Stephen Rhoda resigns Terre Haute: What? They wanted a pastor?

Terre Haute and the GLG Ad Interim Commission accepted the resignation of Stephen Rhoda. I believe this is another case of the RPCNA applying excessive grace to their ordained leadership. This is a case of resign and we'll do our best to suppress your faults.

The resignation letter is a work of art in damage control, minimization and blame shifting. Basically, he absolves himself of nearly all responsibility due to the unyielding demands of his family and church.

But, the sentence that got me was this one: 

I don’t mean to make excuses for my failures, but I never thought that a majority of the congregation would need special ministry beyond sitting under the preaching of the Word.

Take a few minutes for that to sink in. Terre Haute called a pastor, not a motivational speaker. Rhoda seems upset that he was asked to "minister" to the congregation as a minister of the Word. Reminds me of a Reformed author (maybe Paul Tripp?) who taught a class in seminary on pastoral ministry because so many students assumed that ministry was just coming up with a sermon every week for doting congregants. His analogy was someone becoming a doctor in a hospital, finally throwing up his hands in frustration, saying "Sick People!! Why am I surrounded by sick people all the time?!"

A note to Mary Rhoda. Whether your marriage can be saved is probably not in your hands. I would reject the GLG's encouragement for "counseling". Counseling is important, but calling ACBC or CCEF practitioners "counselors" is a disservice to those who have gone through the training and licensure, and especially, have agreed to have their licenses revoked for ethical violations.

The number of times I've heard of ACBC counselors gossiping about what should be confidential and legally protected information makes me think that many people attracted to this counseling just want to hear everyone's "dirt" for their own self-gratification.

I would recommend you find a licensed, legally ethically bound counselor to do your own healing first and understanding what you need in a relationship before trying to repair the broken marriage. Based on Stephen's own words, couples counseling will just be a way for him to continue to blame shift and justify his own actions, and you'll be at the mercy of whatever counselor you both agree to as to whether you will be heard or dismissed. If it's an ACBC or CCEF counselor, the leaver (i.e. the person being truthful that the marriage is broken) will be gaslit back into the falsehood of a broken marriage.

Clipped wings, cages and the zoo of Christendom

E.B. White's Trumpet of the Swan tells the story from the perspective of a mute swan, Louis, who is given and learns to play a trumpet as a replacement for his voice. His goal is to play a beautiful song for his chosen soul-mate, Serena, and woo her. In a freak occurrence, Serena is caught in a storm and lands in the zoo where Louis conducts public concerts. The director of the zoo sends the zookeepers out to clip Serena's wings and Louis realizes if Serena's wings are clipped then his dreams are foiled. After a long discussion about the purpose of zoos and the fact that they can't just allow a swan to land at a zoo without taking advantage of the situation, Louis proposes to buy her freedom.

I think the conversation between Louis and the zoo director is fascinating. Zoos have this dual purpose of preserving animals in a way that is humane, yet, they support themselves by putting these animals on display for humans to observe, which means keeping them in cages, or other means, such as clipping their wings, so they cannot escape. There is a benefit to wildlife to have zoos, as zoos encourage amazement and wonder and that can inspire people towards conservation efforts so that their native habitat is preserved.

But these are wild animals, not humans. I think churches have taken the "zoo" approach to their members. Instead of being a safe haven for humans in the wild to receive healing and encouragement, churches cage or clip the wings of Evangelicals everywhere for the purpose of maintaining a zoo-like display to the world.

The pastor as zoo director, leaders as zookeepers

Instead of each Christian being encouraged to find their own Spirit-led path and expression, churches limit their members based on what the pastor and church leaders impose. If the pastor wants to run a soup kitchen, then members wanting to serve will be caged into soup kitchen ministry. If someone wants to minister in a way that the church isn't interested in, then the pastor and the elders will seek to clip the wings of the members to maintain the zoo as intended. For example, I was in a church that had a bad experience with small groups being led astray. The leaders decided that they could not maintain control of the teaching in small groups unless they were personally teaching the small groups, and since they didn't feel they had the bandwidth to teach, they issued an edict that there could be no teaching in small groups. Wings were clipped successfully and then, not surprisingly, they struggled to get congregational members interested in attending small groups. So, then there were occasional sermons on the importance of filling seats in the small groups.

