Just Another Blog in the Wheel

A glance at the output of contemporary philosophy departments justifies this sardonic assessment: 20^th century philosophy suffered so many hernias from pushing Kant against the wall, that the first decade of the next century has proved too short a time to calculate the damage, identify the lost trajectory, or get back to business. Publishing houses long regarded as belonging to the first rank, now promote philosophical tomes insisting that the real world and make-believe worlds share the same reality.

It gets better (worse?). In fact, philosophy has fallen so far off the curb, it has become for the profession less a question of which way is up, as whether “up” has any meaning. If it is suggested by some rapscallion that it does, you may expect another Rabelaisian to immediately publish his thesis in which he “proves” that, if “up” does actually exist, it evidently bears no relation to “down.” Rab and Rap then join forces in securing a Federal grant which enables them to construct a team of scholars ready to demonstrate… something.

This nearly chaotic condition afflicting Socrates’ child offers the raw materials for a splendid, even a riotous, evening. All you need to do is,  1) secure the most recent Oxford University Press catalog of philosophical offerings;  2) buy two or three bottles of  fine Merlot;  3) gather several adults for an after-dinner fellowship; and 4) have each take turns reading aloud the titles, subtitles and blurbs. You cannot go wrong; you will not be disappointed. You’ll create a memory. Consider the following thrilling volumes, each alleged to own real estate on the cutting-edge of mankind’s intellect-in-action:

· Moral Machines, “The first book to address the problem of creating ethical robots…”
· Philosophers Without Gods, which appears to be a sort of devotional for God-haters. The subtitle says it’s Meditations on Atheism and the Secular Life, which I take to be a claim that it will aid readers in thinking deeply about what isn’t. Come to think of it, this book might explain a lot—about the authors. They’re missing something for sure.
· Drugs and Justice,  Oxford says, addresses “the central issues in drug policy: the lack of a coherent conceptual structure for thinking about drugs.” This is clear proof that the authors have not yet taken enough drugs to qualify to write such a book.
· Worlds and Individuals, Possible and Otherwise, explains how you can get a terminal degree while believing “that non-actual possible worlds and individuals are as real as the actual world and individuals.”
· Value, Reality, and Desire -Oh man, I treasure this book. Really. I want it.

All together, these portend the imminent self-immolation of the Enlightenment Project. Safe bet that the altar flames will be carried first from the Philosophy Department to the rest of the campus. Listen—I didn’t even mention the book which argues for the moral superiority of non-existence. (Stay tuned.) That’s right. For this optimist,  to be or not to be is not the question. “Not to be” is his aggressive preference, for everyone, as a norm. Leave it to a philosopher, well-practiced in his atheistic devotions, to tell us a better use for the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Consider this: if, as some have suggested, Nietzsche’s Superman paved a highway for Hitler, what do you suppose awaits us when some leader-to-come operates on the presupposition that bringing everyone into non-existence is to do them a favor?

Here, surely, is the terminus of man’s autonomous reason: exactly as Scripture says—death. And not as a dreaded, hated thing, an intrusion. And not, as the Word calls it, an enemy. No. This is to gaze upon it as a lover. To prefer never having been to life everlasting  is to have allied one’s self with Satan at an earlier, an even more primitive  point of departure than that taken by our First Parents. Their devotion to Satan was so strong that to rescue them God first had to place enmity where their allegiance had been. Just so, all who begin the knowledge enterprise apart from the fear of the Lord, do not engage as neutral players, but as lovers of death (Proverbs 8:28). This love may be dormant; it is easily disguised.

But when, in an age of epistemological self-consciousness—when the darkness covers every landscape beyond Goshen’s borders—that fetid love feels safely hidden. As light causes the plant of pure love to grow, to blossom, so it is when surrounded by darkness that the darnel dares lift up its head. Having neither light to see in nor eyes to see with, still it boasts, it swaggers, it beats against the wheat and calls out to it, “Come! Join me. For behold, my dearest companion has arrived and bids us feast with him. How I have longed for his appearing! And now he is here. Come meet him. Come meet my only friend, the End.”

Yes, this is the truth of knowledge falsely so called. Yet, by God’s common grace, we must acknowledge that this century of philosophy past was not entirely worthless. For example, even a casual survey would reveal that the futility of unbelieving philosophy, has, in several sub-departments, made itself known, if not yet felt. And, skipping past other, brighter spots, there was important progress made in appreciating the inseparability of Word and Being. More narrowly, work of inestimable importance was done demonstrating how language does more than influence, does more than shape our perception of reality. To a very large extent, it determines it.

Not being one to start a celebration while there’s a perfectly good funeral to go to, I must report that the inextricable connection which enables language to define reality has not gone entirely unnoticed. That’s right. It’s been noted, and put to work, by feminists and sodomites and by numerous other entitlement groups. Yet, despite this exploitation having taken place in full view of the Church, Christians have—even with a Bible in hand that disclosed, even on its first page!, the Word/Reality relation millennia before Wittgenstein was a gleam in his daddy’s eye—Christians somehow (one is tempted to say miraculously, but it’s too painful, precisely because it is too true) managed to remain oblivious to the progress noted above, and altogether unaware of its value.

Which brings me to the provocation which prompted this lament—it was a brochure publicizing the Annual Conference of the National Association of Nouthetic Counselors. “Wait a minute!,” you say. “Aren’t they the good guys?” Indeed they are. They are the people who are “pursuing excellence in Biblical Counseling.” And therein lies the tragedy. Even those among us who have the proven discipline and skill to win skirmishes, somehow manage to show themselves ever more skillful at losing entire wars.

“Why? What are you talking about, Schlissel?” I’m talking about something that appears on the inside front cover of the brochure. “What? What? What could it be?”

Please don’t be offended if I say, I fear you may not yet share with me the sort of alarm-value indicated by the word I read. But I won’t keep you in suspense. It was the simple, casual, hardly noticeable identification of one of their principal people as “Chairperson” of a certain department.

“Chairperson?! You get this worked up about the use of ‘chairperson?’ How sad!” The writing on the wall, however, is the fact that so very, very few do get worked up by this. For, first of all, the man in question is no such thing. He is the chairman. Of course those determined to turn God’s order upside down would buck and chafe at reminders of His sovereignty, and His ordained order, but those who find God’s will irresistibly sweet must surely embrace the use of reality-impacting language that speaks reflectively in accordance with God’s will.

You see, feminists began their work in good communist fashion, by unjoining that which God had joined together. In order for them to set men and women at odds with each other, in order for them to effectively initiate policies that would destroy families, they had to cast life as lived, not by families, but by “individuals.” In this way, specialized segmentation could take on a life of nearly infinite adaptations. Order is not to be found in that which well serves families, but rather in that which serves individuals, abstractly defined after being first abstracted from families.

