One of the many very incisive things that novelist and essayist George Orwell had to say is this: “We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.” Indeed, talking at length about what until just recently everyone assumed to be a given is always sort of an odd thing.
If I had to pen an article defending the importance of eating or breathing, people would look at me askance. If I spent a lot of time trying to convince people that something like the law of gravity is real and we must take it seriously, most folks would think I have lost the plot.
But that is where we are now at when it comes to one of the most basic, most important, and most essential elements of any functioning society: the family. Everywhere families are taking a beating, and we have come to the place where we actually have to make the case as to why families are so very important.
I have written on this often in the past, but the “restatement of the obvious” continues to be an important need in our day. In fact, several meaty chapters in my 2014 book Strained Relations look at these matters in great detail, with hundreds of footnotes documenting all the claims being made. The reader is advised to turn there if they wish to have full documentation to what is said here in brief outline form.
So let me engage in another round of restatement. Despite so much bad press today, families are indispensable to all cultures. Anthropologist Margaret Mead once said this: “As families go, so goes the nation.” Or as historian Arnold Toynbee has said, “Nations rise and fall with the health of its families.” The strength and health of any nation can be judged by the strength and health of its families.
If families thrive and flourish, chances are good so will the nation. But if families are in a bad way, you can be pretty certain that the nation is in a bad way as well. When we wage war against the family, we are declaring war on a nation itself. And activists who have sought to take down nations have known exactly that. They have even boasted about it.
Consider just one example, the anti-family ideology adopted with gusto by the post-revolutionary Soviets. In 1917 they passed decrees which among other things made divorce easy, recognised only civil marriages, abolished shared family property. and banned adoption.
And in 1918 state courts took over parental rights. “True liberation of women, true Communism comes about only when the masses rise up … against … small-scale households,” wrote Vladimir Lenin in 1919. He also said this: “Destroy the family, destroy the nation.”
Today we may not always have exactly the same open hostility being expressed about families, but the outcomes are largely the same nonetheless. Various groups have made it clear that they also detest the traditional family, and they consider it to be an oppressive and outdated institution. Furthermore, they even claim it is just an invention from the 1950s!
Never mind that the married, two-parent family with children has been the norm throughout human history. Indeed, the nuclear family, along with the extended family, has been the main building block of almost all enduring cultures. But now all that is being undone by various activist groups and radical ideologies.
Tragically so many forces are now actively working to pull the family apart. Plenty of them could be mentioned here. They would include: economic pressures forcing both parents into the paid workforce and children to be raised by strangers; the growing welfare state and the dependency culture it creates; radical feminism; the homosexual lobby; the pornography plague; anti-family indoctrination in our schools; and so on.
Many groups exist for the stated purpose of taking down the traditional family. This will always be bad news both for children and society at large. Said sociologist William Galston:
A substantial body of research suggests that family structure is an independent factor influencing the well-being of children. Even after correcting for variables such as family income, parental education, and prior family history, children from single-parent families tend on average to fare less well economically, educationally, and emotionally, and encounter more difficulties on the road to becoming self-sustaining adults.
Or as UK social science researcher Rebecca O’Neill has observed:
The weight of evidence indicates that the traditional family based upon a married father and mother is still the best environment for raising children, and it forms the soundest basis for the wider society. For many mothers, fathers and children, the ‘fatherless family’ has meant poverty, emotional heartache, ill health, lost opportunities, and a lack of stability. The social fabric – once considered flexible enough to incorporate all types of lifestyles – has been stretched and strained. Although a good society should tolerate people’s rights to live as they wish, it must also hold adults responsible for the consequences of their actions.
The importance of the nuclear family simply cannot be overestimated. Crucial values which are passed from generation to generation mainly come through the family unit. As T. S. Eliot has argued, “by far the most important channel of transmission of culture remains the family: and when family fails to play its part, we must expect our culture to deteriorate”.
Winston Churchill agreed: “There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human society, are created, strengthened and maintained.” Yet today we find the state increasingly taking the role of the family, and with devastating results.
