Fannie the Feminist and other scary straw women of NON complementarians!

I had a good giggle today when I read Mary Kassian's article: “Dora the Doormat” and other Scary Straw Women of Complementarity

Why the giggle? I guess a person on twitter called her a 'uber' complementarian. I can't stay I blame her for fluffing off the label, but it did encourage her to throw out some silly stereotypes for an article.  She listed some for everyone to read to show how the straw women misrepresents truth.

As Ms. Kassian defined: A straw man argument is one that misrepresents a position, knocks that position down, and then concludes that the real position has been refuted. It’s a common, but faulty way to argue against an idea.

So how about we have some FUN today, and see if we can come up with some stereotypes of our own - in the other direction of course.

Ahem - lets start with everyone thinking about ominous music for the background before we begin!

Ready? Lets GO!

Lets meet our first stereotype:

'Fanny the Feminist'

....Virtually all the women portrayed in the media in the past decade. From children's cartoons to television series to movies, women are portrayed as having an in charge—don't need a guy—I'm powerful, traditional marriage and family and morals are outdated—I have the right to rule—how dare you tell me what to do—mentality.

In the past decade, we've been inundated with the message that when it comes to relationships, women can hook up, be in a casual or long-term relationship, live common-law, get married or not, get married and then get divorced, get pregnant or abort the babies, sleep around, live with a guy or a girl, have sex with a guy or a girl, and participate in a whole assortment of immoral and perverted behavior as long as they are friends. In other words, woman makes her own rules and sets her own standards, and as long as she is nice, it really doesn't matter what she does. Who are you to judge?

And WHO can never forget of the FAMOUS

Nancy the Narcissist

...As long as women are first loyal to themselves and second to their female buddies, they're on the right track. Single, married, lesbian, heterosexual, promiscuous, perverted—they can be vulgar, crude, and crass, but if they are for themselves and for other women and are caring and nice, then they're okay.

In the new worldview, men are whiny and needy and not too bright and totally unreliable. They're marginalized and de-masculinized, used, regarded, and discarded like Kleenex out of a box.

...Now days, the epitome of empowered womanhood is to live a self-serving, self-righteous, neurotic, narcissistic, superficial, and adulteress life. The main character in Sex in the City series wraps it up well when she counsels women that, “The most exciting, challenging, and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself.”

So in a few short decades in the span of my lifetime, the ideal of a happy, fulfilled woman has gone from one who serves and exalts her children, her husband, and her community to one who serves and exalts herself and has a very different type of commitment, very different type of idea towards men and women.

 We can NEVER leave out...

REBELLIOUS RUBY!

...authority role is what caused woman's heartache and heartbreak. It wasn't just an abstract concept of men having more power and authority than woman. It was woven throughout our entire society's family and social and political and religious structures. It was laced throughout our social etiquette and our customs, our rituals, our traditions and laws, our entire system of education and division of labor, and all of these things were responsible for keeping men in a dominant position and women in a submissive, subservient position. Patriarchy was seen as the ultimate cause of woman's discontent, and only the demise and the deconstruction of all patriarchal structures would lead to her freedom. Only when woman broke free from the traditional, male-defined, Judeo-Christian roles and rules would she find meaning and fulfillment, and thus, the trigger was pulled.

• Full self-determination—woman needed to decide who she was and needed to have the legal right to act independently of her husband.  
• Freedom from biology—that prompted feminists at that time to lobby for birth control, for legalized abortion, state daycare, reproductive technologies, such as test tube babies, anything that took the burden of bearing and caring for children off of a woman's shoulders and put it more on society as a whole. 
• Economic independence—pay equity, equal pay for work of equal value, changes to financial practices, total and equal integration, affirmative action.

 and ONE of my Favorites....

Consciousness-raising CASSIE

SPEAK bitterness to recall Bitterness!  SPEAK PAIN to recall pain - Mao Tse-tung

...if they gathered women together in small groups and got all those women talking about their hurts and grievances against men, then all the women in the group would begin to get upset with men, even those women who didn't have any hurts and grievances themselves, and then their anger could be directed into action. They could be empowered to rebel against the authority of the males in their homes and also in society as a whole and change the rules of the game, and this technique was called consciousness-raising.

