Sons of Patriarchy

[darrellmaurina]

We need to ask ourselves: Did God ever mandate our taking dominion of the world, beginning with our neighbor, after the Fall? Did Christ subjugate his neighbor when he came? Or did our meek and lowly Savior not rather appeal to his followers, saying, "Come unto me . . .and I will give you rest." This is another sad turn for Doug Wilson. He patterns his headship not after the Christ who came to seek and save the lost, biding their wounds, washing their feet, laying down his life for the sheep (Eph. 5), but after the headship of Christ in Ephesians 1, the risen and reigning Christ, who subdues all things under himself (See For A Glory, 58-59). If you oppose him, be assured that he and his followers would consider you part of the "all things under his feet." They would seek to be your head and subdue you.

Anna, I'm not sure of your ecclesiastical background before joining the Evangelical Association, but I'd encourage some caution here. @Semper Fidelis is a staff member on the Puritan Board, and unlike me, he has authority here.

Not everyone criticizing Doug Wilson is doing so from the same perspective. I have roots in "big steeple" mainline Protestantism (i.e., wealthy upper-class socially prominent churches full of community leaders) and was baptized in the United Church of Christ. When attending Calvin College and Calvin Seminary as a Congregationalist, I spent all kinds of time reading mainline Protestant theologians who had views of male-female relations, and of egalitarianism, that even back in the early 1990s viewed Doug Wilson as dangerous. Remember, he spoke to the Congregational Studies Conference in New England on the Puritan roots of American education. His audience was largely academics or highly educated pastors and elders. He impressed a lot of people, including me, but others identified him as a dangerous influence and began to dig into his beliefs and write against him because they believed his influence was spreading through the then-new Christian school movement.

There are two main lines of criticism of Wilson in conservative circles: that his federal vision theology is aberrant (yes, I know he no longer uses the word) and that he has badly mishandled a number of abuse cases in his denomination/federation.

Unfortunately, there are other people who are criticizing Wilson for other reasons and are using problematic arguments, claiming that Wilson's theology of male headship led to some truly horrible cases of abuse. I'm not deaf to the claim -- let's not try to act as if conservative churches don't have sexual abuse problems or some pastors and some elders who refuse to believe women victims -- but there are people making that claim whose underlying theologies can themselves be criticized.

In dealing with Wilson, "the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend" applies. I'm not prepared (yet) to say Wilson is an enemy of the Reformed faith though some on this board, perhaps many, will do so. What I will say is that the major conservative Reformed denominations have declared him to be outside the bounds of the Reformed confessions, and their synodical and general assembly reports are, I believe, better grounds to criticize Wilson than some of what I have been seeing you citing as criticism of him. Some of his critics outside confessional Reformed circles are not just criticizing Wilson but widely accepted conservative views of the roles of men and women, and that's a different issue.

In fact, if I read them correctly, many of the people criticizing the Sons of Patriarchy videos aren't defending Doug Wilson, but rather are saying that the people running these videos, despite mostly being conservative Calvinists, have picked a strange group of allies and that there are better people they could have chosen to make their case against Doug Wilson.

It kind of goes without saying that OPC and URC reports might be more helpful than the opinions of a Unitarian professor. That problem has already been pointed out on this thread.

Yes, interviewing Doug Wilson's former professors has value in understanding where he's coming from and where he is today. But I can think of several men at Calvin College and Calvin Seminary who knew me pretty well back in the 1980s and 1990s, and I would shudder to think what they would say about me today if they were interviewed for a podcast on "What's Wrong with Darrell." Fortunately, I'm nobody important and won't attract that kind of attention most of the time -- but I saw what happened a few years ago when the Associated Press did a national article on me as a profile piece on what's happening to small-town newspapers, and despite good efforts by some really important people on the AP staff, the article inadvertently created some issues I had to deal with and several of the people they interviewed made comments that reflected their views but didn't reflect the reality of the situation here in our community. Not their fault; they tried and mostly succeeded. But that's an inherent problem that can't be overcome without REALLY hard work, and even then, mistakes will be made.