Government bureaucracies can never become a suitable substitute for loving and dedicated parents. The vital interpersonal connection of mother, father and child can never be bettered. And until recently, almost everyone recognised that truth. As we find in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and State.”
But now the state is subverting and undermining the role and rights of the family. The welfare state – no matter how well-intentioned – can never replace the nuclear family in terms of helpful outcomes for children. President Ronald Reagan was certainly correct when he said, “We know that government may be powerful enough to destroy families. We know it is not powerful enough to replace them.”
Or as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher pointed out: “Our children need strong families raising them with sturdy virtues, not to be smothered in the cold arms of the state.” But it is not just Republicans and other conservatives who are saying this.
As but one example, Democratic President Lyndon Johnson said in his 1965 commencement address at Howard University: “The family is the cornerstone of our society. More than any other force it shapes the attitudes, the hopes, the ambitions, and the values of the child. And when the family collapses, it is the children that are usually damaged. When it happens on a massive scale the community itself is crippled.”
Instead of working against families, governments should fully be working for families. All government policies should come with a ‘family impact statement’. If a particular government policy harms or undermines the family, it should be rejected or at least radically revisited.
As sociologist James Q. Wilson said, “A family is not an association of independent people; it is a human commitment designed to make possible the rearing of moral and responsible children. Governments care – or ought to care – about families for this reason, and scarcely for any other.”
The truth is, when we tamper with families, or simply allow them to be tampered with, we are saying goodbye to our own future. That in part is why we are so very concerned about the institutions of marriage and family. When they fall apart, entire cultures fall apart.
And everyone suffers as a result, but especially our children. As UK’s Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks once said: “The fact that we have deconstructed the family – morally, psychologically, economically, politically – is the single most fateful cultural development of our times.”
It certainly is, and a dedicated and rigorous turnaround is urgently needed. To that vital end I and others are completely and unapologetically committed. We ignore the family at our own peril.
29 Replies to “The Overwhelming Importance of the Family”
Make a case relating to the importance of family to who?
To have to make such a case to any person is a classic example of – who cares what they think as they are not smart enough to be idiots.
Any person who doers not understand the importance of family is brain dead and does not to be considered – end of story.
John Abbott
Great article Bill and without even including what God obviously says about the family in the Bible. Good material to share with those who don’t claim to be Christians.
I was interested in your above quote from the American sociologist, William Galston. I haven’t been able to track down its source. Do you know in which year he uttered these wise words?
As you doubtless know, Galston is a lifelong Democrat and, in recent years, has supported same-sex marriage. However, almost three decades ago he was a much sounder thinker.
In 1990, for instance, he conducted a study into the causes of, and remedies for, poverty and came up with a solidly conservative – indeed, Biblical – solution (although this was probably not his intention).
Galston identified three steps to escaping poverty: 1) finish school, 2) avoid teenage parenthood, and 3) get married before having children.
In other words, Galston, despite his later political wanderings, seems to have been the originator of the useful concept of the “success sequence” for young adults.
Thanks John. Here is the reference:
William Galston, “Causes of declining well-being among U.S. children,” David Estlund and Martha Nussbaum, eds., Sex, Preference, and Family. Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 303.
Many thanks, Bill.
Thanks Bill, timely article, all the more so given the loss of the “Family First” brand from Australian politics. At least while “Family First” existed even family-hostile media were forced to utter the phrase! 🙂
Family First was an absolutely brilliant name for a political party, and we should mourn the loss of the phrase from Australian lips, if not the party itself. At least it gave ‘the 4%’ across pretty much all electorates and states a meaningful label under which to park their primary vote. Cf. FF’s ‘replacement’ which shied away from the recent Qld and Vic state elections. And I fear the ‘Common Sense’ party that has subsumed Family First will be even more vulnerable to man-centric (rather than God-centred) thinking than was demonstrated by the terrible episode of the FF Senator Fielding’s ‘soft’ stance on abortion. (I’m hoping the likes of Lyle Shelton (Qld Senate candidate for AC) will prove my fears unfounded.)