If families had one vote each, cast by the head of the family, it was twisted to appear not as “one family-one vote,” but as one vote for a man, and a vote denied to a woman. Never mind that God had declared these two one. When political purposes demand the redefinition of an entity, unbelievers are always quick to make it. The news, however, used to be in how quickly believers joined them. But it isn’t news anymore.

The reason this instance was so very distressing is because I’ve been compelled to witness the demasculization of language as the style-czars cemented it into place as policy governing the printed works of every secular publisher. Then, one by one, it has mowed down (nearly) every evangelical publisher, with hymn-publishers reckoned among the earliest casualties. Thus, I reason, if we can’t speak like God would have us speak when we write for others, at least we can use covenantally inclusive language¹ when we write for ourselves. But no! The rot has infested so deeply, so thoroughly, the wall is so horribly mildewed that any priest worth his salt knows it’s his sad duty to tell the dwellers, their abode must be torn down. It is time for judgment to begin with the household of God. When those who advertise themselves as the most faithful among us start using the rhetoric of the Revolution (i.e., as van Prinsterer defined it, viz., raw, anti-Christian unbelief), that time of judgment has arrived.

Why do we prove ourselves ready to censor or alter any word which might remind anyone that God made man to be a covenant head? When Christians self-publish, any willingness shown by them to adopt the rhetoric of anti-Christianity should be met by severe disapproval. Why deliberately reinforce a distortion of reality and a falsehood?

Although the world has waged war on male headship, it seems necessary to remind my fellow Christians that, this war, whose chief weapons are nouveau-speech, redefinition and censorship, is doomed to fail. Why do Christians insist on being distinguished as the folks who walk in the same direction as revolutionaries, only a few yards to the rear? You’ve heard that “slow obedience is no obedience.” But understand this: slow disobedience is still disobedience! Every time a self-described Christian organization adopts the egalitarian style book, they betray their God, His created order, and they give aid and comfort to His enemies.

All my life I witnessed men and women speak and write about men—chairmen, postmen, handymen and mankind—with no offense given or taken. It was only when feminists decided to exploit the one area of philosophical progress of the 20^th century that women were made to feel as if they should be offended. But it was—and is—all as phony as a three dollar bill. There is no offense to any God-created reality—not for His own children!

As long as men are taller, and as long as women insist on marrying taller men-and as long as the first floor of Department Stores are devoted to cosmetics—feminism confesses itself a fraud. Jesus is the Truth. His church is its pillar and foundation—presenting and representing His truth in this world. It’s time for women of both genders to get used to Christian writers and publishers using language which accords not with a fantasy world, but with the one real world which God has made, the same one He pronounced good.

NANC—repent. Seeing how central gender is to identity, if you can’t honor gender differences (even in language), and the callings respective to each of the two genders, why would anyone trust you to help them become more integrated in terms of who they “really” are? There are rules—and exceptions. That language is legitimate which reflects God-imposed rules. Language which subverts those rules is illegitimate. It is language in service to a revolt against His ordinances.

NANC: Repent. Please. Rewrite. Today.

.                                                                                      .

1. He/she, or the recent s/he is, contrary to a self-conferred description, not inclusive but exclusive language. The use of “man” so as to include men, women and children is actual, genuine inclusive language. But make no mistake, the double pronouns and strained possessive cases are temporary. Already the burden has led many publishers to abandon s/he and its cognates in favor of straight up “she,” “her” and more. It seems it wasn’t power that was offensive. It was power that recognized and served the family above abstracted individuals—that power was offensive—or so fools were made to think. In consequence of such thinking, they allowed themselves to be set to war against their own interests, for the profit of  parties other than the fool combatants.

The following paragraph is from a press release honoring Black History Month, by Alan D. Aviles, the President of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation.

Both in New York City and the nation, people of African-American descent often face greater health challenges than the general population. African-American adults are twice as likely to have a stroke and 60% more likely to die from a stroke than white adults. African-Americans have a higher incidence of asthma, diabetes, heart disease, HIV/AIDS, hypertension, infant mortality and sickle cell anemia than other ethnic groups. In addition, they have a higher incidence and poorer survival rates of certain cancers, including lung, prostate and stomach cancer.

We are told that it was Mark Twain who observed that there are three categories of untruth: lies, damned lies, and statistics. It is paragraphs such as the above which provide to the gleg observer a disclosure of just how statistics are recruited for such (ig)noble purposes. A moment’s reflection ought to jolt the reader: How is it that these statistical observations are not joined to an explanation of WHY these disparities might exist? Whatever connection these “facts” might have with life is left to linger above the earth, the orbiting satellite of racial guilt, set to pass overhead at regular intervals to remind every American that…what? What exactly is the point of highlighting these disparities if one does not find accompanying the “inequity list” the very best or the most likely explanation which can account for the items listed? If someone really cares enough to notice the disparities, how do we account for them not caring enough to go just a tiny bit further, to bring us a tad nearer to a solution by tracing out for us the root causes of these unequal realities? It is in the Bible one may find the answer: “The mercies of the wicked are cruel.”

Prior to the 1960’s the absence of any attempted explanation would have been viewed as a lapse in integrity by the author and/or publisher. What kind of man is it who knows where a fire is raging but refuses to tell the location so that help might be sent? But you see, inequity lists such as these no longer even pretend to be doing front work for genuine concern. Rather, they are purely political, which is to say creedal phrases, recited not so that anything might be done to solve a problem or cure a disease, but to propagate a faith. They are rehearsed for no purpose beyond perpetuating a favorite myth. The Heidelberg Catechism teaches us the religious explanation for man’s problems. Illness and death are consequences of sin. Paragraphs like the one cited intend the same thing: illness and death are the result of a cardinal sin (if not the Original Sin) identified as such by the priests of the egalitarian state. This paragraph is pure catechetical preaching.

In this case, the catechism holds that all of America’s problems are rooted in inequalities. If egalitarianism has yet to descend upon a segment of life, if its visitation of destruction has failed to reach a sphere because the spreading leaven was halted in some way, then the populace is to meditate on it, chant and recite verses that they hope will, by religious fervor and force, finally bring the Great Solution of equalitarianism to all spheres. This is a religious exercise, my friends. It is because we are on this side of the communist egalitarian utopia–which it is our duty to ever hold before our eyes as THE great goal of man and state–that these terrible imbalances exist.

