Avoiding Sacrifice

Deep Strength has a new post up wherein he argues that Women hate suffering:

I was trying to think of ways to make the this post into something elaborate, but the title really just explains itself. Women hate suffering, and by extension women don’t handle suffering well.

Examples:

• Divorce rate is 70% women initiated. Because women are unhappy.

• Husbands persist through contentious and shrewish wives in marriage taking on more responsibilities (e.g. choreplay, childcare), while women can’t handle being unhappy.

• Pastors and wives with unbelieving husbands will go out of their way to make up stuff like “intelligent submission” so they don’t have to submit. Then the sad part is when “intelligent submission” is defended instead of admitting it is being used to rebel against husbands and against the Scriptures.

• Christian men and husbands would rather cave to women when they are unhappy rather than to tell them it is a normal part of the Christian walk. “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” 2:Timothy 3:12. Suffering is normal for Christians. We do a lot of things in this life that we don’t want to because they should be done.

• Women are coddled by society, praised and pushed for college and credentialism. Men are put down and no on cares about them. When women fail they are helped as much as possible, especially by white knights. When men fail no one really cares that they are suffering except perhaps their parents.

I agree with a lot of what Deep Strength has to say in his post. Women are indeed coddled- more than men, anyways. There are plenty of women who aren’t coddled out there, of course. Men cave all-the-time (hence “mancaves”). And so on and so forth.

At the same time, I think he is a bit off when he says that women hate suffering. In fact I have written a post on this subject before. A few snippets from that post:

You see, healthy women “like” suffering.

I put quotations around like because it is not a conscious desire, but an unconscious one. Something deep down inside them recognizes that a certain amount of suffering is to be expected, is natural even. As Ace alludes to, this draws from Genesis[.]

…

Women expect suffering in their life- it is the natural thing. [Think about the vast majority of human history- filled with suffering for pretty much everyone.] When women are too comfortable, when suffering is absent from their life, then it sends a message to their unconscious mind that something is wrong, that what they are living is an unnatural life. That message of unnaturalness will only be repeated over the years as they grow up. They will know, somewhere deep down inside, that something is wrong. Unfortunately, because this is unconscious, they won’t know what it is, exactly, that is wrong.

This will, naturally enough, lead them to feel miserable. The misery is only made worse because they won’t understand it. It will gnaw on their mind incessantly, like an itch you can’t quite reach.

I suspect that part of the reason that women act so crazy in the west today is because of this. Using that itch analogy I just mentioned- women act crazy because they are trying to scratch that itch. Only they don’t quite know how- so they do so in extreme ways. Again, deep down inside they know they should be suffering, so they go out and make themselves suffer (without every truly understanding that is what they are doing).

I think a better word, one that fits what Deep Strength is driving towards, is sacrifice. Women hate sacrifice. They don’t want to have to sacrifice anything to get what they want. A few examples:

• They say they want a family, but they don’t want to sacrifice their youth, and an education and/or career, to get one.
• They don’t want to sacrifice their comfort and easy lifestyle for the pain and burden of children, so they opt for birth control and abortion.
• They don’t want to have to sacrifice their happiness (and time, etc.) for a man whom they find unattractive, and so they opt for divorce.

And so on and so forth.

Later in his post Deep Strength says this:

Christian wives hate suffering and putting their own will aside to display Christ-like behavior. They would rather manipulate the situation around them to be better by their own volition than try it God’s way.

Again, putting aside their own will is a sacrifice. And one they don’t want to have to make. Further, it is one they all too often refuse to make.

Of course, that isn’t really any different from men. Men don’t want to have to sacrifice either. That is just general human nature. The thing is, this is where Deep Strength’s statements about coddling are important.

Women are, on average, far more coddled than men in today’s society. It is far more common for men to be taught and told that they will have to sacrifice to achieve what they want in life, than it is for women. And even then, for women, the scale of the sacrifice they are told to expect is likely to be less.

