More from NLQ …

“Husbands love your wives …” ~ the Peanut Butter in the Patriarchy trap!

August 20, 2010
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My daughter, Berea, has mice in her new apartment ~ and this morning she asked on her Facebook status: WHAT DO MICE WANT?

Answer: Peanut Butter! :)

by Vyckie

I’ve lost track of how many times I have been told that the only reason wifely submission did not work out in my marriage was because I was married to a jerk.

Recently, “Karebear” commented: I hope that you two understand that the groups/husbands that you were with were not practicing a Godly lifestyle. The bible does call women to be submissive to their husbands but it also calls men to love their wives …. And, the bible defines love as, not self-seeking, protective, kind ext….

Another reader wrote:

Husbands are commanded to love their wives and this love of a husband is only of value if it is sacrificial, Christ is the example of sacrificial love (Servant King–NOT TYRANT).

Submission of a wife is only a beautiful gift if the context is respect as opposed to fear.

The impression I get (forgive me for speaking out of ignorance) is that your marriage was codependant and that your husband had a weakness for malignant narcissism/Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

So in other words ~ the failure was not in the teachings of Patriarchy ~ but in our practice of it ~ we were doing it wrong. These defenders of Patriarchy assume that I was submitting out of fear and they’re also convinced that Warren never sacrificed for me and the kids.

Let me state plainly that throughout our 18 year marriage ~ I never doubted for a minute that Warren loved me and the children more than himself and that he always put our welfare ahead of his own concerns.

Here’s the thing: Over the years, as we got more and more into the patriarchal mindset ~ our definition of what it means for a husband to “love” and to “sacrifice” morphed into some pretty twisted ideas!

The teachings we learned from leaders such as Jonathan Lindvall, Doug Phillips, etc. led us to believe that the husband loves and serves the Lord as “protector, provider, and priest” or sometimes stated, “prophet, priest, and king” of his family ~ all important aspects of his role as “head of the household.”

In every sermon, book, magazine article, radio interview, etc. which taught about a wife’s submission ~ there was *always* included the admonition to husbands that they “love their wives as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her.” WE UNDERSTOOD THAT PART OF THE PLAN!!!

Truthfully~ “Husband’s love your wives” is the part that makes the whole Patriarchy deal seem so bloody attractive! What woman doesn’t want a husband and father for her children who willingly lays down his life and serves, protects, provides ~ a man who fulfills his leadership role with gentleness and competence?

That’s exactly what we all wanted.

NLQ FAQ: The Bible and the Nature of Woman

August 19, 2010
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faqs20questions2001

by Kristen Rosser ~ aka: KR Wordgazer

Q: Doesn’t the Bible say I was created to be my husband’s helpmeet, that God designed me to joyfully give myself to my husband’s vision for our family?

To see what God’s plan and purpose for women is, we need to go back to the beginning– Genesis 1. What is the first thing the Bible says about women?

“And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and . . . over all the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth on the earth.” Gen. 1:26-28.

Is there any distinction made here between the male and the female? No, what we see is identical treatment of the man and the woman, and identical status of the man and the woman before God. He formed them both to be in His image and to have dominion, and then he told them to be fruitful and multiply and rule the other creatures.

Of course we must be careful not to take these commands in an unqualified state. The life and writings of the Apostle Paul make it clear that not every individual must “be fruitful” by having offspring (See “The Bible and Birth Control” for more on this topic.). Indeed, in the New Testament, being “fruitful” in terms of having children is not mentioned; what is important is “bearing fruit,“ which means good character and good deeds that help grow the Kingdom of God. Nor does “subdue the earth” give us the right to mistreat our fellow creatures; we are to be good stewards over the creation. But the important thing to note here is that Genesis Chapter 2 must be read in light of Genesis Chapter 1. The woman, no less than the man, is given rulership. There is no hint in Genesis 1 that the man is to rule over the woman.

Patriarchy Across Cultures: Smiling Faces

August 17, 2010
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Grandpa holding Lakshmana

by Tapati

Smiling faces show no traces of the evil that lurks within
Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes
They don’t tell the truth
Smiling faces, smiling faces
Tell lies and I got proof –The Undisputed Truth, in Smiling Faces Sometimes

Aunt Gin had a serious look on her face and I thought, “Uh oh. What now?”

“I know your mom talked to you about your grandpa,” she began.

Oh no. I knew where this was going. Mom had talked to me but I had tried to forget what she’d said. I just assumed it was more of her drama. It couldn’t be true.

