Joseph R. Odell's Blog

Opposite RR's: LOTR vs GoT

On a deployment I picked up a free paperback “Game of Thrones”. It sat in my nightstand for years. A few months ago, I started the first book, and was enthralled enough by the storyline and characters that I blew through all five of George R.R. Martin’s completed books in the “Songs of Fire and Ice” series. I’ll give a review of Martin’s work at the end of this post, because want I really want to highlight is the obvious difference of worldview of the author when compared to another popular fantasy author, J.R.R. Tolkien.

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are clearly written with a Christian worldview - there are virtuous people, clear good guys and bad guys and guys in between, people willing to sacrifice for the good of their community, and magic that can be used for good or ill. The overarching ideas of honor, courage, and the chivalric notion of protecting vulnerable people run throughout the stories that take place in Middle-Earth.

The elves are a noble people with noble leaders. The men and dwarves are flawed people, with flawed leaders. The orcs and goblins are wicked people with wicked leaders. It’s obvious who to root for, and the leading characters go through struggles in their development as they wrestle with the choices set before them - often choices between an option that is safer or profitable for the individual vs an option that is dangerous or will cost the individual but is better for the community.

In contrast, Songs of Fire and Ice is written from a nihilistic worldview. I don’t just mean the overt sexual immorality of all kinds (often described in lurid detail). In the world of Westeros and Essos, there are no considerations apart from power and possibly family benefit. Individuals and Houses stab each other in the back at the drop of a hat. Murder is always an option (and liberally used), and it is difficult to imagine that anyone in that world truly trusts anyone else. There seem to be no good guys, no noble peoples, no virtuous leaders. While some characters may be somewhat more honorable than others, they often resort to self-serving tactics, murder, and betrayal to accomplish their ends. Not a single character can be good in the same sense that most of the Fellowship of the Ring, or even Boromir and Theoden. The closest we come to a character with well, “good character” are the child Bran and the trans-ish Brienne of Tarth.

The treatment of the sexes reflects this worldview difference. While Tolkien has been criticized in the woke era of allowing too little female involvement, his female characters are noble, wise, and courageous. Since the vast majority of his characters are male, they fit the descriptions of the peoples above, varied in virtue. Martin’s women, however are all either rape victims or future rape victims, baby factories, or the most conniving, plotting puppet masters in the books, rivaled in their treacheries and deceptions only by a few gay men. The men are all sexual predators, generally only inhibited by the superior power of another man or a desire to acquire some other kind of power. The strong do what they want, and the weak suffer what they must. Child murder and rape is a common occurrence, common enough that those who do it are only censured by those closest to the victims…if at all. It is a bleak picture of humanity.

Without knowing anything about him, I have to imagine that George R.R. Martin is a childless atheist. The image of women (and men) he presents makes it hard to believe that he has ever had a healthy marriage. He created a world full of completely untrustworthy people, which makes me unsurprised that he never finished the series (as he promised his fans). The role of the supernatural is only dark and evil, and generally untrustworthy itself - the Seven gods of Westeros are either mere myths or powerless to intervene in any way. Dark magic gives hints, like the palm readers of our day, but aside from being a tool for murder, or feeding itself to reproduce zombies, isn’t particularly helpful for anyone.

In contrast, Tolkien’s Middle Earth, despite not having any kind of analogy to God or the Trinity, is infused with a Judeo-Christian understanding of what is good, true, and beautiful. You can root for characters without feeling guilty or confused, and their struggles with sin are understandable to us rooted in a Judeo-Christian informed culture and worldview. And, what is also unsurprising, Tolkien knows how to finish a story. An atheist has no reason to expect a consummation, real good and evil, or redemption. There is only an unending string of power struggles and betrayals, and no way to bring it to an end.

A man’s worldview affects everything - even his ability to tell a story worth repeating. I suspect that in 100 years Tolkien’s works will still be read, while Martin’s unfinished (and indeed, unfinishable) series will be forgotten.

Culprit #3 - Husbands

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,   because we are members of his body.   “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”   This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself…”

Ephesians 5:25-33a

One of my all-time favorite movies is John Ford’s “The Quiet Man”. If you haven’t seen it, the movie tells the story of a retired boxer Sean Thornton, played by John Wayne, who quits boxing after killing a man in the ring and moves to Ireland to start a new life. While there, he falls in love with and marries Kate, played by Maureen O’Hara, who is a fiery redhead with a strong sense of independence. They have a long argument that baffles Sean - Mary Kate’s brother refuses to give them the dowry that belongs to her because he doesn’t want them to get married.

There'll be no locks or bolts between us, Mary Kate... except those in your own mercenary little heart!

On their wedding night, after Sean has refused to retrieve her dowry, Mary Kate runs into their bedroom and locks the door. But her husband kicks it down: “There’ll be no locks or bolts between us Mary Kate, except those in your own mercenary little heart.” He then kisses her and throws her on the bed (which promptly collapses) before exiting to sleep by himself on the kitchen floor.

Unlike “Trooper” Thornton, today’s husbands are all too accepting of the barriers thrown up between themselves and their wives. The church has failed its women, the culture is set against women, and the third culprit in the pandemic of divorce upon the church is husbands, whose passive ways have allowed the disease to fester and overcome their wives through lack of leadership. This failure to lead is seen largely in meekly allowing the permissive church to fail in its role, in standing by while an aggressive culture poisons the family, and neglecting patriarchal responsibility, all of which then generates disarmed women who imagine they are strong to flounder along on their own.

It’s one thing to let her lead on demanding a refund on those shoes. It’s another to hide behind her to avoid conflict yourself.

1) Failure to lead at church. This isn’t about female clergy, though it could be argued that the rise of female clergy has flowed from the failure of men to lead. No, instead, it is the failure of men to lead and stand against the errors of the church in its failures. New clergy are warned to keep the “blue-haired old ladies” happy…and so they should! But, when the ladies, or men, place the women in the church at risk with the errors I mentioned before, it is the responsibility of the men of the church to step in and correct the errors, despite the guaranteed flak they will receive for that correction. Instead, the men say something to the effect, “happy wife, happy life”, as if that justifies problematic teaching and its impact upon those very wives. Also, as a rule it is one or more husbands who set the church ministries upon those very courses that set women up for marital failure in the first place - senior pastors, discipleship ministers, and Sunday School directors. It is husbands who are the cause of the church’s errors at worst or passively allow those errors to start and grow at best.

The “most powerful hero in the MCU” is also the least interesting and least believable character - her only weakness is not knowing how awesome she really is. No husband, no children, and no interest in either. Yet this is what the culture tries to claim is an ideal feminine character, and men throw money at it.

2) Failure to lead against the culture. Many husbands are quite happy to let their wives fall under (or continue to suffer under) the lies of the culture. Recognizing the greater stress and responsibility that children bring, husbands are quite willing to delay procreation and have “responsibility-free sex” for many years. Instead of telling their wives about and encouraging them in their superpower of child-bearing, husbands often prefer to ignore it and hope it doesn’t trouble them for a good, long time. They send their wives, who married them at least in part for provision and protection, out into the culture to work and make money so they can have a more financially robust and residentially comfortable life. It isn’t so much that husbands are telling wives that having children is a problem, but they act as if it is so, and that pregnancy is something to be avoided, while laboring in the workforce is desired. Husbands propagate the problem by insisting their wives go back to work as soon as possible, and the wife is often happy to do so and leave the daily burden of child-rearing to surrogates in government schools and day cares. When wives get their identity, meaning, and positive feedback from work, and are not getting any at home from husbands, the culture’s poison seeps deeper and deeper.

The feminine ideal of the church. Is Mary, the Mother of God, a boss babe? A badass? Sure, but not in the way those terms are intended.

3) Failure to lead in their patriarchal responsibilities. As Paul writes in the fifth chapter of the letter to the Ephesians, husbands have a sacrificial duty to thier wives. Much is said about in church culture about husbands loving their wives romantically, and that’s important, but that’s also clearly not what the passage is about. It is about sacrificial love, a love that gives of self, to the detriment of self, for the improvement of the other.