This kind of thing is really hard to do, even for professionally trained journalists working at the national news media level. Investigative work is hard and explaining the results of the investigation is harder.

 

[MW]

At the heart of this matter is Douglas Wilson's understanding of himself, his authority, and his power fed by nostalgia for certain periods of American history. Please understand that Douglas Wilson read Rushdoony and was enticed by reconstructionism before he read Calvin and became Reformed. By his own admission, dominion is the fountain and epicenter of his thought. For Wilson, patriarchs simply are those who take dominion over thier nieghbors. . . over their wives, over their children, over church governments, and over society and culture. Wilson reads this up into the relations of the trinity ad intra from which come the divine missions: "We do not call Him 'Father' because we have projected out notions of fatherhood up into the heavens. Rather, a dim reflection of his (the first person of the trinity) masculinity has been projected, among other places, onto human maleness" (For Glory, 41). A husband subjugating his wife to his authority is in line with how God made him because the Father relates this way within the trinity. At this point, he has fallen into tritheism and is at odds with the creeds, namely that the divine mind and will are part of the simple, singular essence. The missions proceed from the one decree of the one God, not the persons. This simply is good Calvinism. Calvin banished the last remnants of subordinationism within the Trinity with his doctrine of autheos. IN other words, Calvin dismissed the last grounds for a patriarchal trinity by saying Aquinas' conception of the Father as the fountain of deity (the divine essence) is wrong. The divine essence is not what is passed down from Father to Son, and from Father and Son to Spirit. The three simply exist individually as the entire divine essence without remainder or residue. That includes the divine intellect and will from which proceed the divine decree and their missions in space and time. Not so with Wilson. For Wilson, the Father IS the patriarch, pure masculinity and authority, contrasted with the Son, because the Father is never said to submit to the Son. For Wilson, "Being masculine involves authority, rule, and the right to make decisions that affect others" (41). Wilson and his followers want this over me . . . and over you, to the extent that you disagree with him.

The last I heard the concern with Doug Wilson centred around his view on justification by faith and his connection with federal vision. It was a soteriological issue. Discussions over dominion and reconstructionism were always regarded as intramural. And reformed moral theology has always seen a continuing norm of some kind in the dominion mandate for family and society.

On the Trinity, the first person is the first person. The Father is the Father. Autotheos doesn't alter the order.

Wilson's statement as to what is involved with being masculine is perfectly reasonable. It involves authority, rule, and the right to make decisions that affect others. The father tells his children what to do and disciplines them if they do not do it. Heb. 12:9, "Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?"

 

[richardnz]

More on the Patriarchy series: I must admit my interest has waned, but here is my summary of another podcast.

“Immersive Communities – Abuse in the CREC”

Peter Bell interviews three people;

1) The first was Tony who was employed by New Saint Andrews College (Moscow) to raise admin standards. He found fault with how the students were being cared for, and was able to raise standards of professionalism. A problem arose when he became aware that the school knew of an apparent abuse case and was reluctant to do anything, and the school wanted to leave it to the church to decide what to do. The nature of the abuse is not explained, but sounds like it was within the family. He thought it was a police matter above being a church matter so encouraged the school to report it, and ended up reporting it himself, he says. The school eventually reported it too. The school and church were not happy with his lack of cooperation with them on this issue. Then the abused girl said. “it was all a dream” and so the police investigation went nowhere. This would have derailed any church investigation too. As an outsider listening to his testimony it is impossible to unravel what really happened. What are the facts? He and others seemed very sure that abuse was occurring, but there was an evidence problem such that the elders and police could not do anything. This leaves the listener questioning whether he is just giving his strongly-held opinion, and maybe there was nothing, or something of lower significance than he assumed. He then says that his lack of cooperation with church and school caused a rift which led his leaving. He saw himself as a “truth-telling Jesus-follower”. He did not see himself as a victim but an observer. Concludes by saying that CREC leadership are fixated on money, power and sex. This is a dramatic, unexpected accusation because his testimony did not contain any evidence of these things. I could not see any value in this testimony. It did not make a point.