Thankfully, it is not just William Galston reconsidering.
Jordan Peterson is coming (again) to Australia. He brings some radical ideas, which the Left do not like.
Well, Peterson’s idea — and this is hardly new — is that neither you, nor him in the basement, can save the world today but you can improve your own life, and with it the lives of others.
Start with the bed. Just take control of that one thing. Because you are not pathetic, not hopeless, not useless. You’re listless, despondent, but you can do something about that. Get up, get dressed, make the bed, go out in the world, knock on some doors. Find a job.
Maybe it won’t happen today, but at least when you get home after hours of trudging the streets, your bed will be made, because you made it, because you are not completely hopeless, et cetera, so let’s do the same again tomorrow.
You will eventually get a job — pretty much everyone who wants one does — and then you’ll have some money in your pocket. Now take on some responsibility. Take up some further study, get yourself a girlfriend, a boyfriend if that’s your thing, settle down, buy a house, have a baby, adopt a couple of dachshunds.
Now put a roof over the heads of the people you love. Take out the bins.
The attack directly against God’s creation, is now in full flight. This world-wide and massive abuse includes abortion, euthanasia, marriage, children, gender, heritage and Christianity itself.
We should all support Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Otban for his very strong support for families.
While Jordan Peterson is not a Christian, he has argued very effectively against transgenderism. He has many YouTube videos.
Mr M, I received 8 Valentine cards yesterday, but my best friend Katie received 10, however, she counts the one that she gets from her dad which doesn’t count and I think her mum makes her brother get her a card too, but he may have sent me one too since he likes me very much if so that counts more than the one he sent Kate. Just think how many more I would have received if I were allowed to wear makeup. Anyway, I thought you would like to know this. oh and I received flowers too, Katie didn’t, but my dad said they were on the step when he got home, plainly my dad bought them since only my dad would buy flowers from the garage, therefore, in the interest of fairness I will not count the flowers since I don’t count Katie’s dads card, nevertheless, I did get flowers and she didn’t so next valentines day there will be two dads buying flowers from that garage.
I thought you needed to know this since it relates to your family article, as a boy in his family is reaching to me (a girl in my family) in the hope that our families may be joined by me taking his family name and he taking me as his wife. That’s what I think. I know a valentine card isn’t a marriage proposal but it’s a seeking out, isn’t it? I think some of the boys probably sent a card hoping to find favour with me, sadly for them, I do not do favour, only, do you take Sarah Laura Clark to be… and then BABIES…
Dear David,
It was a sad day when Family First decided to “merge” with the Australian Conservatives.
I had big hopes for Cory Bernardi’s new party but can any of us honestly say we’re not disappointed how things turned out?
Centralised control that makes members feel they’re not being listened to. Picking up and then dropping like hot potatoes good Christian candidates like Rachel Carling-Jenkins. Selecting a weak candidate in the Bennelong by-election (nice, good Maronite boy but too young and a Lebanese boy maybe not the best pick for this white Aussie and Chinese electorate) and getting only 4.29% of the vote from people who voted majority NO to fake homosexual marriage, and then getting so spooked they don’t run in one single election between Dec 2017 and Mar 2019.
But things get worse. I’m in Sydney so I was very happy when AC said they would run in the state election here. But they have alienated many ethnic Christians when they recruited pastors from ethnic churches to run for the Upper House but then they put them in unwinnable positions down the ticket. Why? An AC volunteer admitted they just wanted to “harvest” the votes of ethnic Christians to get their number one candidate “over the line”. I know it’s all politics but as an ethnic Christian myself I hate when our communities get used like that.
Be warned:
If you say,
“there is a correlation between the number of people who are Muslim in a country and the number of terrorist attacks”,
this has been determined by the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal as,
“likely encourage hatred towards, or serious contempt for, Australian Muslims by ordinary members of the Australian population”.