The passage says that Christ died for His church, not because she was a spotless bride prepared for Him, but in order to make her so. The sacrificial love of Jesus is one that is not only sacrificial in regard to himself but also completely undeserved for his bride. In order for her to become the bride she is supposed to be, he must sacrifice for her first. The love of a husband for his wife isn’t one of mutual compromise - it is gracious self-denial. We often confuse this with romantic love because many men are not particularly romantic, and thus expressions of romance are considered a form of self-denial. That may be so, but it is far from the fulfillment of the command for husbands to love and lead their wives as Christ, the head of the church, leads and loves his bride.

Peak manhood.

Instead, we do what we like and do what’s easy. We go to work and make money, and the better we do at work, the more money we make. Provision! Well, she is also going to work every day and sending the kids off to government schools, but I’m providing! And all that money from work goes to putting us in a safer, nicer neighborhood with safer, nicer government schools and daycares. Protection! And, since I work so hard and make so much money, I’ve earned the right to have my “me” time and my hobbies that not only don’t involve her, they will never involve her because I know she doesn’t like golf or hunting or video games. If she complains about the time I spend on those, I remind her of how well I’m Protecting and Providing. I don’t even have to worry about a complaint about spending too much money on those things because she has her own job and her own money to do what she wants. I’m even fostering her independence! What a husband and father I am!

“So I says, ‘you can relax here with the kids while I hit the links with the boys!’”

Definitely being the man she needs.

But deep down, we know that’s wrong. We know that the husband and father is responsible for his family - not just in putting food on the table and a safe house over their heads (which are, I admit, probably far too little valued these days), but in sacrificial leadership as the head of the household to draw his wife and children into growth and fullness. It is his responsibility to ensure family systems are structured in order to bolster faith. It is his responsibility to find ways for his children to contribute to their church. It is his responsibility to proactively choose and encourage character-developing activities and education for the children. It is his responsibility to actively pursue, build up, and support his wife in her feminine aspects of motherhood, homemaker, and nurturer. It is his responsibility to keep the temptations and lies of a God-hating culture out of the home. And if that means you don’t get to buy the things you want, don’t get to spend extra time at work and get that promotion you think you deserve, and don’t get to spend “your” time on yourself, then those are small prices to pay for knowing that you are a man who does what a man is supposed to do in the eyes of God and in every culture that has been in existence until the last five minutes of human history. Those are small prices to pay as we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, for an intact family, for healthy children who grow into healthy adults, and for a legacy of familial piety and character that stands out like a star shining in the darkness of the cultural void around us, a “crooked and perverse generation.” (Philippians 2:12-19)

Men, it’s on us. Let’s get to work.

Culprit #2 - The Culture

Why are Christian women destroying their families all around us, with seemingly little justification?

In the opening post I identified the use of plastic words, language seeking to use the emotion attached to a word to influence listeners and justify behavior that would otherwise be questioned, and laid out three culprits that helped lead to this problem - the church, the culture, and husbands. The post prior to this one addressed how the church has set women up to be vulnerable to the detrimental effects of secular culture - by segregating them, infantilizing them, and coddling them. Thus, women in the church are left without the defenses that the church is supposed to afford them.

Men and women have natural roles.

It might seem strange to blame “the culture” for the behavior of Christian women. Isn’t part of the point of becoming a Christian and living in a Christian community a rejection of secular culture, and an understanding that said culture is and will always be at the war with the Bride of Christ? Of course it is - but we all swim in the same ocean. The waters in which Christians live may be surrounded by a coral reef and provide some protection against the predators and natural dangers of the deep ocean, but that ocean water is all around us, and the reef isn’t impregnable. Identifying the cultural waves which may smash our reef and damage its residents can help us prepare to resist them and possibly even take the offense to recover some of our poisoned reef.

The water matters.

And, my friends, this water is indeed poisonous. Our culture has denigrated everything central to womanhood, sold a false view of marriage that caters to women’s predispositions, and finally tried to retain a Victorian view of the virtue of women while discarding its moral boundaries. All of this has resulted in hardship, suffering, and pain in women and families.

1) The Assault on Natural Femininity. Women and men are equal in value but different in the role they are designed for. This is evident most clearly in the sexual component. The human reproductive system is the only biological system within us that is incomplete apart from another person of the opposite sex. Without the other, neither can fully meet the potential with which they were born. Furthermore, those sexual roles are distinct. The man penetrates and deposits, the woman receives and nurtures the fertilized egg and growing life within her. Furthermore, upon birth, only the woman is able to convert her own energy and resources into sustenance for the new human being. As the processes of pregnancy and nursing have significant physical demands, the man is far better postured to give provision and protection to his wife and children, especially during these stages, but also throughout their lives.

The whole female body is designed to make this happen when she unites with a male - but our society pretends it isn’t real.

Yet second- and third-wave feminism have sought to not only obfuscate these differences, they also sought to deny them. After women secured the right to vote and other elements of legal equality, the activists moved on to secure “equality” that denied the truth of biology. As Simone de Beauvoir wrote, women must actually no longer be allowed to pursue their purpose as wives and mothers, because too many would choose to do so. Women must, somehow, be just like men in every way. While the birth control pill was not developed by activist second-wave feminists, it became their rallying cry, for it allowed women to have sex without becoming pregnant, “just like men”. This was the equality later feminism sought: that women are men. Of course, they didn’t seek to be the men of chivalry, piety, and honor, but claimed that equality meant they could be like the crassest of men, seeking money, sex, and public power and prestige at the expense of their families, their character, and their sacred calling. They chose to give up their superpower, the ability to carry and bring forth new life, for the cheap baubles of immoral male culture…and the fruits have been as one would expect.

The average age of marriage for women has increased from 20 in 1960 to 28 in 2018. That’s eight years of fertility lost, eight years of faithful matrimony to a husband sacrificed to making money, getting titles, and having sex with men who, as a rule, she will not spend her later years growing old with. Thus, the rate of births to single mothers has risen from 5% of births in 1960 to 40% in 2018. No one believes that such an astronomical increase is good for women, children, or society. Of course, reported abortions have also increased over this period, so the percentage would likely have been even higher. Anxiety and depression in women have increased, not decreased, following the sexual revolution. In fact, anxiety and depression have increased for everyone as men and women became unrooted from their natural purposes and less likely to marry and have families, and children live in a no-fault divorce culture with the attendant damage I noted in my first article, best recorded in Judith Wallerstein’s “The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study.”

The definitive work on the topic.

2) The Reduction of Marriage from a Good Duty to an Optional Accessory. In the mid-80’s the sitcom “The Golden Girls” premiered, featuring four geriatric single women who lived together, generally involved in various dating exploits. The show was full of sexual humor, pushed acceptance of gay and lesbian sexual relationships, and was generally raunchy (despite your vague memories of a more prudish time in American television). In a particular episode in which two younger people, who are 20 years apart in age, express their desire to get married, one character says, “All that matters is how the two people feel about each other.”

These humor of these old ladies is not Rated G.

Contrast this with the historic view of marriage, as expressed in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. LINK

“Holy Matrimony” had little to do with “how two people feel about each other”, though feelings of affection are valuable! It was viewed as a supernatural union that reflects the union between Christ and the church, and was “not to be entered into unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly” but instead “reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God, duly considering the causes for which matrimony was ordained”. And what were those causes? In order, procreation of children, to prevent fornication, and mutual lifelong assistance. And, reflecting the words of Jesus, once the marriage was formed, “what God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.”

Even Christian women are demanding to get married outside of a church. What does that say?

Clearly it was considered a relationship and institution built for much more than convenient feelings - build to last, built to rear and protect children, and built to make both people better. Now, the culture has proclaimed in law, media, and the therapeutic spirit of the age, that marriage is a disposable arrangement no more valuable than a contract with a lawn maintenance company. If it doesn’t “spark joy”, and if “the glitter is gone”, it can be thrown away. And of course, the culture proclaims as noted before, the kids will be alright.

