Commentary Tidbits

Just One Train Wreck After Another: American Pastor Tells Descendants Of Slaves It Wasn’t As Bad As They Think – Abraham Lincoln begs to differ

Washington Post: Could the Zika virus move Catholics to reconsider birth control?

Right Wing Watch: Franklin Graham: Christians Must Take Over Every Mayorship In The Country To Stop 'Evil' LGBT Rights

Huffington Post: Harlem No Hate: Reasons Why Ali Forney Center Is Seeking to Acquire Site of ATLAH Hate Church

News Tidbits

World Magazine: Douglas Wilson’s book pulled over plagiarism

Indianapolis Star: Conservative groups' lawsuit says RFRA fix unconstitutional 

Reuters: For God and country: more U.S. pastors seek political office in 2016

Associated Press: After California Shooting, Fears of Muslim Harassment Rise

Commentary Tidbits

Jezebel: Meet the Shock-Jock Theologian Offering Grace to a Small Town's Abusers, Forgiveness to the Abused

Associated Press: Planned Parenthood: Long a Lightening Rod in U.S. Culture Wars

Think Progress: You Are More Than 7 Times As Likely To Be Killed By A Right-Wing Extremist Than By Muslim Terrorists

Al Jazeera America: The Mormon church turns against gay families

Commentary Tidbits

Heather Emmebolisms: Kim Davis and The God of Glowering Women

Wisconsin Gazette: Christian right seeks religious martyrdom for anti-gay Kentucky clerk

The Wartburg Watch: Pedophile Supported by Doug Wilson ‘Allegedly Molests’ a Baby. Christians: There Is No Excuse. This Must Stop!

Love, Joy, Feminism: Doug Wilson’s Pedophile Problem: Sex Offender For Whom Wilson Begged Leniency [Allegedly] Molests Infant Son

Homeschoolers Anonymous: The Jamin C. Wight Story: The Other Child Molester in Doug Wilson’s Closet

Huffington Post: The Arson Attack on Planned Parenthood and Political Violence Against Women

Commentary Tidbits

The Lancet: Anti-abortion groups target funding of Planned Parenthood

Spiritual Sounding Board: Pastor Doug Wilson, A Serial Pedophile, and the Real Victims

No Longer Quivering: Christian Cannibalism and Josh Duggar’s Sins: Michael Pearl Vs. Zsuzsanna Anderson

Raw Story: Here are 10 times white nationalists have supported Trump — and why this should scare you

Commentary Tidbits

Overturning Tables: Everyone Who Promoted Doug Wilson’s “Gay Marriage is a Far More Serious Problem Than Slavery” Article

Friendly Atheist: Where Was God’s Wrath All Those Other Times?

The Advocate: Beware the Snake-Oil Slingers 

Huffington Post: The Struggle For The Soul of The Church

Joe.My.God: Matt Barber Columnist: All Gay-Friendly Christians Must Also Be Executed 

Corner of Church and State: 40 questions for Christians who oppose marriage equality

Reuters: Even Christian Evangelicals are warming to gay marriage

Commentary Tidbits

Godless in Dixie: To My Evangelical Friends Upon the Legalization of Gay Marriage 

Political Research Associates: Religious Right Leaders Strategize: Who Needs SCOTUS When You Can Control Everything Else?

Outsports: What do you tell a young gay athlete being forced by his parents into conversion therapy?

Istoria Ministries: One Walking in Grace Out of Marital Subordination

The Frisky: GOP Leaders Appear In Completely Insane Anti-Gay Documentary

Slate: The FRC’s Anti-Trans Policy Paper Is Basically a Flag of Surrender

The Conversation: Pope encyclical on ‘ecological crisis’ asks us to examine our deepest values and beliefs

Just One Train Wreck After Another: Pastor Doug Wilson Defends American Slavery As Being Good For Black People

Salon: Behind Dylann Roof’s race war: The highly motivated secret white supremacy movement working toward “the battle of Armageddon”

Friendly Atheist: To the Once-More-Pregnant Bristol Palin, from a Fellow Single Mother

