Unconditional Respect?

I started writing this comment in the Practical Theology for Women thread Love and Respect but Mostly Respect but it got long. So instead, I'm going to post it here. I somewhat disagree with her and the book she's talking about "Love and Respect" by Eggrichs.

I have used unconditional respect in my work with troubled teens. In most situations it really works.

It is different than respect that you give an authority figure. But it is still unconditional.

The teens I have worked with have been terribly disrespected all their lives. They have been abused on so many levels. And they have little respect for anyone including themselves.

But they respond to me giving them basic, human-dignity respect, regardless of their behavior. They then in turn give me respect that they didn't give to the other 'staff' that is disrespectful.

All human beings respond to unconditional respect. But how do you define respect? There are levels. All women can give husbands basic, human-dignity respect. Even bad-behaving, abusive husbands.

HOWEVER.

There is a level of respect, an authority respect that is reserved for those who deserve it, who act like leaders.

In other words, sure, give husbands unconditional respect. Don't belittle, don't name call, don't roll the eyes etc... Even when they engage in behavior that deserves a huge eye roll. A woman can mostly train herself to be respectful even in difficult situations.

But respect beyond common courtesy that is reserved for those in authority, this respect can be lost. I'm not saying that when a man in authority behaves badly on occasion that all that respect should fly out the window. I'm talking about situations where the one in authority consistently engages in behavior that is demeaning, disrespectful, dangerous and/or abusive (physically, emotionally, spiritually), that man is setting himself in position to lose respect. From God, men, and women, including their own wives. And it is the man's fault for losing it not the woman's fault for withholding it.

A biblical example would be the story of Abigail and Nabal found in First Samuel 25. Nabal acted the fool and nearly got his entire household killed. Abigail did not respect him or his authority when she went to David and called her husband a fool. But Abigail is not held up as a bad wife. She is looked upon as wise, saving many lives, and David's integrity. As a result, she married a man who became a king.

So while I agree with, believe in, and have personal experience with the power of unconditional respect, I know there are limits.

IN ADDITION (another However)

Unconditional respect should not be reserved for husbands.

I know of more than one relationship where it is the man who is the disrespectful one. I know husbands who withhold basic human-dignity respect from their wives. It is the husband who name calls, demeans, and does the eye rolling over minor and even imagined infractions.

I understand that Eggrich says that both men and women need both love and respect. But there is a problem with making the lines between 'respect' and 'love' so thick and so gender specific. It gives men who have issues with respecting women a loophole or excuse. It makes disrespecting their wives easier and acceptable all the while they claim to love their wives.

So, yes. I believe in unconditional respect and unconditional love for both sexes. I also believe that over emphasizing the gender differences in needs concerning love and respect can be disastrous for marriages that suffer from disrespectful and abusive husbands. It can direct men away from meeting their wives basic human need for a little respect.

IN ADDITION (a third However)

One should probably define the word 'need' along with 'respect'.

I believe all people need basic, human-dignity respect just as they need love.

But there are men who believe they 'need' a level of respect that not only goes higher than basic, human-dignity respect. It goes beyond leadership  respect and on into worship.

There are men, and I have met them, who believe that they need 'respect' but their definition looks more like 'worship'. They not only behave badly and crave leadership respect, they abuse and demand a sort of 'worship' respect and honor from their 'underlings'. And they know that they are right and everybody who denies them this worship is wrong. And they use books like "Love and Respect" to support their position.

This is why books like "Love and Respect" that harp on "Respect" while poorly defining the limits of respect give me the heebie-jeebies. These books are gasoline to the fires of personality disorders and emotionally unbalanced people.

Basic human-dignity respect should be enough for all humans, even and especially those in leadership in the Body of Christ. Craving more than that is wrong and leads to destruction.

Patriarchy: a false Gospel

Yes, Patriarchy being promoted as "God's Design" or "God's Intention" is a perverted form of the Gospel and far removed from the actual words of Jesus recorded in the books of the Gospels.

I've said this for a long time. I get tired of saying.