Our pediatrician loved to see cuts and scrapes on our kids. That meant that they were active and exploring the world. Imagine a world where parents protect their kids by closing them more and more off to the world. The kid touches a hot burner, so we cage off the kitchen. The kid climbs out of his playpen and hurts himself, so we put him in a cage we can lock. The kid chokes on a peanut, so we grind all of the food into paste. Are we equipping children to interact with the world or are we creating bubble children that get blinded by the sun when we open their dungeon door?

The church disbelieves the work of the Holy Spirit and only believes in their ability to cage and clip their children's wings to keep them in the fold. If we don't teach our children about sex, then they will be safe from all sexual sin! If we don't teach our children about science, they will never doubt our assertions about how the world works! We teach them a warped version of Total Depravity so that they don't ask why they're in cages while the zookeepers roam free and tell everyone what to do. If we don't keep any non-Reformed, non-Christian sources of information away from our kids, they will grow up with a Reformed perspective! Of course, when these bubble children enter the world and inevitably stray from the faith, it's not because the bubble is a sham, but because the parents had some hole in their bubble somewhere... maybe the kids went to public school, or public university, or they joined the Boy Scouts or a secular sports team. We never look at the spiritual system and its assumptions for why people run away when they are no longer ecclesiastically chained to their beds.

The church as zoo

In one aspect of the zoo, the cages are there to protect the animals and provide a habitat for them to live and grow. If the goal is to release animals back into the wild, they are treated much differently - maybe not even put in cages in the first place, and their wings would certainly not be clipped. So, perhaps what drives the cages and clipping we see in churches can be compared with a different aspect of the zoo, and perhaps for the same reasons - public display and excitement.

So, if the pastor and leaders cage and clip just right, they can put their churches on public display and hopefully generate excitement for their vision of Christianity. They certainly don't want any public scandals and if they build the cages just right, maybe, just maybe, their church will look perfect from the outside. If something really bad happens within the church, the fear that the church will somehow be exposed to public disdain can overwhelm any desire to seek justice. So, maybe a few animals have to be put down to cover up the truth. Maybe the leadership decides to ignore the sins of a leader because it would look bad that their policies and procedures were woefully inadequate. Maybe a member must be shamed into silence because the truth would jeopardize the future of the zoo.

But, as surveys and studies show, people understand that people do bad things in churches. They want to see justice and not a fake, shiny veneer over a cesspool of shame and silencing. Why does church after church think that Jesus is somehow more glorified in coverup and ignorance than in shedding the light on internal sin and pursuing justice. Or maybe it's not really about Jesus in the first place, but about the celebrity pastor and churches that think, like the bubble parents, that shielding their members within their narrow worldview somehow generates perfect righteousness and are ashamed when the formula doesn't work.

Lay members as animals

That brings us to the experience of lay members. If we were born into captivity in this sense, perhaps we never realized what it meant to spread our spiritual wings. They were clipped with teaching about our depraved state and the need for spiritually-gifted leaders to discern truth on our behalf and show us the right cages we were expected to fit into. For those who were injured in the wild and found the church. Maybe it was a safe place at first. The zookeepers worked to mend to bones and heal the bleeding, but then something happened. Instead of being encouraged to return to life with spiritual healing, we were locked in the cage of legalistic rules and teachings.

I think we can get comfortable in our cages with the food the zookeepers provide and the fellowship we experience with the other caged animals, but for many of us, something will happen that breaks our sense of safety and comfort in the cage.

Ideally, we sense the urging of the Holy Spirit to free ourselves of our legalistic cages, our insular community and our spiritual scraps and realize that there's a whole world outside that we should be free to explore, but there are other ways of being lulled out of our sense of comfort.