But as we noted, the kids aren’t alright. In fact, the real attitude of these Christian women toward their kids in these situations is, basically, #fthemkids (which has 109 million views on TikTok). Don’t get me wrong, they love their kids - just not enough to do honest inquiry as to the impact of divorce upon children. Why? They feel they deserve something better, something more like what the culture tells them - freedom, being a Boss Babe, self-care Fridays, girls night, whatever. So much dangled in front of them seems better than what they have. And they feel they deserve it, and when all that matters is how two people feel about each other, then detonating their family is justified.

The Victorian woman (in literature, at least) was a model of virtue and honor.

3) Like Victorian England, in which women of some means were considered both morally superior to men and expected to maintain the highest public and private ethics, today’s America is invested in the social and moral prestige of middle-class women. But, unlike the Victorians, today’s Americans regard it as natural and right that middle-class women should have professional lives. They have also dropped the Victorian valorization of sexual modesty. Presenting middle-class women as above reproach even as they pursue sexual relationships and professional careers is easier if we affirm they lack agency in their relations with men (“pawns”) and are incapable of lying (#BelieveWomen). These conceits have allowed the burden of proof to shift readily to the accused in the legal and pseudo-legal proceedings of the past few years. In the show trials of the public square, #MeToo simply is an assertion that the purity of women (of a certain class) must not be doubted.

But, of course, it is only the women that accuse the correct targets that are immediately believed. Accuse a liberal, progressive, democrat, or powerful tech enabler of the moral revolution (or their useful puppets), and you are attacked by not only men, but women who are proclaiming, “believe all women.” The woman who was held at gunpoint by George Floyd and the woman who was attacked by Jacob Blake were ignored and dismissed. The women who accused Andrew Cuomo of sexual assault were actively undermined by the pro-women group Time’s Up. The women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual impropriety and assault were defamed. Some of them were easy to dismiss because they were poor, but others were dismissed solely because they accused the wrong people. Even the assertion of the purity of middle-class women only lasts as long as it is politically and culturally beneficial.

How does that impact this issue? These Christian women, using plastic words, are believed (at least publicly) when making accusations of Abuse, violence, and rape against their husbands. Any person who questions their accusations is lambasted and excluded from polite company. The women understand that the culture will back them, right or wrong, and they rest firmly in that knowledge. It’s hard to resist a sin when you know you will get away with it - and that’s exactly what women have been told will happen.

The Depp - Heard trial showed that selfishness and distasteful behavior comes in both sexes.

With our churches failing to build up, partner with, and provide the necessary community armor for the faith of Christian women, such an assault by the culture was going to have the upper hand. But someone else needed to fail for it to work as well as it has - us, the husbands, who we will examine in the next post.

Culprit #1 - Churches

But know this: Difficult times will come in the last days. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to the form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid these people! For among them are those who worm their way into households and capture idle women burdened down with sins, led along by a variety of passions, always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.

~ 2 Timothy 3:1-7

You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine. Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance.

Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.

Titus 2:1-5

As I mentioned before, the passage identifies the “idle women burdened down with sins, led along by a variety of passions”, who are led astray, as a consequence of the problem, not the cause. Women who identify as Christian are destroying their families all across the nation. Some of them are wives of clergy, some are lifelong church-goers, some are nominal Christians. But, they are all using the same language and the same methods - plastic words, justifications found neither in the Bible nor in the breadth of historic church law, and a curious agenda of self-promotion for their behavior.

How are these women deceived and led away into what is not only moral (and often financial and emotional) self-destruction, but also unquestionably damaging for their children? How have they fallen under the spell of people who are some (or all) of the laundry list of negative characteristics, where countless women are influenced by deceivers and make terrible decisions based upon those influences?

In contrast to Titus 2, the church has left our women vulnerable through neglect, through the ignorant promotion of these people and their ideas, and through both clergy and laity who exhibit a culturally common moral cowardice. All of these seem to be largely a product of the current age and common evangelical church structures - women’s ministries, failure to inspect as leaders should, and lack of church discipline.

1) Women’s Ministries. There is a lot to be said about the benefits of women’s ministries, particularly in fellowship, prayer, and encouragement for godly women. However, these same benefits existed in the church in the past without formal church programs, and the addition of formal programs designed to provide what the church already provided for 2000 years for women has provided an avenue of decay - “women’s curriculum”. The mere existence of women’s curriculum communicates that they should not be using the same materials as the others (men or couples). However, men weren’t using their own studies, and, as a rule, they still are not. Browsing Lifeway Christian Resources* (an arm of the Southern Baptist Convention) reveals 61 studies marketed for adult men. For adult women? 673! That’s over ten times the amount marketed for men. Why is that? Because we have been communicating to women for 50 years that either the studies for all Christians are not good enough for them, or, as some might tell it, that women somehow aren’t good enough for regular studies. And, while regular, non-study books marketed for women only outnumber those for men by a five-to-one ratio, the message remains clear: women have to read and study things written just for women, not things for Christians.

So, we communicate that they shouldn’t be studying what the church as a whole should be studying, that it has to be tailor-made for women. What does this result in? In the top 25 Bible Studies for women at CBD, 24 are written by women. Why? Because who can better write for women than women, right? Of course, that’s nonsense - women are human beings made in the image of God, and a faithful and interesting curriculum doesn’t need to be written by one sex or the other. BUT - if the assumption is that women are so much different from men that their studies need to be more focused upon emotion, feelings, affect, and the somehow-unique-but-also-universal-experience of women, then men need not apply. And, if you want to have your curriculum used by women, you’d better not only be one, but you’d better write in such a way that continues to reinforce the “feelings-over-facts” assumption built into the industry.

Yes, a good number of those studies are written by orthodox, faithful, believing women who don’t have any kooky beliefs. However, as I realized back when I read my first Beth Moore book (who dominated the women’s studies in the evangelical church in which I was on staff), it isn’t the author’s general orthodoxy that is the problem - it is their methodology. It is a feelings-over-facts, current culture-over-tradition, what-seems-right-to-me-is-right method, and it sets them up for failure, as their feelings are assaulted daily by the culture and by individuals who seek to undermine faithful people and marriages.

Another manifestation of this is the pagan mentality that imagines that if the woman does enough, believes enough, and gives enough, she will get what she wants. Some churches and curricula teach that, essentially, if the woman just does x, y, and z and prays hard enough, her man will be transformed into the husband she dreams he can be. Such myths can only flourish in a sheltered subculture in which neither reality nor wise pastoral leadership can invade.

2) Failure to inspect. Church elders, out of fear, do not look closely at the curriculum, books, or teachings in women’s groups. Like me, they assume that the women’s ministry is choosing well, and comfort themselves that well-known names (Nancy DeMoss, Jen Wilkin, Priscilla Shirer, Lisa TerKeurst) among the selection are equivalent to solid teaching - and don’t bat an eye when they don’t recognize a name. But, even worse, it is incredibly rare for a male elder to roll into a women’s ministry study or fellowship and listen, never mind actually contribute to the discussion or challenge the assumptions of the group! Thus, laywomen are left to fend for themselves in groupthink and separated from the gifts that Christ has left for the church (Ephesians 4:11-13). Why? Fear. Fear of being called patriarchal. Fear of women’s ministry leaders - who have placed their value in a ministry position - mutinying. Fear of lay leaders pushing back. Fear of being called a micromanager. Out of fear the church leaves its women without the protection they deserve.

Many clergy will not risk the wrath of the women of the church.

3) No church discipline. Matthew 18, 1 Corinthians 5, and 2 Corinthians 7 give guidance for the confrontation of sin by the church, its purpose and method. But when was the last time you were in a church that followed this model? In most churches, the most important thing is to not rock the boat, not cause trouble. Church leaders know that many in the congregation, unfamiliar with or simply unsupportive of church discipline, will not support the leadership if sin is confronted. Others take comfort in extra-biblical excuses for sins such as addiction, or allow plastic words described in the last post by “Christian counselors” such as Chris Moles, Patrick Weaver, or Joy Forrest to carve out greater and greater space for sinful, selfish behavior, simply because another party has been sinful or selfish. Thus, the leaders abdicate their ordination vows to protect the flock for the purpose of preserving their popularity, power, or position, and sin festers and multiplies as the women in these fellowship groups fall down like dominoes.