What does this means? It means that women are less inclined to sacrifice in general. When they must sacrifice, they are inclined to sacrifice less. And of course, they try and shift as much of that burden of sacrifice onto men as they can get away with.

The solution requires confronting this problem head on. Women, of all ages, need to be reminded that we all must sacrifice. Especially as Christians. Our faith is one of self-sacrifice. Without a willingness to sacrifice, well, our Lord and Savior explained what would happen:

¹⁸ “Hear then the parable of the sower. ¹⁹ When any one hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in his heart; this is what was sown along the path. ²⁰ As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; ²¹ yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. ²² As for what was sown among thorns, this is he who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the delight in riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. ²³ As for what was sown on good soil, this is he who hears the word and understands it; he indeed bears fruit, and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

(Matthew 13:18-23)

Starting With The Right Question

I want to begin this post with a little bit of scripture:

²⁵ And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” ²⁶ He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read?” ²⁷ And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” ²⁸ And he said to him, “You have answered right; do this, and you will live.”

²⁹ But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” ³⁰ Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. ³¹ Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. ³² So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³ But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion, ³⁴ and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. ³⁵ And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ ³⁶ Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” ³⁷ He said, “The one who showed mercy on him.” And Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

(Luke 10:25-37)

Here we have the classic parable of the good Samaritan. I’m sure most of my readers are quite familiar with it. My purpose in mentioning this parable is to examine the lawyer.

You see, the lawyer asks two questions. The first one is good, and I think, honest. The second question is an entirely different matter, however.

When the lawyer asked Jesus “who is my neighbor?”, what do we think his purpose was?

Was the lawyer trying to ensure that he lived out God’s law to the fullest? Did he ask the question ensure he didn’t miss anyone?

Of course not. Scripture tells us that he was looking to justify himself. The lawyer wasn’t asking Jesus that question in order to get what I suppose you could call an “expansive” answer. Rather, the lawyer was trying to use whatever criteria that Jesus mentioned in order to limit those whom he would treat as a neighbor. He didn’t want lots of neighbors, he wanted as few of them as possible. Hence the question.

His goal was to restrict the amount of love he had to show his fellow man. In other words, the lawyer wanted to be miserly with love. And he was counting on Jesus to help him out with this (boy was he in for a surprise).

In short, the lawyer’s heart wasn’t in the right place from the very beginning. And so his question was wrong from the very beginning. A better question, rather than “And who is my neighbor?”, would have been “How can I live out the law to the fullest?” Such a question comes from a heart that is aligned to God.

Whenever we ask a question which concerns living out our faith, we always need to ask it when our heart is in the right place. If God is not first and foremost there- if serving and loving him totally is not our aim and purpose- then our endeavor is corrupt from the start. Whatever comes of it will invariably be twisted in some way.

I mention all of this because Deep Strength has a couple of recent posts concerning submission in marriage: The problems with intelligent submission being the first, and Wifely submission is easy being the second. Both of these posts draw as their origin a simple enough question: “When should I obey my husband?”

It is my belief that this particular question, just like the question of the lawyer, comes from the wrong place in the heart (perhaps intentionally, perhaps unintentionally) . Its purpose is not “How can I live out the law to the fullest?” Rather, the purpose is to limit obedience, to limit that which must be rendered to another. Much in the same way that the lawyer wanted to limit how much love he had to render to his fellow man.

A better question, one arising from a heart aligned with God, would be more along these lines: “Which action now available to me would be most pleasing to God?” Otherwise stated, “What action would be most loving?”

 

Beta Farming

In my post Of Fighting And The West, blogger Rollo Tomassi left a comment which included the following gem:

The modern church is a Beta farm and only exists to produce the same masculinity-confused men that the secular world has perfected today.

I want to touch on that issue of “Beta Farming” today.

To start with, I agree with Rollo’s first contention- that the “modern” church is a “Beta farm.” What is taught and enforced in most churches these days is a theology which wrings the masculinity out of men. Most of the time this leaves the young men growing up in church as hapless, servile “Beta” males who exist to do whatever women want.