Maybe one of the other animals in our cage attacks us. Because it doesn't look good for the zoo to have bloody animals walking around, we get quietly ushered to an even smaller cage and hidden from public view. It doesn't feel safe and it doesn't feel comfortable, and maybe the zookeepers think that caging us with the animal that attacked us will force us into a positive relationship (although it generally ends up with us getting eaten).

Maybe one of the zookeepers decides to use us for their own advantage or pleasure. Since they're the zookeepers, we assume they know best, but eventually something doesn't feel right when we are whipped or beaten or worse. Again, we get put in the small cage. It wouldn't look good for the zoo if anyone found out one of the carefully screened zookeepers was abusing the animals.

So, we make our escape. At that point all of the zoo's resources are refocused on getting the wayward animal back in the cage. If that proves unfruitful, then the zoo's reputation must be preserved at all costs. The cages get another few bars, but nothing else really changes.

Churches as recovery centers, not zoos

I think we need to recover the idea that a church is there to be a place of safety and healing, not cages and public display. If one animal is dangerous towards another, the aggressor needs to be dealt with and the victim needs to be strengthened and healed. A rescuer who abuses animals shouldn't be rescuing animals, and shouldn't just move to the next recovery center to abuse the animals there. But, the central point is cages are temporary and for the safety of the animals, not a new habitat. We need to be strengthened to thrive in the spiritual wilds, not hidden in a protective bubble.

Recovering from the caged life

Just like animals raised in captivity can rarely be released into the wild, I think recovering from legalistic and abusive spiritual systems is uniquely difficult. Instead of being fed the views of the leaders, we need to be trained to discern truth from scripture and seek the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. We need to learn how to find spiritual friends within and outside the church to help us have a good perspective. Because the zoos are so pretty and appealing, we need to find the animal recovery centers when we need safety and healing. It is so hard to discern the difference between veterinarian and zookeeper, but it is crucial in finding healing vs just getting stuck in a cage of a different zookeeper's imaginations. I can definitely understand when someone doesn't want anything to do with a person wearing a white lab coat. I'm thankful that I (think) found a recovery center and not a zoo. Maybe I'm not going to ever put on the lab coat, but I can maybe be a warm and encouraging presence to those around me as I seek to find my way back into the wild.

Rosaria Butterfield and the Sin of Empathy

Image source: https://x.com/nakedpastor/status/1883862633704571106

I was trying to decide between two topics to write on and this one won. Rosaria Butterfield has written the foreward to The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and its Counterfeits a book by Joe Rigney. It's published by Canon Press, Doug Wilson's publishing house.

I haven't really wanted to spend a lot of time researching the arguments, but I found some interesting articles and summaries that have started showing me a systemic issue. I do love to weigh in on those systemic issues!

If I understand the argument correctly, empathy is differentiated from sympathy by where the emotions are anchored. Sympathy is anchored in our own experiences while empathy is us trying to understand someone's emotions from their own perspective. Rigney's original flashpoint article is here: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-enticing-sin-of-empathy, and I really valued this article in trying to understand some of the nuance: https://www.lambsreign.com/blog/the-dangerous-fad-of-calling-empathy-a-sin

Rigney claims that empathy is sinful because it somehow detaches us from truth and our own lived experience. This is similar to the "can I attend the wedding of my gay friend" argument. That is attendance at a wedding is tacit approval. Since we cannot approve of a gay wedding, we cannot attend such a wedding. In the same way, if we, say, empathize with a drug dealer, we are somehow detaching our emotions from the truth that dealing drugs is wrong and re-attaching them to the false worldview of the drug dealer. Rigney then uses this premise to rail against empathy for any LGTBQ+ person because, in his thought process, one cannot empathize with that person without somehow attaching to their sinful worldview. This is most likely why Rosaria Butterfield was asked to write the foreward.