In the book-
Science and Babies: Private Decisions, Public Dilemmas.
It says-
Religious Involvement.
Studies show that adolescent girls are more likely to be sexually active if they are not regular churchgoers and if they state that religion is not very important to them. More important than any particular religious affiliation, these studies found, is the tendency to be devout and concerned about religious teachings and customs. Some observers postulate that religious teenagers may be more traditional and less inclined toward risk-taking in other aspects of their behaviour. In addition, the important family and social contacts in their lives may be supportive of traditional behaviour.
—————–
I think the above is very true. My secular friends in school tend to get their values from soaps and celebrities where my Christian friends and I tend to get our values from our family and church. I think it could be said we are both acting tribal. When we chat with our secular peers informally we tend to have the same aspirations which are relationship based. where we differ is we Christian girls tend to see things right and wrong and hold things in either high value or low value where our secular friends would have a view of something is right if it feels right and, truth as subjective. If a boy accidentally touched my hand it would embarrass me. I don’t know why. Boys play wrestle some of the secular girls, they are gentle and do not hurt the girls, but us Christian girls think it’s shocking for a boy to touch and handle a girl like that and the secular girls think it’s shocking we would think that. most of the Christian girls are frightened of their dads, they are not frightened in the sense they fear harm from their dads they fear to disappoint their dads, well perhaps not disappoint but make unhappy. If one of the boys asked me out I have to tell him I’m not allowed to date until I’m sixteen and they often say do you do everything your dad tells you as though he expects me to put my dad second to him. obviously, it would be nice to have a boyfriend but it would be important to me that my dad liked my boyfriend and my boyfriend respected my dad. where the secular girls do not have their dads involved in their activities away from home.
The other issue the above book points out is the fact girls today have a large time gap from the point of being able to become pregnant and when they marry. wherein times past apparently, the gap was two years, as girls in those times started their periods later and married earlier, wherein the west today it’s not uncommon for a 10-year-old to start her periods and not marry well into her mid-20s. so if those girls are sexually active and do not want to become pregnant let alone get an std (which may affect her chances of becoming pregnant when she gets married) then she needs to be very disciplined with her routine of taking the pill and most that I know take the pill while they are in a relationship and stop taking it when they are not and some have on-off relationships. I have known 3 girls who worried they had become pregnant since their periods were late, me when my head hits the pillow at night the only worry I have is if I have got my maths homework right and after a few minutes it’s dreaming of pink balloons and wedding dresses.
I think the secular girls have much more freedom than us Christian girls but their freedom relates more to poor family relations than their dads giving them something, it tends to be they give them little time and do not want the battles dads have to take on and win with their teen daughters. My dad tells me most days how beautiful and valued I am, he’s brainwashed me as I believe him lol. I am not starved of affection or attention I tend to measure boys against my dad and to date the boys have a lot of catching up to do but my dad was once one of those boys I suppose
I truly understand John Abbott’s line of thinking in his response here. But even the highly educated, i.e., not full-blown idiots or even those you may regard as “unworthy” of being called such, can be faulted entirely for their lack of understanding about the importance of the nuclear family unit. I would contend that any family without Christ, without an orthodox Christian worldview is bound to be a dysfunctional family, some with societal results worse than others. We were all at one time deceived regarding the truth. Let’s spread Bill’s article here and pray it will reach the hearts of those yet deceived. Let’s give his message and our prayers that it falls on good soil a chance to accomplish that which only God can achieve. (I don’t mean to be rude to you, John A., but I know all to well what a mess a family without Jesus can be).
Dear Michael T., I’m saddened, but grateful, for your ‘insider’ news on AC. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
A Christian acquaintance who had twice been an (unsuccessful) election candidate for first a major party then later a minor (overtly Christian) party said to me in a highly disillusioned tone nearly two decades ago, “Politics is a DIRTY business.” I didn’t really know what he meant back then, but now, increasingly, I see.
