Single, Virgin Women Do Not Have Another Standard by Which to Be Saved, Contra Complementarian Group CBMW

Single, Virgin Women Do Not Have Another Standard by Which to Be Saved, Contra Complementarian Group CBMW

The Bible does teach that people should remain virgins until marriage, but oddly, some Christians do things like omit men from this teaching (as though virginity applies only to women).

In this case, they seem to be conflating being single, and a virgin, with receiving salvation, as though there’s some other standard by which others are saved. Christians also frequently make much too much out of the marriage analogy, in which they pretty much seem to suggest that a person has to be married (and having sex) to truly know God or be in relationship with God.

Via the Biblical Personhood blog:

(Link): Is “Biblical” manhood and womanhood compatible with the gospel of Christ?

The Biblical Personhood blog reproduces this quote from a Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood resource:

[from complementarian, CBMW, material:]

48. How can a Christian single woman enter into the mystery of Christ and the Church if she never experiences marriage?
[Their answer promotes offering your virginity to God. Nothing about becoming a Christian.] – CBMW, “Fifty Crucial Questions, Question 48

… The mystery of Christ and the church, likewise, is not about marriage or celibacy. Jesus loved you – male or female, single or married or divorced or widowed – first. Know you are loved by God, love God back, experience God’s love, and see how it never ends, and how it changes you to live for Him.

The Selfish, Lazy Husband Who Kept Blowing Off His Stressed Wife to Go on World War 2 Reenactments – Male Entitlement in Relationships: Why Women Divorce Men – and Churches and Culture Support This Male Entitlement

The Selfish, Lazy Husband Who Kept Blowing Off His Stressed Wife to Go on World War 2 Reenactments – Male Entitlement in Relationships: Why Women Divorce Men – and Churches and Culture Support This Male Entitlement

This may be the start of a series. I may do more posts like this as I come across more examples. I kind of already did a part one a couple of years ago (Part 1). This post was not the Part 2 I had in mind, not really.

The things this post covers pertains to one of my big pet peeves as related to men, dating, marriage, culture, church, and relationships.

First, here is the story, (and then below, I’ll analyze or comment why this bothers the hell out of me).

Over a year ago, I watched an episode of the TV show “Restaurant Impossible,” hosted by Chef Robert Irvine on Food Network.

This married couple owned a restaurant that was failing financially, so they had Chef Irvine come in to rescue their business.

I don’t remember all the details of the show, the couple, or their restaurant. I don’t remember their names or where they were located. I cannot recall if both the husband and wife wanted the business, or just the wife did, or what.

Regardless.

The wife was having a nervous breakdown from all the stress of being a restaurant owner. She was running all aspects of the restaurant by herself (with a small staff who helped cook), but the vast majority of the responsibility for the restaurant was on her shoulders.

Although the wife kept begging her spouse to help her, because she was at a breaking point, he would not help her. He would sort of promise or act like he agreed to coming in more often to help, but he would bail on her.

If I am not mistaken, the husband did not hold down a regular job at this time. I think he had quit his regular “9 to 5” job to be in the food business with the wife.

However, the idiot (the husband) spent all his free time chasing down his passions and hobbies, which included stuff like parachuting out of planes on weekends with other men as part of a World War 2 para-trooper re-enactment group, and I think the guy was also part of a barber shop singing quartet the rest of the time, or something.

Creepy Editorial from Christian Gender Complementarian CBMW Site Asks “How Many Children Should You Have”

Creepy Editorial from Christian Gender Complementarian CBMW Site Asks “How Many Children Should You Have”

Before I get to the editorial from CBMW, I have a preface.

If you are a man, especially one who considers himself a Christian, you need to understand that the sexist drivel that comes from complementarian Christians -such as CBMW (Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood)- impacts you too, and not always in your favor, because some complementarians equate “true manhood” to being “man who is married with children.”

Christian gender complementarians will tell you that you, a man, are a disgrace to God and to humanity and you are not carrying out your cultural duties, unless you marry and have children.

Not even that, but if you are not living out married life the WAY in which these people teach, they will deem you a “man fail.” (Yes, that really happened, a prominent gender complementarian referred to certain types of married men as being “man fails.” Several blogs and news sites discussed it, like this one.)

Yes, you read correctly. Married men who stay at home to raise the baby while mom holds the 9 to 5 job are deemed “man fails” by some Christian gender complementarians.

You cannot just be married with a child in gender comp land, but you have to also fulfill certain other criteria to be counted, to be deemed acceptable.

Not only do groups such as CBMW promote sexist ideas about women, but they harm men in the process.

I was looking through Twitter today, and came across this, hosted on Christian gender complementarian site CBMW:

(Link): Go Forth and Multiply: How Many Children Should I Have? (CBMW)

Why is the woman who wrote this assuming that she should have children at all?

I want to know why is “having Zero children” not an option in her worldview, or that of CBMW and other complementarians?

Here are some excerpts from the page:

(Link): Go Forth and Multiply: How Many Children Should I Have? (CBMW)

By Amanda Peacock
Tuesday, April 28, 2015

In the beginning God said, “Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth…” (Gen. 1: 28). The blessing of children was given in the context of Eden where God walked with Adam and Eve in uncorrupted communion.

… These words have recently given me pause for thought as my husband and I consider adopting. You see, the research and red tape that has delayed the process, and the departure of our two children to university, seems only to have increased my desire to adopt.I look around our church; I love what I see—large families, children being raised in the fear and instruction of the Lord.

…So just how many children should a woman have?