I think Rosaria is in a uniquely hard position and, while I disagree strongly with her stance, I can see things that led her in that direction. Ken and Floy were truly wonderful people, but I think that the RPCNA she joined because of them 'gloried in her flesh' by parading her around and, certainly Kent's heavy patriarchal and authoritarian beliefs have not helped. When she came to speak at my church, she did not want any public advertisement because she drew crowds of protesters and threats of violence. I can't really imagine the effect living with hate mail, death threats and protests would have on me, but I doubt I would have handled it with the grace she did for as long as she did. However, it seems that all of this has taken its toll on her, as https://reformationproject.org/rosaria-butterfield-shift/ has described, she's become increasingly vindictive in her rhetoric against that community.

The idea that empathy is a sin reminds me of the RPCNA response to transgender issues. Essentially it starts with a scientific and empathetic view of transgender people and the struggles they have, even showing evidence for intersex people in the Bible. Then some sort of snap happens and the discussion seems to re-anchor in a black and white absolutism of scripture with the idea that God made "male and female" and thus, we must overcome our empathy to make sure people are forced into their proper bucket and gender roles.

My initial thought was that Jesus's interaction with Mary and Martha was totally empathy and not sympathy. Jesus weeps. It doesn't appear that Jesus being overcome with emotion is anchored in his own experience and truth. He already knew and he already told Martha that he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead, but when (I think) he saw the situation from their perspective, he was overcome by the sadness and hopelessness of it and he wept.

The lambsreign article also also had a helpful example. Christians can be involved in prison ministry, and we can empathize with people in prison without abandoning our desire for justice. We can be sad with them that they are locked up even if they are locked up because they killed someone. Someone told me about a book that said, two things can be true at the same time. This person can be a criminal and this person can be justifiably sad about their current state. I could counsel a prisoner as a human without having to keep their "criminal" label front and center.

I appreciated that advice. What was demonstrated to me in parenting was that it was somehow wrong to comfort someone who caused their own grief. So, if my kid burns himself on the hot stove after I told him not to touch it... well, I can treat the medical issue, of course, but the idea of entering into the shock and pain and sadness was somehow justifying the disobedience. Two things can be true - my child burned himself, and my child is sad and in pain and needs comfort.

Apparently there was a Facebook discussion based on a similar article by Joe Rigney. I suppose that if empathy is a sin, then abuse and vitriol must be righteous.

My first step out of legalism was being introduced to a different God.

Some who read my blog are still in the RP church and some have left. I left the RP church for somewhat selfish reasons. I had this thought that I had gifts to be used for the church, but the RP church steadfastly rejected everything I had to offer. I wanted to find a church where people felt freedom to express their joy in worship and where leadership wasn't a group of people who had to maintain their superiority over the commoners.

What I found was far more. Yes, I found a group of people who expressed freedom and joy in worship, but I was introduced to a different God. It took me leaving Psalmody to find that the Psalms, for RPs seem to be checking some sort of box. How does David get to complain to God when we must approach God with our prayers arranged? How does David get to say that God has forsaken and abandoned him when RPs would be afraid of being struck by lightning at such heresy?

My first brush with the God who is willing to hear my complaints was a sermon series on Ruth. The pastor talked about how Naomi modeled strong spirituality when she acknowledged her bitterness and brought it before God. That was not what I heard from RP pulpits. Those pastors said that Naomi was spiritually weak and on the verge of apostasy because she was bitter. Over time, I learned of a God who wasn't an iron-fisted narcissist, smiting those who dared bring petty grievances and low-minded complaints before his holy, royal throne. I learned of a God who wanted to be near us when we were happy, near us when we were sad and near us when we were so angry we wanted to punch a hole in a wall. And not just about the "stuff", but even when we were angry or happy or said with HIM!

Honestly, my first response was anger. I was angry that he allowed me to grow up in a church and home that abused me in his name. I was angry that my family and friends willingly chose to be domineered by church leaders to keep their relationships and worship style. I was sad that there was a huge gulf between the people I grew up with and those I met through the church that will probably never be fixed in this life.