...the most powerful, effective tool to lead women to a personal, “aha” moment of consciousness-raising—the moment that she accepts and she understands that all the problems in the world and all the problems of women are due to the rule of men and that she has the right to take things back into her own hands. 

The moral of the story?  DON'T be known as 

Henrietta the Heretic

The fundamental premise of feminism is that women need and can trust no other authority than our own personal truth, and that was a really quick fly-over of just where we've come from in the last 40, 50 years.


It was a philosophical quake that shook underground, and like a tsunami—the waves of the implications of that have come back over society in wave after wave after wave, and the carnage is unbelievable. The carnage in young women's lives, in older women's lives, the carnage is unbelievable. We are so broken. 

We have been taught that we ought not to bow and submit to any external power, but that's not the message of the Bible. God created us. He created us male and female, and that's not inconsequential. That means something. 

Now wasn't that fun?  Heck I didn't even have to WRITE most of it!  I just took statements from Mary Kassian herself!

On the article where she states her own brand of stereotypes?  Lets look at her conclusion and rebuke:

If you want to talk ideas, let’s talk ideas. Let’s talk hermeneutics. Let’s talk presuppositions. Let’s talk biblical exegesis. Let’s talk principles of interpretation and application. But stop misrepresenting the complementarian position. Stop using syllogistic fallacies, non sequiturs, disambiguations and fallacies of propositional logic. But most of all, please stop parading out those silly straw women!

Nice!  HEY!  can we start with the article I just quoted?

 Sorry...but that was to easy.

We need safe Churches - GET REAL and allow the healing to begin!

Photo Credit Scott Mills

In the past I have mentioned what I called, 'The Holy Hush'.  That wasn't a phrase that I coined, but was a phrase I found when I read an sociology paper by Nancy Nason-Clark called 'Shattered Silence or Holy Hush?'. 

When we learn about stories like Tina Anderson, and others encouraged to basically let it go or to basically 'be silence'?  That is what is meant by the Holy Hush.

The Shattered Silence as quoted from Ms. Nason-Clark's paper:

The silence is the being shattered as one woman at a time tells her story of battery under the umbrella of her local congregation within a safe space that has been created for such disclosures.

Sadly, for people like Tina Anderson it took 13 years to find.  There are what I call 'safe churches', but I think for most of us we need to feel that safety prior to opening up completely.

The church that I attend was a place that I felt out or checked out first .  I wanted to be comfortable with their line of teaching, preaching, etc.  I made a point before becoming to 'invested'  in this church to attend a new members orientation type of meeting.  I was in the room with some leaders and members, and I decided right away I would tell them I am a victim of domestic violence.  My daughter was in the next room waiting for me, and they basically got up - closed the door - and handed me a business card to our local domestic violence shelter.  The conversation THEN moved to my safety, etc.  You could literally FEEL the concern.

At this point I felt so much more safe with them.  I mean they handed me a secular agency's card, because they knew I needed experts in the field.  Then they concentrated on key factors like safety from there.  You knew they would be there for the journey if I needed help, AND they were not afraid to partner with experts as well.

Spiritual Leadership Coverups Enabled? You Get What You Honor

One theme that is written about to many times, and is quickly echoed as ‘not in my church’ is the blame shifting.

In the case of Chuck Phelps people are quickly asked to blame the police.  Chuck called, and Chuck reported.  He had her mother do the same.  

Chuck’s defense of Ernie Willis NOT being arrested until 13 years later is blame shifting.  No one wants to admit it for some reason, because ‘technically’ he followed the law.  The police never followed up.

The fact that the law was indeed broken, and a child was harmed wasn’t a good enough ‘biblical’ reason to make sure the police DID follow up.  Did this man EVER encourage the mother to make sure SHE followed up?  I would assume not, because he never EVER mentioned that.  He knows that people are questioning him NOT following up with the police, and yet he stays silence.

Since most are well aware of the fact that there are churches that don’t like outside influences within the church?  Since most know that they would rather handle these things ‘in house’?

The lack of following up by her mother and her pastor, and their example of blame shifting and also the church taking heat due to his authority is a great example of:

You Get What You Honor

I think to most that have not experienced the influence of a neglectful church truly have a hard time wrapping their minds around what happened with Tina Anderson, and so many others.