The “Cowering Man” of Pompeii

Unless you are Roman Catholic, the church isn’t just the clergy: it’s also the people. Not only do the clergy avoid their responsibility, but the laity do as well. The vast majority of friends and associates in the church who are around these deceived women ignore, enable, and even applaud the destruction of their families. They cower behind phrases like, “I am not in control of them” to avoid saying anything beyond an initial expression of discomfort with the utter destruction of family units because the woman is, essentially, unhappy. They willfully buy the lies of plastic words because it gives them an excuse to avoid confrontation and the potential loss of a relationship. Then, when the brave ones do make the confrontation, those few ladies are ostracized by the group as “mean”, “legalistic”, or “judgemental”. In an era where truth must be subordinated to individual feelings, the speaker of truth who makes someone uncomfortable becomes the bad guy, which makes them lose the relationship, which reinforces the fear of the less courageous, who continue to justify their failure to confront sin. And the cycle continues.

Even their friends won’t take a stand for what is best.

By establishing ministry islands for women, failing to inspect the teaching in small groups, and avoiding church discipline, churches set women up to be manipulated by the culture, which is the topic of the next post.

* 1,742 for women, 361 for men at Christianbook.com.

Silly Women Laden with Divers Lusts

Satan is on the march.

”Those who always bear the burden of suffering in the case of a divorce are the children. Only seldom do adults realize what immeasurable harm they thus inflict on children, and how close they come as a result to the most terrible of Jesus’ curses: ‘Whoever is a cause of stumbling to one of these little ones who believe in me…’”

If you don’t know the NXIVM story, Google it.

My original idea for this blog post, two years ago, came from the story about NXIVM, a supposed self-improvement company that actually was just a means for a man to acquire a harem of willing sex slaves. That, the Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislane Maxwell saga, and the myriad of stories that came out afterward all put the truth to the lie that religion (and specifically Christianity) somehow was inherently designed to put women into these polyamorous situations. Actually, while religion has and is certainly used for that purpose, it is now obvious that not only is no religion necessary to establish these harems, but it only, ever, works one way. Women don’t have willing harems of men, anywhere, but harems of women for one man exist seemingly in all times and places. But, out of concern for public appearance in pointing a finger at women, I decided against it. Still, the line from 2 Timothy 3 stuck in my head, and I was sure it had a broader application than cult-ish behavior.

Floyd “Money” Mayweather and his “staff”. In case you are unaware, he is not a member of the clergy.

Carrie and I are personally connected to seven marriages in the midst of destruction at this moment. When I say, “personally connected”, I don’t mean people we know on FB, but people we actually know and have some kind of real-life relationship with. And, while, of course, they all have their wrinkles, there is a common thread in many of them that we have seen in other collapsing marriages in our circles over the past several years- the absolute twisting and manipulation of words to justify their actions when they are unjustifiable, the flippant disregard for the commands of God in self-professing Christians, and the willful destruction of life-long friendships when those friends do not affirm the sinful acts of the betrayers after a token encouragement.

Of the seven, five are being driven to destruction by the woman, and each of these is frighteningly similar to the others in the above description (the two driven by men are also similar to each other, but look very different from the ones driven by the women). All of these families have multiple children, and the mothers of these children exert no effort to find out the truth about what are the likely results of divorce upon their children. Instead, they off-handedly dismiss the idea that their children will suffer significantly, using the same tired, well-documented falsehood that divorce is somehow better than a marriage with conflict or unhappiness. How convenient that this assumption (which I’m sure they can justify by pulling up some blog post by some counselor) enables them to do what they already want to do!

Oh, look! A blog that says what I want to hear. Time to share it.

Another common thread in these disastrous cases is the combination of men who are decent, who provide and protect, and who aren’t involved in “the big three” - they aren’t beating, cheating, or selling the house for drugs. None have been model husbands, but they also are far from committing the kinds of acts that the Bible and the church have acknowledged are justification for divorce. So, as professing Christians, these women aren’t supposed to have (at least in the eyes of God and the church) the justification for destroying their families. So what do these Christian women do? Do they renounce their faith and declare they are doing it because they want to, and don’t care about what God says? No. That would be too uncomfortable, perhaps even more uncomfortable than obedience.

Instead, they use “plastic words”. A term described by Uwe Poerksen, people using plastic words do not define the words by their meaning - indeed, the meaning cannot be discerned. They use a word associated with certain emotional responses, then use it in a manner that leads to what they WANT to be included in the connotation of the word. Especially, when using a plastic word with regards to defining people, its boundaries are set by the people they want to be included in the description, not any objective definition. One common example in culture is “the church”. The word can be used in a number of objectively defined ways, but, many use the phrase “the church” in a deliberately vague fashion, because the confusion helps make their argument seem valid. So, “the church has hurt me” may refer to a specific incident in someone’s life inflicted by a specific clergy or lay person or group of church leaders or lay people, but the phrase is intended to condemn the entire visible church to justify avoidance of fellowship, or justify disbelief, or justify disdain.

Any reason will do, but we just have to make it sounds worse in so many cases.

The use of plastic words in the “attempts to justify divorce” context involves words like “abuse”, “violence”, and “sexual assault” or “rape” The plasticity of these words is not limited to justifying divorce - indeed, the plastic use of these words preceded using them to justify divorce. So, when “silence is violence” (BLM) or “the church abused me [by refusing to let me have the responsibilities I wanted]” (Jo Luehmann), those words have already lost their meanings and become plastic. In the context of justifying divorce, those words are used in this way:

”I am a victim of domestic abuse.” When pressed, the woman admits that she has not been beaten, hit at all, or even suffered a daily litany of vulgar verbal attacks or daily disrespect for her character. She deflects by claiming “there is more abuse than just physical” and may attach the words financial, spiritual, or emotional to the word “abuse”. But, like the word “justice”, once you append a modifier to the word, it no longer has the same meaning…but the intent is to attach the negative emotion to the phrase and thus to the “abuser”, not to actually define anything.

The National Domestic Abuse Hotline website lists nine categories of abuse, some of which have more than ten sub-categories. Let’s just say you may disagree with some of them.

“I am a survivor of domestic violence.” Again, when pressed, the woman admits that no actual violence has been done. But, by using the phrase, she is able to communicate to all that her husband is a terrible person, but that she is very brave for getting out of a “dangerous” situation. These women will also often, well after the fact, explicitly claim they were suicidal or that their husbands would have killed them, or implicitly do so by using the phrase, “I saved my life”. Yet, strangely, none of these women get restraining orders against their abusive/violent husbands, and the men are allowed unsupervised access to the children. Of course, if we understand plastic words, we understand that this isn’t strange at all. The point is to smear the husband, to cause both pity and admiration for the wife, and to put herself above confrontation. After all, what monster would push back on a woman who has suffered violence and abuse?

The mental image you get of the accused when you hear the word “abuse” or “violence”.

“I was sexually abused/raped”. A military lawyer recently said, “Chaplain, all divorces include accusations of marital rape.” What used to be commonly understood as the dance in marital sexual relations between man and woman, when the man (often) desires sex with his wife more often than she does with him, and he uses various methods of seduction, romance, cajoling, and expression as the pursuer to convince his wife to submit to mutually consensual sex, is now being called rape or sexual abuse. The branding of the song, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” as “rape culture” is perhaps the most ludicrous - and clear - example of how the word has been hijacked. Now, anything that even began as less than 100% enthusiasm by the wife for sex is cast as some kind of morally bankrupt coercion.

2 Timothy 3, however, with its quirky KJV wording, “silly women laden with divers lusts” (or “weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions” in the ESV) is not primarily a condemnation of those women. I recognize the full moral agency of all people, men and women, and, in the end, the person ultimately responsible for someone’s decision is primarily…the person who made the decision. That said, 2 Timothy 3 identifies the women who are burdened by a myriad of unhealthy desires and led astray as the consequence of the problem, not the cause. Today, we are surrounded by those same types of women - but why? How did they get here? Who is responsible for them being weak, burdened, and led astray? I identify three culprits in the next three posts: the church, the culture, and us husbands. I hope you’ll read with me and respond as I lay out the situation, and that you will work with me to remedy it.