Black people suffer higher incidence of sundry and assorted “leading bad health indicators” because America and its health care systems are utterly racist. Isn’t it obvious? Here is the proof! There are health inequities! What further proof is needed? In the current American environment, at least, to say nothing by way of explanation is tantamount to saying, “Racism did this.”

But surely enough knowledge is available, enough data known to correlate these higher incidences with certain “lifestyle” choices. If the announcement were generic, speaking of total populations (i.e., regardless of race) in region “X” in, say, 1978 compared with the same in 2008, a conclusion stating that the 2008 population was “twice as likely to have a stroke” as the 1978 group, would certainly be joined to a hypothetical explanation. No editor worth his salt would accept the story for print if the reporter didn’t dig further for an explanation. These considerations, I insist, reveal this sort of selective reporting, in which the important questions are left unasked, to be nothing less than race-baiting, less than worthless and inexcusable. To know WHY the disparities exist and to be silent concerning these reasons, especially when seeking to draw attention to the additional burden borne by one segment of the population, is, to every sensitive conscience, unconscionable. But like the “Rev.” Al Sharpton, these people make their living off of racism. Though they put themselves forward as enemies of inequality, the truth is they are devoted to perpetuating and extending it. Without it they’d be out of a job. Any decline in real racism (and its ugly fruits) means a corresponding decline in their bonuses. And hey, these are hard economic times.

So expect lots more of these mysteriously abstracted observations. It’s like the figures bandied about by ignorant (I’m being kind) feminists who ask you to be indignant about “inequitous” (my new word!) pay between men and women. By failing to connect it to women’s choices about what sort of work they are trained or willing to do, or the number of hours they elect to be away from home, or the costs to employers who hire and train women only to find over time that other items on their agenda made it too easy for women to forsake the workplace altogether–by leaving it as an abstraction, it best serves its religious function as a training tool, instructing the next generation just what sin is. It is “any want of conformity unto or transgression of 50/50.”

If you are skeptical, if you suspect that I’ve done my own abstracting, I place before you Mr. Aviles’s next two paragraphs. If you find a reason for the disparity that might prove helpful to Blacks, let me know, will ya?

HHC has a proud history of addressing racial and ethnic health disparities faced by African-Americans in New York City. For example, we have developed numerous initiatives, such as our Web-based electronic diabetes registry, to help our patients with diabetes better control their illness and avoid long-term complications. Similar technology and special care programs help keep our pediatric asthma patients out of emergency rooms and hospital beds.

We continue our work to expand access to preventive screenings for heart disease, hypertension, and cancers; make HIV testing part of routine medical care; help people to quit smoking; and provide optimal perinatal care.

It is time for Americanity to recognize that Political Correctness is not about politics. It’s simply that old Baal showing his version of “tolerance.”

H e    W e n t    T h a t a w a y ! . . . b u t   W h y ?
The Truth About Men and Directions

Since Deborah Tannen told wives that it wasn’t just their husband who refused to ask for directions when lost, this particular gender difference has assumed a life of its own. Though I owe a debt to Mrs. Tannen I could scarce repay (by her honest accounts of how and why men and women have distinct, easily identifiable communication manners, she confirmed for me my sanity when there were otherwise good reasons to question it), I think it is necessary to revise her explanation for the phenomenon.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, it is this: In one of her earlier books on communication styles, Deborah Tannen, undertook to help men and women understand why, in inter-gender conversation, the parties seem so often to be talking past each other. What kind of world is it where conversations begun with the hope of clarifying misunderstandings, invariably ended in compounding the confusion? The answer, Deb dared to say, was a world in which men and women are different.

Such an answer would shock anyone raised on the Egalitarian Catechism. But there were still a few who had found, by grace, the nerve to reckon their consciousness as real, and who believed their senses functioned with an actual correspondence to reality. These were the 7,000 who knew their search for the meaning of life would not end with the discovery of Rod Serling standing behind a curtain, microphone in hand. They had found their childhood suspicions that boys and girls might really be really different confirmed with each rise in their respective hormone levels. Every new drop of estrogen, each additional milliliter of testosterone, brought with it further and irrefutable proof that their childhood suspicions were actually facts of life.

However, as long as society as a whole was forbidden to enact any legislation based on reality, things were okay. And so Deborah’s books became bestsellers even as the material they treated inched closer to becoming illegal. People seemed really to enjoy learning about non-existent gender differences and how these affected them. Some were even more interested in finding a way to overcome the communication obstacles that weren’t there as a result.

Tannen’s theories include what I regard as inescapable truths, cleverly labeled and winsomely set forth, typically by means of anecdotes. The one mentioned in the first paragraph above, about men who, when lost, are irrationally reluctant to ask for help, became a culture-wide cliché in record time, as did the supposed reason explaining the reluctance. Ego. This male tendency was then compared to the ever-practical female who, with an ego manifestly above such silly concerns, will simply logically and without fear, ask.

Dr. Tannen’s perceptive eye has observed that the different behavior and speech styles of men and women is rooted in the different ways men and women experience their respective identities. The theory, which I buy without hesitation, is that women rate themselves and others on a horizontal plane while men are ranked on the vertical. This is manifestly the case.

From little girlhood, females work with proximity as the defining element of relationships. Girls express love by opening up, allowing in the objects of their affection. They seek to get next to, to get near, objects of their fancy. Conversely, those who are disliked are shut out. Girls learn early, without tutors, without the subject listed in any curriculum, how a group of girls creates, sustains or alters the status of girls inside and outside the clique. It is a wonderful world for those who are granted admittance into the otherwise secret realm of the “most-admired-girl’s” heart. And it can be a hellish torment to be the girl shut out, the girl kept in the dark concerning “the news,” or concerning the future, as it is planned (schemed) by those adept at using their charms to make things happen.

With speech as their major relational tool, women gab it up and up and up with their intimates, discussing even the most inane matters, because what matters is the process, not the content. Your wife’s knowledge of this valuation explains why she doesn’t care two cents what Julianne was talking to you about outside, in front of the house, before you came in. But she cares very much about the length of your conversation. This is because your wife knows that talk for women is, above all other considerations, intimacy’s carburetor. It’s where the mix of fuel and air is mixed, where the ignitable substance—if there is going to be any—comes from that is brought to the spark to get the engine running or to keep it moving. It is where the diamonds of the information world are mined: your likes and dislikes. The knowledge of these in the pretty hands of a skillful woman have determined more outcomes in history than men even knew happened.

