Why am I so much better than other men?

I already offered this as a comment at Instapundit, but since I don’t have a new real post to offer I thought I would put this up to at least allow for new discussion.   Instapundit’s post is itself a link to Dr. Helen’s post, which is a rebuttal to the Michael* Walsh’s post: Why Are Millennial Men Such Wimps?

Walsh’s post is yet another “Why am I so much better than other men?” rant. It is a natural crowd pleaser, in that women love being told they deserve better men, and many men love the opportunity to pose alongside Walsh as troubled by their own magnificence in comparison to other men. It is therefore a sure bet to draw clicks and allow Walsh and his followers to bask in their own smugness.

What it fails to do however is:

1. Make Walsh and those posing with him more attractive to women. Groveling after all only makes men less attractive to women.
2. Offer any meaningful solution to our societal decay. To the extent that it has an impact, it will make things worse since one of the claims being made is that the more feminist/unfeminine a woman becomes, the more she deserves a strong man “who can handle her”.

Walsh quotes the female newscaster:

So whose fault is it? Is it our fault, ladies? Are we getting too strong? Nah, I don’t buy that. See, a real man knows how to handle a strong woman, so this isn’t our problem…

Please teach your sons to be men, because the women of the world are tired of the boys.

To which Walsh replies:

You go, girl!

*Michael Walsh should not be confused with Matt Walsh who also writes on the same theme.

God will provide the Lamb.

¹⁶ For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

–John 3:16 KJV

In Genesis 22 we learn of God’s test of Abraham:

² And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

Since God had already promised to multiply Abraham’s seed through Isaac, Abraham expected God to resurrect his son after he sacrificed him.  When Isaac noted that they had no lamb, Abraham assured his son that God would provide the lamb:

⁶ And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together.

⁷ And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?

⁸ And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.

Abraham knew that God would keep His promise, but he was wrong about how He would do so.  Alternately, you could say that Abraham was right about the how, but not about whose Son God would resurrect.  Either way, it was not God’s will that Abraham kill Isaac, and an angel of the Lord intervened just in time to stop Abraham.  Instead, God provided a lamb snared by his horns in a thicket:

And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

Many years later in Exodus the theme of fathers, sons, and the blood of a lamb would return with the original Passover.  In Exodus 11 Moses tells the Pharaoh about the plague that is about to transpire:

⁴ So Moses said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. ⁵ Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the female slave, who is at her hand mill,and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. ⁶ There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt—worse than there has ever been or ever will be again. ⁷ But among the Israelites not a dog will bark at any person or animal.’ Then you will know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel. ⁸

In Exodus 12 we learn how Israelite fathers are to spare their households from this plague with the blood of a male lamb without blemish:

³ Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house.

⁴ And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb.

⁵ Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year…

⁷ And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it…

¹² For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord.

God kept His promise to the Israelites, and they were spared the plague of the firstborn due to the blood of the lambs.

Moving forward many years again and John the Baptist first sees Jesus.  He immediately recognizes Jesus as the Lamb of God:

The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

At the time of Jesus the Jewish people still slaughtered lambs in observance of Passover, with the male lambs slaughtered on the day of preparation.  Indeed, the Lamb of God, Christ, was crucified on the day of preparation (John 19:31).  Like Isaac in Genesis, Jesus carried the wood for his own sacrifice (John 19:17).  Like the ram caught in the thicket, his head was surrounded by thorns (Mat. 27:29, Mark 15:17, John 19:2,5).  And like the male lambs in Genesis and Exodus He was without blemish.

It is by the blood of this Lamb that we are saved, and this is why we celebrate Easter.  May God bless each of your households.

Complementarian marriage: Egalitarian marriage with a veneer of headship.

In order to understand complementarian marriage, you have to start by tossing out everything the Bible says about marriage roles and begin with a foundation of egalitarian marriage.  Then add back a thin veneer of headship, focusing on headship sounding principles which are calculated to least offend modern feminist sensibilities.

I’ll start with the base 95% of complementarian marriage:  egalitarian marriage.  Dr. Wayne Grudem explains the base of complementarian marriage in A Balanced Look at Roles (emphasis mine):

…how does it work? How does it work in practice?”

In our own marriage, Margaret and I talk frequently and at length about many decisions. I can tell you that I wouldn’t be here tonight unless Margaret and I had talked about this and asked the Lord about it, and she had given blessing to it, and said, “Yes, I think that’s right.” Sometimes we make large decisions such as buying a house or a car, and sometimes they are small decisions like where we should go for a walk together. I often defer to Margaret’s wishes, and she often defers to mine because we love each other.