2) Kalina from Santa Cruz was interviewed next. She had a bad marriage experience, and blames much of it on the church. She was eighteen, he was ten years older, he looked good but turned out to be an alcoholic, and died because of it. Like many alcoholics, he concealed it well so nobody knew. Or maybe one person. She was disappointed with the efforts of the elders to help him. Exactly what the elders could do other than admonish him and pray for him I do not know, but she expected more. The elders told her to be a dutiful wife even though his behaviour was bad. I think that would be what most responsible elders would say. She then tried to organise counselling with someone outside the church, but that did not work out either. The wife sees herself as doing whatever she could to save her family, but understandably frustrated that nobody in the church did anything to fix the situation. The sad truth is that elders and pastors often see members with terrible sin problems but there are limits to what they can do and sometimes they are forced to watch them crash and burn despite their best efforts. She then divorced him. This seems like an instinctive reaction, not done with careful consideration and no evidence of seeking advice. She concludes by advising other women to trust their gut feelings, and thinks that if she had trusted her gut feelings she would never have married him in the first place. This was certainly a sad story, but did not give the listener anything substantial to pin on the CREC. It was not as if they made him an alcoholic. She equates gut feeling with the leading of the Holy Spirit! I am not sure where she got this idea from, but shows that you can be under teaching that says not to trust your feelings, but in the end people just believe what they want to.

3) Kallie was next, who came from a family that was heavily involved in the Moscow church. She was concerned about the behaviour toward girls of Tom Garfield, superintendent of Logos School. She thought he was too familiar with some of the girls. He left the school. Kallie thinks these things are related. Who knows. The story does not hang together because she says Garfield improved his behaviour before he left. She is just stating her opinion. She characterises herself as a bad child, rebellious, and eventually “became pregnant”. Her father was angry, and she did not like the atmosphere and left home. At no stage does she show any sympathy for the crushing effect her behaviour had on her father and mother. It is clear that submission to God and the authority of her father and the church elders were not important to her at this stage. You don’t just “become pregnant”. This is fornication. It involves some serious ungodly decision-making. She returned to home and church, decided to behave better, but there is no mention of repentance toward God. I have seen a similar situation and you pray and hope that the change you see is the product of genuine repentance, because if it is not the pattern of ungodly behaviour will repeat. The church deacons supported the medical bills for her child until she left, so they cared for her on a practical level. Then she publicised perceived failings of the church from various people by putting it on social media. She says Doug Wilson asked her to stop doing that. (That sounds like a reasonable request to me). She characterises herself as unstable. She does not mention consulting with anyone over any of the major decisions she made. This does not look like exemplary Christian behaviour, and yet Peter Bell asks for her to give advice to listeners at the end of the podcast! The advice is vague, but she seems to be saying to assess your situation and if your instincts are telling you there is something wrong then you should leave, without consulting anyone in the church. She talks about the importance of independent thinking and not conforming, and her behaviour certainly bears this out. She does not like feeling guilty, and sees nothing useful in the feeling of guilt. Her advice is clearly anti-Christian and Peter Bell should be ashamed of himself for promoting this kind of advice.

These three stories were somehow supposed to connect the bad patriarchy teaching of Doug Wilson and the CREC with the suffering of these people. I do not think Peter Bell succeeded in making the connection. Just more unsubstantiated allegations.

 

[arapahoepark]

More on the Patriarchy series: I must admit my interest has waned, but here is my summary of another podcast.