But I don't get tired of seeing others say it. So here is a link to TWW's

Patriarchy and Abuse: Twisted Scriptures

Hero Mom

Move over Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Found this link on Thatmom. And I agree with her. This is my kind of mom.

Dorothy Baker, Punches and Runs Over Man Who Threatened Her and Her Kids.

And why do I bring this up?

Because I am soooooooooo tired of the John Pipers and Mark Driscolls and Tim Challieses*** of the world who hold up their ridiculous ideals of womanhood as soft and weak. I get tired of these men who think women can't defend themselves and must always be defended by a man.

Well, what do you do if there is no man to defend you, and in fact, the one man in the whole story is the one threatening you and your children.

I guess you are just supposed to put tilt your head back, put the back of your hand to your forehead and say, "Woe is me. God made me a soft, weak, defenseless female. Therefore I must submit to the all-powerful male in every situation. After all, this is what my clueless, misogynic, neo-Calvinist preacher has taught me. He has declared unto me that this is God's intention, will, role, and purpose for my life. To deviate from it would be to sin against the essence of manhood and womanhood and by so doing, rebel against the Gospel. Did I say, 'Woe is me'?"

(Forgive the snark. Please understand that it is better for me to do this than to cuss clueless preachers out on what is supposed to be a Christian blog. But believe me, they deserve to be cussed out or snarked out when they teach the crap they do and call it the Word of God.)

(Tim Challies is author of the infamous "Soft, Effeminate Christianity" post I wrote against some time back.)

The Patriarchy Gospel

Many of my readers are already painfully aware of this damaging and person destroying movement in some Christian and homeschool circles.

For those who aren't, here's a look at it by Julie Anne

Fathers and Daughters: Who Owns a Daughter's Heart

Christian Counselor Speaks about Role Burn Out

Okay, he doesn't call it that. He's just talking about counseling people who have drunk deeply of the role kool-aid and how they have suffered from it. This is from the comment section of Baptists for Equality blog.

Bob Edwards says: Link

Bob Edward's book can be found here: Link

Complementarianism is Convoluted

It is convoluted, confusing, and contradicts itself.
It leaves the purity and simplicity of the Gospel far behind as it gallops ahead to regions of legalism and slavery.

The book that is supposed to make it all clear, "Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood" doesn't help, but makes things worse.

Rachel Held Evans talks about it a bit here:

Complementarianism Hierarchy Outside Home

Love Without Restraint

By now the massive audio library of sermons at Mars Hill church demonstrates that Driscoll has absolutely not problem at all invoking the biblical metaphor of husband and wife when it deals with the ancient near-Eastern AUTHORITY STRUCTURE within marriage. He can accept the part where the Groom dies for the Bride. He can accept the part, certainly, where the Bride must submit to the Groom, not least in his various teachings of male headship and the authority of church leaders. He's got problems if that conjugal metaphor ever breaks the bonds of propriety, service, and obligation to take on an element of ecstatic, self-forgetting admiration for the other. Driscoll may think he's secured himself from imagining a Jesus who wants to sexually penetrate him, but he may have done so at the expense of allowing the canonical compreshensivesness of the conjugal metaphor to have it's spirit-inspired way. Christ choosing to die for the Bride on the Cross expresses a love that has no sense of discretion or restraint. The love of Christ for the Church was so strong He embraced the Cross, scorning its shame, and He conquered death by death because of His love for us.

In Song of Songs we are told that love is as strong as death. We know what love that is most obviously and immediately talking about, even if we subscribe to an allegorical second meaning. We can see cases where an old spouse dies and the widow or widower dies within a year of the death. We all get that love is as strong as death in that way! But Christ's love is stronger than death.