I found an IFB handbook online, and just to be clear that doesn't mean every Independent Fundamental Baptist Church follows this handbook. 

If you read parts of it particularly regarding the Head Pastor, and how he is to be seen from the congregation?  If you have wolf in sheep's clothing your congregation is being primed for abuse.  Lets look at one section, but you can read the entire handbook as well.

Responsibilities of the church to the pastor.

a. The church is to pray for their pastor; for God to give him wisdom to lead the church, and to willingly follow his leadership (Heb. 13:7).
b. The church is to submit to his God-ordained authority over the church, so that he may have a joyful ministry in the church (Heb. 13:7).
c. The church, especially the men of the flock, are to help him and be supportive of his pastoral ministry (See Exodus 17:8-13 — two men who held up Moses’ hands in battle).
d. The church is responsible to provide his family needs as well as the expenses of running the operations of the office he holds (1 Cor. 9:7-14; 1 Tim. 5:17-18).
e. The church is to protect the pastor and his family from those who would go about sowing seeds of doubt and discord among the membership; casting a shadow upon his ministry and accusing him of misdeeds in the ministry. It is a dangerous thing to attack this sacred office; and equally as dangerous to allow others in the church to do so (1 Tim. 5:19-20; Prov. 6:16-19).
f. The church should exercise firm church discipline to those who refuse to live in harmony with the other members; who are bent on destroying the fellowship of the church (Mt. 18:15-19).
g. The church member should always consult the pastor first, on any problem or matter of concern, and not spread talk around until it gets built up all out of proportion (the devil will see to that). Most often, when you sit down with your pastor, with an open Bible and prayer, things will be clearly understood and resolved so that peace can continue and that misunderstanding doesn’t create confusion.
h. There can be only one leader in a church. The pastor is that man. A church cannot survive when it has a divided allegiance towards more than one leader.
i. When God is finished with the pastor in a church, He will lead him to another work. Unless he is found unfit for the ministry, or is guilty of open sin, he is to be respected for the office he holds by all the members.
j. If any member of the church, after serious counsel with the pastor, still cannot follow his leadership, that member should, in the spirit of Christian love, quietly seek another church and pastor where he or she can serve the Lord. If that same member persists in trying to destroy the integrity and ministry of the pastor, he or she should be dealt with in accordance with church discipline as found in Matthew 18:15-19.

I have formatted the text they way they did on page 9.

When you blame Victims - You Get What You Honor

I have been reading around the Internet covering all the different opinions regarding the Tina Anderson Story that was released on 20/20.

Its quite amazing the different stands that people can come up with.

There was one quote that truly stuck a cord with me:

You Get What You Honor - from one article I read.

Ever since the sexual abuse scandals has come out within the Catholic Church others have loved how they can point fingers at them. They love to act as if it’s only a CATHOLIC problem.

Danni Moss of Because It Matters used to write articles about all the different scandals that broke regarding basically the same ‘root’ issue, but different versions of it. If you read the comments on her blog regarding these scandals you see people sticking up for the accused, and blaming the victim.

It’s a repeated theme on every story she wrote about. How adults shouldn’t be made responsible for the adult’s choice alone, and how the children need to step up and accept their share of the blame.

It’s a matter of convenience for adults. They teach their children they are not ready for adult choices due to their immaturity, and yet when something seriously happens? The opposite seems to be the case.

They are not yet prepared for those choices, and we must not treat them as if they were.

To quote Kevin T. Bauder and his article responding to the Scandal

WELL it seems until your honored hierarchy is involved in some cases.

You can read dozens of rants on how people within the IFB are angry about being broad brushed, and yet again if you read Danni Moss’s blog the response to sexual abuse is very common. No one speaks out about that.  Where is the angry over that?

So what can we conclude?

You Get What You Honor

Charles L. Surrett's twist and turns of the Fallacies of Logic!

Sexual predators, like any other criminal, look for an environment in which they can safely perpetrate their crimes. In an atmosphere where authority figures are viewed as 'anointed' and 'called' by God, where they are looked at as counselors and are privy to secrets in their congregation, where trust does not necessarily have to earned but is granted by the office itself. Women and children are to be submissive, which is often interpreted as subservient. Folks who ask questions are sometimes labeled as gossips and rebels. Stir in the fact that accusations of abuse are usually based solely on the word of a woman or child against The Man of Gawd and well... - you might as well pour Miracle-Gro all over it.