However, I disagree with the second part. I don’t think that most churches exist to produce these kinds of men. They have other purposes, and not necessarily good ones at that. For example, they often preach a theology which provides moral cover to women and places moral blame on men. All the same, some might have good intentions. Some of those within might genuinely intend to serve the Lord. All the same, the modern church’s purpose has been hijacked. While these churches don’t exist to create “beta males”, that is their functional end purpose at this point (or one of them, anyways).

This all leads to the interesting question of how this all came to be. Reader Lost Patrol left this speculation:

I wouldn’t say the modern church “only exists” to produce hapless men – I see it more as an unintended consequence of having ceded so much ground to secular feminism.

My view is somewhat different- I would argue that this has come about because we have ceded so much ground to women.  As I explained:

The more power women were given, the more natural this outcome was. Once you understand female nature, it is easy to see how this outcome was inevitable once women were given the power and control they were in our present system.

Lost Patrol responded by reaffirming that women were given this power. They could never have taken it from men. The why of men gave women that power I will discuss in another post. But before I close this one I want to cover why this ceding of power to women lead to our present troubles.

My theory is that the present “Beta farms” inside modern churches is a natural result of women influencing matters to reassure their native insecurity. This insecurity is something that I believe most men have no idea about, and even those who have some inkling of its existence usually fail to grasp its extent. I have covered this before, but to briefly sum it up:

Women are far and away more insecure in their lives than men.

Much of this insecurity comes from the gap in physical prowess between men and women. We men are much more capable of defending ourselves and imposing our will on our environment than women are- at least at the individual level. But whatever its source, it has a profound effect on female behavior. Women are constantly, and often at an unconscious or subconscious level, trying to alter their environment to make it feel more secure.

I believe that this behavior is responsible for the “Beta farms” in modern churches. As women were given more power inside the church and its environs, they began to exert their influence. This influence was used to shape how men were raised, and what they were supposed to be as Christians. The goal, whether realized or not, was to create the hapless Beta nice guys who populate most churches these days.

Why? Simple- “Betas” are far less threatening to women. They are safer and do things on women’s behalf. So women reinforce this system to create more and more of these “safe” men. As long as they have any degree of power in a church, they will keep it this way. [Of course, this has the effect of leaving those men as unattractive, but female nature is known for wanting two opposites at once.] If we want to shut down the “Beta farms,” we need to reassert masculine control over the church. Otherwise this wicked cultivation will continue, and likely only get worse.

Thoughts On Love In Marriage

[My post Background on the Nature of Man will be helpful to understanding this post.]

I have had a long-standing theory about how love works within marriage, although I am not sure that I have ever devoted a post to it on this blog. I doubt it is a new or novel theory, in fact I would be surprised if it was. All the same, I think it is finally worth getting down.

My theory is simple: the best marriages are those which encompass all three major types of love- Eros, Philos and Agapos. When all three are present in marriage- when both husband and wife  express all three towards their spouse, I believe that a marriage is at its healthiest.

To me, this makes sense because the relationship would then extend to all aspects of our being. Eros is connected to our Body. Philos to our Soul. And Agapos is the love of our Spirit. When all three are present, the fullness of our nature is in play.

At the same time, when one of these loves is not present, it is a sign of serious trouble in a marriage.

No Eros? Well then, that means no passion from one of the spouses (or both). [The phrase “I love you but I’m not in love with you” is a sign of a marriage where Eros is gone.] That can mean denial of sex, and the frustration inherent in it. An absence of Eros also leads to greater temptation and danger of leading to all kinds of immorality.

Philos not present? Well, that means there is no friendship and amity in the marriage (or at least from one side of it). Both spouses will likely quarrel, and if not, it will only be because the other is trying to preserve harmony. There will be a lot of hot and cold in this marriage- it will move from moments of great passion to indifference or even enmity.