Dear Sarah,
How do you define “sexually active”?
The sad truth is that the “sexual revolution” has infected Christianity too.
Many of our young people think “saving themselves for marriage” means not having sexual intercourse. Everything else is ok. I even spoke to a youth leader who said they don’t preach biblical purity because the kids would just ignore them. He said it’s better they listen to part of the message, no sexual intercourse before marriage, instead of ignoring all of it.
Looking at the “Instagram” of some young church-going Christian women is also very sad. I think you know what I mean. Some in my own Maronite community are probably the worst too.
Hi Mr Taouk,
I would define sexually active as allowing a boy to treat me as if I was his wife.
I am not sure if the girls I hang around with and myself consider we are saving ourselves for marriage, we are saving ourselves for our husbands. Let me offer you this, see what you think.
So, I want you to view marriage through my eyes for a moment.
1. Marriage is sacred.
2. Marriage is a play in the sense it tells a story to a disbelieving world.
My husband first chose me (I never chose him), and I have the freedom to accept him or reject him. If I accept him he will be my lord and master (don’t get too excited lord and master, lord and master are in lower case lol) he will be my leader, the head of the family (the church).
Marriage will be born in the shedding of blood and pain. I am the “innocent” pure lamb and my husband the one I am going to sacrifice myself for. I give myself willingly to him (that’s my gift to him) and he performs the sacrificial act, which births our marriage in pain and blood, sadly mine, but without that there is no gift and we haven’t become one.
If someone does not hold that view of marriage then of course marriage then becomes something not sacred but just something you could give the name, Pleasure, or my right to equality, what about a union of love that sounds good doesn’t it. it’s really important to understand that we can make marriage anything but only God can make it sacred and only a sacred marriage is marriage acceptable to God.
It may seem there is no hope for the girl who turns up to her wedding minus her gift, however, she has a safety net, and we call that the GIFT of the grace of God, you see God is the one who gives the purity she is the one entrusted to deliver it. If she messes up and calls on Jesus to forgive her, grace arrives in abundance. If she does not, then she has a play to perform where she is nothing more than a bad actress.
Yes, I do agree the church has married the world. and the values of the world are the values of the church in large part, however, we are the church so we must first point to ourselves before pointing to others. I am pretty much the least in my church, but I can be a role model for those younger than me, the little girls look up to me and I look up to the women. It starts with me I think not ends with another.
I am in a very good church. I lost my mum in a car accident 3 years ago and I have six ladies in the church that I can go to any time for advice and help. They are proper mums if my skirt is to short I get told off! obviously, it isn’t the same as having my own mum, but I do not lack a mothers attention or love since they are godly women and realise I need their guidance, as my dad can’t always relate to my needs.
I was saddened to hear your experiences with the youth pastor. I think the youth pastor possibly gave himself too much authority and expected too little from his young adults. It isn’t his role to pick and choose but to deliver and leave the rest to the Holy Spirit, its best to aim high as you want to feed the hungry and those who are not hungry leave those to their peers as they will drive them out or bring them on.
I’m only allowed on certain platforms and Instagram isn’t one of them so I’m not sure about what goes on with that platform. I do not know any Christian girls who act or behave immorally, as if I did I would tell them what I thought of them, as its the loving thing to do and if it wasn’t, I would do it anyway since I get told off for the slightest infringement.
“…..The Overwhelming Importance of the Family….”
Yeah – and that’s why individual gays can biologically conceive children.
After individual gays changed and had kids because they were the last people and community on earth…… they would hold a public ceremony so as to conserve mankind from the consequences of inter breeding. ‘Their kids’ would be given the surnames of their fathers, and their daughter’s would take the surname of her future husband…. and would certainly treat courtship in the way Sarah Clark above describes….. – why?
Because individual gays want marriage that much, and children too, but seriously as humans; a purpose, and that is what would be done under the circumstance, the survival of mankind by the natural order of things – God’s Creation.
