Kook Christian Groups/Individuals and Their Nutty Beliefs on ProCreation and What Constitutes Being Unequally Yoked
Here is another post or two with more quotes by people who claim to be Christian but who teach the thoroughly un-biblical view that God’s kingdom is to be spread by married couples pro-creating (making babies).
The Bible in fact teaches that the kingdom is to be spread and enlarged by Christians- whether married, single, divorced, with children or childless – telling the un-saved about Jesus Christ, not by marrying and having children.
As to this first link. I tend to lump all these categories together myself – patriarchy, quiverfull, complementarianism – because to me, they are all just a bunch of men teaching that men should control females.
The author of this piece below might kind of disagree with me, because he (or she?) seems very keen on people following very specific definitions of each term.
I do not agree with some of the sharp criticisms of this piece. I for one don’t see the problem with someone proclaiming that “Christian patriarchy is two steps away from making women wear a burka.”
Because you know what? It is. Some of the rhetoric and reasoning is very similar in “Christian modesty ” teachings as it is in Islamic teaching on how they feel women should cover their bodies and faces.
I actually think that comment is pretty dang accurate, in that many of these groups do advocate “modesty” teaching, which frowns on Christian women showing so much as an ankle.
Both groups – Muslims and pro-modesty Christians – tell women that they should cover their bodies because men are incapable of controlling their sexual urges and that men get instantly turned on beyond their control at the site of an attractive female. So, responsibility is placed upon women in both schools of thought to “dress modestly.”
Regardless of those issues, note the quote below about how this person believes that Christian women should “out breed” their opponents:
From the page, (Link): WHAT “CHRISTIAN PATRIARCHY” IS NOT , by R.L. Stollar
Quiverfull is, more or less, a specifically Christian form of natalism — the idea of employing procreation as a tool of sociopolitical dominion and categorizing birth control as rebellion against God.
Michael Pearl gave us a perfect embodiment of Quiverfull’s dominionist streak, when (Link): he recently stated,
“If you can’t out-vote them today, out-breed them for tomorrow.”
That is Quiverfull (albeit a distilled, intense version of it).
… Yes, there are many advocates of Christian Patriarchy who are Quiverfull.
And by all means, speak out against the dehumanizing and toxic idea that your children are your weapons, and a woman’s vagina is a weapons-building factory.
But remember these are distinct, especially considering there are many advocates of Christian Patriarchy who are not Quiverfull.
Take Doug Wilson, for example.
Doug Wilson is considered one of the pillars of Christian Patriarchy but believes birth control can be useful to ensure you’re actually taking care of your current children. That’s outright heresy to the Quiverfull crowd.
From this site:
(Link): Not On Your Side, Debi
Excerpts (emphasis added by me):
…. Several of the Pearl children’s spouses were raised in Gothard’s ATI program. (I say “spouses”, but Michael Pearl made it clear years ago that his children do not need any such thing as marriage licenses. A ceremony and their parents’ blessing is apparently good enough.*)
… Besides being given to racist and homophobic remarks, the Pearls are somewhat obsessed with sex. It gives Michael [Pearl] hope to envision homeschoolers “outbreeding” progressives.
He counsels the wife of an angry man to “make love” to improve her husband’s mood.
Debi often suggests that being sexually available is a wife’s primary responsibility.
Michael even wrote a book on erotic pleasure for fundamentalist Christian couples.
I can’t remember where I saw it – if on one of the pages above, but some page I read earlier today referenced quotes by Debi Pearl about being “equally yoked.”
Perhaps these comments can be found on her and her husband’s site, No Greater Joy, I am not sure.
Someone on another site quoted Pearl as having said that if you are a Christian, and you marry another Christian in a state that permits homosexual marriage, that your marriage – yes YOUR marriage to another Christian – is “unequally yoked.”
The argument seems to be that if you, a Christian, marry an opposite gender to yourself Christian in a state that also has legalized homosexual marriage, that a marriage performed in such a state taints yours, or makes yours invalid.
To put it yet another way (according to the Pearls): your marriage to another Christian is “unequally yoked” all because your next door neighbors, Fred and Stan the homosexual couple, are legally married by the same state too.
Please let that sink in and roll around in your brain for several moments: two Christians, one a man, one a woman, married to each other in a state where homosexual marriage is legal are said by the Pearls to be “unequally yoked”.