Over time, though, I realized how much this hateful caricature of God is so central to abusive and narcissistic Christianity. Our leaders cannot be compassionate because their God is not compassionate. Our leaders cannot overlook petty grievances because their God cannot overlook petty grievances. They cannot join hands with other Christians who see things even slightly differently because their God cannot overlook even the slightest error. It also affects how RPs approach doctrine. In a sense, because God is narcissistic and abusive, there is the opposite consideration than Ockham's razor. Instead of the simplest explanation being the correct one, it's more like the explanation that is the biggest stretch ends up being the one the theologians latch onto. For example, it isn't enough to to agree on the essentials of communion. First, the elements must be scrutinized. Is non-fermented grape juice really obeying God? What about leavened bread? Then the participants must be divided. Is it available to all Christians or only NAPARC members? Finally, even the circumstances become elements. Is it okay for members to be served in their pews or must they come to a table? This might be passed off as "best practice", but those who have taken stands on the various issues are really saying that other practice is tainted by disobedience and bearing some amount of brow furrowing by our creator. Is that really the God we serve? The God of furrowed brows? The Father I serve is the one who ran to me when I was far off and welcomed me back as a son even though I smelled of pig manure. The RP God would never do that. Only the pure can come, and even then, one drop of unfermented wine is enough to be rejected.

I can't say that my relationship with God the Father has been miraculously fixed, but I at least conceptually understand that he is not the abusive father the RP church portrayed him to be. I can look to Jesus and see that Jesus doesn't act in the way that the RP God acts, and if Jesus is in perfect harmony with the Father, how could he act in opposition? If Jesus touches the unclean, how does the Father reject them? If Jesus defends the adulteress, how does the Father condemn her? It doesn't make sense! A house divided against itself cannot stand.

Said plainly, Jesus did not act the way God the Father is portrayed by RPs. When Jesus talks about the Father, he combines justice with compassion and mercy. The God of the Sabbath does not hold the Regulative Principle above the disciples' need to eat. Jesus shows warmth to those who are given the cold shoulder in society, and he is often cold towards those who are honored.

How to Human

Hi all! Over the weekend, I read a completely different book, How to Human by Carlos Whittaker. It's a secular book, of sorts, but Carlos is unabashedly Christian and relates a lot of his lessons back to who Jesus was and Christian principles.

It was a very encouraging book and he helpfully talks about some of what I think have become Evangelical hangups. I'll highlight a few that hit me:

1. Seeing someone / engaging with someone does not mean that we agree with them. I was in a men's study recently, and one of the leader's thought-provoking questions was, "A gay co-worker invites you to his same-sex wedding. Do you go or not? Why?" The leader's view was that participation was approval.

Whittaker uses the example of Phillip and the Ethiopian eunuch to point out the lesson that we can and should engage with people who have unknown or even known-to-be-different views. 

There will be some chariots that you won't agree with a single bumper sticker those chariots have on them. You may agree with everything those chariots stand for. That's great. I would hope that you have strong convictions. But, don't for a second think that disqualifies you from getting in the chariot. You are getting in the chariot to let the person in it know that you see them, not that you agree with them. (p. 93)

I see this reflected in Jesus's interactions with people, which Carlos points out in other chapters. He touched the leper. He allowed a woman of ill repute (according to the Pharisees) to anoint him with perfume. He stood by the woman caught in adultery. These were all situations where the religious leaders were pointedly declaring that engagement with the sinful was approval of sin, but Jesus disagreed.

2. Our work vs. the work of the Holy Spirit. This was one of the first lessons I learned after leaving the RP church, and definitely not early enough as I burned some friendships and strained family relationships trying to do that work in them.

Because I'm a follower of Jesus, it's my responsibility to ferociously pour His love on my friends and my foes. It's not my responsibility to convict them. That is the role of the Holy Spirit. Comment-section debates won't convince a heart to change. Thirty-second video clips where your side "destroys" the other team won't convince a heart to change. Those may make us feel better but won't ever move their hearts toward change. So, is that love? Does it bring joy? Encourage peace? Go through that list of the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians and compare it to how we so often are. Does it line up? Probably not. Not like it should.