The Failure of Macho Christianity – from NR

The Failure of Macho Christianity

The church is not “too feminine,” nor does it cater to women. If it did, you would not see so many Christian women leaving the church. I am only partially Christian now, I am a woman, and no, I don’t get my needs met at churches. Most churches cater to men.

(Link): The Failure of Macho Christianity

Excerpts

• By Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig
• In an era of things coming undone—families from their traditional bonds, populations from their places of origin, genders from their longtime roles—the impulse to retreat into the lifestyles of steadier times is detectable in discourse and media, from our fascination with costume dramas to our encounters with ever more reactionary conservatisms.

Similar Views of Women Between Christian Gender Complmentarians and Islamic Group ISIS

Similar Views of Women Between Christian Gender Complmentarians and Islamic Group ISIS

Today, Feb 9, 2015, Facebook group SCCL posted a link to this:

(Link):  Who Said it? The Gospel Coalition, ISIS, and Gender Roles (by Tyler Tully, published Feb 9, 2015)

I find this interesting, because a few days ago, I tweeted a link to a news story about the ISIS manifesto for women saying something like, “this sounds very similar to what Christian gender complementarians believe about women too.”

Let me see if I can find that Tweet. Yes, here it is, from February 7, 2015:

ISIS' plans for girls Sounds like Christian Gender Complementarianists' http://t.co/8txNfaUc1d #CBMW #GenderRoles #Sexism

— sololoner (@sololoner2) February 8, 2015

Here are some links about the ISIS manifesto that were obtained by Western media:

This is from The Daily Mail:

(Link):  Married at NINE and brainwashed into thinking beauty parlours are the work of the devil: ISIS manifesto aimed at recruiting women reveals the misery they can expect to endure

This is from The Christian Post:

(Link): ISIS’ All-Female Manifesto Tells 9-Year-Old Girls to Marry Jihadis; Women to Be Hidden Inside ‘Cell in the House’

Excerpts from The Daily Mail article – note that some of the attitudes about women, gender, marriage, sexuality and purity are similar to what Christian gender complementarians teach:

• ISIS report details life of extreme oppression faced by women joining ISIS 
• Women are forced into life of cooking, cleaning and childbearing for jihadis
• All-female police force said it is fine for adult men to marry girls aged nine 
• Al-Khansa Brigade insists that all ‘pure’ females should be married by 16
• Beauty salons and shops selling fashionable clothing are also condemned as satanic in the group’s ‘manifesto’ for women living under ISIS

• Militants working for ISIS’ all-female police force in Syria have released a manifesto on the role of women – claiming children as young as nine should be encouraged to get married and condemning beauty parlours as the work of the devil.

  The chilling document, titled ‘Women in the Islamic State’, demands women live a completely ‘sedentary’ lifestyle and that their role in life should be primarily to remain ‘hidden and veiled’ and at the service of men, who are described as their masters.

  The manifesto urges ‘pure’ females to ensure they are married by 16, ‘while they are still young and active’, but insists that children as young as nine can ‘legitimately’ marry adult men.

  It goes on to state that beauty parlours and shops selling fashionable clothes must not be tolerated as they are both instruments of the devil designed to encourage women to spend vast amounts of money to change God’s design.

  The document is the first of its kind to be released by ISIS’ all-female Al-Khansa Brigade and while it claims not to have been written or approved by ISIS’ leadership, it provides a disturbing look at the way women living under the terror group’s barbaric regime can expect to be viewed and treated.

• The document was originally released by the Al-Khansa Brigade last month but as it was written in Arabic, it failed to make an impact on Western ISIS jihadis or supporters. To avoid the crucial information being lost to English-language terror experts, the counter-extremism think tank Quilliam has now fully translated the manifesto and released its own analysis of its contents.

  In stark contradiction to the way life under the rule of ISIS is portrayed on social media, the document explains that the primary duty of Western women who join the terror group is to marry a jihadi, then spend their life cooking, cleaning and raising a family.

• It suggests that young Western women who spend their time online boasting of leading an exciting and fulfilling lifestyle under the rule of ISIS are lying, possibly under pressure from the group’s leadership who want to encourage a greater number of women to travel to Syria and marry fighters.

  The document describes how women in the once relatively Westernised Syrian city of Raqqa are now ‘liberated’ by laws demanding they are fully covered in public, as it prevents their ‘humiliation’.

I refer you again to

(Link):  Who Said it? The Gospel Coalition, ISIS, and Gender Roles (by Tyler Tully, published Feb 9, 2015)

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Related

(Link): Extremist Muslims Like Family Values Too – Muslims are joining ISIS / ISIL (extremist Islamic group) because they believe it supports “Family Values” – When Christianity and Islam sound alike

(Link): Duck Dynasty TV Show Star and Conservative Christian Phil Robertson Says Men Should Marry Girls ‘when they are 15 or 16’

(Link):  Southern Baptists Pushing Early Marriage, Baby Making – Iranians Pushing Mandatory Motherhood – When Christians Sound Like Muslims

(Link): Why Christians Need To Stress Spiritual Family Over the Nuclear Family – People with no flesh and blood relations including Muslims who Convert to Christianity – Also: First World, White, Rich People Problems

(Link): Modesty Teachings – When Mormons Sound like Christians and Gender Complementarians

(Link): Mormons and Christians Make Family, Marriage, Having Children Into Idols

(Link):  Islamic Group ISIS Stones Women To Death For Not Being Virgins

(Link):  Christianity Should Be Able To Work Regardless of Culture, Childed or Marital Status / Article: Unlike in the 1950s, there is no ‘typical’ U.S. family today by B. Shulte

(Link): Hypocrisy of Left Wingers and Atheists and the #NotAll Hash Tag or “Not All” Rhetoric