Commentary Tidbits

Micah Moore at Airborne, Anchored: A False Confession in Context

People for the American Way: Civil Rights Groups to GOP Presidential Candidates: Distance Yourself from CPAC’s White Nationalist Ties

Raw Story: CPAC’s ‘ask a speaker’ hashtag campaign backfires before the conference even begins

Just One Train Wreck After Another: Pastors: Stop Disrespecting Women With Your Chauvinistic Name-Calling

Salon: Jeb Bush to meet with anti-gay activist who thinks LGBT rights could lead to a new Holocaust

Gay Star News: Pope Francis must prove himself after his trans nuclear bomb

The Christian Patriarchy Movement Scapegoats Women

A Nubian goat, not to be confused with a scapegoat

Over the past few weeks, I've been blogging on prominent figures in the Christian Patriarchy movement, including the Botkin family, Kevin Swanson, and Doug Phillips. I've been noticing a pattern in how Christian Patriarchy voices talk about the sexes: women are inordinately blamed for misfortune. Even in instances where misfortune stems from systemic problems, or from a man's poor choices, someone will find a way to blame wives and mothers.

First, in a commentary about Doug Phillips' infidelity scandal, Doug Wilson suggested that a sleazy "Delilah" using "sexual jiu jitsu" is sometimes to blame when men "with lots of testosterone" commit adultery. The fact that such men consciously choose to engage in infidelity wasn't emphasized as much.

"A man with lots of testosterone is in a position to start a dynamic ministry that speaks to thousands, that fills conference halls, and that rivets people to their seats. Taking a hypothetical, that very same man is also in a much better position to succumb to the blandishments of a stripper with a stage name of Foxy Bubbles, and all in the settled conviction that his sin will not find him out. How could his sin find him out? He rivets people to their seats.

Samson eventually had his eyes put out, but even before he lost his eyes he was not able to see what Delilah was doing with and to him. The thing that God was using against the Philistines, his strength, was also the thing that Delilah was using in a series of sexual jiu jitsu moves against Samson. It is an old trick, and it still works very, very well."

Next, during a recent edition of Generations with Vision, Kevin Swanson and Dave Buehner discussed Doug Phillips' resignation from Vision Forum ministries over an inappropriate relationship. Buehner essentially blamed adultery on spouses (read: wives) who do not cater to their partner's sexual needs.

"When that vow is broken, then a wife or a husband is turning their spouse over to be tempted by the Devil. You're turning your spouse over to say, 'Devil, have at my husband or my wife. I was the protection of that sexual desire. I was the outlet, and I've decided that I would rather that person be tempted by the Devil.'"

Swanson recounted a time when his wife was talking with church elders' wives, reminding them of their conjugal duties as outlines in 1 Corinthians 7. The implication, it seemed, was that Christian wives owe sex to their husbands, and if they fail to do so, they're not truly supporting their men.

In part VI of the Botkins' "Ready for Real Life" webinar, the Botkins complained that some homeschooled children fail to thrive as adults. Victoria Botkin blamed mothers for poorly preparing their children for adult life.

"We have to be honest and say that the weakness is that it's mommy-driven ... I know that what homeschool mommies like me love most is to gather our chicks together and snuggle up together on the sofa with our cups of cocoa and just have a wonderful time reading together. This warm, cozy mothering style is very good and it's very nurturing when the children are little, but we have to face it, as they get older, this is simply not a good formula for training up cultural leaders. So, as our children grow up, the way we interact with them and the way we mothers discipline them has simply got to grow with them."

Moments later, Geoffrey Botkin blamed mothers for raising "dwarfted" and "emasculated" young men. The idea that his movement's homeschooling paradigm might be the problem was not considered.

"We notice that parents' teaching styles and techniques and priorities really are not growing with the children. We're keeping the children young. We're keeping the children undeveloped, and part of that is because mommies who are still driving the process, and because so many dads are not as engaged as they should be, mommies would like that warm, cuddling, secure, sheltered life to continue far into life as adults, as adulthood. And so too many young men, young boys are growing up being dwarfed or emasculated by the world and its real-life issues."