We must love those we disagree with in order to let them know they matter. That they are seen. That's the actual goal. That's what will help us all human better. That's why when you see a "Christian" online calling other humans names meant to wound them, it should make you cringe -- even if you agree with their point of view. (And if it doesn't make you cringe, there are deeper problems.) Now, just because it's the Holy Spirit's role to convict doesn't mean we don't have convictions. It just means that when we take on His role ourselves, with our human nature, it's far easier to fall into the trap of demeaning someone made in the image of God by throwing cheap and easy insults. (pp. 203-204)

Coming out of a church tradition where people took upon themselves (cough 'apologetics') the role of the Holy Spirit, it was easy to fall into the trap of being similarly, I suppose, anti-apologetic. So I spent my first few months as an ex-RP politely(?) bashing everything I found objectionable. It took so much trauma to get myself to the point where I could walk out that I needed a way to process that trauma, and, unfortunately, I didn't have a counselor to dump that on. I ended up processing my RP trauma on my RP friends, who unchecked that box (friend, not RP).

3. Study and Follow Jesus. It might seem trite, but I appreciate that Carlos, who points out that he dropped out of college and has no seminary training, over and over shows us a simple and clear understanding of who Jesus was and what he was here for. I think we Reformed Evangelicals have figured out how to reimage Jesus into what we want, not who he is. Jesus turned his cheek, but really... turning our cheek is weakness. Jesus stood by the adulterer, but really... we should shame adulterers. Jesus welcomed and cherished children, but really... we should parentify and adultify them as soon as possible so they can be useful, and before then, ignore them.

4. Be, See, Free. Maybe this is just a sales pitch, but these are the major headings of the books. How do we re-acquaint ourselves with what it means to be human? How do we see the humanity in others beyond stereotypes and biases? How do we use our humanity and our gifts to free others from bondage (more social justice than proselytizing)?

It's difficult because Whittaker is probably the most extroverted person I've ever read, and as a massive introvert, it's hard to imagine just going up to someone in the ways he does. He asked if he could livestream a hotel housekeeper singing her heart out, and asked a street musician if he could film him, so that others could enjoy their gifts. But, I definitely appreciate his love for people and his willingness to engage with them in a way that demonstrates that they are seen and loved.

Can we stop saying that women want to be objectified and raped?

 I don't understand why Doug Wilson is still considered relevant within Reformed circles, but the echoes of what he says still resonate in articles I've read. Keep in mind that Wilson's "Federal Vision" theology has been declared heretical (i.e. people who subscribe to FV cannot simultaneously hold the early creeds that defined Christianity)

RPs should also understand that Wilson has called them 'haters of the Word of God':

the drums of war were being beaten by the abolitionists, [RPCNA is historically abolitionist] who were in turn driven by a zealous hatred of the Word of God.

Maybe that line of Wilson's reasoning hasn't been spread throughout western Evangelicalism, but this line certainly has:

There are at least three things to be taken away from this. The first is that Paul is not offering Christian sexlessness over against pagan sexuality. He says that Christians must learn how to possess their own bodies in this way, not in that way. The way we are to avoid is the sexuality of atheism.

Second, we are to know what we are rejecting—i.e. the passion of lust as exhibited by those who do not know God. That means we need to know the contrast. Now the world’s approach to sex is demented, but it is a demented caricature of certain creational realities. This means that men and women are convex and concave in their desires. Men want to possess and women want to be possessed. Men want to want and women want to be wanted. Men want baubles and women want to be baubles.

The third point is that to reject God’s pattern here is not to despise men, but rather to despise God. You might defraud your brother in this, but it God you are despising. (source)

Also:

When we quarrel with the way the world is, we find that the world has ways of getting back at us. In other words, however we try, the sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts. This is of course offensive to all egalitarians, and so our culture has rebelled against the concept of authority and submission in marriage. This means that we have sought to suppress the concepts of authority and submission as they relate to the marriage bed.