I found this quote on a thread speaking about the Tina Anderson charge against the IFB church.  From what I gather these people are IFB as well.  If we remember from the beginning of the 20/20 show they speak about these views well.

I think we all know there are churches out there that are bit more radical than others.  If you have read around there is a variety of responses about this from IFB members.  To me, the intelligent thing to do is speak out against the parts that have been proven and mishandled.  Responsible organizations would take this example, and reexamine their procedures - then make sure everyone within their church is aware.

Its sad when certain well-known and respected IFB members can't admit they also see mistakes that were made, and instead take a defensive stand to throw others under the bus.

Dr. Chuck Phelps as I mentioned has a website up with difference letters, and explanations to basically cover his butt.  Unfortunately, the more he places up on his website the worse he looks.

Its quite odd that a man of  “God” thinks that it would be acceptable to the world to just ‘do his job’ and report a sexual assault, and then turn around and basically tell everyone he doesn’t believe a sexual assault happened.  Then inform anyone that will listen about how he was ‘kind’ in his response.

Within the 20/20 show they spoke about the ‘old boys network’, and Chuck Phelps has now proved the point.  Dr. Chuck Phelps has placed a letter on his site from one of the boys – Dr. Charles L. Surrett.  In Dr. Surrett’s letter he characterized the show as ‘special pleading’.

Dr. Surrett defined ‘special pleading’ as intentionally presenting favorable evidence to one’s case, while at the same time purposely omitting unfavorable evidence.  He states that this may be acceptable in courtrooms, because the whole truth should come out if both sides do their jobs properly.

I would assume Dr. Surrett’s letter is to show the other side.    The problem I see is I don’t think the man watched the show, nor did he read the other documents on Dr. Chuck Phelps’s site.  He tends to contradict documents on Phelps Site, and his own use of ‘special pleading’ is seen as continuing to twist what happened.

1. He states ABC showed two cases of young ladies who were ‘allegedly’ sexually attacked from members within the IFB churches.  The show actually showed at least three. 
   
   I guess he didn’t count the cases that had convictions.  That would mean the word ‘allegedly’ at this point would be mute in light of them.  He stayed away from that, and didn't acknowledge it at all.  I guess it is because it may make his statements look 'unfavorable'.
   
   I saw that as a play on words myself.  If you are going to make your point you need to 'acknowledge' the conviction of more than one man in that case of sexual molestation that was spoken about on the program.
   
   Don't accuse an organization of 'leaving facts out', and then turn around and do it yourself

Church Discipline for Dr. Chuck Phelps!

I'm sure some of you have heard about, or even saw the 20/20 special about Tina Anderson.

I have placed the show on youtube if some of you have missed it. 

Unfortunately, the church pastor in question at this point is trying to cover his butt to me.  I mean he can't even make up his mind if she was raped, or had an affair.

All over the blog world and beyond they are speaking about the 'church discipline' that Tina claims happened, and her Pastor claims didn't.

When we look at Ernie Willis they had him go in front of the church to admit he committed adultery.

According to Christine Leaf (Tina Anderson's mother) and Pastor Phelps Tina Anderson wasn’t disciplined.  She was there to ask for support from the church, and announce her personal need.  Pastor Phelps said due to 'pregnancies being a public matter' (per his letter to 20/20).

At a church meeting, the woman said, Willis confessed to being unfaithful to his wife and Phelps read her letter about her pregnancy as she stood before the congregation.

Phelps said the meeting was not any sort of punishment, but was intended to inform the congregation and create a safe environment for people to help the woman with her pregnancy.

"I expected Ernie Willis to be arrested," Phelps said. "So to prepare the church for his imminent arrest, I communicated with the church or had him communicate with the church that he had been unfaithful to his marital vows. And to the young lady, she was with child, she needed help. . . . There was no discipline. Discipline implies she was put out. She was not put out. She was embraced."

Placing a minor up there that has been raped to tell her church that she is pregnant shows this Pastor has a serious lack of common sense, and it also shows he has no discernment skills AT ALL!

From what you have read about her mother's responses to everything?  She is a doormat that followed what she was told to do.