“Immersive Communities – Abuse in the CREC”

Peter Bell interviews three people;

1) The first was Tony who was employed by New Saint Andrews College (Moscow) to raise admin standards. He found fault with how the students were being cared for, and was able to raise standards of professionalism. A problem arose when he became aware that the school knew of an apparent abuse case and was reluctant to do anything, and the school wanted to leave it to the church to decide what to do. The nature of the abuse is not explained, but sounds like it was within the family. He thought it was a police matter above being a church matter so encouraged the school to report it, and ended up reporting it himself, he says. The school eventually reported it too. The school and church were not happy with his lack of cooperation with them on this issue. Then the abused girl said. “it was all a dream” and so the police investigation went nowhere. This would have derailed any church investigation too. As an outsider listening to his testimony it is impossible to unravel what really happened. What are the facts? He and others seemed very sure that abuse was occurring, but there was an evidence problem such that the elders and police could not do anything. This leaves the listener questioning whether he is just giving his strongly-held opinion, and maybe there was nothing, or something of lower significance than he assumed. He then says that his lack of cooperation with church and school caused a rift which led his leaving. He saw himself as a “truth-telling Jesus-follower”. He did not see himself as a victim but an observer. Concludes by saying that CREC leadership are fixated on money, power and sex. This is a dramatic, unexpected accusation because his testimony did not contain any evidence of these things. I could not see any value in this testimony. It did not make a point.

2) Kalina from Santa Cruz was interviewed next. She had a bad marriage experience, and blames much of it on the church. She was eighteen, he was ten years older, he looked good but turned out to be an alcoholic, and died because of it. Like many alcoholics, he concealed it well so nobody knew. Or maybe one person. She was disappointed with the efforts of the elders to help him. Exactly what the elders could do other than admonish him and pray for him I do not know, but she expected more. The elders told her to be a dutiful wife even though his behaviour was bad. I think that would be what most responsible elders would say. She then tried to organise counselling with someone outside the church, but that did not work out either. The wife sees herself as doing whatever she could to save her family, but understandably frustrated that nobody in the church did anything to fix the situation. The sad truth is that elders and pastors often see members with terrible sin problems but there are limits to what they can do and sometimes they are forced to watch them crash and burn despite their best efforts. She then divorced him. This seems like an instinctive reaction, not done with careful consideration and no evidence of seeking advice. She concludes by advising other women to trust their gut feelings, and thinks that if she had trusted her gut feelings she would never have married him in the first place. This was certainly a sad story, but did not give the listener anything substantial to pin on the CREC. It was not as if they made him an alcoholic. She equates gut feeling with the leading of the Holy Spirit! I am not sure where she got this idea from, but shows that you can be under teaching that says not to trust your feelings, but in the end people just believe what they want to.

3) Kallie was next, who came from a family that was heavily involved in the Moscow church. She was concerned about the behaviour toward girls of Tom Garfield, superintendent of Logos School. She thought he was too familiar with some of the girls. He left the school. Kallie thinks these things are related. Who knows. The story does not hang together because she says Garfield improved his behaviour before he left. She is just stating her opinion. She characterises herself as a bad child, rebellious, and eventually “became pregnant”. Her father was angry, and she did not like the atmosphere and left home. At no stage does she show any sympathy for the crushing effect her behaviour had on her father and mother. It is clear that submission to God and the authority of her father and the church elders were not important to her at this stage. You don’t just “become pregnant”. This is fornication. It involves some serious ungodly decision-making. She returned to home and church, decided to behave better, but there is no mention of repentance toward God. I have seen a similar situation and you pray and hope that the change you see is the product of genuine repentance, because if it is not the pattern of ungodly behaviour will repeat. The church deacons supported the medical bills for her child until she left, so they cared for her on a practical level. Then she publicised perceived failings of the church from various people by putting it on social media. She says Doug Wilson asked her to stop doing that. (That sounds like a reasonable request to me). She characterises herself as unstable. She does not mention consulting with anyone over any of the major decisions she made. This does not look like exemplary Christian behaviour, and yet Peter Bell asks for her to give advice to listeners at the end of the podcast! The advice is vague, but she seems to be saying to assess your situation and if your instincts are telling you there is something wrong then you should leave, without consulting anyone in the church. She talks about the importance of independent thinking and not conforming, and her behaviour certainly bears this out. She does not like feeling guilty, and sees nothing useful in the feeling of guilt. Her advice is clearly anti-Christian and Peter Bell should be ashamed of himself for promoting this kind of advice.