But we cannot make gravity disappear just because we dislike it, and in the same way we find that our banished authority and submission comes back to us in pathological forms. This is what lies behind sexual "bondage and submission games," along with very common rape fantasies. Men dream of being rapists, and women find themselves wistfully reading novels in which someone ravishes the "soon to be made willing" heroine. (source)

Part of understanding our culture within a Christian worldview is understanding that creation has been subjected to corruption and futility. Just because my natural response to offense is to get revenge doesn't make revenge right. Revenge is not gravity in the sense that God built revenge into the fabric of his good creation. Justice, yes, but revenge is potentially a sinful distortion of justice.

In the same way, even if I concede that Wilson's argument correctly acknowledges the current state of affairs, he is extrapolating the heart of God from the created reality. It's hard to make a parallel argument to point out the logical flaws, but it would go something like this:

Godly discipline MUST be spanking. We can't pretend that instruction, natural consequences, or other discipline techniques can possibly work, because children self-discipline through self-harm - hair pulling, cutting, banging their head against a wall. Men dream of being violent against their children, and children read books where the hero learns resilience through abusive parenting.

The fallacy in both arguments is first assuming that what we desire in entertainment has some underlying wholesome basis. Do people watch MMA because some aspect of MMA is holy and good? I doubt it. Wilson would likely this by arguing Total Depravity, but it's core to his argument. Second does the fact that women read romance novels involving rape mean that the rape is essential or core to their desires? Not at all! I don't think women read romance novels because they contain rape. That's Wilson reading his own pornified view of women into some statistic. I didn't watch Captain America because I wanted to see a teenage twerp get beaten and abused by his army peers. I watched it because I wanted to see how his true character survived through evil and adversity.  Maybe women read romance novels with rape because they want to see how strong women react to and rise above the evil and adversity. I'm not sure that Wilson is even correct that women are drawn to romance novels where a woman is raped by her future romantic partner. It's very much like him (and James Dobson*, for that matter) to create his theory out of whole cloth by projecting what he wants women to be like into his accounts. I guess one way to promote rape culture is to imagine that women naturally want to be ravaged by some alpha male and then put that to pen and paper with a couple of verses and a pastor's sheepskin to make it appear Biblical and authentic.
(* The oft-repeated idea that men 'need' sex at least every 72 hours has been meticulously traced to a statement James Dobson made, and it appears that his statement had no scientific backing: https://baremarriage.com/2024/03/72-hour-rule-isnt-real-evangelicals-convinced-women-have-sex/)

Wilson's argument is truly evil, though. Women want to be possessed? Really? Women want to be baubles? (i.e. Women want to be objectified) Really?

I think this is in line with his arguments about slavery. Somehow he portrays the slavery of the south as a magnanimous system. Slaves were "taken care of" and owners were good, charitable Christians. That's why they hired taskmasters with whips and raped their slaves, because that's what black people want - to be whipped and raped.

Wilson needs to get his head out of porn and slave rape literature.

Women today operate in a patriarchal culture. That is the point of Genesis 3. "He will rule over you". The male rule in Genesis 3 is not a benevolent rule. We see soon that Lamech takes two wives. Why? Benevolence, or sexual gratification? Thomas Jefferson raped his slaves. Benevolence or sexual gratification? So, the pornified, objectified view of women in our culture is not God-created gravity, but a sinful distortion.

So, how do women respond to this culture? I think there are two basic approaches, fight, or accept and profit. Women who fight this culture have a lifetime of suffering ahead of them. Aimee Byrd and Beth Moore come to mind. These women at first, accepted the patriarchal Evangelical culture, but in their journey at some point, they realized that Evangelical patriarchy was sinful and fought it. They were abused and sidelined by their churches. The other approach is what I would call the cheerleader approach. Women accept some level of the pornified culture because they can use it to their advantage. I know cheerleaders, and they see cheerleading as a sport, just like band members see marching band as a way to compete in music. However, society looks at a football game, and the cheerleaders and band are just a side-show to the important thing, which is a competition of alpha males.

Madonna / Britney Spears / Lady Gaga also are figureheads for this approach. In their prime, they encouraged and profited from a pornified view of women. I doubt these women wanted to be raped. This was not fantasy of theirs, but a way to make a good living off of patriarchy. Porn stars are the same. I doubt their hearts desire is to engage in sex acts so that men can gratify themselves, but they can profit from the sinful desire of men.