What Matters Most

What are you doing up there, Charlotte?"

"Oh, making something," she said. "Making something, as usual."

"Is it something for me?" asked Wilbur.

"No," said Charlotte. "It's something for me, for a change."

“Please tell me what it is," begged Wilbur.

I realized tonight that this version is abridged, as it didn’t contain my remembered description of Avery standing on his hands for the crowd’s attention.

"I'll tell you in the morning," she said. "When the first light comes into the sky and the sparrows stir and the cows rattle their chains, when the rooster crows and the stars fade, when early cars whisper along the highway, you look up here and I'll show you something. I will show you my masterpiece."

Caitlin giving Gwendolin a ride this weekend.

I regularly read to my kids in the evenings. It’s generally only been a few books and series over the years - The Chronicles of Narnia, The Wind in the Willows, Beatrix Potter’s stories, Dr. Seuss (if a kid is missing for some reason, I substitute something short and fun). I think this is our second time through Charlotte’s Web - it’s at least my fourth time through it. I know the story and even know the pictures that will be in the book at this point. However, I had no recollection of this particular scene and language that I read Friday night (above).

If you’re familiar with the plot line, this is when Charlotte has made all of the “miraculous” webs she will make, and is speaking of her egg sac - her children. Wilbur has no idea, of course, and no kid who didn’t know the story already would have any idea, either. So, my kids were perplexed when I was unable to go beyond the word, “…fade,” for probably fifteen seconds.

Honestly, that particular word, or pause in the sentence, doesn’t make sense as particularly emotional. At that stage, Charlotte is just poetically describing dawn. But, if you know the story, you know why she is describing it poetically. She isn’t just telling him about a time on the clock or calendar. She is telling him about the great reveal, the moment when she will show him, and the world, her greatest masterpiece.

Her children.

Garrick was pretty excited to show me these leaves today. May we recover such wonder.

I ended up having to stop twice more on the way to the end of that short paragraph. The kids, were, of course, oblivious. I mentioned tonight when we were getting ready to read something about getting all verklempt, and Griffin replied, “I don’t know what you are talking about.” So, I’m glad my excess of emotion didn’t ruin the experience for them :)

But, perhaps I never remembered this part because I had never had two children grown and outside the home, while in a demanding job and with peculiar challenges in and around the family system that I wouldn’t have truly predicted 18 months ago. Life has a way of helping you focus on what matters: and it’s not your net worth, your network, or your Insta follows. It’s your children, your masterpiece.

Look up here, and I’ll show you something.

Reading “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” back in 2015. They are absolutely hanging on every word.

People Who Adopt are NOT Better Than You

 As almost any reader of this post knows, my family is in the thick of an international adoption.  We are overseas in Bulgaria, adopting two special needs children, and this is a very, very difficult time for our family.  As historic, orthodox Christians and Anglicans, we are doing this with an awareness that all members of the body of Christ have a duty to live their lives in ways that reflect the love of God, and that adoption is one that we do that.  We hope that’s the case – that you don’t see people who are different from you because they are built differently or choose differently, but that you see people who are willfully obedient to the call of Jesus who had changed us into the people we are and continue changing us, through experiences like these, into whom He would have us to be.

We have been told before that people think we believe we are “better” than them because we adopt, and because we advocate for others to adopt.  This is entirely false – we know that adoption isn’t for everyone, for a variety of reasons, but we also believe that more people can, and should, adopt.  So, we not only share our stories, being as real as we can while protecting our children, but we do “preach” a bit about the importance and message of adoption.  Honestly, we’re not sure how anyone who thinks something is really important would do otherwise.

But, if that were all I had to say, this would not even be worth posting.  That’s a tweet, not a post.  Instead, I have a rapacious story to share about adopting families that will dispel the myth that someone who adopts is somehow better than anyone else. 

In the story of Phineas, Zeus punishes Phineas by blinding him and placing him on a desolate island with a limitless amount of sustenance. During every meal, however, harpies would swoop down and snatch the food off of Phineas’ plate, leaving behind refuse and fouled remains of his food. Their voracious behavior would leave the blind king in a perpetual state of starvation. Their goal was not to feed themselves but to ruin the king’s food. Harpies still exist today, albeit in a different form.

A cabal of harpies exists in what was the lone Facebook group that is oriented toward adoptions from Bulgaria.  This group, unsurprisingly called “Bulgaria Adoptions”, has about 1800 members, and since there wasn’t another group on FB, we decided to join it as soon as we looked into adopting from Bulgaria.  Our agency, Lifeline, warned us that they do not recommend joining any FB groups that they are not permitted to also join.  We had seen people complain about their agencies in other adoption groups (such as China) in the past and recognized that agencies might not like that kind of unregulated criticism (some of which is surely unwarranted, but some of which might be warranted and stifled if agency reps were allowed to join).  So, we thanked them for their recommendation and joined anyway – there really were no other options for learning from those who had trod this path before. 

Very early on we learned that this was not a Christian group.  The snark, the profanity, and the dismissal of alternative views to those held by maybe a dozen group members were evident very quickly.  Still, with no other options, we stayed in – and we did learn and benefit from information and opinions held by various group members.  Personally, I interacted little, if any.  Carrie was the primary communicator for us, and she has access to FB more often than I.  But the spirit of the group was concerning to us both.  There was a conversation where Carrie defended a woman who was being bullied for an alternate (and innocently expressed) opinion to those held by this cabal.  The response of one of the harpies was, essentially, “I can be a bitch whenever I want.  I don’t care who thinks I’m a bitch.”  And, she even changed her profile picture to a poodle to “prove” her commitment to her chosen moniker. 

Then we started to hear that this coven was not merely FB bullies, but bullies in real life!  After one disagreement, members of the cabal contacted an agency that gives grants to adopting families and told the agency not to give the grant to this family – because they claimed the family members were racists!  Of course, there was no evidence that the family attempting to adopt was racist.  But, it didn’t matter.  Cancel culture has even entered the adoption world, and the threat of bad publicity cowed the agency, which denied the family the grant they expected.  We realized that we had better be careful. 

It didn’t matter how careful we were.  This cabal of harpies was swooping about, seeking something to be “offended” by and attack those whom they knew had alternative views.  In response to one of Carrie’s posts about our time here in Bulgaria, multiple women essentially ordered Carrie to “stop taking your kids on outings”.  Mind you, this is our 5th and 6th adoptions, and we know that the last thing our new daughter (and her sisters here with us) needs is unstructured time, which results in mania for her and meltdowns for her and her sisters.  They told her she couldn’t post pictures of our son, even though many of them have posted very similar pictures (his condition is not unique in eastern European orphanages in particular).  When Carrie used humor to describe our kids struggles at a ropes course, the coven claimed she as mocking her children.  When Carrie described our new daughter’s wild overuse of Carrie’s makeup, “that’s why she’s walking around looking like a cheap hooker”, they cried out “you are calling your daughter a hooker!”  They told us not to tell about any of the suffering our kids have endured because it’s “their story” – which these women think they have the right to decide, but apparently we don’t.  When Carrie expressed thanks that the kids were doing better than we had expected from their files, one of the women told us we were being “ableist” and ”causing harm” by being thankful for a better than expected result.  In short, Carrie was being bullied by the mean girls in middle school, a bunch of know-it-all narcissists who clearly find their value in being the self-appointed “adoption experts”.  But it didn’t stop there, and I had seen enough. 

“No.”  That one word was the primary response I used to members of this cabal.  One or two other members of the group tried to say something positive about our experiences and sharing of those experiences, and one person did express respectful questioning of our style of sharing our story.  Otherwise, there were 6-8 coven members lashing out wildly, and everyone else in the group was cowed by their bullying.  So, despite the fact that I prefer not to have arguments (in person or online) with women, because I feel it is disrespectful on my part, I engaged every single objector and objection.  Some just got the one word, because their accusations were asinine.  Others were dressed down.  Others were offered olive branches. 