These three stories were somehow supposed to connect the bad patriarchy teaching of Doug Wilson and the CREC with the suffering of these people. I do not think Peter Bell succeeded in making the connection. Just more unsubstantiated allegations.

Thanks for your summaries!
I've heard and seen that a lot of those people who have walked away from the church are a mixed bag. Some have legitimate grievances while others are bitter merely grasping at straws.
I'm no fan of Wilson either.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

More on the Patriarchy series: I must admit my interest has waned, but here is my summary of another podcast.

“Immersive Communities – Abuse in the CREC”

Peter Bell interviews three people;

1) The first was Tony who was employed by New Saint Andrews College (Moscow) to raise admin standards. He found fault with how the students were being cared for, and was able to raise standards of professionalism. A problem arose when he became aware that the school knew of an apparent abuse case and was reluctant to do anything, and the school wanted to leave it to the church to decide what to do. The nature of the abuse is not explained, but sounds like it was within the family. He thought it was a police matter above being a church matter so encouraged the school to report it, and ended up reporting it himself, he says. The school eventually reported it too. The school and church were not happy with his lack of cooperation with them on this issue. Then the abused girl said. “it was all a dream” and so the police investigation went nowhere. This would have derailed any church investigation too. As an outsider listening to his testimony it is impossible to unravel what really happened. What are the facts? He and others seemed very sure that abuse was occurring, but there was an evidence problem such that the elders and police could not do anything. This leaves the listener questioning whether he is just giving his strongly-held opinion, and maybe there was nothing, or something of lower significance than he assumed. He then says that his lack of cooperation with church and school caused a rift which led his leaving. He saw himself as a “truth-telling Jesus-follower”. He did not see himself as a victim but an observer. Concludes by saying that CREC leadership are fixated on money, power and sex. This is a dramatic, unexpected accusation because his testimony did not contain any evidence of these things. I could not see any value in this testimony. It did not make a point.

2) Kalina from Santa Cruz was interviewed next. She had a bad marriage experience, and blames much of it on the church. She was eighteen, he was ten years older, he looked good but turned out to be an alcoholic, and died because of it. Like many alcoholics, he concealed it well so nobody knew. Or maybe one person. She was disappointed with the efforts of the elders to help him. Exactly what the elders could do other than admonish him and pray for him I do not know, but she expected more. The elders told her to be a dutiful wife even though his behaviour was bad. I think that would be what most responsible elders would say. She then tried to organise counselling with someone outside the church, but that did not work out either. The wife sees herself as doing whatever she could to save her family, but understandably frustrated that nobody in the church did anything to fix the situation. The sad truth is that elders and pastors often see members with terrible sin problems but there are limits to what they can do and sometimes they are forced to watch them crash and burn despite their best efforts. She then divorced him. This seems like an instinctive reaction, not done with careful consideration and no evidence of seeking advice. She concludes by advising other women to trust their gut feelings, and thinks that if she had trusted her gut feelings she would never have married him in the first place. This was certainly a sad story, but did not give the listener anything substantial to pin on the CREC. It was not as if they made him an alcoholic. She equates gut feeling with the leading of the Holy Spirit! I am not sure where she got this idea from, but shows that you can be under teaching that says not to trust your feelings, but in the end people just believe what they want to.