Marriage is then clearly a heterosexual matter; survival of the species by intergenerational parentage – and I’d also like to re state the obvious – gay humans can and will wilfully change under circumstance – maybe even just by meeting someone of the opposite sex!!
Thanks for explaining Marriage so well Sarah.
God Bless Bill.
Bill, can we have more on ways of encouraging and growing families in our secular world please? With families under fire in almost all media ,how can Christians encourage those who are working on beginning their families, growing them up ,and strengthening them
>>Mary S.
Oh, you can’t grow families in the secular world, Mary, you can only grow secular citizens. it’s easy to see all around you. Single mums pimp themselves to the government since the secular mindset believes she pimp herself to her husband before that, so remove the husband, tax him so the pimp mother can pimp herself for benefit money and the pimp will hold her on the drug of free stuff so she continually votes to have a gun put to men’s heads to pay taxes for citizen Jonnys upbringing, after all, citizens do not need fathers they need teats so the government can suckle from them.
You, of course, as a Christian may produce families since your mindset isn’t that of a prostitute but of a Wife and Mother.
I hope you do not think I am being harsh here. but I do not think my dad should fund via tax the rearing of another mans child since its that fathers gift to provide for his family that is his. as for single mums who have no support from her sperm donor then men like my dad would donate to our church to help those needy women and our church will have her vote and we will pass it on to God, of course, my dad’s tax demand would reduce since the government are not paying that single mum for her vote with my dads money. if there is any spare money in my dad’s wallet he has a daughter who would have little trouble spending it. My dad could benefit too since he could persecute that single mum by withholding her makeup since its a known fact, makeup on a teen girl will get her pregnant. I think they ought to make me prime minister.
since its a known fact, makeup on a teen girl will get her pregnant.
Even if it doesn’t lead to pregnancy it does lead to premarital sex and the loss of a girl’s most precious possession to someone other than her husband. No self-respecting man wants spoiled goods do they?
Be assured Mr Taouk, wearing makeup doesn’t lead to pregnancy lol. Neither does it lead to premarital sex which is immoral behaviour, how could it? What leads to immoral behaviour is immoral people. Further, making the claim “No self-respecting man wants spoiled goods, do they?” would depend on the Goods, for instance, many men buy second-hand cars, the vast majority buy second-hand properties. Of course, If we were to apply goods to a human being then, of course, the human being has already been reduced to that of an object and objects do not have to consider your likes or dislikes. It may be the case that a man is used in the same way, as a woman is i.e. someone has used his future wife but he has used someone else’s future wife. In which case he is hardly in a position to demand what he himself isn’t prepared to provide. If a man desires purity, he himself should consider his own purity, since a man who sees humans as objects isn’t looking for purity, but something to criticise perhaps.
I hold my purity for my husband, as my gift to him, that gift isn’t dependent on how I appear, but how I behave. You are confusing someone appearing pretty with someone behaving seductively perhaps. I am not asking my dad if I may behave seductively I am asking him if I may wear a little makeup, the amount and application could be supervised by one of the Christian mums in our church, he could choose the most strict if he wants since I only want to look as pretty as I can and look my age or a little older since I am very mature for my age.
I would only date Christian boys and only those boys who had the same values and aspirations as myself. They would value purity so it wouldn’t be like I had to continually fight them off and if I put them under too much temptation they would only have to say and I would ensure I reduced that about me that caused the temptation until we were married, then it would be full on seduction and temptation since I want Babies.
many men buy second-hand cars
A wife is not a car. A good detailer can restore a car to new condition. A woman’s virginity once lost can never be restored.
It may be the case that a man is used in the same way, as a woman is i.e. someone has used his future wife but he has used someone else’s future wife.
For the last 2000 years Christian culture has understood there are “good women” and “bad women”. And because boys will be boys we have always forgiven what our sons do before they get married. The girls they go with, they’re not the girls we want them to marry. No Christian man who respects himelf and has the respect of his family, church and community would ever marry a “bad woman”. Those sorts of women end up as other men’s wives but those men are obviously not self-respecting Christians. Or in the West they end up as single mothers with 5 children!