I’ve thought on it for awhile and still cannot make sense of it. What nuts these people are.
I ventured on over to the Pearl NGJ (No Greater Joy) site and see they have a page for singles ((Link): NGJ: Singles), and with pages on advice on how to find a mate, LOL, no thanks, won’t take advice from crackpots like them. The Pearls advise in their books on parenting that parents should beat their infant children with pipes.
There is much more nuttiness by them, but I don’t want to make this a huge post about the Pearls and every crazy thing they’ve ever taught.
On the main page for NGJ Singles is this:
PreparingToBeAHelpMeet.com
This is from the Preparing blog site. The girls are discussing Shalom’s article in the Sept/Oct 2012 NGJ magazine, “Where A
This page at NGJ Singles actually recommends that parents allow a brother to pick out husbands for their sisters:
(Link): NGJ site: Need a Spouse…ANYONE? By Debi Pearl
I’m in my 40s now and still not married.
My one brother is married to an atheist heroin addict. Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be going to my big brother for martial partner selection or input, thanks but no, Debi.
By the way, does it never occur to these Christian parents that their daughter may choose to stay single, a choice which God respects (see 1 Corinthians 7)?
Excerpt from Debi’s page:
Scores of young men asked for Shalom [one of Debi’s daughters].
She was gentle, cute, hard-working, and always cheerful, in addition to being the most compliant girl you have ever met.
But before they ever made it to our door to talk to Daddy Mike, most of them were already discounted as possibilities. Gabe or Nathan had seen to that with their reports.
Big brothers were watching out for their sisters, especially the sweet one.
How skin crawling is that, for so many reasons.
I have said it before, and I will say it again, but some Christian views on gender roles – whether we are talking patriarchy, gender complementarianims, or using the term “biblical womanhood” – is nothing but CODEPENDENCY under religious terminology, and is, therefore, un-biblical.
Codependent women are sweet, gentle, shy, compliant, soft spoken – they have poor- to- no- boundaries. Codependents are afraid or reluctant to be assertive, say no to people, and express anger.
Note too, that these are the same exact characteristics that are held up by Christians as being marks of biblical womanhood, or desirable for a Christian man to look for in a Christian wife: sweet, shy, gentle, compliant, soft spoken, little- to- no- boundaries.
Further note in books by experts on spousal abuse the sorts of traits abusive men intentionally look for in a mate:
sweet, shy, gentle, compliant, soft spoken, little- to- no- boundaries.
Seeing a pattern yet?
Yeah, Debi Pearl is (and I find this sad and chilling) totally thrilled that her daughter is prime pickings for an abusive man.
More excerpts from the page (advice to older brothers with younger single sisters):
Talk to your guy friends. Say something like this,
“Hey, you looking for a bride? I got four sisters and would consider it a privilege for you to drop in and take your pick. My parents trust my judgment and I’m giving you high marks. Of course, my sisters are picky, and they have the last word, but I’ll throw in a good word for you with them, too.
Now, the oldest sister is kinda bossy, but she always gives in after a little persuasion. She’s the smartest. So if you think you would enjoy a little challenge but get a good mate for the extra effort…she’s your gal.
My next sister is not so cute, but she is the nicest of the bunch.
…So how about it…wanta check out the fam? I got four other guys coming Sunday for brunch, so you better hurry if you want the pick of the litter.”
That whole excerpt is so horrifying and sexist, I hardly know where to begin.
I would not want my brother approaching his male friends and blurting out, “So, you lookin’ for a bride?” My god, that would scare away every man on the planet.
Not that I object to friends and family setting me up with eligible guys my age, but what Pearl is suggesting sounds almost more like arranged marriage, where the woman is playing a very passive role.
Pearl also makes it sound like the brother is supposed to “market” the sister to men, as though she is not a human being, but a brand of shampoo, a car, or a tube of toothpaste.
She is kind of asking the brother to play the role of a pimp.
This remark: “My next sister is not so cute”
If your own mother is basically advising your brother to tell his pals you are ugly, that is pretty damn insensitive.
At any rate, here we see above yet more examples fringe, wacko groups, or persons, passing themselves off as Christian, but who are teaching some bizarre, un-biblical things about marriage, having children, and re-defining what “equally yoked” means (or has been traditionally understood by most Christians to mean).