3) Kallie was next, who came from a family that was heavily involved in the Moscow church. She was concerned about the behaviour toward girls of Tom Garfield, superintendent of Logos School. She thought he was too familiar with some of the girls. He left the school. Kallie thinks these things are related. Who knows. The story does not hang together because she says Garfield improved his behaviour before he left. She is just stating her opinion. She characterises herself as a bad child, rebellious, and eventually “became pregnant”. Her father was angry, and she did not like the atmosphere and left home. At no stage does she show any sympathy for the crushing effect her behaviour had on her father and mother. It is clear that submission to God and the authority of her father and the church elders were not important to her at this stage. You don’t just “become pregnant”. This is fornication. It involves some serious ungodly decision-making. She returned to home and church, decided to behave better, but there is no mention of repentance toward God. I have seen a similar situation and you pray and hope that the change you see is the product of genuine repentance, because if it is not the pattern of ungodly behaviour will repeat. The church deacons supported the medical bills for her child until she left, so they cared for her on a practical level. Then she publicised perceived failings of the church from various people by putting it on social media. She says Doug Wilson asked her to stop doing that. (That sounds like a reasonable request to me). She characterises herself as unstable. She does not mention consulting with anyone over any of the major decisions she made. This does not look like exemplary Christian behaviour, and yet Peter Bell asks for her to give advice to listeners at the end of the podcast! The advice is vague, but she seems to be saying to assess your situation and if your instincts are telling you there is something wrong then you should leave, without consulting anyone in the church. She talks about the importance of independent thinking and not conforming, and her behaviour certainly bears this out. She does not like feeling guilty, and sees nothing useful in the feeling of guilt. Her advice is clearly anti-Christian and Peter Bell should be ashamed of himself for promoting this kind of advice.

These three stories were somehow supposed to connect the bad patriarchy teaching of Doug Wilson and the CREC with the suffering of these people. I do not think Peter Bell succeeded in making the connection. Just more unsubstantiated allegations.

As a general rule, the nature of the podcast is self-professedly to provide a "voice" to those who feel they have suffered. It is a "Me Too" vibe - that is, one cannot ever question or criticize a woman's voice.. It concludes ever episode with "May your voices be heard far and wide."

Now, in noting this, I'm not denying that abuse occurred. I'm not defending the CREC as a Church or the actions of any Church where I have no knowledge.

All I'm pointing out is the significant Biblical shortcomings of a one-sided approach.

For example, I know several abuse stories firsthand, and I lament the lives of those ruined. In one case, a former elder in our own Church left our Church and later committed adultery and left his wife and 7 children. He was spiritually and emotionally abusive to his wife and told her he never loved her. She ended up at another PCA Church who did everything they could to help her, but she ended up leaving because she felt like they never really supported her the way she felt she should be supported.

To hear her "story" one would get the impression that the Church doesn't know how to help those abused, but the fact is that the same Church has walked with many others whose husbands left them in similar circumstances and serves them with compassion.

The problem is that the "feelings" of certain persons about the Church external to the actual abuse that is suffered is, in some cases, a very unsure guide.

This podcast, however, makes the "feelings" of the victims of abuse the final arbiters and is willing to call Churches (including in the OPC) a pack of wolves. Because it's sole focus is on hearing the voices of the abused, it never questions whether all their proclamations are valid. It has the effect that the real Churches that are led by wolves are lumped in with questionable pronouncements, and it undermines the credibility of the entire project.

 

[itsreed]

A helpful parable concerning helping victims of abuse:

A Tale of Three Sufferers: A Parable

How the three boys responded to this season of suffering would shape the rest of their lives.

heritageopc.org

 

[richardnz]

I completely agree with Semper Fidelis. The testimonies are accepted as fact, no investigation took place, it is completely one-sided, lumps all CREC and OPC churches (and more) together and the idea is that by broadcasting these stories that somehow good will result.

Just imagine if you took all of the disaffected who have left any church, allowed them to explain in a series of interviews why they left and allowed them to give vent to their feelings. You would end up with a similar series of stories to what we hear on Sons of Patriarchy. How does this do good for anyone?

I have listened to one more.
“Sons of Patriarchy, Can’t Trespass the Garden – Abuse in the OPC Part3”

More of the same. The two personal testimonies are sad, but what is so special about these stories of suffering that tie them to the CREC and OPC? In several cases these sufferers, according to their own account, joined the various churches with self-evident serious family problems already in place. Why do the pastors and elders of their adopted churches get all the blame?

The first person to speak was a woman who, with her husband, joined a small CREC church, and after a while decided to leave over theological differences. What these differences were is not clear. They fault themselves for not checking the teaching of the church before joining. Unsurprisingly the pastor asked them to specify the problematic differences, and where the church was unfaithful vis- a-vis the Three Forms of Unity and the WCF. Her focus was on the deficiencies of the pastor’s approach, unloving, demeaning etc. In other words, an ad hominem attack. I have had this happen to me. I was told, “I am not going to listen to what you present from the scriptures because you have failed to treat me in the way that I find acceptable”. This kind of person is difficult to help. There was no real point to this story, or connection to patriarchy.

