Discerning Atheists

Just putting this here so I can find it again.

Mark Driscoll's House of Cards and How My Atheist Brother Was Right All Along

And here's a freebie at no extra cost.

My Take on Driscoll Stealing Women's Voices Nearly Five Years Ago

Domineering, Forceful Marriages

Yesterday I linked an article by Jessica Abrams concerning Mark Driscoll stealing the voices of women. Today I want to link the confessional letter of her husband Luke Abrams. The reason I'm linking it is because of this quote from the letter listing of sins that he committed while participating at Mars Hill.

Sin #2 that he confesses is this:
"I lived out and defended the early MH years teaching about marriage, which was domineering and forceful leadership,"

I feel no judgment towards Luke for being part of the Mars Hill 'machine'. I've been a part of a 'machine' in the past myself and know how enticing it can be.

Rather, I feel relief that this is breaking and the machine may be grinding to a halt so that it might have a chance to become a church rather than a machine.

May more people come forward, confess, heal and bring healing. And may Driscoll himself be broken so that he can heal properly. I wish actual, Spirit-led healing on him.

Link to Throckmorton article with Luke's letter and confession in it:
Former Mars Hill Church Worship Leader Luke Abrams to Current Church Members

(Thanks goes to Gem who reminded me about this letter.)

[Blast from the past link from 2012 "Stolen Hearts and Stolen Voices"]

Driscoll Stealing Women's Voices

There is already a post on here concerning the stealing of Grace Driscoll's voice by her husband Mark Driscoll. And I have expressed elsewhere my concern over Mark stealing the voices of other women through his misguided attitude and doctrine.

Here I'm going to link another example of Mark stealing the vibrant and important voices of women from God, from His church, from their husbands and children, and from themselves.

First a few quotes from the link to whet your whistle.

Jessica Abrams: "What was I taught about the image of a godly woman? She prays, learns the bible, submits to her husband, running most decisions past him. Her life is dedicated to God, her husband, children and if there is time, other interests. She cooks, cleans, supports, encourages and serves. On a whole, she is entirely non-offensive. She doesn’t stir the pot, doesn’t speak out of turn, always weights her opinions against those of her husband and church. This was my experience."


Jessica Abrams: "She is, in essence, in the background, out of the way, playing a supporting role in the lives of others. This is called, by some, godly and good.
So the question is, how is this woman going to make an impact with her life, mobilizing her unique passions, abilities and insights, if she has passions and talents outside of the home, but is cast in a supporting role?"

Jessica Abrams:"In my opinion, the impact of the woman I was called to be was limited within it’s definition. And that is a big problem.
It’s a problem on many levels.
On one level, it is a problem because it sets up a system where the relevancy of her opinion is dependent on the approval of a male.....  It also set’s up a spiritual hierarchy wherein men are more capable of discerning whether or not something is good or beneficial. ."


Jessica Abrams: "On another level, her fundamental dignity and worth as someone who bears the image of God is being suppressed."
On this one please go to the article and see how she 'hashes' this out. It is very good. If you get a chance to go to the linked article, please do so.

The last quote from Jessica Abrams that I want to give actually occurs earlier in the article but I believe that it is a good stopping place for us:
"Our pastor spent the next few years detailing among other things, what it meant to be a godly man and woman, not just from the bible, but also from his personal assessment. Rather than challenging us to ask these formative questions of ourselves, he filled in the blanks and gave us the answers. And in accepting these answers and trying to conform to this very specific image of what it meant to be a godly woman, I gave something valuable away. I gave up the messy task of wrestling with life and finding myself through that and gave myself over to a tidy answer that sounded good."

Here is the link to this informative, first hand experience driven blog post by Jessica Abrams: On This Woman's Day

I have given several good quotes from her article, but in order to get the full impact and the grace that she delivers her message, again, please go to the original article in the link.

Mrs. Mark Driscoll, the Voiceless

Great topic suggestion by my friend Charis/Gem.

She points out a paragraph in the Mark Driscoll's apology letter to his church concerning Grace.
And this paragraph, third from the bottom, is very concerning.