“Maybe you didn’t believe her,” she continued. “I know you don’t always get along. But I can tell you that everything she told you the other day is true. From the day your grandpa came to live with us he tried to get us to have sex with him.”

The ugly words came spilling out and I wanted to stop up my ears. I couldn’t match these words with the grandpa I knew. I couldn’t imagine him ever doing such a thing. He’d never done anything to me, that I knew for sure.

As if reading my mind, Aunt Gin continued, “We felt he’d never do anything to you because he thought of you as his granddaughter from the beginning.”

“So then why,” I thought, “are you both telling me?” I remembered the pictures of Grandpa in the bathtub with me back when I was a toddler. Why would mom let those pictures be taken, then? Why would she chance leaving me alone with him, if all of this is true?

“Even now, if he goes to give me a kiss he tries to give me tongue,” she continued, planting that nauseating image in my head for all time. This couldn’t be happening, these things couldn’t be true. Not my beloved grandpa!

Daughter of the Patriarchy: The Sickness ~ Pt 1

August 12, 2010
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by Sierra

As an adolescent girl, growing up under William Branham’s Message of the Hour, I stood poised before a great fall. Sometimes I felt a cold breeze rising from the pit in front of me. I knew that against my will I was edging closer, and would someday have no choice but to jump in. But I looked frantically for an outlet or a bridge, digging in my heels against the edges of the pit. The name of the abyss was womanhood.

I was taught that the Bible recognized three classes of people: men, women, and children. In God’s plan for the family, authority descended directly in that order. Men obeyed God, women obeyed men, and children obeyed all three. For those living within this scheme, God’s blessings were assured, but stepping out of line meant incurring a curse.

As I reached puberty, I became acutely aware that I was leaving one class for another. I was transitioning from childhood to womanhood, and the latter was not a class I wanted to join. As a child, I was never specially commanded to obey my male friends. I could assert myself if they tried to act “bossy,” and a parent would rebuke the offender. We were all equals as children; we all had to obey our parents. None of us had the right to order one another around. This was a short-lived world of equality, however. When my breasts began to bud at nine years old, I angrily flattened them with a tight sports bra, disgusted by the reminder of what I was to become. I wore that flat swath of spandex all the time, even to bed, although I sometimes endured shooting chest pains as my lungs struggled against the constriction. I set my jaw in disappointment, warding off the tears when my period arrived at age 11. I didn’t want to be a woman.

Women in my church had one purpose: the “highest calling” to which we could aspire was indeed our only acceptable calling. At our best, we could be “jewels” in the crowns of our husbands – pretty, docile objects men cherished and admired for their beauty. We were to be keepers at home, obedient to our husbands, clothed modestly with “shamefacedness and sobriety,” forever repaying Eve’s debt with the agonies of childbirth. William Branham taught that men and women were placed on equal footing before the fall, but also that Eve’s sin was a natural consequence of her creation as a “by-product” of Adam. She was defective from the start: not even a part of the original Creation, Branham said. Before the fall of Lucifer and his angels, God had allowed him to design one facet of the universe, the only thing He hadn’t already created: the woman’s body.

People Magazine: Michelle Duggar says, “We’re ready for more!”

August 12, 2010
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What if God hates Quiverfull? How would Jim Bob & Michelle know?

by Vyckie

In the latest issue of People magazine, Jim Bob & Michelle Duggar say they are ready to consider a 20th child.

The only thing that surprises me about this statement is the fact that Michelle is not already pregnant ~ I was predicting that she’d make an announcement when she received that “Mother of the Year” award at Vision Forum’s Baby Conference last month.

Since writing the latest NLQ FAQ: Which of Your Kids Would You Rather Had Never Been Born?, I have been thinking more about confirmation bias and Quiverfull.

Specifically, I wonder, “What if God hates Quiverfull ~ what could He do to communicate His disapproval of prolific and indiscriminate reproduction to the Duggars, who claim to be “following [their] convictions”?

Let me explain what I mean.

When I first began to hear about the Quiverfull conviction of trusting the Lord with my family planning ~ leaving my reproductive life completely in His capable hands ~ I convinced my (ex)husband, Warren to have a vasectomy reversal. The surgery was successful and I immediately got pregnant ~ confirmation that Quiverfull was indeed God’s will for our family.

Everything that could possibly go wrong during that pregnancy did: gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, polyhydramnios, emergency c-section ~ that’s just the short list ~ the full story was an absolute nightmare.