By rejecting a typological approach as even possible in Song of Songs what we may be seeing is that Driscoll has granted the high flown poetic hyperbole as being legitimate for erotica love but shudders as the thought that a comparably powerful, or even more powerful love animated Christ to go to the Cross for us.
WTH first three paragraphs from WTH on Driscoll's part 4b
http://frombitterwaterstosweet.blogspot.com/2011/10/wth-on-driscolls-sos-part-4b.html

The problem with much teaching on marriage and gender is the hyper-focus on structure and roles. All problems can be solved by men and women playing their parts perfectly, Men leading as they are supposed to (even though the Bible never instructs them to do so) and Women submitting as defined by the teachers who over-focus on such structure.

As a pastor's wife counseling married couples, I kept running into, "Well if she would just submit to me likes she's supposed to then everything would be fine," and less often "Well, if he would just love me like he's supposed to all would be well" (and her definition of love rarely reflected what the Bible said.)

With all the obsession with what the other was doing and supposed to be doing and the obsession I saw among teachers to teach the roles according to Paul, I saw that the most important element was being left out. The bedrock of the Words of Jesus Christ.

I began to wonder if we needed to focus on what Jesus said about authority and love rather than what Paul said. And I began to wonder if we were over emphasising Paul's words in Ephesians 5 at the expense of Paul's definition of love in I Corinthians 13 and at the expense of pretty much everything John said in his epistles.

The structure of the relationships, the roles, the positions have taken up more importance than what Jesus came to do. And the power of the Love of Jesus has been lost in a limited and deeply impared understanding of the function of that Love.

Driscoll is all about authority and submission in marriage and in our relationship with Jesus. He's also all about wild-and-crazy, inhibitions-thrown-off sex in the bedroom. But he cannot grasp the even more powerful, limitless love of Jesus. A love more powerful than death and that is even able to conquer death. It's not about structure, authority, or roles. It is about Jesus throwing off all restraint, stepping down from His position (or role, if you will) to give all. On the Cross Jesus demonstrates for us this love without restraint, that love that is more powerful than death. It is a love that is not structured or limited to a role. It is infinitely beyond that. It is hard to grasp. And it will never be understood when the starting and ending points are shoved down into a box, the man-made structures, imposed upon it by Driscoll and others like him.

Song of Solomon, when seen as a type of the love of God for us, opens limits and displays infinity to the finite in ways that flawed and limiting human structures cannot touch.

You Have Also Heard It Said

I'm going to pick on a specific thing that a specific small-minded man is quoted as saying. Mark Driscoll might be considered patriarchy light or medium to strong comp. Yet what he says is pretty standard fare among those involved in these teaching. He is just more bold in his presentation. He is quoted as saying:

"Women will be saved by going back to that role that God has chosen for them. Ladies, if the hair on the back of your neck stands up it is because you are fighting your role in the scripture.”

Now let's look at what Jesus said.
Luke 11:27 While Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed.” 28 But He said, “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”

A woman in the crowd is so moved by what Jesus said that she cries out, "Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which you nursed."

She could not think outside her role or her body parts because that is all she had known. The highest blessing any woman could ever have is to be related to a great man, like Jesus. And the highest relationship that a woman can have with any man is to be his mother.

Jesus answer to her, contrary to some teaching, was NOT to diminish motherhood or women. It was to remove the eyes of those listening from the cultural restrictions on gender and to the freedom of the Spirit beyond gender constraints.

Women, contrary to what Driscoll and other teach, are not saved by fulfilling a role. They are not saved by using their female body parts to serve others. They are blessed and saved by...

Wait for it...

Hearing the Word of God and observing it. The same way men are blessed and saved. What a concept!

Now, if part of the word of God that Jesus was concerned about was about gender, don't you think He would have used this teachable moment with this woman to re-enforce the need for her to fulfill her role so she could be saved?

Yet, amazingly, He undercuts gender and role requirements of the culture and makes all things level and equal.

All people, male and female, are blessed by hearing the Word of God and observing it. They are not saved by playing a role.

Dear Mark Driscoll, the hair on the back of our necks is not standing up because we are fighting God. It is because you are presenting a false gospel and you are defiling the pure gospel with bitter teaching. You are falsely accusing women of fighting against God when the truth is, you misrepresent God.