Here it is: "To be clear, these are decisions I have come to with our Senior Pastor Jesus Christ. I believe this is what He is asking of me, and so I want to obey Him. The first person I discussed this with was our first, and still best, church member, Grace. Her loving agreement and wise counsel only confirmed this wonderful opportunity to reset some aspects of our life. I want to publicly thank her, as it was 26 years ago this week that we had our first date. She is the greatest friend and biggest blessing in my life after Jesus. When we recently discussed this plan to reset our life together, late at night on the couch, she started crying tears of joy. She did not know how to make our life more sustainable, and did not want to discourage me, but had been praying that God would reveal to me a way to reset our life. Her prayer was answered, and for that we are both relieved at what a sustainable, joyful, and fruitful future could be. As an anniversary present, I want to give her more of her best friend."

The most concerning sentences are bolded.

As Charis states in a comment at TWW:
"I’m distressed by Grace’s powerlessness and lack of a voice in their relationship. She dare not tell him plainly that it is not working for her lest she “discourage” him. NO ONE corrects MD!!! NO ONE!!!"

Mark Driscoll's doctrine and Bully personality is bad.

It is bad for Grace. She is a voiceless appendage to the great and powerful mark driscoll.

It is bad for his church. Look at all the cleaning up and defending they have to do for him all the time.

It is bad for women everywhere. Now lusty Driscoll fanboys all want little voiceless Graces of their own and are mad at any and all women who will not kowtow and become nothing so these boymen can think more highly of themselves than they ought to.

It is bad for the church. It makes us all look bad when Mark Driscoll is held up as relevant and a true representation of the way church ought to be.

Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Driscoll let it slip. He has given us a glimpse of just how under his thumb Grace really is.

Stolen Hearts and Stolen Voices

This week seems to be all about bringing up oldies but goodies for those who might have missed them. Lewis Wells at "The Commandments of Men" has observed how patriarchy has stolen away the hearts of its daughters under the guise of protecting their hearts:

Stolen Hearts

My observations on Freedom's blog have to do with Mark Driscoll stealing away the voices of women with his false doctrine concerning roles and human/culture authority.

Stolen Voices

The comments I'm taking from Freedom's blog are my own. I'm reposting them here for those who have not seen them. But please note, Freedom's comments are just as good and probably better than mine. So if you haven't already, feel free to explore her blog. There is much wisdom on it and she has done some good research even if the blog isn't particularly active right now.

Freedom of Ideas

Okay, I had lost a blog post that I wanted to link here a few days ago. I was getting ready to look for it, but is found me by linking one of my blog posts. Boy, does that make life easier.

Sallie Borrink points out how the Internet has helped women find their freedom.

http://sallieborrink.com/the-internet-and-freedom-for-christian-women/

I would add that the internet has helped countless silenced women find their God-given voices.

Here is one of my favorite verses in the Psalms.

^{Psalm 68:11} The Lord gives the command;
The women who proclaim the good tidings are a great host:

Could it be that, besides referring to the time it was written, that this verse could also be looking forward to this day when a great host of women are actually given the opportunity to proclaim good tiding through the power of technology?

I've heard grumblings from some men that are not happy about this new found freedom that women have. I've heard grumbling and shamings from certain men who don't want women to have so much freedom. These men fear the freedom of their women. Otherwise, why would thy work so hard to bring women under the bondage of religions and legalism?

Yet, God has called us to freedom.

And one of the good tidings that women are proclaiming is:

GOD DOES NOT FAVOR MEN OVER WOMEN. God is not the author of the injustices that certain men have done against women in His name. The hierarchy that certain men have been enforcing over women is based in the traditions of men and have nothing to do with the heart of God.

This is good news. These are good tidings of great joy.

When some men make it their ministry and life work to tell women to sit down and shut up in church or anywhere, they are NOT speaking with authority from God. They are bullying from their own broken and deceitful hearts. And we don't have to listen to them. The voice of a stranger, we shall not follow (John 10:5). We will follow the voice of the Shepherd who, for freedom's sake, set us free. (Gal 5:1)

The Single Story and Big Hearted Men

The beauty of big hearted men is that they DON'T reduce their women down to the Single Story or work to take away their voices.