It’s bad enough when Christians are telling Christian singles to only marry other Christian singles
(there are not as many single adult Christian males as therer are females, so you are in effect asking single females to die alone and single)
but the Pearl family is basically telling Christian singles not to even marry another Christian single if they live in a state where homosexual marriage is permitted, as that would make their marriage “unequally yoked” (sorry I do not have a source for that, it is a quote someone pasted in at another blog without a link, I have no reason to believe he or she was lying about it).
I am really creeped out and appalled by these views of marrying, what constitutes being un-equally yoked, and pro-creation these groups are advocating. Their views are totally un-biblical. They have given themselves over to the worship of marriage, parenthood, and family.
Instead of worshipping the God of the Bible, they are worshipping their own peculiar ideas of culture, family, and marriage.
If Moses came down from the mountain today, he’d see most of the contemporary, American “Christian” people bowing down before a statue made of gold, of a figure of a man, woman, and child holding hands (a statue of “nuclear family”), with a “Focus on the Family” broadcast playing on a radio in the background, with a mountain of books with titles such as, “Ten Steps to a Great Marriage” and “How to Raise Godly Children.”
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Related posts:
(Link): If the Family Is Central, Christ Isn’t
(Link): Hetero Couple Forced to Divorce Because They Say Homosexuals Are Ruining Their Marriage
(Link): Conservatives and Christians Fretting About U.S. Population Decline – We Must “Out-breed” Opponents Christian Host Says
(Link): Christian Stereotypes About Female Sexuality : All Unmarried Women Are Supposedly Hyper Sexed Harlots – But All Married Ones are Supposedly Frigid or Totally Uninterested in Sex
(Link): Christian Patriarchy Group: God Demands You Marry and Have Babies to Defeat Paganism and Satan. Singles and the Childless Worthless (in this worldview).
(Link): Gender Complementarian Advice to Single Women Who Desire Marriage Will Keep Them Single Forever / Re: Choosing A Spiritual Leader
(Link): Family as “The” Backbone of Society? – It’s Not In The Bible
(Link): Decent Secular Relationship Advice: How to Pick Your Life Partner
(Link): Being Unequally Yoked – should Christians marry Non Christians or only marry Christians
(Link): Married Female Christian Blogger Whose Mate Hunting Criteria is Guaranteed to Keep Marriage Minded Single Christian Men Single Perpetually
(Link): On Christians Marrying Non Christians -and- Unrealistic, Too Rigid Spouse Selection Lists by Christians
(Link): Are Fundamentalists Aiming to Out-Breed Secular America?
(Link): Misapplication of Biblical Verses About Fertility (also mentions early marriage) – a paper by J. McKeown
(Link): Cultural Discrimination Against Childless and Childfree Women – and link to an editorial by a Childless Woman
(Link): The Irrelevancy To Single or Childless or Childfree Christian Women of Biblical Gender Complementarian Roles / Biblical Womanhood Teachings
(Link): Why Unmarried and Childless or Childfree – Single Christians Should Be Concerned about the Gender Role Controversy
(Link): Why all the articles about being Child Free? On Being Childfree or Childless – as a Conservative / Right Wing / Christian
(Link): Males and Females Raped at Christian College, College Doesn’t Care – Equally Yoked is a Joke
(Link): Pastor charged in wife’s murder was headed to Europe to marry boyfriend, prosecutor says – Single Xtian Ladies: Kick that Be Equally Yoked Teaching to the Curb! Also: Marriage and Parenthood do not make people more godly or mature or loving or ethical
(Link): Christian Single Women: Another Example of Why You Should Abandon the “Be Equally Yoked” Teaching: 21-Y-O Christianity Student, Children’s Minister Charged With Murdering Fiancée He Was to Wed in August; Made It Look Like Suicide
(Link): Study: Couples Without Children Have Happier Marriages / Study: Having Kids Ruins Your Life
(Link): Leader of Hyper Family Focused, Fertility Cult (Vision Forum Ministries) Steps Down After Admitting to Having an “Emotional Affair”
(Link): Bay-Bees – Have them, have lots of them and NOW, no matter what say some Christians
(Link): Motherhood Does Not Make Women More Godly or Mature (Mother Suffocates New Born and Shoves It In Toilet)