For the male of the species life is very different. The male identity is not gratified by proximity but by ascendancy. He is keen to observe where each member of the group ranks, and he knows that ranking is usually the result of performance. Interestingly, though somewhat beside the point, is that for females, the stakes are ontological, whereas for males they are economical. I use these categories here as they are used in theology where ontology refers to God’s being and economy refers to His activities. The stakes are always higher for the female because she finds her self as the cause or blame of her relative popularity while the male, forever and (almost) always bound more tightly to the objective case, finds his sense of self leased out to his performance. To the uninitiated this may all appear to be mumbo-jumbo, but to the gleg, these are bases fitted to be the foundations of differing worlds. The respective social pressures experienced by boys and girls, men and women, are equally rewarding or devastating, but they occur along different axes. Depending upon the consequences of any particular valuation, the potential grief is much greater along her axis than his.

Tempting as it is to follow these differences out from some of their more common appearances, we must return to the original subject: men (not) asking for directions when lost. The quick answer, once it became public as a guy thing, was to attribute it to the famously more delicate male ego. The thinking goes like this: As a guy, he’s always vying for the top rung, always competing at every possible opportunity, even when cooperation would seem to be of most advantage to most people. Thus, while everyone in the car is hungry, and the relatives are starting to worry, the Mrs. is asking, “Why don’t you just pull into that gas station and ask someone?” He responds with a pregnant grunt that says, “Who needs to ask directions? I know where I’m going and I know how to get there. I just need to go around the circle we’ve been driving in for the last 35 minutes one more time. Just once more ought to do it.”

She thinks he’s impossibly stubborn for not mustering whatever sort of humility he might need to let his ego go where it belongs, in order to get the whole family where they belong—today—at grandma’s new house for dinner. He is thinking, “Why doesn’t this female have the good sense to understand that I really am on the verge of cracking the code? This is no stupid ego game! This is a matter of me doing my job.”

As usual, they are both wrong. In this instance, anyway. She’s usually right, I admit; just as Deb Tannen is usually right. But on this direction thingy, I think the boat has been missed. While the tender male ego may rightly be blamed for much misery come upon the world, I don’t believe this is just another instance of it. No, there’s something else operative here and it behooves us to consider if my theory is not the correct one.

You see, among the skillion differences between men and women lies this one: women default to safety, preservation, caution. Men default to danger, risk and the resultant thrill. Please don’t be so silly as to imagine that I’m saying women never take risks or that men always do; or that women never find risk thrilling, or that men never prefer safety. None of these considerations really bear on what I’m suggesting is the preferred alternative explanation for the “don’t need directions, thanks” phenomenon.

It is a verified fact that there is a chemical brain reward granted in high risk activity (that ends well—heh). And it is a verified observation that such behavior is engaged in by males far more than by females. I read recently of a species of monkey that curiously had an adult female to male ratio of five:one. Two women researchers sought an explanation. They first verified that the birth ratio was, in fact, essentially one:one. So what happens? Is there a genetic vulnerability in the male, a mutation that makes it less fit to survive into adulthood (don’t I sound like Chuckie Darwin here-I’m only reporting it like it happened!)? Or were the males perhaps much tastier to a predator’s way of reckoning? It turned out that neither of these accounted for the adult demographic difference. Rather it was because the male monkeys commonly engaged in high risk behavior of idiotic proportions? I know this sounds like I’m leading up to a men’s reality show on cable, but I’m not. These male monkeys would do things like race across a heavily trafficked highway. No matter how many entrants to the Highway Olympics ended up under truck wheels, the monkeys stayed unrepentant. They also stayed dead, as the statistics indicated.

I propose that a similar motivation is behind the refusal to ask for directions. It is a civilized way to play Highway Monkey. Despite what our wives think, the risks we face are well known to us and failure is not desired. We do not relish the thought of walking in to a room packed full of hostile in-laws waiting to tell us how stupid we are. You may think we like that, but we don’t. What we do relish is a challenge. It is not at all the ego that is driving us to drive cluelessly. At least, it’s not all ego. It is the expectation of a chemical brain reward once the challenge is met and swept into our dominion bag of accomplishments. The moment we ask directions, the potential thrill of a dominion moment evaporates.

If you cannot understand the difference between ego and the chemical reward I speak of, you are a female. That’s all right. Don’t let it trouble you. Fact is, I invariably ask for directions—when I need directions, which happens to be very rarely. Like NEVER. Besides, the thrill of grandma’s cooking fresh out of the oven has always trumped endorphins in my mind. Hey! Double entendre.

All right, men. It’s time to start learning. Here is your first BIG lesson: There are no human beings. There are only male human beings and female human beings. Now we could get fancy and say this is your first lesson in Ontology for a Post-feminist world, but we won’t. We will remind you, however, of the category to which this matter belongs, in the hope that you will see just how easy it is to be wrong and how important it is to be right.

Think “God.” It is a question of the greatest possible import whether God be One or Three. To answer that He is both is to ground us in the Biblical answer to virtually all good questions: “Yes and no.” That is, “It depends on what you mean, on the way it is asked, and the purposes for which the answer is needed.” If a kindergartner seeks catechetical certainty, they are reassured, “God is one, absolutely. He is in Three Persons.” A doctoral student in Theology may return to this answer at the end of his thesis, but the ground he’ll need to cover to get there is more expansive. Among the topics which will challenge his limits will be, precisely what is it that is common to these Three Persons which entitles us to say they are One, and where and what are the points of demarcation which legitimate speaking of Three? We find that a discussion of the most profound and fundamental reality involves a discussion of continuity and discontinuity.

Moving to another example, what is the relationship of the Old to the New Testament? Since they are equally inspired, authoritative guides for God’s people, are they just one Holy Bible? Or does the fact that the Old anticipates the Messiah while the New speaks in light of His having arrived and accomplished His saving work allow for the strictest separation of the two? Careful thought will lead us to conclude that there is continuity between the Testaments, as well as significant discontinuities.

If we had just the Old, God would have all who profess His Name make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem three times annually. It would require some calculation to learn if people living before the 19th century would have been able to complete three such journeys in their expected lifetime, and then consider if they’d have had any time left to allow for eating, brushing their teeth, etc.

If we had only the New, we’d be forced to consider why Jesus should be so highly regarded by us since He would have ministered in a context that provided no means of authenticating His claims, and no foundation to support or provide fixed meaning to His words and deeds. We’d find, therefore, that our discussion of the most important book in our lives demands consideration of continuity and discontinuity.

Seeing our gender discussion as sharing a motif with the most important questions of life ought to go some way in removing the “fear factor,” a factor which freezes feminists, rendering them utterly incapable of even beginning discussions about gender on any basis which may veer close to reality. If talk about God, and talk about the Holy Bible both require acknowledgment of continuity and discontinuity, MAYBE it is safe to speak about men and women without first presupposing them to be the same in every respect except spelling (one gender takes two more letters, allowing for the feminist’s self-identification to be “wo is me.”)