You might think this is harsh but it is how it has been for 2000 years. Some contemporary “Christians” have tried to teach that the purity rules that apply to girls should also apply to boys. These people are cucks who are afraid to defend Christianity in a hostile world. Where teenage girls make purity pledges they pledge their virginity to their fathers until the day they are given away by their fathers. Some people say boys should make purity pledges too. Ok who should the boys pledge their virginity to? Their fathers? Do you want your groom’s father to walk him down the aisle to give him and his virignity away to you at the alter? I can’t think of anything more ridiculous.
I am not asking my dad if I may behave seductively I am asking him if I may wear a little makeup
“Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.” [1 Peter 3:3-4]
The face God gave you does not need make up. If you put on make up you are saying to our Father in Heaven that the face he gave you in not good enough. Remember, make up is of this world and there won’t be one person wearing make up in His Kingdom.
>>Mr Taouk,
“A wife is not a car. A good detailer can restore a car to new condition. A woman’s virginity once lost can never be restored.”
My point exactly. You should not think of her as such, but you did, further, God restores her via her husband’s forgiveness, in the same way, a church would forgive the repentant homosexual in a worldly sense. “Such were some of you” rings a bell here. Your error here is to think she has committed the unforgivable sin, she has in the sense it’s unforgivable to you, but it’s not to God neither would it to some godly men, but to others, I do agree it may be. I would not want my brother marrying “such a girl”, however, that’s my failing, not my crown since If she has repented of her sin and sought forgiveness then it’s my hard unforgiving heart that needs repenting of and she needs a tender loving husband. This is all very simple it’s just the gospel I do not see why you find it so difficult.
——
“For the last 2000 years Christian culture has understood there are “good women” and “bad women”. And because boys will be boys we have always forgiven what our sons do before they get married. The girls they go with, they’re not the girls we want them to marry. No Christian man who respects himself and has the respect of his family, church and community would ever marry a “bad woman”. Those sorts of women end up as other men’s wives but those men are obviously not self-respecting Christians. Or in the West, they end up as single mothers with 5 children!”
Phew, there’s a lot here lol. There are no good women (or men) but I will let you make your point as I think you may be talking in a worldly sense perhaps.
——-
“boys will be boys”
WHAT! $!%£^&. . . . oh my goodness I can see we are going to have some fun here Lol. bless you, Mr Taouk I am going to read that as you hold me and other women in high regard since
1. I am not a feminist by nature.
2. I do not want Mr M to give me a life ban.
3. My dad tells me to look for the good in people, (but then doesn’t see the good in me as I hand him another letter from my teacher.)
4. I think you are a very nice man indeed, a little faulty but nothing too serious, well it has to do with man and it may be necessary to remove the man bit to repair you and that may be the equivalent of taking the thing out of the car that makes it go along perhaps. As I am likely to go into attack mode we will move on lol.
The rest of your paragraph says the following, but you may not have realised, sadly for you I did Lol-
Boys with the full knowledge of their parents, “Christian” parents at that, go seeking out immoral girls to impregnate, then when they have done so get’s a pat on the back from dad (the leader of the family btw) and dad says to his wife, boys will be boys honey, turning to his son, now go find yourself a girl another man hasn’t used, as you have, and marry her since we are a Christian family, after all. Our role isn’t to make the world a better place, but just to make sure we are behaving like Pharisees. Do I need to comment further on this paragraph? I think not. I am greatly tempted to though lol.
——-
“You might think this is harsh but it is how it has been for 2000 years.”
Yes, it has.
——–
“Some contemporary “Christians” have tried to teach that the purity rules that apply to girls should also apply to boys”.
Well, I’m wondering if that would be what Jesus thought. You do know Jesus spoke of this indirectly in John 8:1-11 and it doesn’t say “boys will be boys, Mr T you are making me giggle.
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“These people are cucks who are afraid to defend Christianity in a hostile world”.