Agapos missing? Well, for one, that means that the marriage is no longer Christian. Without the self-sacrificing nature of Agapos the marriage will not be able to endure all the trials and tribulations of the world. At least, not unless society gives the spouses no choice on the matter. But in our present age? Without Agapos it will fall apart, sooner or later.

Of all three loves, Agapos is the most important. Only it can withstand everything the world has to throw at a married couple. But just because a couple stays together doesn’t mean the marriage is as healthy as it could or should be. All three loves should be present for a marriage to be as strong as God intended it.

At least, that is how I see it. I invite my readers to offer their own thoughts.

Of Fighting And The West

This post is a response to Vox Day’s post here, at Alpha Game. In his relatively brief post Vox criticizes both the MGTOW and PUA movements. A small snippet that conveys the principal themes of his post:

What MGTOW and PUAs have in common is that both paths are surrenders to the dyscivilizationists. Both paths are the result of literal demoralization, the MGTOW in the emotional sense, the PUA in the spiritual sense.

While the Red Pill is necessary for any Man of the West, there is only one effective way to fight for civilization, and that is to marry a white woman, have children with her, and raise those children to value and defend the West.

Summarized, Vox is making the following arguments:

• The MGTOW and PUA movements are incompatible with a drive to save civilization
• The West must be defended to save Civilization
• The only way to fight for the West/Civilization is to marry (a white woman), have children and raise them properly

I have no fundamental objection to his first point, and so won’t address it. However, I will discuss the latter two arguments.

Give Upon on What, Exactly?

The title of Vox’s post is “They want you to give up.” Well, I get who “they” is from Vox’s post. But what exactly is it that they are giving up on? When Vox speaks of “The West”,  or “Western Civilization,” what exactly does he mean? Western Civilization as it stands now? As it did in 1950? Or 1850? How about 1350?
The truth is that you will likely find as many interpretations of “Western Civilization” as you will of the Bible. How does anyone agree on what it means? What happens if we disagree?

It is easy to call for a fight to save Western Civilization. But if there is no agreement as to what it means, than it will not be one fight but many. Because those who disagree about what Western Civ means will, sooner or later (and I predict sooner), start fighting one another. There is only one “West”, and we all cannot have our own version of it for it to remain the West for very long.

Married to the Fight

This brings me to Vox’s proposed solution to “fight” for the West: marry a white woman, have children, and raise them to value the West. Now, I happen to believe that history is won by those who show up, and so see some value in what he says. All the same, further examination is warranted.

Let’s start with his advocacy that the women be white. What exactly does he even mean by that? Before 1900 the Irish weren’t considered white. Neither were the Polish. Or many other Caucasian groups, for that matter. So which nationalities count? And how pure must such a woman be? 100%? To 3 generations, or 4?

In case it isn’t clear, I think Vox is being quite the fool here. While I am not one to argue that genetics and ethnicity plays no role in human affairs, at the same time I won’t give it the almost religious credence that some do. Genes ultimately are just markers of potential. If a man were to find a woman with a ton of good, positive traits, and her ancestors also had/have them, then that should be enough. Unless there are some other reasons why ethnicity would prohibit a good marriage (some exist, but are not universal).

In addition, there is also the problem that there aren’t enough good marriageable women out there. Simple fact. Marrying a poor choice of a woman is a fool’s move. Which means that some men out there are not going to be able to marry. Again, just a simple fact.

Does that mean that they are opposing “the West?” Or that they cannot help fight for it? I would respond with an emphatic No.

I believe that even if a man doesn’t marry he can be of great assistance to this struggle. For one, there are religious vocations (the priesthood, becoming a monk). Non-married men can also contribute to keeping “Pro-Western” communities going. Financial assistance is one way to do this- easing the burden on those who are married will help them have more children- which will benefit the community in the long run. They can teach and educate the youth (I believe it has been a significant mistake to have let this field be dominated by women). And so on and so forth.

