to deprive their husbands but have to fight every day to be loving instead? Is her heart broken over that? When she says she doesn't have to make herself faithful to her husband, does she mean only that she doesn't have to fight to keep from having sex with other men, or does she mean that loving her husband in a physical way (which is her faithful duty) comes easy to her every day? 

Since I'm thinking about men's issues, what happens to all of that semen if it does not get released? Sorry for being so graphic, but it is a legitimate question. Since the male body keeps making more, regardless of whether it has released the last batch, what happens when all the storage rooms are full? I would imagine it would create a fullness and desire to empty. Not totally unlike a full bladder. It's just a physical reality. It isn't a flaw and it isn't a sin.

Can we just stop making women out to be the pure ones and men the animals?

Model Penal Code - From the Pit of Hell

Because of my support of theonomy, it should come as no surprise that I have an interest in how men form their legal codes. It is frustrating to me that most Americans (including most lawyers) have no real understanding of how the United States arrived at their current catastrophe consisting of federal and state law codes. Government education is so inadequate in teaching this that it hardly bears mentioning, but it is sad beyond measure that private schools and Christian schools don't do it any better.

A brief summary of the history of American law goes something like this:  The colonists brought the English Common Law with them when they settled here. The English Common Law draws much of its precepts from the abuses addressed by the Magna Carta as well as from what is often called "natural law" but was more directly drawn from the Ten Commandments. Law was not enshrined in the form of statutes until later. Instead, judges and juries applied the principles of the Common Law to cases, and if there were appeals, the opinions of the judges in those appeals became precedent for future cases, analyzing the specifics of the cases with the enduring principles of law.

Over time, individual colonies, and then states, began to collect their various ordinances and statutes into books. Legislatures became busy bees, drafting new laws as often as they met. This departure from the Common Law led to the birth of the idea that law evolves. Since law evolves, and man is constantly gaining new understanding of how men should relate, it becomes not only preferred, but necessary to revise the actions defined as criminal and punishments proscribed for their violations. Lawyers and legal scholars began to complain about the differences in laws from state to state. Not because there was something fundamentally wrong with creating new law (which there is) but because the legal elite wanted to be in charge of writing those laws, rather than leaving to mere legislators.

Enter The American Law Institute in 1923.  ALI formed a committee to write the document which would become the Model Penal Code. This document was intended, as the name suggests, to be a model for all of the states to adopt as their own state statutes, thereby creating a more uniform set of laws across the several states. It became the new Ten Commandments for a justice system seeking to rid itself of all relations to religion. The result was a separation of the justice system from all justice.

Unfortunately, this abomination is widely praised, endorsed and nearly worshiped by Christians. People will accept all manner of injustice in order to avoid the Law of God. "Any law but God's!" is their cry. While God's so-called people will give lip service to the Ten Commandments and assert that all modern law flows from God's law, they are incapable of showing any connection when challenged. One of the most common "arguments" I hear is that God's command for people to be held responsible for the damages to persons resulting from a fall from their roof is justification for every modern law from building codes, to speeding tickets, to laws against spitting on the sidewalk. I have heard people argue that the Cities of Refuge are justification for keeping criminals in prison.

Show me any positive reference to prisons in the Scriptures. Show me any place in the Law of God where punishment for a crime involves incarceration. You won't find it because that is an abomination. Holding men, created in the image of God, in a cage without access to other humans, to sunshine, to productive work is the very definition of inhumane. The Law of God doesn't even distinguish between what we call "criminal law" and what is called "tort law" or "civil law." There was no difference because justice is focused on restoration and reconciliation, not punishment, isolation and life-long labels.

The subject is vast and can't really be covered in a blog post, but I needed to get this off my chest. I see that the ALI is now working to re-write the Model Penal Code where it touches sexual assault because man's understanding of this issue has allegedly evolved again. No doubt this new revision will further erode fundamental rights of due process and purposely weigh the law against men in favor of women's perceptions of truth.

The Model Penal Code is anti-marriage, anti-family and anti-Christ. It is injustice codified. It is an idolatrous and godless generation that seeks to make man better by increasing the reach of laws. Submit yourself to the perfect law of liberty and you will have no need for any other. 

Do it God's Way

From reading the Law of God, we can gather that He intends for a woman to have one and only one sexual partner during her life. The Law requires a virgin who is taken either willingly or by force to be taken as a wife by the man who humbled her. The only exception is in the case of a seduction and the woman's father utterly refuses to permit the marriage. Even in that case, the man is required to pay the price of a virgin to the father, perhaps because she will never marry, or in the very least, she will not be able to command the price of a virgin as a bride-price, due to her not actually BEING a virgin.