Having paved the way for truth, we begin by reiterating: There are no human beings. There are only male and female human beings. It is necessary to reiterate it, then repeat it, then say it again, for our culture has been so deeply infected by Egalitarianism (see my new book, “Covenant or Chaos,” available in .pdf for twenty bucks from Messiah’s, c/o CraigBrann@gmail.com) that we have placed reality-based thinking beyond the reach of most. This is seen when a university president¹ mentions research suggesting that men excel in some sciences while females may excel in others. He was terminated (as in,”Your resignation is expected…”) shortly thereafter². No discussion was permitted concerning the research he referred to, its value or objectivity, its conformity to the rigors of scientific procedure—or anything else. It was official blasphemy against the new deity of the West: Equalitarianism. We can call it “Eve-olution.” Eve-olution will not allow the hypothesis that men and women may be gifted differently, and that for a very simple reason: anyone looking will discover the hypothesis to be true, then there goes the political agenda.

Reflecting on the amazing truth that not just a city, but an entire civilization has capitulated to the terrorist-backed demands of eve-olutionists, and not just the Lysistrata sort of terror, produces the sobriety necessary to properly mark where we are on the “Hope for Recovery Index.” We are living in a time wherein all public discourse must take place amongst people who have first agreed to give up reality, truth and fruitful thinking. This noble sacrifice (not) is required for purposes far greater than merely preventing an ugly woman from being offended. It is necessary if we are to guarantee that no one in America will be made to “feel bad” for anything, whether theirs by nature or choice. All distinctions must be leveled, except that those who refuse to level must be knocked down.

Such policies insure that no uppity white jerk will dare mention that four out of five first births in the Black “community” occur without benefit of married parents (think “Bahama,” er, Olibama, oh—just think). I mean, if that were noted (and all you need to do is look it up in your almanac right now—doesn’t matter what year—because you probably think I’m kidding or exaggerating) before our idiotic anti-culture and its reality-denying mandarins have superintended the spread of the bastard birth rate throughout all demographics, then people might conclude that difficulties experienced by contemporary Blacks may not always be due to the slavery that ended 150 years ago (bringing us to a time when the ancestors of most white U.S. citizens had not yet emigrated to the United States). To allow such distasteful ideas would surely encourage even more radical ideas, such as the notion that Black academic failure may not always be attributable to the evil “crossing the street when you see a Black man” racism on the part of whites today. Someone—maybe even a politician!—might propose that Black people need to change their sexual practices before applying for preferred treatment in every competitive area in which they lag. Someone, perish the thought, might even imply that the failure to exercise sexual self-control is directly related to lousy performance in those disciplines which ordinarily rely upon the actual use of brain-power.

The fact that failure to mention the illegitimate birth rate virtually guarantees its continuation (it doesn’t have a lot of room to get worse among Blacks, truth be told, but you can be heartened by the trend which shows Latinos and whites seemingly eager to catch up, proving that immorality is achievable by all peoples regardless of color), doesn’t appear to bother anyone. Nor is there much concern that the problem is sure to be soon solved by the use of the same reliable means we’ve employed to solve all social ills since egalitarianism’s triumph: we will simply redefine the problem by giving it a more neutral-sounding name. That is, we will say out-of-wedlock births are not problematic at all, but just “births in contexts of alternative cultures.” No one should feel as if that were equivalent to a doctor telling a cancer patient, “You lucky devil, you are generating lots of alternative cells!”

To insure that no reality-based discussion takes place, we’ll put in place a policy which insures that any high-profile member of our society remembers he/she/it got there by the sweat of union labor, and they must use their public platform we’ve granted them only to serve the public, never to insult or correct them. Therefore, should a vice-president, say, gently suggest to TV-land that scripting a popular television heroine to conceive and give birth without benefit of marriage—instead of allowing his suggestion to get discussed, instead of permitting the data to be examined, the facts and consequences to be set before us—we’ll simply pour opprobrium upon him in such volume, rain scorn upon his name with such force, we will draw such attention to what we’ll smirk and call” his obvious stupidity,” that all can rest assured he’ll never have another chance to credibly suggest anything about any public policy. For people will only be able to remember how dumb he was to publicly suggest an association between out-of-wedlock births and difficulties.

By now you may have forgotten that we have not been discursively rambling, but rather setting the context necessary to appreciate why it is so rare and so difficult to speak simple truths in our culture: it is because we have been taught to believe that for our blessings we are beholden not to God Almighty but to democracy. That this “democracy” is a complete fabrication ought not to disturb anyone. It’s all we have by way of genuine American product worthy of export. And so long as people are buying it, who are we to tell them the cans are empty? Or filled with poison? We’ve arrived at a point in our decline where 24 paragraphs of qualification become necessary for a person to say, “Men and women are not the same,” and escape with his life, if not his intellectual credentials. Having adopted the ethic of the French Revolution, it should be no surprise that we’ve adopted its methods: terror. Everyone is on notice every day, on every college campus, on every job: if you speak the truth, you will be dealt with certainly, swiftly and mercilessly. If you understand this, you might understand why God has allowed us to be spoken to by the same means: terrorism. Tragedy of tragedies, no matter how many tragedies, no matter how much terror we endure, no one is permitted to speak the truth in the Public Square and say, “It is because we have turned away from our God and His Law that these terrible things are happening to us.”

All of these rainclouds, however, do contain silver linings—IF Christians will repent and seek from God the courage to live obediently, according to His Word. That will put us as a living example, in steep, deep and dark contrast with the withering world around us. And in no location will the Antithesis appear more starkly than in our respective families. That Christianity was given to re-create the family is a truth hardly known, let alone propagated today. Yes, I mean what you thought I implied: Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead, not so that numerous individuals could separately give their testimony to God’s having forgiven them. It was so that sin would no longer prevent families from being or succeeding. We do not say families only. Of course not. It is all life, in all dimensions, spheres, respects and perspectives where Christ’s blood works redemptively, transforming all. But transformation by Christ the Redeemer is performed in terms of God the Creator. And the Creator began His earth-work with a family. After sin’s destructive entry, and millennia of pain and hope, God sent forth His Son to redeem the world. The New Testament was written in a way that makes it hard to miss that it would be largely through the family that Christ’s redeeming work would proceed.