I’m not good at everything, but I am good with words.  Aside from name-calling and profanity, the members of the cabal were clearly outmatched…or, simply, had never had anyone with a spine take a stand in the middle of their circle of hatred and refuse to be cowed (without responding with the kind of nasty personal attacks they were using, at least), and they didn’t know how to deal with it.  So, they appealed to one of the moderators to kill the post (which was my wife’s share of her blog). 

Well, Carrie had seen enough, and made a quick “you all are terrible, I’m starting a new group for Christians adopting from Bulgaria and Eastern Europe, and leaving here.  You can keep this for yourselves if you want.” (not an actual quote).

I stayed in the group, simply to try to defend others from bullying that would likely come up again.  There were two or three quizzical responses to Carrie’s post – “I never saw anything like that” or “what happened”.  I explained to them that there had been a dust up, and that the new group Carrie was starting wouldn’t have that kind of drama because no one in the group will be telling other families what to do with unsolicited demands out of “love” and “concern”.  I also expressed that I hoped that sort of thing didn’t happen again. 

And then, a member of the cabal decided she wanted to have the fight. (Apologies in advance – I was being overwhelmed by the volume of replies and it’s a little tough to follow below in the middle of it all)

If you haven’t seen the blog, no one calls anyone’s baby ugly, body shames, or calls our kids those things.  It’s just outright nonsense.  Then, other members of the coven joined in:

 

And I was having none of it.

(the reasonable argument has been edited out - it consisted of a reasonable response to my post and my reply. nothing further resulted from it.) Then, the only time a man tried to pile on was with a defense of communism: 

 (There is a missed comment or two here about how Carrie and I are misogynistic, hateful people who bully our kids and call them names, and need help, and that she had never looked at my profile)

I am trying to turn the conversation in a more useful direction, but the replies, obviously coordinated, stopped at this point.  I went to bed after about 45 minutes of no responses (it was after 1 am my time, but early evening in the states).  I screenshotted all I could, since I had seen how they would delete posts and make false claims afterward.  Because I didn’t catch the earlier comments, you don’t get to see how we were called “fucking disgusting”, “ignorant AF”, for example, among other gems.

So, of course, I am banned from the group.  The cabal continued to post about us and screenshot our blog even after kicking us out.  Obviously, they were already DM’ing behind our back (“I heard he is a chaplain”).  They have now posted the following lies:

Unbelievable.  I countered a spate of name-calling with “you obviously haven’t been classically educated” (neither have I!), and that’s why I’m bounced?  Those harpies called us every name in the book, and whole I clearly did call their *stated opinions* ignorant and asinine, that is different from calling them personally those things – which is what they did tous.  Even if we are going to call my comments “personal and rude”, wasn’t calling us “fucking disgusting” or “petty and ignorant personalities”, or an “abusive narcissist” far worse? 

And that nonsense about “variety of beliefs” is clearly telling the group not to say negative things about communism, since no other belief but Christianity was even mentioned, and that wasn’t discussed.  Incredible.

The posts were removed so they can lie about us like this.  How I wish I had screenshotted the first post they deleted – but, it was just more of the same.

This coven cannot abide anyone who stands up to them.  So, not only did they get us banned from the page and lie about us afterward, but , get this: they also coordinated emails to our adoption agency to try to get us in trouble!  Judging from their typical nonsense in the group, I’m sure it was phrased like, “we are really concerned about the children, about the program.  What if authorities found out that this couple had this picture and said something mean on their blog about Bulgarian orphanages?  That’s a nice Bulgaria adoption program you’ve got there.  Be a shame if someone were to happen to it.  I hope you can fix this.”

Mind you, no one really reads our blog except our friends and these harpies.  The embedded videos get maybe 40-60 views when they are posted. The only way “the authorities” would discover our blog is if someone went to them and told them it was problematic, and that is exactly the threat this coven is making.  Many of them have adopted kids with severe needs, they know how hard it is for us in country at this point, and they don’t care.  The harpies don’t care about the children - they care about damaging us. They must crush any opposition under the heel of their hob-nailed boots.

This is what happens when people bow to the mob.  Cowardice in the face of the mob empowers the mob and puts others at greater risk.  This lady who wrote the pack of lies about us is, from what I can tell, a Christian  – so, to give her the benefit of the doubt, I assume she bowed to the mob and booted me and took down the post, with the result that the lies above could be easily spread with no counter…because no reasonable person could read that thread and come to the conclusion that I was the one making personal attacks on innocent, caring, concerned commenters.  That grant agency should have told these harpies to buzz off.  When they crumbled, it told the cabal that they had power and could force other people to do what they wanted.  And that, my friends, is a very bad place for our culture to be.

Wicked, nasty people are everywhere.  Some of them do very good things, like adopt severely disabled children.  That seems to make them think they are better than other people…yet, that isn’t enough.  They must lash out at others who disagree with them on anything, especially if those in opposition are Christians.  If you looked at the profiles of these harpies, you would find that they are what Christian Walker described in his tweet today: 

The harpies want to damage us because of ideology, and because we were willing to take a stand. In the myth of Phineas, the harpies are driven off by Jason and the Argonauts. Who has the courage to drive off the harpies today?

Pray for us, that we act out of wisdom and not anger – at these people who would rather shut down the system of adoption of children in desperate need because they can’t stand it when someone stands up to them.  Pray for our agency, that it navigates the waters of the situation with surety.  Pray for these women – so firmly ensconced in their sinfulness and pride that they not only appoint themselves as experts, but as masters, and surely cannot see their need for a Savior.  The God who makes a heart of stone into a heart of flesh does miracles every day, and only He can move us to where He would have us to be.

One Ring to Rule them All

I agree – but not for the reasons Toni Morrison thinks.  If you want to understand why our nation is having such upheaval related to the subject of race, this book makes it abundantly clear.  And yet, the clarity doesn’t come from Coates’ argument itself, but from the proclivity of the argument in our current culture.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is exactly what you would think he would be, as the son of lifelong married, professional, atheistic parents who were Black Panthers, the grandson of lifelong married, professional, atheist grandparents.  He is privileged, educated (though the only one of seven siblings who did not complete their degree), wealthy, well-travelled, and considers religion a salve for the weak.  Yet he claims he is an oppressed victim who is constantly in fear of racist violence.  But, here’s the thing: Ta-Nehisi Coates has *never* experienced racist violence.  In fact, I have experienced infinitely more racist violence than Ta-Nehisi Coates has experienced, because anything divided by zero is infinity.  I have had my ass beat just because I was white, multiple times.  Ta-Nahesi Coates can’t even tell a single story about being called a racist epithet.   Let me lay out his three examples that are supposed to give credence to his rambling screed about how awful it is to be black in this racist nation:

1) He was pulled over once.  He gave his license and registration to the cop.  The cop checked them and gave them back to him.  That’s the whole story.

2) Once, in a busy subway station, a white lady stumbled over his son and said, “Come on!”  Coates, in response, by his own admission, wildly overreacted and threw his rage at the alleged white racism he had suffered from his whole life at this unsuspecting woman.  While Coates doesn’t give any actual details about what he exactly said and did, a white man stepped in to defend the lady and said he could call the cops.  That’s it.

3) A black college friend of Coates was killed by a *black* cop, who was part of a police force that is largely black, in a county run by black Democrat politicians, in a Democrat dominated state.  Coates repeatedly calls this event “racist”, even as he describes the cop’s history as that of a bad cop.  The killing was not seen by anyone else, and the cop claimed the young man tried to run him over with his jeep (he seems to have been shot while driving his car toward the cop, by Coates’ account).  That’s all we know.

That’s his entire evidence for the repeated, ad nauseum, claim that black bodies are currently being systematically raped, exploited, and murdered by whites.  He calls white people “Dreamers”, because allegedly they have a Dream to which they are aspiring that he somehow believes that he cannot attain.  But, of course, Ta-Nehisi Coates is, by any objective standard, living the Dream.