Afterward, friends and family came to visit me in the hospital and all of them asked, Are you really sure this is what God called you to do?

OneNewsNow ~ “Pro-Family” Christian newswire: “Birth-control pills are just as damaging as abortion.”

August 11, 2010
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“Two Christian family advocates are speaking out against birth-control pills, saying contraception goes against biblical teachings about having families.” ~ OneNewsNow

by Vyckie Garrison

Hat tip to NLQ reader, Tim Williamson of The Blue Frog, for bringing this news item to my attention, saying: Saw this on OneNewsNow, the “news” arm of the AFA (Acting Fundamentally Absurd.)

The Bible and Birth Control

The article details “family advocates,” Geoffrey Botkin’s and Doug Phillips’ Quiverfull ideal “that birth-control pills are just as damaging as abortion.”

“As the fertilized egg tries to implant, it’s not able to do so. And so then, an abortion occurs,” he explains. “The people who [were] behind the creation of the pill back in the 1950s, they knew this, but it was not their concern to preserve the life of a child.”

Phillips warns that without a cultural return to God and God’s teaching, the issue will continue. “Unless we go back to the Bible right now, we will never be able to handle the complex issues that are coming around over the next ten years,” he states.

Above Rubies Magazine: When Bad Things Happen to Quiverfull Moms

August 6, 2010
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by Ima Wakenow

When I received my latest issue of Above Rubies I was truly looking forward to it. Everyone raved about this magazine that has been “Strengthening Families Across the World” for 32 years. It is a much anticipated event due to the sporadic publishing of the magazine. You see, AR only publishes when enough donations have come in to make a complete distribution of their full color 32 page periodical. I never really had the opportunity to read AR consistently but I had picked up an issue here and there. It was never an earth moving experience.

Until now.

The entire issue seems to have a common theme running through. The pages are stuffed full of testimonials about various ailments that had been cured…yes, I said cured, through child bearing. And I don’t mean your typical child bearing. I’m speaking of the repeated and continuous Quiverful type child bearing. We aren’t talking about sciatica pain either. The ailments include panic attacks, migraines, fatigue, poor marriage, depression, chronic pain (from adhesions), nosebleeds and aging. And these aren’t just silly little clichés like “Children keep you young.” These are multi paragraph articles proposing the answer to all your problems is just having more babies. The second half of the magazine has a large spread on V-BAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) births and how successful they are.

As I perused the pages of this latest AR installment my eyes settled on an article written by Nancy Campbell’s daughter herself, Serene. There she is with her beautiful family. Everyone is smiling. They look so happy. I eagerly began reading the article written by Nancy Campbell’s own progeny. Surely, this serving should be savored morsel by morsel. After all, who else would have a better grip on how to live this Above Rubies life than someone that grew up in it?

Before I finished the first paragraph I found myself forced to go back and reread what was written. Did she really just say that due to poor plumbing this story is set during a time when she had no running water? I’m already sympathetic toward her. Wow, it’s hard to live without running water but to do so with 8 little blessings would be doubly hard. I’m already looking forward to the happy ending.

Instead I read about how this family, whose oldest child is 12, is first forced to haul water from the stock tank (after breaking the ice), then fetch water down the hill and back up again in 5 gallon buckets, survive in a freezing cold house, then suffer as smoke billowed out of the wood stove, then wear goggles to keep smoke out of their eyes, then lay on the floor while the children opened doors and windows to air out the place. Finally, to escape the smoke, they went outside in freezing weather to run laps around the house to stay warm. And poor Serene cried.

Mayhem On The Homefront: Fighting The Good Fight

August 2, 2010
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by Vyckie

It’s been a while since I’ve written an update on my family. The younger kids have been gone to camp and visitation with Warren ~ so I’ve been trying to relax and de-stress this summer ~ although that hasn’t quite worked out like I planned.

At least once a week, my counselor, Deb, and I have been working on my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder using EMDR which is something I did not want to try when my kids were home ~ just in case I turned into a psycho lady from processing past trauma.

The first step in processing was to identify my primary negative cognition ~ which, we figured out is: I can’t win. When Deb asked me, on a scale of 0 to 10 how strongly I feel/believe that I can’t win, I responded, “It’s at least an 11.”

“And worse than that,” I told her, “is I keep trying ~ even knowing that I’m doomed before I even start ~ it’s total insanity!”

So we’ve been working on that …