We are accustomed, perhaps, to confining this role and glory to the church. Bad, sad mistake. We’ll get to that another time. For now, just recall that Paul, in Ephesians, speaks of Christ’s work in the most expansive and universal terms. When he brings this too-grand message down to cases, it comes to bear differently on men and women. Why? Because we are different. But when the Gospel and ethic of Jesus Christ is applied to the basic unit of civilization, it looks exactly like what Paul describes in terms of requirements, found in Ephesians 5:21-6:4. There, Paul tells of wives submitting to husbands as to the Lord, and husbands loving their wives as themselves.

People make a big mistake when they try to modify, alter, soften or blur what Paul says here. Remember that it is the Holy Spirit’s power producing the voice here. Fight against this and guess who’s face you’ll discover you were opposed to? But yield to these and find His presence, comfortable and there throughout your home.

It is immediately apparent that widely differing concerns are brought to the attention of the two genders which unite to form a home. (If you are reading this and discontentedly single, take provisional comfort from this: the one instructing the marrieds here in Ephesus was also a single. God never said you should stay on the bench. Get into the game as you are, where you are, with what you have.) Yet, although everyone notices different commands, both based on gender, not everyone notices how these commands were customized so as to cater to the created needs of each respective gender.

What I mean is, God commands wives to continually offer to husbands the attitude husbands are ever and always most in need of: respect. But before some beer-bellied, televisionized, wife-neglector starts burping, “Yeah, that’s what I tell Doris all the time! ‘Submit!,’ I sez to her. ‘Submit, ya dumb broad. Do what I tell ya!,” let me say, the only time lack of submission can be deemed a problem is after a husband has fulfilled his obligation to love his wife, and to leave no doubt whatsoever in her mind that she is loved and cherished. I will tell you plainly the ground from which I am teaching. The husband who communicates to the depths of his wife’s soul that he loves her truly, fully and forever, is a husband who has more submission from his wife than he knows what to do with. The obligations are reciprocal. But the priority belongs to the husband loving his wife. Men, you are the heads of your homes. If you like the title, take the responsibility that goes with it. If you and your wife are not in kilter with these requirements, the fault (in 99.99% of the cases, which means it includes yours) can be traced to you.

For you see, while God has kindly provided for your simple need of simple respect, He has elaborately commanded that you love your wife. And women, being the more interesting, complex and serial-ported gender, require considerably more from you, if she is to feel your love, than she needs to generate for you to feel her respect. You may not understand this last sentence, but I guarantee your wife does. Perhaps you can coax her into explaining it to you.

For now, let me conclude with a hint of what I’d like to develop in this series: Men self-identify in hierarchical terms, something like, according to the rung they occupy on the ladder of life. Women self-identify not in terms of relative vertical placement, but rather placement along the horizontal. Men are programmed by God to assess in terms of above or below. Woman waste little time on such considerations. For them, it is proximity or distance from their hearts, that counts. The movement close or far occurs along the same plane.

(This partly explains why egalitarianism is inseparable from feminization in all areas where such a designations would be relevant. For example, although able to give courses in competitiveness when it comes to life, when it comes to games, you can be certain that it was a woman’s voice that birthed the new little league policy of “no one loses, every team gets a trophy.” This policy speaks not only with a high-pitched tone, but as a voice that has somehow found itself beyond the influence of a man’s, for a man would remind Mom-the-Reformer that her policy, if kept up through the boy’s years of military service, could easily lend itself to Johnny coming home horizontal in a box as opposed to upright as a possible hero).

How we ought to praise and thank God that, however much we may be misunderstood by others, we cannot possibly be misunderstood by Him. In decreeing that husbands must love their wives, He has commanded that the world’s energies be tuned by the A440 of a wife/mother’s heart. Love is everything to a woman. And marriage may give love more opportunities for lawful display, but it is not necessary for us to behold the degree to which love reigns in the female heart. Just watch them interact with a child presenting a scraped knee. I’m telling you, they really, truly believe that their love will make the boo-boo better. And every child on earth will testify: it really does. Men know nothing of this except to stand before it in awe.

¹ (Former) Harvard President, Lawrence H. Summers at NBER Conference on Diversifying the Science and Engineering Workforce, Cambridge, Mass. — 01/14/2005

² See Harvard University Gazette — February 21, 2006

Human beings are the crown of creation. If we honor the adage, save the best for last, woman is clearly the jewel in the crown. The relationship of man & woman is the most fascinating of all possible attractions. In sinning against the Lord in the Garden, our first parents did not escape from the roles they were created into, but they sure made their respective callings more difficult and complicated. Going to work for the man would no longer be the same pleasure as a walk in the park.

And birthing children would not be walk in a candy shop. Moreover, woman, given an edge in awareness as well as a compulsion to see relational conflicts resolved, was anointed “relationship manager.” Man was to stay at his calling, interfacing between the home and the world, and all its griefs, while woman would stay at hers, interfacing with and among her intimates. In finding her life in love, she would bear the added burdens caused by all the flotsam that proceeds from the hearts of men. Her life would be like the plate balancers on Ed Sullivan, doing 9 simultaneous keep-everything-going spins to a soundtrack of Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance. She would accomplish this with grace, foreshadowing/reflecting the Christ by freely taking upon herself the respective blames and sorrows of her loved ones, satisfied with nothing less than reconciliation.

The heart of wisdom, therefore, seeks understanding not in a hermitage but in the male-female relationship, the yin-yang of real life, solid and liquid, strength and strengthener, lover and lovee. This exciting, terrifying, challenging, irresistible relationship occupies the central place in society. All building is dependent upon its stability, coherence and permanence, for to the degree that these are shaky or unstable-or destroyed-so will the society be. There is no escape from this fact of lives. (Which is why, yes, homo-”marriage” marks the termination of Western Civilization; RIP.) The firmness of the male-female bond, the infallible barometer of a culture’s virility, is itself dependent upon laws, customs, mores and conventions, rooted in religion, which impel the members of that First Estate back upon one another, come what may. That is the reason a government interested in prosperity has laws favoring the faithful married, and why rulers indifferent to their own demise countenance any definition of the core institution that stands to gain a win in the next pander-poll.

So you are wise, and you are going to be married. And you wonder what you should know/do? Here, then, are some relationtips by which you ought to live. These are quickies, not deepies. I’ll give you the ingredients, you bake the cake. Relationtip #1: Beware that you do not smother each other. The two became one but it takes two to have fun. Though this piece of advice, if we were ranking each, would come in at #4, I’m treating it first because I don’t have time to deal with #1 (expectations) or #2 (no exit is the only way to enter), or #3a-b, (Everything in one word—for her, everything in one word—for him). Pray God keeps me alive and I’ll gladly return to those.