So, the intellectual dishonesty of his entire argument aside, the value of the book for those of us who seek a better conversation is that this dishonest argument is self-perpetuating.  We see the light attempting to break through the deception at moments in the book.  Early on, he swallows a one-line argument by Saul Bellow, “Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus”, and Coates helpfully explains to us that we don’t know, because Tolstoy is white and that’s why he is important – not because the Zulus had no written language prior to European missionaries arriving in their lands in the decades after Tolstoy’s birth. But, this was challenged later in Coates’ time at Howard by Ralph Wiley: “Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus, unless you find profit in fencing off the universal properties of mankind into exclusive tribal ownership.” 

But that isn’t good enough for Coates.  He rejects it out of hand, even as he admits its profundity.  So he continues to search for the thing that will set apart the group he chooses to identify with.  But he runs into a problem - there is no shared African heritage.  It’s a massive continent, and people form Africa spread all over the world and have no coherent shared ideology and history, just like every other massive people group.  But, Coates, with a foundation of militant racism taught by his Black Panther father, and militant atheism taught by his parents and grandparents, must find something that separates himself from the hated Dreamers.  It doesn’t matter when he finds that Africans oppressed Africans, or that Europeans oppressed Europeans.  What matters is that Europeans oppressed Africans, too.

When Coates tries to tie his experience into his narrative, we find the intellectual dishonesty continues he has stories of the thugs in his neighborhood, who are black, and how he has a gun pulled on him by a local thug.  It’s white racism, even though the particular thug is black.  The violence in Baltimore is white racism, event though it is almost exclusively being perpetuated by local residents, who are black, and has been for decades.  The facts of lived reality don’t matter.  “Never forget,” he tells his son, “that we were enslaved for 250 years.  Never forget that we were slaves longer than we have been free.”  But Coates has never been enslaved. He has never lived under Jim Crow.  He has never been a sharecropper or suffered under peonage.  And, while Baltimore’s black neighborhoods absolutely did suffer the enduring negative impacts of redlining and underpolicing, these actual racist policies are not even mentioned by Coates.  Instead, the actions of individual criminals in his own community are blamed on the actions of others decades in the past, and every word in this book, ostensibly directed toward his grown son, are meant to reinforce that disingenuous Narrative.

Coates warns his son that white cops will beat him with a nightstick – but how is it that Coates doesn’t have that experience, or even cites a single friend of his own who experienced it?  Why is it certain for his son?  Because the narrative demands it.  Coates cites his wife’s family history of absent fathers as evidence of white racism – but none of those men were absent because they were killed or jailed by racists.  It doesn’t matter. The Narrative matters.

Coates hates America.  He says that the firefighters who rushed in to the WTC and were killed on 9-11 are “no different” from the black cop who shot his friend.  It doesn’t matter that he has no evidence of racism on their part, and knows nothing about their personal lives.  The Narrative is all that matters.  All representatives of America are racists.  Soldiers fighting terrorists overseas are evidence of racism.  As he says, “you don’t need evidence that the cop who choked Eric Garner set out that day to destroy a black body.”  Evidence, facts, truth – they don’t matter.  The Narrative matters. Because slavery, a terrible racists institution, happened, and because Jim Crow happened, America and Americans are racist NOW.  It doesn’t matter that Coates never cites a single example of a black woman he knows personally who was raped by a white man who got away with it, the rape of black women by white men is on an “industrial” level.  Because racists in the 1850’s said racist things and supported terrible racist policies and acts, America is racist today.  The Narrative is what matters.

“The people who believe they are white can never be your measuring stick,” he says to his son.  Why?

Coates makes this bizarre claim that because he had to conform his behavior to that of civilized society, and he would have preferred not to, that this is another example of racism, forcing people to act “White”.  But, who else has to do this?  Everyone!  Every child must become an adult.  Every human must conform to the society around them.  Every poor kid (like me, unlike Coates), had to learn language and customs that were foreign to us because of our upbringing.  He is intimated by New York… as all non-native New Yorkers are.  He is anxious when going to a foreign country and city… like all people are at first.  Coates takes common human experiences and calls them “racism”.  The Narrative is all that matters.

Coates laments that he “tried to clasp generational chains around your wrists”, but, sadly, that is exactly what he is doing in this book, clasping the chains clasped upon him by his own parents and grandparents, onto the next generation.  His father’s George Jackson Prison Movement (look it up) printing press continues to grind out accusations through Coates’s words.  He is making the maximum effort to convince his son of the Narrative, and I am sure he has been successful. 

Near the end, Coates clings to his inherited dismissal of the supernatural, even when confronted by the incredible mother of his slain friend, a spiritual, confident woman.  Coates sees she has something that he doesn’t, and says, “I wonder if I missed something,” but because he has already ruled out the value of the spiritual, he just moves on. What he sees with his eyes doesn’t matter.  The Narrative must rule over all.

The current level of the problem with race relations is largely driven by this Narrative being shoved down everyone throughts by one side of the politcal spctrum, aided and abetted by Big Tech, Big Media, and Big Corporations.

The Narrative, that all of an individual’s negative experiences, no matter the source or cause, must be laid at the feet of white racism, is the One Ring.  It is the Precious, which must not be surrendered at any cost.  It is the Shadow of Sauron which threatens all the land, which can never be truly defeated, which rises up to overwhelm the world again and again.  The Narrative, in the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie, is that racism isn’t merely an evil that exists and must be corrected, but an Original Sin that cannot be atoned for, and never changes in its impact.  The evils of racism past must be the very same evil of racism today in impact.  Except, for the Narrative, there is no Frodo, no Gandalf, no Aragorn, and certainly no Galadriel.  There is only the Balrog, the Watcher of Moria, and the Nazgul, unstoppable forces stalking the earth, seeking to devour reputations, livelihoods, and family relationships.  There is only Saruman, claiming that the only way to future peace is to submit to Sauron.  There is only Wormtongue, whispering into the ears of people we thought were on the side of liberty, justice, and truth, turning them into the next woke betrayer.  There is only the Mouth of Sauron, demanding everyone bow the knee before the Narrative, giving them the hope that, if they do so, they will be spared the worst.

But they will not.  Sauron has no allies that are not his minions.  The One Ring destroys or dominates all in its way, and the Narrative must be submitted to.  You cannot have peaceful coexistence with it, because it’s only purpose it to sow hatred, fear, betrayal, and cowardice.  The importance of this book is to see how pervasive and uncompromising the Narrative is, to understand what our society is up against.  In one sense, our country has earned this.  Our racist history has multi-generational damage and consequence, and failing to recognize the sins of our fathers has set us up for this present darkness.  Yet, we must not compromise with the Narrative, promulgating the lie that you are culpable for the sins of past generations, and that you must atone for the sins of people you have never met.  It is hard to resist, as it *feels* more compassionate to agree and apologize, but all that ends up doing is making it harder for others to stand on truth.

One Ring to rule them all, one Ring to find them, one Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them, in the land of Mordor where the shadows lie.

Courage, dear heart.

Here I Stand

I have been thinking, and reading, a lot over the past several months, about freedom, liberty, order, orthodoxy, and personal character. I have been watching how public discourse has descended into cancel culture and attempts to react to cancel culture, as well as seeing broader evangelicalism slide into cultural conformity. This combination convinced me that I need to solidify for myself, and for those whom I lead, the principles upon which I will interact with my community and culture. Some of the influences have been Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Jocko Willink, Rod Dreher, Dan Crenshaw, Edwin Friedman, Thomas Oden, Archbishop Chaput, and Peter Toon.

This list began in a comical way - a brief Facebook conversation about Anglican “tribes” with some friends and colleagues. The accusation of one was that some 400-year-old tradition was bad, because the guy who instituted it had some moral issue (I can’t remember what precisely, or who, it was). This generated my response, “I refuse to conform to the modern trendy behavior of claiming that some person or event, which happened to be followed sometime later by negative consequences beyond the good it established, must be tripped over and surrounded with disclaimers when we celebrate a good thing.” One of my friends responded with, “you are the anti-woke candidate we all need”. Perhaps I am.