In part IV of the webinar, Anna Sophia and Elizabeth Botkin blamed girls in the Christian Patriarchy Movement for failing to engage in the sciences. Elizabeth Botkin blames girls and women for assigning themselves a passive role, ignoring the fact that Christian Patriarchy culture actively suppresses females.

"It's very easy to think that these are guy things ... and to think that our role will never require us to know any of these things. That's because often, we girls have actually assigned ourselves a role as women that's a lot smaller than the role the Bible gives us, and we think, 'Oh, well we'll never have to be involved in invention or engineering or exploration, because our job is to do the dishes and the sewing', and we let ourselves off easy."

Anna Sophia blames girls for engaging in stereotypically feminine pursuits instead of science and technology, ignoring the fact that this is exactly what the Christian Patriarchy Movement demands that girls do.

"You've got to wonder why is it that homeschool girls today are not doing any of these things. We see a lot of girls who are pursuing small handcrafts but not these bigger, dominion-oriented things. But there's really no reason why they couldn't be using their gifts for design and fine detail processing, for example, to do web design or graphic design instead of scrap booking and kitting."

The pattern resurfaces again and again. In Christian Patriarchy Movement rhetoric, women are to blame when something goes wrong, when their men stray, and even when they do everything they've been instructed to do. Why are leaders in the Christian Patriarchy Movement so eager to blame women and girls?

First, women serve as useful scapegoats for men. Christian Patriarchy men may not want to accept responsibility for mistakes, and so they blame women. In doing so, Christian Patriarchy men preserve their collective self-image as (supposedly) responsible leaders over the home and church. Christian Patriarchy women, having been taught to devalue themselves, internalize this self-blame and scapegoat other women in turn.

Second, scapegoating women serves to keep Christian Patriarchy women's self-esteem low. If Christian Patriarchy women have been taught since girlhood that they are inadequate and blameworthy, their low self-esteem will make it easier for men to control them.

For all its talk about protecting women and girls, the Christian Patriarchy Movement seems more invested in subjugating and blaming them. In a 2012 commentary at Religion Dispatches, Julie Ingersoll pointed out the sad state of affairs for women in the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements.

"In biblical patriarchy, the refrain of "women and children first" hides an agenda whereby the women are "first" only insofar as they keep their place which is subordinate to men ... tragically, a biblical woman is also "first" to take the blame for marital problems, "first" to be excommunicated as part of church discipline, "first" to serve her father and then her husband in his vision for dominion."

This needs to stop. No more scapegoating. No more misogyny. No more narcissistic men who want all of the power but none of the responsibility when things go wrong. It's time for people to reject the Christian Patriarchy Movement, allow women to be adults, and expect men to behave like adults.

Doug Wilson Uses Vision Forum Scandal to Defend Patriarchy

Doug Phillips and Vision Forum Ministries were prominent in the Christian Patriarchy Movement, so their recent scandals have brought fresh attention to the movement. On October 30th, Doug Phillips resigned from his position as president of Vision Forum Ministries, and shortly thereafter, Vision Forum Ministries shut down. Some commentators have used the scandal as an opportunity reflect on how Christian Patriarchy ideology unfairly silences women, fails to hold men accountable, and creates a world ripe for hypocrisy. Unfortunately, one commentator seemed more interested in defending Christian Patriarchy ideology than reflecting on what went wrong at Vision Forum Ministries.

In a November 13th commentary at Blog & Mablog, Doug Wilson discussed the closure of Vision Forum Ministries following Doug Phillips' October 30th resignation. He called the closure "fitting and appropriate", admitting that "the effects are devastating" when a man like Phillips fail to behave responsibly.

Unfortunately, he devoted much of his column to defending the supposed virtues of patriarchy, in spite of Phillips' misconduct. Wilson dismissed of feminists who criticized patriarchy, accusing them of "screeching". He lamented that the word "patriarchy" has been tarnished in the eyes of "saps" who have absorbed "feminist indoctrination".