Please, Mr. Driscoll, stop building your doctrinal house on the sand of the traditions of men and find the bedrock of Jesus Christ who you claim to serve. Where women, gender, and roles are concerned, you are a false shepherd preaching bitterness and misrepresenting it as sweet.

Not a Tame Lion

I'm pretty much winding down as far as talking about Eldredge's "Wild at Heart" except for a couple things.

One of the phrases that Eldredge uses is from C.S. Lewis's "The Chronicles of Narnia". Aslan, the representation of God in Narnia, is a lion which is symbolic of Jesus being the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. One of the things that is said about Aslan is that He is not a tame lion. And Eldredge uses this to refer to men, that like Aslan, men were not created to be tamed and controlled by culture and civilization.

The saying about Aslan was that He was not tame, as in controlled. But He was good. Very, very good. And Eldredge uses this to call men to be their own wild and free selves, yet to remember that they are to be good in this deliriously wild freedom.

I have difficulty with this, not because Eldredge tells men they don't have to be 'tame' and controllable but rather that the implication that can be picked up is that women ARE to be tame and controlled. Whereas men can represent themselves in God's image as a lion, women are left to represent God as lambs. And this is a completely false correlation. Both lions and lambs come in male and female versions.
Jesus is referred to as both a lion and a lamb. Both men and women are referred to as sheep in the Bible. And both men and women can think of themselves as being as bold as lions when they walk in the righteousness of Christ.

Certain men, with itching ears, do not have the right to claim "lion" status for themselves while relegating women to "lamb" status. Men who do this are creating false structures that nature, God's own creation, witnesses against.

I'm not a tame lion either. I'm not subjugated and controlled by the men and culture of this earth. I run wild in the lioness freedom that Jesus, the Lion and the Lamb, my older Brother... I run wild in the Spirit Wind freedom that He bought me. And I'm not going to let arrogant little whelps tell me any different. Those that try to take my lion status away in order to give me a lesser role are preaching a different gospel.

Now, after this rant, you may think that I really do hate Eldredge's book. But I don't. I only hate what others have done with it and how they have misused it. The next post is about the good in his book and why my love for it eventually does win out over my frustration.

No Yoke of Slavery for You

Galatians 5:1 It was for freedom that Christ set us free, therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

Why did Christ set us free? For the sake of freedom.

Note, this is gender inclusive. This isn't just freedom for men, but for women also. There is no pink and blue freedom, different kinds of freedom for whatever gender you are.

This is radical, Spirit Wind freedom that we must continue to stand in and defend.

Paul warns them and us against subjecting ourselves to a yoke of slavery. He warns us against the teachings that say the works of the flesh earn us God's favor.

Yet there is much teaching about submitting and subjecting in the church today concerning women. Who is teaching it? Fearful men who are afraid of radically free women.

Jesus said, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32)

But all preachers don't preach the truth. Some preachers preach the lie of patriarchy that sucks away freedom from people and makes them people of the Law rather that people of the Spirit Wind. Some preachers preach rigid roles and rules for individuals, legalism. And these preachers suck the life and wind right out of individuals.

No, Paul says to stand firm in our freedom and to not subject ourselves again to a yoke of slavery. We don't have to listen to those preachers any more. The truth in not in them.

John 8:36 If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.

It Doesn't Fit

We were in a hurry that morning. My daughter was on the cell phone talking to me about the traffic that was in her way keeping her from picking me up on time. Finally she gets to our house and my younger daughter and I go out to get into her car. It's a two door so I have to pull the little lever and make the seat go up so my younger daughter can get in the back seat. I set the seat back up straight, but unbeknownst to myself in my state of hurried panic, the seat didn't slide back. Because my car is a four-door, it never occurred to me to check it. And as I was trying to fold my 5' 9" frame into a space far too small, the car door comes swinging back, knocks my arm, and my coffee goes flying all over me.

Don't worry, I wasn't burnt. I put too much milk in it for it to be scalding. But it was a mess.

The moral of the story is: Don't try to reduce yourself down to a size that doesn't fit even if you are in a hurry and/or being pressured by someone else.