In short, there are a lot of ways that they can help- if you approach it from a community level. I think it is a mistake to look at this only at the individual level. No man is truly an island. So long as the non-married men support their community and help build it up then they can still be a force for good.

And there you have it- my thoughts on the matter. Feel free to use the comments to voice your support, or shred my ideas.

 

Pulling The Plug #1: Sounding Off

This post is the first in my series on how help “unplug” Churchians, as well as Christians who are simply misguided. I am going to try and keep these posts narrowly focused, in order to save myself some time as well as get the most out of ideas developed therein.

For today’s post I start with the beginning-

How do you start to “unplug” someone? How do you convince them to “put on the glasses?”

I think the best foundation is to determine where they stand. Get them to sound off on what truths they already recognize, and what lies they hold dear. Of course, it shouldn’t be an interrogation, or a real demand that they list every single thing they believe which is connected to the ideas discussed in the ‘sphere. Rather, try and figure it out over several conversations. Ask about related subjects, or RP subjects, and carefully get a feel for what someone believes.

The reason I suggest this is because you need to know where someone is already good, where they are really bad, and where they need improvement, but perhaps are already moving in the right direction. Once you know where they stand, you can begin in earnest.

I recommend beginning your “active unplugging” by reaffirming with them the truth that they already accept. Focus on it at first. Emphasize how you both agree on this matter. Get them to involve themselves in discussions on it, so that they feel invested in the topic. Once invested, it will be harder for them to reject the implications those truths point towards.

Also, getting someone to agree with themselves is usually not terribly difficult (shocking, right?). But in all seriousness, this makes it a good and easy way to start. You can start to get a feel for both your own knowledge, as well as what techniques work best to convince someone. Once you have built a rapport with someone, then you can move to the next step with a greater likelihood of success.

Pulling The Plug

[Alternate title: Putting on the Glasses]

In my post Never Enough reader/commenter Coastal suggested that I write a post “helping Churchians’s ‘unplug’ would be great, along with examining how swallowing the ‘pill’ tends to change your relationships with others in a church setting.” It is quite a good idea, and one that I intend to pursue.

However, that is a lot to cover. More than would reasonably fit in a single post. And it would be difficult to have the comments flow together. So I am going to start a new series about how to help men accept the “Red Pill” or unplug or put the glasses on. [Use whatever analogy suits your preference.] At the same time I  will have a side post (or series), which focused on how unplugging affects Church relationships.

I hope to have the first post up soon.

Never Enough

I was in a conversation recently at church in which the discussion turned towards Christians who held (what those present) considered to be pretty obviously heretical beliefs. Several of the men present (it was an all male conversation) expressed a belief that ignorance was the biggest problem. They felt that if people were better educated it would got a long way towards solving the problem.

I disagreed. In my opinion it isn’t a lack of received truth on most people’s part. The problem is found in the heart, not the mind. No amount of proof will work for them. Case in point:

¹⁹ “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. ²⁰ And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, ²¹ who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. ²² The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. ²³ In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. ²⁴ He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ ²⁵ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. ²⁶ Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ ²⁷ He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— ²⁸ for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ ²⁹ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ ³⁰ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ ³¹ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

(Luke 16:19-31)

You can tell people the truth, you can show them the truth, but if they don’t want to accept it, and its implications, they will simply reject it, and choose a more preferable interpretation. That is not to say that ignorance is good- it isn’t. We are called to tell the Truth, even if we know people will reject it. Sometimes error really is a product of ignorance- that was my case for much of my life.

The key is not to be disheartened when people do reject the Truth (in whatever form and case it may be).

Naturally enough, this also applies to the “Red Pill.” Of course, the Red Pill isn’t really “truth” per se. Rather, it is merely an exposure to the fact that one has been living a lie. (NSR has a good write-up on that here.) But all the same- plenty of folks will choose the lie, even after they have been told (and shown) it to be a lie. For them, there is never enough evidence to support your argument (whatever it may be). All you can do is carry on.