"Feminists diligently labor to represent any form of father rule as inherently bad, or at least as bad as a relativist can make it out to be — which is pretty bad since the case need not be based on careful reasoning, but rather just screeching. Screeching goes a long way these days.

So, after a generation of saps has gone through the feminist indoctrination that we call the university system, all you have to do is use the word patriarchy in some unapologetic way, and everybody stares at you like you were a six inch cockroach or something."

Wilson defended patriarchy at length, citing Bible passages that gave husbands authority over wives and fathers authority over children. He called patriarchy "inescapable", arguing that our only choices are for men to act as responsible patriarchs and receive "blessing", or to fail at their calling and bring down "humiliation and chastisement" upon themselves.

Throughout the commentary, Wilson refused to admit that male dominance in and of itself was problematic. He admitted that some "machismo patriarchalists" may have "gravitated to Vision Forum circles, and found what they thought was adequate cover there." However, he quickly added that "many marriages have been saved as a result of the things learned from Vision Forum", clinging to his belief that it is abuse of patriarchy, not patriarchy itself, that is the problem.

When a powerful man "with lots of testosterone" takes part in adultery, Wilson sees a sleazy, manipulative Delilah at work.

"A man with lots of testosterone is in a position to start a dynamic ministry that speaks to thousands, that fills conference halls, and that rivets people to their seats. Taking a hypothetical, that very same man is also in a much better position to succumb to the blandishments of a stripper with a stage name of Foxy Bubbles, and all in the settled conviction that his sin will not find him out. How could his sin find him out? He rivets people to their seats.

Samson eventually had his eyes put out, but even before he lost his eyes he was not able to see what Delilah was doing with and to him. The thing that God was using against the Philistines, his strength, was also the thing that Delilah was using in a series of sexual jiu jitsu moves against Samson. It is an old trick, and it still works very, very well."

Phillips was not a shaved, blinded Samson, but a man who made a conscious choice to engage in infidelity. What message does this send to the world about the woman Doug Phillips was involved with? We don't know who she was or what the nature of her contact with Phillips was. To boot, Phillips was a powerful man in his subculture, and we don't know what, if any role that power played in his inappropriate relationship. If his misconduct involved force, threats, or relations with a minor, rhetoric about Delilah and "sexual jiu jitsu" would be victim-blaming. Let's get all the facts before assuming that the woman in question was some wily Delilah.

When an institutional crisis strikes, it's sadly common to see people circle the wagons rather than admit that systemic problems may exist. Any ideology, including Christian Patriarchy ideology, that arbitrarily gives one group vast power over another group will produce injustice and lack of accountability. Patriarchy is intrinsically unjust, and it becomes doubly toxic when propped up by religion. The Phillips scandal demands that we confront patriarchy. I'm disappointed that Doug Wilson fails to understand this.

Observers Respond to Doug Phillips' Resignation

As discussed in a prior post, Doug Phillips resigned from Vision Forum Ministries on October 30th, citing an "inappropriate" relationship with a woman. Several conservative Christian commentators have responded to his resignation with approval, but also with talk of Satan and "enemies".

First, in a November 1st post at Blog & Mablog, Doug Wilson was pleased that Phillips repented over his affair and stepped down from Visiom Forum Ministries. However, he condemned "the snark shown by those who see such things as an occasion for venting their spleen," calling such condemnation "entirely predictable." Wilson quoted 2 Samuel 12, in which the prophet Nathan rebukes David by saying, "“by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme . . .” Wilson claimed that the controversy would allow the "enemies of the Lord" to be "readily identified". (Hat tip to Love, Joy, Feminism)

Next, Christian reconstructionist Steve Halbrook, author of God Is Just: A Defense of the Old Testament Civil Laws, defended Phillips. In a November 1st blog post at Theonomy Resources, Halbrook anticipated that "many of those who hate Doug Phillips because he promotes biblical male headship will probably use this as an occasion to attack him." He urged observers to offer Phillips grace, as all people are sinners, he argued. Halbrook applauded Phillips for confessing his sin and taking responsibility for his affair by stepping down from Vision Forum Ministries.