If you want to hear some wailing and gnashing of teeth, just mention in some Christian circles that not only is virginity preferred by men choosing a wife, but that virginity can be objectively measured. You'll hear a lot of caterwauling about how a hymen can be broken by riding horses or using tampons and that it isn't FAAAAAIIIIIRRRRR for men to expect women to be virgins when there isn't a comparable, measurable standard for men. Well, fair or not fair, the Bible says there is such a thing as "tokens of virginity."  But only for women.  (See Deut. 22)

We will probably never know all the reasons for God's guardrails on sexuality. He has claimed his sovereignty over human sexuality and His people will obey Him in this regard. It is known that a lack of chastity leads to the spread of disease, and this is an important reason for maintaining purity. But researchers are now discovering that a woman's offspring may be affected by any or all sexual encounters, even those that do not result in conception. What man wants to sire children who carry the traits of his wife's former lovers? Just don't do it.

Overheard at a Community Meeting...

Our local government school board hosted an informational meeting to explain the upcoming 25 year bond for $5,000,000 which will appear on our election ballots in May. The district business manager said this:

A bond is a loan, taken out by the school board. But the school board doesn't pay it back, the taxpayers pay it back. So it is only fair that the taxpayers get to vote on it.

Either this woman is a complete idiot, or she is purposely misleading people. You see, there is no correlation between being a taxpayer (property tax payer) and being a voter, except by coincidence. The voters are made up of all adults (ages 18 and above) who live in the district and have registered to vote. The taxpayers of this bond, if it should pass, are the individuals and businesses who own property within the district. 

We see that voters who don't own property will get to vote on the bond, even though they have no obligation to pay on it for the next 25 years. We also see that  property owners who don't physically reside in the district do not get to vote and businesses that are not individuals get no votes at all.

If the school district business manager intended to note that it would be fundamentally unfair for anyone but the ones paying back the loan to decide whether to pass the bond, she would be correct, but I don't think she really feels that way, or she would be against the bond for its objective unfairness.

The Bible says:

A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children...

The world says leave some debt to your children. It's our duty, after all, to keep those government schools open and then bill the children for it later.  This bond will impose taxes on those with no representation in the matter and it will affect people who aren't even born yet. It is theft. It is evil. It is a bad idea.

Is Taxation Theft?

Thou shalt not steal. 

You may recognize that from Exodus 20:15. It is part of what we call the Ten Commandments, the laws given to God's people, through Moses. I am going to make the case that taxation is a violation of this command.

The reason I'm sort of stirred up about this right now is that our local school board is asking the voters to undertake a 25 year bond in the amount of 5 million dollars which will be paid by adding a levy to what property owners pay every year in property tax. Let's talk about the local school district. 

Current enrollment is 161 students. For the entire district. Kindergarten through grade 12, there are 161 students in the entire district. Including all sources of funding, the spending per student in this district is over $20,000. You read that correctly, $20,000 is being spent per pupil to educate the little crumb crunchers in our district. The state government has awarded a grant (money taken from tax payers all over the state) of 4 million dollars to our local district based upon the fact that we are one of the most impoverished districts in the state. 100% of the students get free breakfast and lunch at school, because our district is so poor. However, the grant comes with strings. The district has to match the grant with at least 4 million dollars from the local taxpayers. (Remember how the state has already determined that we are one of the poorest districts in the state?)

Now, for $20,000 per pupil, I could take charge of the entire district and I would enroll every student at a private school 60 miles away, bus them to school every day, get yearly passes to the zoo and aquarium and science museum (and bus them there twice per year), and provide them with new clothing. That's right, I could arrange for a superior private education for EVERY student in this district for what is being spent to keep them in the local government school. 

So, even if taxation was not theft, which it is, it would still be the height of foolishness to spend one more cent on this over-spending district.

Let's suppose that a man in my town wanted to have relations (of the marital type) with a woman from this town who did not wish to relate to him. Now suppose he took her by force. Would that be rape? Of course it would be. 

Now, let us change the story a bit and say the man in question has the same desire as before, but instead of taking her by force he holds an election. In this election, a majority of town's people vote that the man MAY legally take the woman. The town's enforcers hold her down and the man has his way with her. Is that rape? Why or why not? If the majority of the people vote for the act to occur, does it change from a crime to a legal act? Does it go from being immoral to being moral? Why or why not?

We shall now change the crime from rape to theft. If a man in my town wants a percentage of the value of the property of another man, and he goes to the second man's house with a gun and demands the money, is it not robbery? What if he intends to use the money for a good cause?  Let us now say that the first man holds an election whereat the majority of the people vote that the property owner should turn over a percentage of his property value to the first man. Does it cease to be theft because of an election?

What other crime, besides theft, becomes a non-crime based upon the will of the majority? Murder? Arson?

My conclusion is that theft is theft is theft. My neighbors have no more right to vote on whether my money can be taken and used for a school than they can vote on whether to murder the man who has pink flamingos on his lawn.