¹⁴ The mind of a fool is like a broken jar;
    it can hold no knowledge.

(Sirach 21:14)

The Escape Plan

I.

I have read with interest Deep Strength’s latest posts on submission and marriage. In chronological order we have:

Intelligent submission is not required

Submission is a test of faith

Women’s sin nature in marriage and contentment

Unfortunately, time restraints kept me from responding in detail until now. Since DS has written several follow-ups to the first post, some of what I was going to say is now dated. Some now ideas developed, however, and so I will try and flesh out this post as best as I can.

I should note that I don’t agree with all that DS has to say- sometimes for theological reasons and sometimes practical reasons. But those disagreements can be worked out in other posts (and in some cases already have)

II.

To begin with, I want to explore the notion of “intelligent submission.” As some alluded to in DS’s post, such a term is highly disingenuous. Not because there is anything wrong with either word. The problem is when they are combined together. The addition of “intelligent” is meant to apply a condition to submission- in other words, to limit its application.

Frankly, whenever anyone proposes limiting any expression of faith, be it submission, or charity, or compassion, etc., massive red flags need to be raised. Has anyone among my readers heard of “Intelligent Compassion” before? I can’t say that I have. And if I did, you better believe I would be looking for the con. I rather suspect I would not be alone in this.

Intelligence, or better put, Wisdom, is a trait that all Christian women should posses, or strive to build. Married women are no exception to this:

She opens her mouth with wisdom,
    and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.

(Proverbs 31:26)

However, when people start talking about “Intelligent Submission” they aren’t referring to a woman exercising wisdom and submitting to her husband at the same time. No, they are saying a woman should intelligently decide when and where and how to submit to her husband. The gap between those two notions is as vast as that between Lazarus and the Rich Man. No bridging that gap.

All of this drives to my main point: beware of those who try and applies conditions to how they live out their faith. For most, if not all, their intentions are not benign. What they are trying to do is limit how much work they actually have to put into their faith. An example from our Lord:

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, ² “Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” ³ He answered them, “And why do you transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? ⁴ For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die.’ ⁵ But you say, ‘If any one tells his father or his mother, What you would have gained from me is given to God,^[a] he need not honor his father.’^{[b] 6} So, for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word^[c] of God.

[Footnote b: By dedicating his property to God, i.e., to the temple, a man could avoid having to help his parents, without actually giving up what he had. The scribes held such a vow to be valid without necessarily approving it.]

(Matthew 15:1-6)

They want to have their cake and it eat it- to appear righteous, without having to live a righteous life. Which leads to the next part.

III.

This idea of appearing righteous without having to actually be righteous is what Deep Strength covers in his most recent post:

That’s ultimately what it comes down to: women want to let their husband lead instead of following his lead. I had thought that twisted rebellion like the complementarians espouse was the main sin nature of women. However, I believe I am now wrong about that. Covert rebellion which is “I let my husband lead” is probably the main sin nature of women because it’s under the guise of righteousness (e.g. the husband is leading) but it gives her all of the power (e.g authority) in the relationship.

This is the true essence of virtue signalling. Grabbing power while maintaining the moral high ground. It’s not enough to grab power. It must be done with the moral high ground.

In other words, a woman must look good while rebelling or sinning. As Looking Glass likes to call it: Vanity. Vanity rebellion. Women’s sin nature in marriage is Vanity Rebellion.

DS is very close here. He is spot on about the specific behavior that women are exhibiting here. Although I think the name “Vanity Rebellion” is a bit clunky, I can’t think of a better name myself, so VR it is.

This VR phenomenon is quite prevalent in Christian circles, and is something I think we can probably call endemic to human nature. Nor is it necessarily limited to women, although I think women are more prone to it.

As DS points out, can also see this virtue signalling when it comes to divorce- women always try to have the moral high ground when they initiate a divorce. It is never because the woman is just tired of marriage. That might be part of it, but there is always some major failing on the man’s part.