You know. When you give your heart to Jesus, you just love Him. You love what He's done for you and what He still wants to do for you. And when someone comes along and, with great authority, tells you... "In order to please God you must do this..." you are inclined to believe them.

This what is happening in far too many segments of Christianity. And too many women are told to reduce themselves down to a smaller size in order to please God. They are told with great authority and many adjectives and many proof texts from the Bible.

The women try to do it, try to follow it because they love God and want to please Him. But it doesn't fit. It's too restricting and confining. But women try to make it fit and conform and turn themselves into something they are not. It is like me trying to fold my full frame into vehicle where the seat is pulled up far enough that only a person 5' 1" would fit.

This is what the restrictive roles of CBMW and sweeping generalizations of Wild at Heart do. And there comes a time when a person has to throw off such things and to stop listening to men of great "authority" because those men are not preaching the gospel. They preach their personal preference in culture.

My Main Issue with "Wild at Heart"

As I mention in my 4/1/11 post, I read a book called Wild at Heart by John Eldredge. There is a link in the 4/1/11 post to the book on Amazon.

I mentioned that Wild at Heart has been used by men like Mark Driscoll to form a religion giving emense freedom to men while continueing to supress women in a puritianical strangle hold. And I speak of my frustration with such men.

But even knowing that John Eldredge is the author of a book that other men have abused for their own personal gain, I still can't hate Eldredge. As I read his book, I read what came from his heart. He wanted people to be free, men and women. And he understood at least one thing. If men aren't free, they sure as heck aren't going to allow their women to be free. Whatever degree of bondage men are under, they will most likely turn and place their women under worse bondage.

Even so, I disagree with the foundation of sand Eldredge laid for his doctrinal house. He made the claim that since man was made outside the garden, he was fundamentally wild and free. Women, however, were made INSIDE the garden and therefore were fundamentally domesticated.

This is pure speculation and amounts to nothing more than shifting sands and I'd like to address the error with actual scripture.

When God brought Eve to Adam, he wasn't amazed at their differences or in the different places they were created. What he said was, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; This one shall be called Woman Because this one has been taken out of Man." (Genesis 2:23)

Adam gloried in their similarities, not their differences. He majored on how much alike and a part of him she was, not in the cute or annoying little things about her that made her different. He didn't jump up and down and start defining and building a box or role for her. God brought him a companion, one like him that he could be with.

The fall completely broke this so that when God confronted him, he turned on this one made like him and betrayed her in front of both God and her. It was as though he betrayed himself. And the drive to push her away and make her different, foreign and less continues to this day.

This is an Old Testament proof against Eldredge's premise. I also have a New Testament proof.

Two New Blogs Added to Blog Roll

That is, two new blog plus an honorable mention.
I hope to get back to Apollonian and Dionysian and its infiltration within the church soon. But for now, let me direct your attention to these new blogs.

I've already linked comments from the two new blogs in previous posts and have decided it's high time for them to join my blog roll.

Elizabeth Esther's blog is about her journey to emotional and spiritual well-being after being raised in a strict, abusive, fundamentalist church. She's honest about the hard road she's on, nothing plastic about her. Sometimes it's one step forward and two steps back.

The Wartburg Watch is hosted by a couple of ladies, Deb and Dee, who are commenting on unhealthy trends working their way into mainstream Christianity.

Now for the honorable mention.
The Happy Surprise blog has a review on a very interesting book called, "The Jewish Way in Love and Marriage." The info in that book more or less blows the legs out from under the teachings of such men and John Piper and Mark Driscoll.

http://kbonikowsky.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/the-jewish-way-in-love-and-marriage-by-maurice-camm/

And while we're at it, Cindy K. and Jocelyn Anderson had a blog radio program last Sunday on John Piper invading the bedroom and the obsession the comps have with sex and roles.

http://undermuchgrace.blogspot.com/2011/03/john-piper-in-bedroom-and-propaganda.html

They didn't get into everything they wanted, but I believe they will next Sunday.