“And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.”

“Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer.”

I have heard these folks over the years, waxing more eloquent. I’ve been concerned about where they are going, and what kind of fruit this will yield, because if what Richard says is true:”They will fall further and further into legalism, dictatorial rule, and mysogyny..” Then this is a threat to the safety of women- in the church!

For years I have been warning folks in my denom that their doctrine is creating a hostile environment for women. They teach that God views women in pants as an abomination, and that we should see sin as he sees it….
It’s not surprising then, to hear that a third grader at a Christian school told his mother in the car to “run over her, mommy. She’s a bad woman. She wears pants!”

I believe they are (unintentionally) cultivating a subtle attitude of misogyny that is nourished by these popular patriocentric doctrines. But my warnings are laughed to scorn.

http://truth-makes-freedom.blogspot.com/2008/05/womans-place-other-thoughts.html

About me “having kept watch on these things” . . . that’s not exactly accurate. Patiarchy, Dominionism, Reconstructionism, etc. have just in the past several months or so popped up on my radar screen. They came on the heels of my researching the Hebrew Roots Movement before that, which is a movement some families on a “moms of many” forum I subscribe to are involved with. I do have a nose for legalism, but I was smelling something beyond just that when it came to the HRM. What I was smelling was outright heresy.

These other “movements” have just kind of landed in my lap as related law-keeping factions. I don’t know everything about their history or doctrinal systems, but I know enough to reject what they teach and advocate and have a good grasp of the key elements about which to caution others.

I’m a “where the rubber meets the road” kind of gal in the discernment ring. The subheader on my blog is “A Simple Heart Living a Simple Faith”, and that pretty much sums it up for me. I’m not formally trained in theology nor do I have a lot of time to devote to exhaustive research. I do, however, believe that it is VITALLY important for run of the mill believers like me to be able to sniff out error while at the same time being open to the Holy Spirit growing and maturing us.

If I can give people some practical tools for discernment on a basic level and keep things centered on Jesus and point people’s hearts and minds toward Him . . . that’s my goal for JGIG. Oh yeah, and a little humor sprinkled in every now and then just for fun =o).

(I don’t have anything to do with this blog but am a self-declared WWF after labeled as such.) It’s a sardonic title that was meant as a pejorative but I think those of us who were labeled have grown to like it and sarcastically adopt it in the full context of what we are told it means.

About the “brave new angry Calvinist” that you wrote about on your blog, I really believe that the whole Christian Reconstruction thing had a very different flavor years ago. The goal was reformation, but it was not through totalitarian means or by dominating the government. It was based in freedom and trusting in God, not in domineering leadership. (I was never crazy about Falwell at all, but D. James Kennedy’s style and approach was wonderful to me.) It honored the spirit of freedom and liberty that flowed from the effects of the Word of God, not against that spirit. That’s no longer true.

Many of us have discussed this, and as you also kept watch on these things, something shifted when the big names in the movement started to age or pass on, all within reasonably close proximity to the turn of the century. Some attach this to the disappointment in those who anticipated total catastrophe after Y2K, and they are now even more mad because they had egg on their faces. They went from trusting in freedom to trusting in power.

Who these young bucks are now are not anything like what they were. If they were authoritarians who were more interested in power than they ever were about liberty, they didn’t always show their true colors. Some of it was that I didn’t want or expect to see the power element, but they also did get more verbal and aggressive.

The whole roots of the patriarchy movement, many of which I see springing from the teachings of Bill Gothard, were not as bizarre and extreme years ago, either. I thought things were bad in the Gothard influenced environment that I spent some time in years ago, but it seems like heaven compared to the sharp, condemning edge of this patriarchy movement which is all wrapped up in politics.

You may be interested in my latest post, “Politics and Religion, What the Left is Afraid of (I guess I’m a little slow)”. It addresses some of the same issues you all have posted about here at WWF. You might find some other interesting stuff there, too.

Check it out: http://www.joyfullygrowingingrace.wordpress.com .

Enjoying your blog – it’s making me think!

Free in Christ,
Wendy

The danger that I see in the patriocentrist vision and product is that at first glace it can seem quite appealing. There is no question but that our culture is deteriorating rapidly. Western civilization has turned against Christ and the culture demonstrates that more and more. The idea of drawing a line in the sand and standing firm for Christianity in a militant way can look like a very good idea. In fact, I would say that it is a great idea … as long as it is Biblical Christianity, not Christianity as defined by a preacher apart from the Bible, or by using scriptures out of context in rapid succession so as to overwhelm the hearer into thinking the message is biblical when it is not (machine gun proof texting).

But once you dig in deeper, you realize that these folks are way off base, as long as you haven’t been brain-washed or lulled to sleep by their cults of personality before you get the chance to think.

The danger comes in the natural human propensity to continually push at the boundaries. I doubt that the Patriarchy crowd was this extreme when it all began. As long as they are allowed to continue to push the boundaries – getting more and more radical as they go, they will never stop. They will fall further and further into legalism, dictatorial rule, and mysogyny as they go, taking more and more unsuspecting victims with them.

We need to make sure we shine the spotlight of truth on what they are doing so fewer people will be taken in by that first glance. Thank you for doing just that on this blog.