At the same time, however, I think that this specific behavior is just a particular manifestation of a much broad behavior that women are prone to engage in. I call it “The Escape Plan.”

It is as simple as it sounds- always have an escape plan in place in case something goes wrong. Whatever the situation is, always have an out for it. You can find this behavior everywhere:

Don’t like what your husband is telling you to do? Claim it wouldn’t be intelligent to submit to him, and that is what God expects of wives.

Don’t like being married to your husband? Divorce him and claim it is his fault, that the moral blame lies on him because he failed as a husband and God wants you to be free.

Don’t need an abortion but want to be free to get one if need be, and at the same time appear righteous? Say that you are personally against abortion but don’t feel the state should intervene in women’s lives/bodies.

Rollo’s Plan B is an example of this. Keep a “Plan B” man around… just in case.

Heck, you see this in domestic violence cases all the time. The woman calls the police, but then tells them she doesn’t want the man arrested. Why? Lots of reason, but a major one is she wants them there to cool the situation down, at least at first. But then she can decide whether to keep the relationship or not. If she decided to keep it, she says she doesn’t want to press charges. If she decides to ditch her man, say she wants charges. You can also see this with women who will stick with a man, but then tell their friends or family they are “in fear of their lives.” This gives them a great out- they can stay if they want, but once they want out they can call the police and point out they warned people in the past. [This is nothing, mind you. Having friends who are cops can provide all kinds of stories- but this isn’t the place for that. ]

Again, the goal is setting up a situation where the woman can bail at any time if she wants to. It is all having options.

This explains Vanity Rebellion- women want to appear to be a good, righteous woman. But they also worry about what the cost of that could be if they actually lived up to everything. So they gain power… just in case.

Now, men do this too. But women, who are more naturally covert than men as owing to their nature, are far and away more prone to this. So prone to it I would argue that it is a standard procedure for women- they will default to it unless they actively resist. For men I think it is much more likely to be an active choice, and thus less common.

IV.

And that wraps up my commentary for today. To recap:

• People who add conditional modifiers to expression of faith, such as submission, are almost always (and should be presumed to be) acting in bad faith.
• Vanity Rebellion is just one example of a larger phenomenon, The Escape Plan- whereby a woman tries to get some perceived good but at the same time leaves an option available to her to bail or escape if the cost should prove too high.

My readers are of course free to disagree and/or add their own thoughts.

In The Dark

My Orthodox readers might find the following article interesting:

The Orthodox Church Stays In The Dark Ages

Of course, other readers could (and dare I say, should) find it interesting too. Now, the arcana of Orthodox policies and politics isn’t my primary interest in that article. Instead, it was the focus on The Dark Ages.

You see, there is definitely some darkness going on in that piece. Only, the lack of light is found in the writer’s head. His Western education clearly shows (at least to me), as he is clearly unaware of the actual nature of the Dark Ages. If he was historically literate, or at least had the brains to read Wikipedia, he would have known that the Dark Ages was a period in Western European history. It was the Western Church which went through the “Dark Age” period.

The Eastern Church, on the other hand, had a rather different experience. Why so? Simple- the Eastern Roman Empire lasted for a thousand years longer than in the West. The Light of the East didn’t dim like that of the West when Rome fell. Instead the Eastern Church flourished and prospered. At least, it did until Islam showed up and conquered vast areas of formerly Christian lands.

The writer is letting his contempt for Tradition, and the haughtiness of a liberal mindset,  show here. He has a point to make, and he won’t let facts or history get in the way of it. Arguing the merits of why the Orthodox Churches are standing up for what they believe in is pointless with one such as him. The irony is that so called “Progressives” like him (although he may deny that is what he is) are the new barbarians- they are the ones trying to tear down the pillars of civilization all around them. Sadly, for the most part they succeeded. I hope for the world’s sake that they continue to fail where the Eastern Church is concerned.