In almost every case, each of us has some wisdom and insight that the other does not have. Usually, we reach agreement on the decisions that we make. Very seldom will I do something that she doesn’t think is wise–I didn’t say never.

So far, this is pure egalitarianism, or if you prefer, “mutual submission”.  Note the implication that love means they almost never disagree.

In Countering the Claims of Evangelical Feminism: Biblical Responses to the Key Questions Grudem explains that complementarian couples nearly always come to mutual agreement because God makes them one flesh:

The biblical ideal is that the husband is to be both loving and humble in his leadership. The wife is to be both joyful and intelligent in her submission. Practically, this means that they will frequently talk about many decisions, both large and small. This also means that both the husband and the wife will listen to the other’s unique wisdom and insight related to the decision. Often one will defer to the other in the decision; rarely will they differ greatly in the decision (for the Lord has made them “one flesh”).

Now that we have defined the base 95% of complementarian marriage (egalitarian marriage), we add in the remaining 5% of non threatening, non offensive headship.  But since the word headship is itself too offensive to feminist sensibilities, many prefer the term servant leader.  Whatever you call it, this 5% is calculated to be as non threatening as possible while seeming something like headship, but it is not biblical headship.  We can understand what this looks like by Grudem’s description of what is missing when it is absent.  When husbands are “wimps”, what exactly is missing?

Opposite the errors of aggression are errors of passivity. They are equally wrong. When a husband abdicates his leadership responsibilities by not disciplining his children, not caring for the family’s physical or spiritual needs, or not defending his wife and children when verbally attacked by a friend or relative (these are just a few examples), then his acting as a wimp does not fit the role God designed for him in marriage.

When Grudem says a husband is being a wimp by being too passive, he doesn’t mean the husband isn’t leading his wife in any meaningful sense of the term.  He means the husband isn’t doing a laundry list of things every wife is tempted to nag her husband into doing.  None of these things are threatening or offensive to all but the most radical feminist woman.  Even better, under this definition anything you want to manipulate husbands into doing can be framed as “leadership”, including dating/wooing their wife and telling her she is pretty.

There is another component to the veneer of headship complementarians place on top of egalitarian marriage, and that is responsibility.  While complementarian decisions are made using the same process egalitarians use, the difference is the husband is responsible for every decision made using the egalitarian process.  As Grudem explains in Countering:

But in every decision that involves both the husband and wife, whether large or small, and whether they agree or not, the responsibility to make the decision rests with the husband. Therefore, male headship makes a difference every day in the marriage relationship.

This is egalitarian marriage with a female friendly cherry on top.  If your husband isn’t giving you your way, he must not really love you.  But even when he gives you your way, he is always responsible for any bad outcomes.  Only the most hard core feminist woman could find fault with such an arrangement.

Grudem makes the same point in Balanced:

But in every decision that we make that affects us together or affects our family, the responsibility to make the decision rests with me. If there is genuine male headship, I believe there is a quiet acknowledgement that the focus of the decision making process is the husband, not the wife. Even though there will often be much discussion and there should be mutual respect and consideration of each other, ultimately the responsibility to make the decision rests with the husband. And so, in our marriage the responsibility to make the decision rests with me.

In summary:

1. Nearly all decisions are made by coming to consensus.  If husbands are making decisions their wives disagree with, someone isn’t loving the other well enough;  to understand who this someone might be, consider which spouse Scripture instructs to focus on submitting, and which spouse is to focus on loving.  Alternately, perhaps they aren’t really married, since if they were one flesh this wouldn’t be happening.  In a world of rampant divorce because wives don’t “feel loved” and/or decide they were tricked into marrying the wrong man, this is gasoline on the fire of rebellion and broken homes.
2. Husbands need to defer to the better judgment of their wives on a regular basis.
3. No matter who made the decision, and even though it must be made using the egalitarian process, the husband is responsible.

For comparison, consider a very typical description of egalitarian marriage from a woman who started out as a complementarian:

We make all major decisions together.  Since each of us starts out willing to yield to the other, any disagreements are usually resolved in favor of who the issue is more important to.  But if we disagree, we have to talk and pray until we find consensus.  He doesn’t have an “I make the final decision if we disagree” trump card.

On the other hand, since back in our complementarian days, he never actually used this trump card, this makes no practical difference.  We have always sought consensus.  He has never wanted to override me.

