Category: The Village Church

A Response To J D Hall’s Vomit-tastic Post about Village Church’s Handling of Certain Members, Covenants, and Marriages

A Response To J D Hall’s Vomit-tastic Post about Village Church’s Handling of Certain Members, Covenants, and Marriages 

Before we get to the post by J D Hall:

Background:

  • The Village Church (TVC) of Texas has placed Karen, who was once a member of theirs, under church discipline because she did not, according to them, abide by the church covenant she signed.
  • Instead of conferring with the church on what to do, Karen, on her own, sought an annulment from the state of Texas, once she discovered her then-spouse, Jordan, was a pedophile.
  • Karen said she spent about 50 days conferring with other Christians (not from the TVC), and in prayer, mulling over what to do, before seeking the annulment.
  • This action of hers has ticked off TVC leadership, because Karen did not get their permission to get the annulment.
  • Matt Chandler is the lead preacher of TVC.

You can read additional reporting of this situation here (additional material is at the bottom of this post):

Here is the page I am responding to:

(Link, off site): A Rational Response to the Criticism of Village Church  by  J D Hall, Pulpit and Pen blog

The covenant that Hall is so rigorously defending – TVC’s membership covenant – here does not even mention annulments.

As Karen explains (off site Link, Source):

  • …it is worth noting here that although The Village Church claims [in their e-mail] that “We see an annulment as a subcategory of what Scripture defines as a divorce in Mark 10:9” …, this cannot be found anywhere in their Membership Covenant or Bylaws.
  • In signing their Membership Covenant shortly after my 24th birthday, I had agreed to nothing in regards to the possibility of annulment should I come to realize that my marriage had been a complete sham from the beginning.
  • There is a vast difference between a divorce and a marriage that is voided on the grounds of fraud, and I had no way of knowing that the leadership of The Village Church would respond to it in this fashion.

Continue reading “A Response To J D Hall’s Vomit-tastic Post about Village Church’s Handling of Certain Members, Covenants, and Marriages”

Some Christians Have Some Very Strange, Unsettling, Creepy, or Authoritarian Ideas About Marriage, Divorce, or Mate Selection – and they think they should make your life choices for you

Some Christians Have Some Very Strange, Unsettling,  Creepy, or Authoritarian Ideas About Marriage, Divorce, or Mate Selection – and they think they should make your life choices for you

This isn’t a post I want to spend a lot of time on.

I was planning on maybe later doing a post about the church – Village Church – who has put a Christian wife, Karen, into discipline because she anulled her marriage to her spouse, Jordan Root, as soon as she discovered he was a pedophile.

Root admitted to being a pedophile, according to different sources I read.

Root was not only using child porn, but if I remember right, some sources say he admitted to his wife he molested two young girls.

You can read more about that story here (post on Watchkeep blog):

(Link): She Speaks: The Village Church protects a confessed pedophile and “disciplines” his wife, a brave young woman and missionary

Most women would in fact dump a husband the moment they learned their spouse is a pedophile, and most normal fathers of those women would want their daughter to dump their pedo husband pronto.

But not the fathers and other men of Village Church, oh no.

Yes, as if all that is not bad enough, there are a bunch of screw ball and naive Christians on social media scolding Karen for leaving her spouse – they keep insisting it was wrong for her to divorce the man (she got an annulment, not a divorce).
Some Christians want to treat you as though you are a five year old child, incapable of making choices for yourself, and they even want to exert this control over your marital status.
These control freak Christians believe they or their church should be able to call the shots and tell you who, when, or if you marry, or when or how or if you may divorce.
It’s utterly insane and very creepy and highly unbiblical.
There are Christians who apparently feel it is wrong for a person to divorce another person for any reason, or even in the extreme case of pedophilia.

I have noticed that some Christians have some very shoddy ideas of mate selection, or reasons they feel a person can divorce, that border on the absurd.

Take this, for example:

Yes, that thar is an example of Christian men who think Christian single women should marry a male Christian pornography user or addict, even if  those things are personal deal breakers for the women in question, and all to bolster the falling marriage rate among Christians.

That Christian sociologist, Regnerus, wants women to set aside their right to make their choices for their own lives, in who they marry, to satisfy his and evangelical Christianity’s preferences and insecurities.

It’s none of this joker’s business if you decide to forgo marrying a Christian porn user.

Next up, we have this lunacy, Christians who think Christian singles should marry Muslims in order to bridge a gap between Muslims and Christians:

Then there was this July 2012 headline from (Link): The Wartburg Watch blog:

  • The Real Doug Wilson Encouraged & Presided Over the Marriage of Serial Pedophile

In that case, we have preachers or Christian personalities encouraging young, single Christian women to marry known pedophiles, and one even presided over the marriage of a pedophile to a woman.

 In regards to the situation of The Village Church, where a lady named Karen left her spouse Jordan, who admitted being a pedophile:

Then there’s insanity such as this (link to Tweet):

(Tweet by) JB @tallangrybob

A response to that:

(Tweet by) Dee Parsons (Link):

  •  We should all marry pedophiles and prostitutes ala Hosea. Great TVC exegesis.

First of all, the New Testament says it is actually better to stay single than to marry (see (link): 1 Corinthians 7).

Secondly, God permits divorce in both the Old and New Testaments:

  • 8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. (Matthew 19)

Churches may not like divorce. You personally reading this may not like divorce. But the fact is, God allows people to get divorces.

God permits divorce not just in cases of adultery, but in other cases as well:

You know, part of me would still like to marry one day, but I see the utter nonsense, or weirdness, or horrifying legalism some Christians insist other Christians should live through marriage-wise, and I am so glad I have never married.

From Christians expecting Christian women to marry pornography addicts, pedophiles, and Muslims, to Christians who say Christian women cannot or should not divorce pedophiles or abusers, there seems to be no end to the heavy yokes and bondage some Christians and churches want to place on women.

Jesus would not have approved of any of it.

I think a lot of these Christians and churches care more about the institution of marriage, or how the world perceives their churches, than they do in how women are treated.

A clue that Christians have turned marriage into an idol is that it is obvious they care more about a couple maintaining an empty, hollow, shell of a marriage, to keep up appearances with the world, or within their own culture, than they do the welfare of the people in said marriage.

As far as equally yoked teachings are concerned, I am convinced now more than ever that character matters more than religious self identity; if I ever come across a smart, cute, atheist who treats me well, I would marry him in a heart beat, not Mr. “I Molest Children” Christian, or Mr. “I Think It’s OK For Me To Abuse Any Wife Of Mine” Christian, or Mr. “I Look At Porn All Day” Christian.

If you are a single Christian woman contemplating marriage: be very cautious. First, don’t let these Christian writers and preachers advise you who to marry. Determine for yourself who you want to marry.

Secondly, be aware that if you marry a pervert or abuser, most churches are going to expect you to stay with the creep, no matter what. Most churches are very keen on keeping even the most abusive marriages intact, because they believe divorce is the unpardonable sin and sets a bad example.

Most churches will not care about you, your welfare, or your mental or physical health if you are in an abusive marriage, or some other kind of troubled marriage – all they care about is shaming and guilt tripping you into staying with your loser of a spouse, should you marry a loser.

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Related Posts:

(Link):  Stupid Things Naive Christians Say (About Adultery, Divorce) from Divorce Minister Blog

(Link): Divorce. Unpardonable sin? (from CWO) / How Churches Fail the Divorced (article)