The next person that tells her story has the OPC, not the CREC, is in her sights. She explains her parent’s difficult relationship, blaming her father. The family joined the OPC and she expected her parents to get help. She admits that she screamed and fought with both mother and father. Naturally, when a biblical counsellor was involved her behaviour attracted attention. The counsellor apparently said she was bitter, disrespectful, ungodly and unforgiving. By her own account, there is certainly evidence of all of these things. However she saw the solution to her behaviour in that if her parents behaved well she would behave well. I do not think she understood the concept of God’s sovereignty in our trials, that He is building us up through these tests. Our happiness should not be determined by our circumstances, no matter how great the trial. We have to obey the Lord in faith even if others do not. She said that leaders who ask people to stop making false accusations, to follow Matt 18, to avoid gossiping, to be concerned about the pastor’s reputation, are trapping people in unsafe situations with the abusive people. I would have thought that leaders who focus on these things are trying to follow the Lord’s direction, in faith, trusting that good will result. Is she calling good evil? She complains that nobody in the church loved them. I am used to hearing this complaint. It is always true to some degree that people in the church do not love us. Can they ever love us enough to satisfy us? Is the solution to walk away from them? Do we not join the church to serve others, like Christ? “ For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.” People have high expectations of how they should be treated, lower expectations of how they should treat others.

She says misogyny in church teachings takes away humanity of women and men. There is no explanation of what misogyny is and what specific church teaching she is referring to. She complains that the church counselling of her mother and father was not effective. She lays the blame for this ineffectiveness on the church, not her parents. She says she was comforted much by her husband’s closer mirroring of our Heavenly Father, in contrast to the failures of her own earthly father. This is certainly a sobering thought, how critical it is for us fathers to carefully imitate our Lord in our conduct, so that the word “father” when used to describe God has accurate associations for our children.

She concludes by saying that God does not expect you to stay in an abusive marriage because you are told you have been called to suffering. I am not sure what she means by “abusive”. I thought you could only leave a marriage because of adultery or desertion. It seems she is saying that if you are encountering substantial unhappiness in church or marriage you should leave rather than persevere. Forget about the vows you made. She says trust your body, your feelings, and seek advice from someone outside the church you are in. I do not think this is good advice, but, as usual, Peter Bell tacitly approves the advice of all of his speakers no matter how bad it is.

 

[retroGRAD3]

She says trust your body, your feelings, and seek advice from someone outside the church you are in.

Sounds like advice straight from Satan.

 

[retroGRAD3]

God gives the following advice/commands:

The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
It will be healing to your flesh

 

[alexanderjames]

Sounds like advice straight from Satan.

Whilst we obviously shouldn't trust our feelings, I think picking this up is an uncharitable representation. I did listen to said episode and she was warning against submitting exclusively and without question to what you are being told by any particular select group of individuals, whether that be the minister or eldership of your church, or husband, or anyone else for that matter. Whilst the lady in question may not have sound advice, she is clearly attempting to warn against people falling into similar abuse. And I will go further - for anyone with a biblically informed conscience, they should listen to it, and that includes when it contradicts what the spiritual leaders are saying.

 

[PhilalethesIrenaeus]

She concludes by saying that God does not expect you to stay in an abusive marriage because you are told you have been called to suffering. I am not sure what she means by “abusive”. I thought you could only leave a marriage because of adultery or desertion. It seems she is saying that if you are encountering substantial unhappiness in church or marriage you should leave rather than persevere. Forget about the vows you made. She says trust your body, your feelings, and seek advice from someone outside the church you are in. I do not think this is good advice, but, as usual, Peter Bell tacitly approves the advice of all of his speakers no matter how bad it is.