So, I copied and pasted my comment onto a blank MS Word document. A few days later I had a much more contentious conversation with some USMA classmates over public policy surrounding religious liberty and public policy. The conversation generated the first three lines of the list below, which I added to the document. Since then I have added other, related, principles to the list, and I wanted to go public with it.

I am not a public figure, and I am not a person of significant influence. Perhaps, if I advertised some Bang energy drinks while wearing skimpy clothing that could change, but I suspect the audience for that particular type of marketing is pretty limited, given my physique. So, I’m sharing it here in my little-read blog: for myself and those with whom I am connected. I hope it’s not just a head-nodding exercise, but one that causes people to think deeply about themselves, what they do, why they do it, and if they should reassess their own principles. I have to admit that I did not always conform to these in the past - my desire for comfort and approval have led me to compromise these principles on many occasions. Lord willing, I will never do so again.
…
I refuse to apologize for what others have done unless I am their authority or leader.

I refuse to pretend that punishing people today fixes the sins of our fathers.

I refuse to pretend that “microaggressions” are no different from real racist oppression.

I refuse to believe that victimhood is currency.

I refuse to conform my language to the prevailing changes driven by moral agendas I cannot affirm.  Words have meaning.

I refuse to conform to the modern trendy behavior of claiming that some person or event, which happened to be followed some time later by negative consequences beyond the good it established, must be tripped over and surrounded with disclaimers when we celebrate a good thing.

I refuse to affirm that all offenses, even offenses of the same kind, are equal and thus demand an equal reaction.

I refuse to believe that an emotional reaction of another demands a change in my beliefs, understanding, or behavior.

I refuse to pretend that a mental psychosis demands an affirmation from me.  Furthermore, I refuse to believe that a mental psychosis has any meaning beyond that person’s personal interpretation of him- or herself and that it has any relevance to the beliefs and actions of others, aside from pity and a desire for that person’s recovery.

I refuse to affirm that the existence of an evil means that everything that happens must therefore be related to that evil.

I refuse to be cowed by the shrieking cries of the hysterical offended.  A person’s emotional reaction is his or her choice and deserves no response.

I refuse to pretend that hearing words from others causes actual harm.  An adult’s reaction to those words is the choice of that adult.

I refuse to compromise with extreme positions. The fact that others have a position that is wrong does not mean I have to alter mine one bit.  Peace is not worth giving an inch to evil.

I refuse to affirm that human beings do not have personal agency, responsibility, and power to make their own decisions.  Everyone’s decisions are limited in some way – the question is, what are you willing to risk?

I refuse to depart from the faith of Christ and the apostles, from the understanding of ordered liberty laid down in our Constitution, or the clear dictates of natural law, no matter how many are offended or disagree with them.  Furthermore, the existence of despicable characters who also claim to uphold those foundational principles in no way reduces the value of those principles one single iota.

I refuse to participate in chronological snobbery, which claims that because something is old, or from an era in from which we may have progressed in some way, then those ideas are now no longer relevant.  The most relevant ideas are not the newest, but the most enduring.

I refuse to give anyone more or less respect for their opinions because of their alleged ‘privilege’.  Everyone has more of what is called ‘privilege’ in some area than someone else.  We have no control over our ‘privilege’, but we have complete control over what we do with what we have. 

I refuse to pretend that an attack upon my intentions, which the attacker fabricates in the first place, deserves any attempted defense.

I will stand upon these principles and upon objective truth because I refuse to, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, “live by lies.”  This does not make me brave, though many will not want to risk taking these stands publicly.  This also does not make me persecuted or oppressed, though it seems likely that refusing to compromise these principles will lead to professional and personal consequences given the current culture and trajectory of public discourse.

I invite you to join me.

The Story of Cyrus (by Carrie)

“Don’t allow your desire for comfort to assuage you from living radically for Jesus in this world...if you feel a little fear, that’s a good sign you are on the right track.”

Cyrus, Sep. 2017

This comforting quote was in my devotional this week. This process has been faith-building for me. I used to believe that if I didn’t feel a “peace” about something right away, it must not be the right decision. This lack of peace caused months of anxiety looking at the files of dozens of children hoping one had less severe needs than Cyrus’. I didn’t think we could do a wheelchair-bound child. A child who would never walk or talk was not on my radar. Changing diapers for the rest of my life did not sound appealing. But the longer we prayed about it, the more we felt this was the direction we were supposed to go, regardless of feeling “peace” and quite frankly, being scared to death of the idea of it all. It was only after saying a feeble “yes” to adopting Cyrus that peace began to come. I no longer believe that having fear or a lack of peace about something means it isn’t the right thing to do. After all, being brave does not mean being unafraid- it means doing it anyway! So, we’re doing it anyway. 

Cyrus, Sep 2017

In just about 2-3 weeks, we’ll be “meeting” Cyrus for the first time. Bulgaria is typically a 2 trip country to complete an adoption, but due to Covid, they have made the first “bonding trip” virtual. We’re preparing our list of questions and our hearts for what we might see, and we have no idea what to really expect. The most recent photo we have of him was from 18 months ago, so we don’t even know what he looks like now.  Since we have the official approval to adopt him, we have been able to find out where he’s been living the past 5 years, here:

Cyrus, September 2017

in a town on the border of Turkey and Greece that is one of the oldest settlements in all of Bulgaria. Some of the orphanages in Bulgaria are trying to shut down and put the children into more of a “group home” setting and even foster care to give them a more family-like atmosphere.  Even these group homes, however, are no substitute for the love of a family, as this short film demonstrates:

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

The documentary series I shared in the last post revealed the appalling conditions of many of the orphanages across the country and some reforms were made because of it. Cyrus’s orphanage is one that is trying to shut down. It is a huge, old dilapidated building that once housed many children...but only 13 of them remain. The healthier children were moved out into group homes and foster care, and the children with more severe medical needs were left there, sadly because there was nowhere else to put them. There are only two rooms of the orphanage now in operation, and a few rotating staff members. The children left are mostly crib-bound. It’s not a stretch to say that Cyrus hasn’t been outside much, and he hasn’t ever seen the sunshine or felt the fresh air on his face except for the few times he’s been to the hospital for tests and treatment. He’s led a solitary life of mostly staring at white walls and playing with his hands. We received a recent medical update that Cyrus was hospitalized for 4 days in July for weight loss and vomiting, and his weight was already only 23 pounds at the age of 5, so he had no weight to lose. 

Cyrus, April 2019

Cyrus’s main diagnosis is cerebral palsy. This is a general diagnosis given to many of the children when the minimal testing done has not revealed any other obvious reason for their delays and medical problems. It’s likely this is accurate for him, however, as he has some clear markers for this condition. We paid for the services of an International Adoption Clinic specialist in Seattle to review his file and discuss with us what to expect, what tests he will need, and what much of his confusing medical diagnoses mean. He has an undiagnosed genetic syndrome that we will need to investigate at some point which may explain a lot of his symptoms and other conditions. Many of the children from this country also have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, though we don’t believe he has this judging from his facial characteristics and file. We are most concerned about the fact that he has a “profound” mental delay, and frequent “neurogenic vomiting” and lack of any weight gain since April of 2019. We are expecting that he will initially need a feeding tube to help him catch up and meet the nutritional deficit he’s suffered. We have had both doctors who’ve reviewed his file support a medical expedite to get him home quickly due to his failure to thrive there. Typically there are about 4-6 months in between “trip 1” and “trip 2” to pick them up, but nothing about this year has been typical, so all we can do is hope he will be home by April, since we are set to move this summer!

Cyrus, April 2019

And the good news is that we are fully funded! We had a $3,000 matching grant, and the goal was very quickly met by just a few faithful friends. One friend blessed us beyond belief and allowed us to not have to do months of fundraising. We are so thankful to have this burden lifted! It’s one thing about this adoption that we do not have to worry about now. Thank you for helping us meet this goal in less than a week of fundraising!