Circling back to Wilson, he paints a sickening view of God, and those who want to portray women in the same light also paint a sickening view of God. Women don't want men to "rule over" them. Male rule is not the created order, but a result of the Fall. God does not respect patriarchy. If God respected patriarchy, then why did God talk with Manoah's wife first before Manoah, and why did Gabriel talk with Mary first before Joseph?

Narcissism and Legalism - why they are so hard to differentiate in religious systems

A recent post reminded me how much legalistic religious systems struggle with spiritual abusers and other narcissists. He claims that they are "cut from the same cloth" and offers how they are similar.

Similar roots of legalism and narcissism

The root of narcissism seems to come down to striving to maintain a 'perfect' external image, but being caught in a shame loop of the internal life not matching that image. Narcissists will first try to hide the shame, but when caught, they may externalize that internal shame by deflecting it towards others. "I wouldn't have raged if you hadn't..." or "You didn't explain why I needed to be home on time and that's why I went partying with my friends instead of visiting with your parents." Narcissists also poison any potential allies of those they are abusing so that an abused wife or child won't be believed if they seek help. "Oh, your father warned me that you like to make up malicious lies about him."

In the same way, legalistic church systems have to deal with the discrepancy between the aura of perfection and what actually happens within the doors. The celebrity pastor who is loved by all might be sending inappropriate texts to women in his congregation. The church is then caught with internal "shame" in the same way. Maybe they try to silence women who come forward by accusing them of gossip, or calling them a tool of Satan to destroy the pastor's ministry. If these women go to the press, again, they are labeled tools of Satan. The church is told that Satan is attacking the pastor, and DARVO is used as a tool to protect the poor minister.

Within a legalistic system, even accusations of sin take on a life of their own for similar reasons. Each individual wants to appear righteous. Some have described it as a "mask" that we wear. When someone is confronted with the shame of some sin, the same defense mechanisms can come into play. Maybe we deny it, or maybe we deflect it by charging other people of worse sins.

The post, and other articles I've read, point to the solution. First of all, legalistic systems arise because we judge by some relativistic standard. We want our sins to be no big deal and others' sins to be serious and significant. Yet, we know that all sin is deserving of condemnation, AND, we know that all sin can be forgiven and restored through Jesus. In our legalistic systems, we refuse to see people how Jesus sees them and instead we want to apply essentially the ridiculous standard that "us" is better than "them" and "might makes right" - those in spiritual authority should be judged less harshly due to their position.

Instead of inviting real people and their real problems to church, we say, "Welcome to the RPCNA, here's your mask! If you take the mask off we will reject you!"

Attracting spiritually abusive members and leaders

A legalist or narcissist walks into a legalistic church and instantly recognizes the system in play. Maybe they have different approaches. The narcissist wants to use the legalistic system to protect himself from scrutiny, while the legalist just recognizes that they can put on the same old mask and stay in comfort.

This is troubling because the legalistic system is already designed to protect the wolves. Legalistic churches will clamp down on any truth-telling, calling it gossip. Then, because "sin" is such an offensive thing to accuse someone of, there will be immediate scrutinizing of any accusations. The wolves know that they just have to play the game for a little while to get on the session, and then the boundless resources of the church will circle round to protect them.

It's easy to imagine a situation like Keith Magill. First, he illegally hid sexual abuse committed by a member by failing to call CPS and not telling other session members. When this is uncovered, no apparent action is taken against him, other than a letter from his former church. Then he is part of the coverup. And I say coverup because in Indiana a pastor is required to IMMEDIATELY inform CPS of suspected abuse. A school principal's conviction was upheld when he delayed reporting by four hours - https://www.in.gov/icsb/files/Duty-to-Report.pdf It's not surprising in a legalistic and narcissistic religious system to see person after person following the DARVO process to protect the powerful and portray whistleblowers and concerned members as tools of Satan.