Thanks for your encouraging words.

I think if you would have stated in your article that the golden rule applied (or similar) then the dinks by CBMW would have been seen as false more easily. Thanks for clarifying in any case.

You can give CBMW feedback via email and I suggest you do this, ala Matthew 18. What they do with it is up to them. Each is responsible for their own actions, basic boundary stuff.

for many years, the hard part for me has been not taking the blame when it is not deserved and learning to differientiate myself from what has been dumped on me.

1. The man in question is not a moving man, but the husband of a friend, and I have known him for a couple years now. His wife was a fellow teacher and great source of support to me when I was teaching art at a local Christian school, and I taught both of their children. He is in a position of leadership in his church.

2. The episode began when he found out that his wife and I had made plans to coordinate delivery of the sofa from the school to my apartment. His help would have been greatly appreciated. However, the first thing he did was unilaterally change the time of delivery, despite his wife’s clear indication that I had been clear about what time would work.

3. At no time did I do anything to trigger or antagonize him, save to stand my ground (“no, we can’t carry it up right now…the stairs are wet” “I’m sorry, but he’s not available…he’s doing a chore I gave him”). I tried to couch my “suggestions” (without which we would not have been able to complete the task at all without significant damage to sofa, surroundings, and human beings) in the most diplomatic terms, until it became impossible to continue. Even then I was polite. Ironically, I was trying to avoid dishonoring him in front of his wife and children while being a positive example of grace and assertiveness myself…not endorsing bad behavior, or making it worse.

3. The issue was not one of me “insisting” on my way. The issue was accomplishing a task safely and effectively. The two most qualified persons to lift the couch were my friend’s husband and I, although my son and I could have done it. I was the most qualified person to direct the endeavor, as I live in an apartment this man had never visited before, and I had already moved (occasionally without any help at all) every piece of furniture I own up the narrow stairs and around corners into my home.

4. I appreciate when someone acts out of concern for my well-being. Even if they are misguided, I can accept their good intentions. However, these were not acts of concern…they were acts of control. From beginning to end, the gentleman in question did everything he could to assert himself and “put me in my place” in my home, with my son, and with (upon its delivery) my furniture. He did this despite the fact that it actually reduced our ability to function…not due to my uncooperative spirit, but to his disregard for the practical realities of the situation. He was somewhat chastised at the end of the episode (particularly after being presented with the plate of brownies my son had put together at my direction for his “help” – that chore I mentioned) but he has never apologized.

I put the story into this thread because it is an example, though somewhat extreme, of “christianized” bad behavior, directly attributable to ego sanctified by patriarchal teaching, that was carried out in front of my son as well as his own children. Further, he attempted to drag my son into the fray. While this is admittedly an extreme example, it is not the first time I have experienced disrespect (or the threat of disrespect) used as a tool to “put me in my place,” despite the fact that I was in no way trying to “usurp spiritual authority.” Nor is it the first time that my son has been witness. On the contrary, I think that this sort of thing is occasionally done in front of children as an object lesson or conditioning in proper role behavior.

By default, most of the Christian men I know are complementarian, and many are kind, generous, and real exemplars of the fruits of the Spirit. However, I’ve seen even some of the “good guys” pull rank when love would have dictated otherwise. Further, there seems to be real confusion, and I have seen more than one instance where violations of clear Biblical instruction (not to mention common sense) have been tolerated in an attempt to accommodate “Biblical” gender theory. It grieves me when it happens in front of my son…or any child…especially when it goes unexamined. I applaud any complementarian who stands up for true Biblical love and calls for repentance and growth when wrongs are exposed.

Thanks for sticking with this :-). For the record, I think that one of the points that got lost in this conversation is that very little, if any, of your actual “teaching” should be objectionable to anyone (unless they are convinced that hens are only valuable for the eggs they produce and that women aren’t persons).

Sometimes philosophical/theological positions lead to blind spots that don’t lend themselves to seeing certain known errors right away. I had this situation come up with a pastor and wife who were leading a youth group my son was attending some time ago. My son was making the difficult transition from childhood to adolescence and had become disrespectful to women. When I found out this behavior was not simply aimed at me as parent, but at me as woman and at the pastor’s wife as well, I called her to discuss it.

She told me that her husband had explained this as a boy differentiating himself as male contra female. When I pointed out that overt disrespect was not a necessary or healthy part of this process, a light bulb went on and she immediately agreed. However, prior to our conversation the true significance of his unhappy behavior (which we could now address) was masked by a bias fed, in part, by complementarian assumptions.