I speak to you men. Understand this: your wife caught you by the judicious use of information. That’s right. You must rid yourself of the notion that you were the initiator. No such thing. The proper cliché is, “He chased her until she caught him.” You were permitted to think you were the engineer because it was necessary that you think that. But if you are already married, it’s ok to wake up now. Women run the world. And thank God they do, or nothing important would ever get done. True, they run it indirectly. That is to say, men run the world. And women run the men. Figure it out.

In order to accomplish this massive task while looking pretty at the same time, women utterly depend on information. It is their life line. And they are very, very adept at getting it. Their methods are legion, every one of them fascinating, but for now just understand that knowledge is power, your wife knows it, and your wife has more knowledge than you. O, stop it with your silly ego. I don’t mean she’s (just) smarter than you. I mean she knows the information that counts. What counts? Relationships! You are not even in kindergarten compared to your double-PhD wife when it comes to knowing people.

Now here’s the tricky part. There needs to be the right balance between what she can accomplish by employing her gifts, your cooperation with those gifts, and (here comes the part to pay attention to) your perfect comfort in keeping her in the dark somewhat. This works both ways. The reason I’m talking to the guys is simple: all the women already know all this. It’s you who has the disadvantage.

Think about it. When you first met (by the way, if I asked you, you’d say you know each other 13 months; if I asked her, I’d get the truth: 16 months-during those three months she set the stage for your awakening), you were amazed at how wonderful it was to be with her. You couldn’t put your finger on it, but everything about being near her and with her was, hmmm, PLEASANT. Yes, that’s it. Do you know why? Because she had done recon work on you. She got the necessary information. She learned it by observation or discussion, usually both. She knew how you liked your coffee, and when. She knew your keenest interests and could speak about them at length. Actually, she had simply gotten YOU to speak about them, but she knew how to weave the silk of memory to make it appear that she had been a full partner in the talks rather than an enabler and guide.

Because, as the husband of one and the father of five females, I am an honorary member of the club, it is required that I make believe there’s not much more to say about this. It could upset the balance of power if you became truly aware of the way life works. Which leads me to my point. She nailed you, in part, by getting you to talk. Her receptivity was more than that of a co-football enthusiast, for example. The key part for her was the “co-”—you would fill in what came after and she was perfectly adaptable to any decent interest of yours. The point I’m making, if you are staying with me, is that she caught your interest, she became the object of your fascination, then the object of your devotion, by a number of elements, but never absent was her skill at gaining information about you, especially your likes and dislikes.

Men have always been and will always be too dull to see the webbing getting wrapped around them because their egos (the male ego is the woman’s greatest strategic advantage) have them believing that it is they who are doing the charming. A man will believe that a particular woman he happens to end up next to at church just happens to have the same level of interest in theology as he does, and—wonder of wonders!—a deep concern about the same theological subset, what a coincidence, OR he will believe that he has caused her to share the level and particulars by his overwhelming logic, enthusiasm and charisma. Go buy a coke, you silly head. You never stood a chance.

What is vital now is that you thoroughly reject the manners of the modern sensitive male. Just as you would have lost interest in her immediately if the only challenge to bedding her had been her making out your handwriting on a vulgar note you handed her, so too, she would lose interest if the information flow from you was available without an effort. I say this is a matter of balance, of proportion. Your physical superiority was almost certainly on her required list. She doesn’t feel slighted by looking up to you. On the contrary, it’s the only way she’ll get to feel your height-by being part of you. To make that happen, in addition to the grace of God and the provision of hormones, and certain seasons of the year, a woman’s aggression and competitiveness are engaged by a man who honors strict limits in disclosing himself to her. Just as you would be put off to find that the whole band knew her name when you took her to that nightclub, so she would be put off if you were no more of a challenge to get to the divulging stage than Oprah Winfrey.

Fortunately, there is a way to maintain the balance. But as in all things, it requires the cooperation of both parties. You might do well to re-read the story of Samson. There you may rediscover how the strongest man in the world was too weak to endure the whining of a determined female. “Tell me where your strength lies, if you please.” Information, daddy-o. It’s their lifeline. Trust me. So, the dilemma is: with no info, there’s no relationship (love IS revelation, self-disclosure). But with too much or too easy disclosure there is a certainty that she will be turned off, if not nauseated. From time to time, you will be tested for strength. You may not realize you are being tested. On rare occasions (like, say, about twice in 487,000 instances), even the Mrs. may be relatively unaware that she’s administering a test. But a woman’s NUMBER ONE need being security/safety, she is programmed by God to test the fire extinguisher at intervals. If you fail the strength test, you will discover what misery is. You’ll find yourself writing odes to Samson in the middle of the night.

The way to become secure in this delicate area is simple: Men, the only one on earth to whom you disclose yourself completely is the one who is simultaneously in heaven. That’s right. The Lord. You must maintain a tighter relationship with God than with your wife. In fact, because of all I’ve said above, the ONLY way to maintain the balance is to keep yourself in totality for God ALONE. If you do that, you are becoming like God more each day. By that, your attractiveness is increasing to your wife, not diminishing. We become like what we worship. Though some men think they can manipulate a woman by worshiping her, it will only backfire. For then, the law of worship (you become like that which you worship) will mean you are becoming like a woman. Since woman was made for MAN, that is not a happy eventuality.

So we are left with a happy solution to a thorny problem. There was no need for me to tell women to hold back in their revelation, because they would rather DIE than have you know them completely. Nothing on earth could compel the woman you love to “let it all hang out.” She will always, always withhold (while simultaneously delighting in your seeing through her, anyway; just not with her cooperation). But you, man, you are the one in danger of going transparent.

By declaring a wife off-limits during “the custom of women,” God maintains before us, husband and wife, a constant reminder of His prior and superior interest in your wife. By deferring to Him, you both acknowledge that you are not your own. This semi-sacramental claim of God is a reminder that your wife is NEVER fully your possession. She is a gift from God-given on God’s terms. The same is true for you. You must always have a consciousness that you are God’s man first. That is why you are willing to die to protect your wife—God has given you to her in part to provide that security. But there will only be enjoyment in her security in you if YOU find your security in God above all. No sane woman ever sought to break up a real man and his real God. She knows that you will be happy playing second to God. She has reserved so much of herself for you alone that you know for a fact that you are incalculably special to her. Provide her with the same. Let her know the real you. Be unafraid to share. But do not gush, do not effuse, do not obsess. Open yourself FULLY only, only to God. She will see His mark of ownership on you, and brother, I guarantee, no cologne, no aphrodisiac is more compelling for your wife than the imprint of Jehovah on your heart. He alone retains the right to exhaustive knowledge AND full disclosure and complete cooperation.