I've seen ministers qualify abuse as desertion, but they never seem to define abuse.

 

[itsreed]

Peter Bell is an ecclesiological anarchist.

(Is he actually a member anywhere?)

 

[richardnz]

What I cannot understand is what benefit there is from Peter Bell’s propagation of these stories. What was he trying to achieve? I thought I should at least look to what he says he is doing.

Here is what he says in the way of introduction to his series:-

“What happens when biblical patriarchy, christian nationalism, and a theology of authority and submission become the pillars of a movement? Scores of abuse stories in marriages, schools, churches, families, and more.

Though these ideas have filtered throughout the United States for decades, they found a home in Moscow, Idaho, through the ministry and work of Doug Wilson. From there, they have influenced churches across the United States, and across the world.

In this series, you'll hear from experts on all aspects of these movements, and the stories of abuse from those who survived. Some are Christian, some are not, but one thing they've got in common? They're finally speaking out.

This is their story.”

I can understand the idea of “speaking out” if a public sin, even a crime, is involved. Rachel den Hollander spoke out and a man was arrested. I can understand Paul “speaking out” at the Jerusalem Council. There was public sin and he was asking for repentance from Peter on his specific, public sinful practices. So what is the purpose of Peter Bell and his interviewees “speaking out?” He clearly believes that there is sin involved in the teaching and behaviour of elders in the CREC and OPC, but he should be doing two things, identifying the sin, and then calling on the perpetrators to repent. The purpose of this process is to purify the church. Surely his aim should be, ultimately, to build up churches, and churches are built up when elders are admonished for their sins and they repent and so learn from their mistakes, or are removed from office.

So the first stage is to identify the sin. We need to be very careful when accusing any elder of sin. Do not receive an accusation against an elder except from two or three witnesses. I Tim 5:19. Do we hear two or three witnesses to a sin in these podcasts? No. We hear several witnesses, yes, but they are not witnesses to the same occasion of sin of a particular elder. So, for example, there has been condemnation of Douglas Wilson for his teaching and practices, but it is all broad brush. If Douglas Wilson were to hear these podcasts, what particular occasion of sin should he repent of? There is nothing there for him to grapple with. Can the elders of his church take evidence from two or three witnesses to confront him? No. There is not enough. Just hearsay. It is the same for all the other elders that are accused in these podcasts.

So Peter Bell’s accusations are not of a useful kind that can edify the church. It is too general.

By way of contrast read the “RCUS Study Committee on the Federal Vision’s Doctrine of Justification.” At the beginning of the study the authors make it clear that they are going to focus on criticising, or “speaking out”, against particular statements made by particular individuals. They gather evidence by quoting the writings of those that they think are in error. It is very specific, no broad brush statements. The accused individuals can then interact with these very specific accusations and respond, by repenting or defending themselves.

Another good example is the accusations against Peter Bell by two OPC ministers on “Sons of Charlantry”.
("Sola Scriptura" referred to this website earlier in the thread.)

https://www.onceforalldelivered.com/p/sons-of-charlatanry

They accuse him of misstating his ministerial credentials. They document their accusations. They conclude with, “We would urge whichever body Peter belongs to as well as those who might have continuing contact with and influence over him to urge him towards true repentance and the exercise of greater discernment.”

This is followed up with an accusation of Peter Bell’s opposition to Reformed church government:-

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1848412160747094348.html

Again, Peter Bell’s writings produced as evidence, specific sins of Peter Bell are identified, repentance is asked for. This is the Christian way, and maybe if Peter Bell is admonished in this way his elders will take note and reign him in.

This illustrates the high standard of evidence and analysis that is required when anyone in the church makes a public accusation. If you do it the wrong way, you become the guilty party. The finger of blame starts to point back at you. It all comes back to “Love your neighbour as yourself”. “For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”

When any of us makes public accusations we should do so with a measure of fear. We should be prepared to repent if we get it wrong.

My question is, has Peter Bell built up the church of God, has he helped his interviewees and the accused elders through his podcasts? What was his plan? Why did he not follow biblical guidelines?