Big hearted men create a place where a woman can speak freely from her heart of pain and bitterness and not be chided for not holding to the Single Story that CBMW and Patriarchy has written for her.

A good example of this, of course, is Lewis Wells and his drive to set the daughters of Patriarchy free from the Single Story that Patriarchy has written for them. He sees the need to give them space to heal and be delivered from the oppression of that Single Story.

Here is a link to a particularly good post from him on healing those wounded and destroyed by Patriarchy. In it, he emphasized the need for young women to find out who they are and to be given the freedom to say or not say what the want, when they want to, because they have never has that right before and don't even know how to walk in it.

http://thecommandmentsofmen.blogspot.com/2011/05/to-heal.html

Lewis doesn't use terms like "Single Story" or phrases like "Find their voice". But the road he recommends for healing will help women to break from the Single Story and find their own, authentic voice.

In contrast, Tina Anderson's pastor, Chuck Phelps, did what he could to control and squash Tina's authentic voice. He reassigned her a fake voice and gave her a Single Story concerning what happened to her. Instead of the true and many stories of betrayal, broken trust, the strong oppressing the vulnerable, etc. he gave her the story of 'temptress', 'strange woman', and needing to be held responsible for her share of the blame. He held her responsible for things she couldn't control and decided that Tina was not a wounded and exploited lamb. Rather, he assigned her the position of scapegoat, bearing the brunt of the guilt and sending her away from the camp to bear her shame with strangers. Then those strangers forced Tina to write a letter of apology to the wife of her alleged rapist for betraying her.

http://www.tinaandersonfoundation.org/

I am glad, after all these years, that Tina has found her voice and has the chance to bring to light more stories concerning her life and the dark times she was forced to walk in by others.

The Single Story and Small Minded Men

The small minded men in Church leadership that we covered between April 22nd through May 2nd are not confined to the Single Story. Since all three of them have huge platforms and far reaching ministries, they are able to tell many, many stories that make up their lives and their understanding of God and the universe.

I am aware of their many stories and am not capable of reducing them down to a single story if I ever wanted to.

But these men have taken their large ministries and influence and have used their clout (power) to reduce me and other women down to a Single Story.

They have also tried to take away the true voices of women and replaced them with a fake, plastic, CBMW approved voice that doesn't let on that there is anything more than the Single Story of Womanhood.

Voice and the Single Story are not the same things, but they are related. Having a voice is having the ability to speak for yourself and tell your many stories. The small minded men of Piper, Driscoll, and Grudem have big voices and tell many stories all the while using their pulpit and their platform to rob women of authentic voice and to reduce women down to different versions of the same story.

If you recall Driscoll feels very free to define a woman's voice and feels free to be the author of her story as we noted earlier. When talking about how women should be "...his voice becomes soft and gentle as he says that the woman who is quiet and non-assertive, who wouldn’t even ask for that position, she is the one that would be best in that position [of leadership]." (From April 29th post and Freedom4Captives blog)

Piper, if you recall, is the one who, in the book, "Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood," cautions women on how to address men so that their 'Manhood' isn't threatened. He tells women that when a man asks a woman for directions, she must alter her voice so that she appears submissive to him while giving him those directions.

Piper is also the guy the wants to define sweet for women and how a woman should respond to her husband when he is pressuring her to join him in gross sin. He gives her a fake, non-authentic voice and he writes a Single Story for her when he says she should respond with:
"Honey, I want so much to follow you as my leader. God calls me to do that and I would love to do that. It would be sweet to me if I could enjoy your leadership. But if you ask me to do this, require this of me, then I can't. I can't go there." (quoted from 2/21/11 post "Men Defining Sweet for Women". )

Small minded men have the privilege of speaking in their own, authentic voice and telling many many stories about themselves, relationships, life, God, and the universe. But rather than allow women to have their own voice and their own stories, they use their power and influence to take away the woman's true voice and reduce her down to a Single Story.