Imagine this scene, a few short years in the future. We see a nation spent past its resources. The future is already in hock to the third generation, what with expenses from wars around the world, maintenance and expansion of Home-land Security (which chooses to spend billions rather than simply profile), another couple of weather-related disasters, not to mention the 1.5 trillion dollar spending spree when the Feds gobbled up Wall Street. Well, at least the SEC became superfluous, since there were no longer any traders to regulate who did not already work for them directly.Now add this to your vision: the Gore Scouts have done really well at convincing congressmen and senators that “global warming”–after a three-year retreat that saw colder temperatures at the poles (which they’ll claim to have both predicted and factored in)–is back. A blue-ribbon panel assembled by three United Nations agencies, has just released what they call “The Final, Pre-catastrophic Report” (FinCat for short). FinCat predicts a worldwide flood will engulf the coastal borders of every body of land touching a major ocean. The seas will overstep their current bounds by at least 600 miles to the interior. That means the Mississippi River will be absorbed by the Atlantic and Indiana will be the eastern-most state of the USA. California will be entirely submerged as New Mexico steps to the front of the line to become the New West Coast.

FinCat offers just one hope: a radical, massive, worldwide  confrontation of the problem to be led by the United States. The proposal includes the demand that every able-bodied citizen of every nation expected to be affected by the swelling arctic waters be conscripted to construct sea-walls and other emergency structures and vehicles and watercraft. Those not engaged in this First Tier battle plan would be assigned to work for a new international agency call VSS, or, Vital Support Services. All work on planet earth would be restricted to First Tier or VSS. The cost to implement  the FinCat proposal–which would entirely eradicate all non-emergency related business and enterprise–is figured to be at least $13 trillion. The alternative, they say, is simple: annihilation.Though sore wounded, bleeding and limping from the series of crises mentioned in the first paragraph, the United States is still the leader of what’s left of the “free world.” All other world leaders believe their nations are  technologically and intellectually incapable of interacting with, much less challenging, the UN’s gold star panel. The only thing of which they are certain, aside from the fact that they cannot rebut FinCat, is that the USA, with the most talent and the most to lose, is the only entity that could possibly stand up to the UN agencies and their twelve apostles of science.

In fact, an alternate report, which claims to contain irrefutable proof that the Gore Corps and their sympathizers, including the UN panel, relied upon erroneous presuppositions which skewed the data, which in turn severely distorted the conclusions and predictions dictated in FinCat. Released only six days after FinCat, the other report, which can fairly be said to represent the only other credible and credentialed scientific voice addressing the critical matter, was the fruit of the labor of virtually every first-rank scientist who had not been drafted by the UN agencies. In addition to castigating FinCat for its “faulty premises and radically wrong conclusions,” the group, which adopted the moniker “Not Only About Heat,” or “N.O.A.H.,” said that they included in their considerations the Bible as an authoritative source. In it, N.O.A.H. said in a press release, was “an unequivocal promise from God that no universal flood would ever overtake the earth and its inhabitants again.” FinCat’s authors point to this admission as proof that N.O.A.H.’s report “is not, and could not by definition be, good science.” The President of the United States was said to be giving very serious ear to both sides.

At this time in history, would you want as your President a menopausal or premenstrual woman, who was experiencing radical temperature shifts–including hot flashes–at unpredictable times for unpredictable durations?

Dear Steve: Recently I responded to a facebook article entitled something like “forced monogamy encourages sexual immorality” posted by a gentile convert to Messianic Judaism in which he seemed to suggest it was okay to have a sexual relationship with someone besides ones wife, although if an offspring results then a man must take financial responsibility for that child. Somehow that doesn’t sound very biblical to me (except perhaps the latter part of paying child support)! What would your opinion on this be?

Robert Louis Dabney, in his little tome on ethics, surveys the Scripture teaching on monogamy. God created Adam & Eve. The first bigamist was a jerk. Every patriarchal instance of bringing in more than one female would move anyone who was awake when they read the accounts to avoid multiple partners like a plague. Who has woe? Who has sorrow? The fool who thinks you can stuff the house into a harem. Idiots.

Dabs goes on to remind us that honor is enjoined for mother and father (one of each), and the commandment forbids coveting the neighbor’s wife, not wives. These and assorted other mentions, make a nice little case that the Creator’s obvious intention, if the Bible be the judge, is lifelong monogamy between two people (one of each gender, and yes, there are but two) of like faith.

The really interesting element to all this is that the polygamists are just drooling, waiting to have a go at those who think sola scriptura means that no tradition is authoritative. The Moron, I’m sorry, Mormon arguments have been published for well over a century. Take a peak if you want to know the sound you’ll hear down the road a piece. What this particular babbler you refer to may say is completely inconsequential. But when the issue is seriously put forth by folks in the Public Square (the enemy, you might have guessed, is almost certain to employ WOMEN as the chief advocates of polygamy, assessing it as an ideal situation where Ms. Domestic can wash all the pots she wants while Ms. Career goes out and earns some bacon), the real battle will be engaged wherein Protestants who remain blind to the inescapability and importance of tradition, will be publicly humiliated.

Rummaging in the attic for Viagra will not help them recover from the shame. North American Evanjellyism is flaccid to stay, in part because they don’t hear the Lord of All saying in a thousand voices that, while His Enscripturated Word is indeed the final arbiter in all disputes where the subject is indeed addressed in the Bible, He has not elected to have the Bible speak about everything. And that is okay! Silly jellyfish don’t realize that a high view of Scripture can be joined to heretical zeal for want of interpretive skills, while a somewhat less than fully appreciative view of the power of God’s Word in Scripture may well be joined to a staunch advocacy of orthodoxy.

Do you follow this? I’m sorry if I sound muddled. The above is actually cogent, even if it isn’t well said. But let me add a little P.S. The Jews can clearly trace their ban against polygamy, not to the Bible, but to a particular ruling of a particular rabbi one thousand years after the Messiah came (my time line, not theirs–mine is correct). Would you rather have a universal proper practice predicated on an extra-Biblical authority, or a doctrine of Biblical authority that is forced to confess before a watching world that it’s a little bit fuzzy on this question of multi-partnered marriage?

In keeping with the brilliant exegesis applied to some things I’ve spoken or written, I suspect it would be well to say: If anyone thinks they detect less than fully Protestant sentiments in the above, they are wrong. Anyone who smells a budding apologist for Rome should have their nose examined. And anyone who senses a less than maniacal devotion to the authority of Scripture hasn’t much sense.

All right, Weirdsma, you got your answer. Now send a donation to Messiah’s. You can Paypal it at our site: MessiahNYC.org. And how about a few illustrations from your talented hand?

steve