The practical decision making process is the same in both models.  The difference is the removal of the veneer of headship (emphasis mine):

In short, our marriage has not changed all that much in its outward appearance.  The difference is in our attitudes.  I can no longer coast along, letting the responsibility for everything rest on him.  I have to step up and take responsibility alongside him, shouldering with him the adult load.  Any rules that we set for the household and children, we must both be fully willing to enforce.  And once we got used to this, we both liked it much better.

Indeed.  If you insist on having an egalitarian marriage in structure, it is far better not to pretend that it is traditional.

Sarah was a doormat by Complementarian standards, as are her daughters.

At the core of Dr. Wayne Grudem’s theology of marriage is a table he frequently uses to describe the sins of husbands and wives:

Aside from the implicit claim that headship and submission shouldn’t be offensive to our feminist sensibilities, most of the table makes basic sense*.  Yet one field stands out like a sore thumb;  Grudem has created a new sin for women**, the feminist sin of being a doormat.  Grudem explains this new sin in A Balanced Look at Roles:

There is an error of passivity on the wife’s part. Day after day, month after month, year after year in their marriage, “Yes dear, whatever you say . . . yes dear, whatever you say.” She doesn’t contribute at all to the decision making process. She has no preferences, no desires. She’s a doormat. That is an error as well. That’s not the biblical pattern.

In his book Countering the Claims of Evangelical Feminism: Biblical Responses to the Key Questions Grudem offers the same table and explains:

…when a wife chooses not to participate in family decisions, does not express her preferences or opinions, does not speak up when her children or husband are doing wrong, or does not object to her husbands physical or verbal abuse, then she is not being submissive, but instead is acting as a doormat, and out of line with the role God designed for her in the marriage relationship.

Note that abuse is thrown in as an always effective red herring.  If you object to this newly manufactured sin, you therefore must be condoning abuse.  Note also that Grudem’s doormat theology creates the formal structure for fellow CBMW member and Women’s Studies professor Mary Kassian to teach Christian wives to set and enforce boundaries for their husbands (emphasis mine).

No brain-dead doormats or spineless bowls of Jello here! Submission is neither mindless nor formulaic nor simplistic. Submitting to the Lord sometimes involves drawing clear boundaries and enacting consequences when a husband sins.

All of this should raise the obvious question:  Why do Christian women in our feminist age need to be constantly warned not to be doormats, but women in the ancient world did not?  Did women in the ancient world have more moxie than the women of our feminist age?  Why are modern women at risk of committing this new kind of sin, a sin which the Bible fails to warn us of?  Why must Grudem, Kassian, etc. constantly remind Christian women not to fall into the sin of being a doormat when Peter and Paul did not?  Why does the New Testament repeatedly remind wives to submit to their husbands (Eph 5-22:24, 1 Pet 3:1&5, Col 3:18, Tit 2:5) without offering Grudem’s modern “balanced” warning not to be a doormat?  Was the teaching of Peter and Paul really flawed, requiring complementarians like Grudem and Kassian to “fix” it two thousand years later?

*The devil however is in the details.  What Grudem is describing as headship/submission is essentially egalitarian marriage with the husband as a figurehead with almost no authority.

**This same new sin is incorporated into the CBMW founding statement, but instead of using the term “doormat” the Danvers Statement uses the word servility.

Doing the job no American man would do.

When it comes to women pushing their way into the US military, Complementarians adopt the same posture the left does with illegal aliens.  Illegal aliens, we are told, aren’t forcing their way into our country and taking American jobs; they are merely undocumented workers forced to cross the border to do the jobs Americans won’t do.  Likewise, Complementarians don’t see women clambering to dress up as men, they see women being forced to do what men are unwilling to do.

No doubt the CBMW will be dismayed to learn that men’s cowardly unwillingness to serve in the military goes all the way to the top.  Last week we learned that President Obama was forced to select a woman to be the top general in defense of our homeland.

General Robinson would lead the United States Northern Command, which is based in Colorado Springs and was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to coordinate the military’s response to domestic threats.

The CBMW often compares our current situation to Deborah in Judges 4 being forced to accompany Barak as he lead the troops in battle.  If the CBMW is right about what is going on, none of the men in the US Military were willing to step up, leaving a reluctant General Lori Robinson no choice but to take command of the defense of our homeland.

In other recent news regarding women in the US military:  All Marines Forced To Go Through Training To Erase ‘Unconscious Bias’ As Women Enter Combat Roles  (H/T Instapundit).

The reason for the training is mostly because male Marines have by and large been totally opposed to allowing women into combat roles. A survey conducted in 2012 by the Center for Naval Analyses found two-thirds of males Marines disapproved of integrating women, and a third of female Marines also opposed the idea.