For the record, my son is doing much better now. While I support and honor much of what the aforementioned pastor and wife do, my son has not attended their youth group for some time.

1) My siblings know my egalitarian position. They know, because we have talked openly about our respective positions. They have never asked me not to speak to their children about these issues (or any other issues), nor have they asked me to refer any questions by the children back to them instead of answering them myself. IF they had done so, I most certainly would respect that request, just as I know they would respect my request if it was the other way around. Therefore, contra the CBMW article, I am not engaging in “theological kidnapping”; I am not “rejecting God’s Word on this score”; I am not contradicting Saint Paul’s “ministerial methodology”; and I am not “intentionally (and sinfully!) usurp[ing] parental authority.” A simple question from this author to me regarding the nature of my relationships with my siblings would have eliminated any perceived need for these uncharitable accusations.

2) Contra the CBMW article, I do NOT “admit to playing on the naiveté and vulnerability of the children.” I will guide, I will educate, I will set an example, I will be truthful about disagreements, and I will do so with unconditional love and respect for each individual. I will NOT abuse authority or take advantage of youthful vulnerabilities. These are PRECIOUS children and the offspring of my PRECIOUS siblings. The CBMW author has taken egregious presumptive liberty in stating otherwise.

3) Contra the CBMW article, these are not “unregenerate” or “presumably unregenerate” children, as is clear from a plain reading of the second paragraph of my post. They are all being brought up in covenant families, the older children have made professions of faith, and I, along with their parents, grandparents, and other aunts and uncles, am lovingly teaching them “the good news of the Gospel,” which this author for unknown reasons assumes they are not being taught.

4) Contra the CBMW article, the conversations I recounted in my post are neither “alleged” nor “satirical”; each of them is a genuine, spontaneous interaction which though not tape-recorded and transcribed!,I presented here in a manner faithful to the tone and content of the original. Why the CBMW author would choose to believe I made these up rather than take my testimony at face value, I don’t know; but it says more about him than it does about me.

Moving on to those of you who have responded here on this blog, I trust my comments above will clarify. To Don, comment 87568, I want to say thank you for your reasonable and gentle critique, which stands out to me particularly in contrast to that I dealt with above. I agree with you that much wisdom is needed is such situations. I agree, as I indicated in 1) above, that it would be inappropriate to teach contrary to the parents’ wishes. I also agree that the age of the child determines how much information, in what form, and from whom. In my case, I have simply responded to normal spontaneous conversations, such as the first one in my post about the niece confusing categories of personhood; I have no doubt that if my brother (her father) had heard our exchange, he would not have rebuked me and insisted that women are not persons. This is a far cry from questions on the role of women in the church, for example, which a 4-yr-old would be unlikely to ask about. But as she gets older, it is conceivable that she might ask such a question in reference to a Scripture passage, and if she does, given my open relationship with my siblings as I have described (and assuming that does not change), I would likely present to her both major interpretations — her parents’(which I once held and can articulate charitably) and mine — and suggest she talk it over with them, in the manner that Lin described in comment 87493. I appreciate the opportunity to clarify that to you.

And to Liz, thanks for your last few comments here as well, especially the personal info about grandchildren being raised in ways that do not affirm your Christian beliefs. I am sure that is very painful for you, and I know that, like me, you trust God to guide these precious children to the truth of his Word.

I hope you all will take me at my word when I say this discussion has gone far beyond what I originally intended, and I’d venture to say that we have probably reached the limits of constructive engagement. Feel free to continue commenting if you like, but I suggest that for the sake of charity we move on to other topics.

Grace and peace…

I am sure that some comp. adults would take the opportunity to give their nieces and nephews another way of looking at these issues, particularly if they were convinced of their biblical reasons for believing a certain way.

It’s similar to sharing your/our faith with children of non-Christian parents, siblings or others. Unless the parent particularly asks you to not ‘teach’ their children, one would do it quite naturally. Hopefully, if a parent asked us to stop teaching their chidren about God, we would respect their wishes and prayerfully hope that one day the children would learn the good news through other means.

We have grandchildren who are raised differently in regard to Christian things and much as we want to tell them many things about God, we are careful to not over-step our role as grandparents and if our son and his wife asked us to stop talking to their kids about God we would respect that.

The same with families with hierarchical beliefs…if they were unhappy with how we answered their children’s questions, we would apologise and be more careful in the future. I would like to assume the author of this post would show such respect to her siblings if her comments became an issue.