I'm disappointed that Wilson and Halbrook seem more concerned about the criticism being lobbed at Phillips than Phillips' transgression against his family. Doug Phillips made a career out of celebrating marriage and family (or rather, Christian Patriarchy interpretations of marriage and family). If he was secretly betraying those principles, his hypocrisy should be criticized. By branding critics as haters and "enemies of the Lord", Wilson and Halbrook dismiss critics' legitimate observations about Doug Phillips and the Christian Patriarchy Movement.

Finally, in a November 1st commentary at HeadHeartHand Blog, David Murray argued that Satan targets a person's strengths and the foundations of a religious leader's ministry in order to damage Christianity and delight "the world".

"Does Satan attack our strengths or our weaknesses? Does he try to destroy us where we’re strong or where we’re weak? For most Christians, it’s usually our weaknesses that the devil targets. But for Christian leaders it’s usually their strengths, the areas they’ve built ministries upon, the moral and spiritual qualities they are best known for promoting.

Why? Why does the devil go for the citadel rather than for the little cracks in the wall?

Because the damage is so much greater, the fallout is more horrendous, the church is more discouraged, and the world is most delighted when a Christian leader falls in the one place he really planted his flag and made a stand."

Murray observed that the Devil allegedly attacks areas where particular religious leaders lead and speak out. For example, religious leaders who condemn pornography may consume porn, leaders who preach against materialism may have greedy hearts, and leaders who blast homosexuality may find the Devil "kindling that lust" within them. Murray indirectly points out what many observers have noticed for years: religious leaders often indulge in the very things they "doth protest too much" against.

Murray praised Phillips as a strong leader who promoted Christian family life, "courageously taking a public stand against the weakening of Christian marriage and parenting." However, Murray also expressed his doubts about Phillips' leadership, admitting that some parts of the Christian Patriarchy Movement had become proud and condescending toward dissenters.

"I must admit, over recent years, I did worry at times that Phillips’ leadership and some parts of his wider homeschool/full quiver/patriarchy movement were coming across as a bit arrogant and overly self-confident. Although I valued so much of what they were promoting, I’d grown increasingly uneasy at the somewhat condemning and condescending tone towards any who did not sign on 100% with that agenda. Sometimes I feared that the Gospel of grace seemed to be lost in the midst of all that we were meant to be and to be doing as Christian fathers and mothers."

Phillips' infidelity may serve as an opportunity for Vision Forum's allies to cultivate humility and self-evaluation, he hoped.

Murray's commentary was positive in some ways. He acknowledged flaws in Phillips' leadership and larger movement, encouraging grace for those who disagreed with the movement. He did not slam or silence dissenters, but rather looked askance at Phillips' movement for its condescension toward them.


However, Murray's focus on Satan troubled me. Blaming Satan for human transgressions is an easy way to lessen one's responsibility for immoral acts. I don't believe for a moment that a wicked cosmic entity cajoled Phillips into having an affair. Rather, Phillips made a conscious choice to indulge in adultery, and he bears full responsibility for that choice. Whatever fallout follows this debacle rests solely on human actors, not infernal ones.

As news of Phillips' resignation spreads, let's hope that commentators respond to the news by holding Phillips' accountable, not by deflecting attention elsewhere.

Commentary Tidbits

Political Research Associates: Redefining Religious Liberty: The Covert Campaign Against Civil Rights

Indian Country Today Media Network: Our Originally Free and Unbaptized Existence

Love, Joy, Feminism: Doug Wilson’s Race Problem

Political Packrat: The GOP Clown Car Is Back at CPAC 2013

Truth Wins Out: Pope’s Message: Embrace All People Except The Gays

Right Wing Watch: Beisner Explains Why Environmentalism Represents the 'Greatest Threat to Western Civilization'

Religion Dispatches: Women to Pray for the First Time in April LDS World Meeting