I am not afraid to defend Christianity, neither is anyone on this site including you.
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“Where teenage girls make purity pledges they pledge their virginity to their fathers until the day they are given away by their fathers”.
No, that is not the way it works. I honour my father, bring honour to his name. My promise of purity is to my husband, plainly it honours my dad to do so, but there are dads who think their daughters should “enjoy” themselves. If I had such a dad, bringing honour to his name would still be staying pure since purity is honourable, in the same way if my dad was a burglar it wouldn’t be honouring to my dad for me to be a burglar too, it would bring honour to his name for me not to be wouldn’t it.
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“Some people say boys should make purity pledges too”.
Yes, but some people say boys will be boys too lol.
I am confused with the notion of a pledge, a boy shouldn’t pledge to stay pure, neither should a girl, they should just strive to do that. I do not pledge to honour my dad I just honour him to the best of my ability. I do not pledge to stay pure, it’s just a minimal requirement of morality.
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“Ok, who should the boys pledge their virginity to”?
They shouldn’t pledge purity, they should just strive to be pure. I understand its harder for boys (since boys will be boys lol) but if I were a boy I wouldn’t pledge to do something that isn’t in my heart to do. I would just strive to be pure if I were him.
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“Their fathers”?
No lol.
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“Do you want your groom’s father to walk him down the aisle to give him and his virginity away to you at the altar”?
No, that is not traditional, neither is it necessary, as, by the time my dad is walking me to my husband I will have performed my due diligence tests on the one who I am going to give myself too, that would be the responsible thing to do, wouldn’t it? after all, daddy has just finished patting his son on the back for his immoral acts over the last 10 years hasn’t he Lol.
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“I can’t think of anything more ridiculous”.
Me either.
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“Your beauty should not come from outward adornments, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewellery or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.” [1 Peter 3:3-4].
You need to consider this passage as to what it teaches a female and what it teaches a male.
So who is the warning of outward beauty too and who would suffer beauty that has a hard heart? It affects the man more than the woman, men chase beauty and crash into hard hearts by doing so often, but they may find a kind heart in beauty too.
All that passage tells me is that I am to work on my character before my outward beauty. Further, I have not sought beauty, but just to be as pretty as I can be. I need to be pretty to get the “interview” for I would like to get to know you better. The object isn’t to dazzle but to play to a boys weakness so he can demonstrate his strength. You must see that most boys are very shallow we girls can manipulate the gullible ones with a smile, seriously they can’t hold a two-minute conversation with us girls without trying to peer down our dress, they are addicted to, female! seriously they must have desperation as part of their wondering eyes to view a girl in her school dress as a source of sexual interest when plainly her dress is designed to make us look unattractive. That passage in 1 Peter 3:3-4, is a warning to boys not to seek beauty as the measure of the heart and it’s a warning to me to work on my heart before my beauty. Note it isn’t a condemnation on a woman it isn’t even a message solely for women there is an important message for boys in there too.
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“The face God gave you does not need makeup. If you put on makeup you are saying to our Father in Heaven that the face he gave you is not good enough”.
No, that is not what I think. What I think is we live in a fallen world. The most beautiful woman ever to grace the earth would have been Eve since she was created before the fall. I do not think God gave a girl born with a serious disfigurement that face I think that its a consequence of the fall, so she would not be in any way spiting God if she got surgery to correct the issue she had. When you see a beautiful woman I mean one that knocks you off your feet all that you are seeing is what should have been as the norm and when I use a little makeup I am just trying to get back to what God intended.
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“Remember, makeup is of this world and there won’t be one person wearing makeup in His Kingdom”.
Yes, and you need to ask the why question, is it because in heaven we have love all around us, there will be little babies that I can love that I won’t need a husband to get.
Further, (back to earth now) I do not see why Christian boys should be left to the mercy of pretty secular girls. Christian boys should have the best, that being, pretty Christian girls who have the hearts of wives and mothers that may become theirs with – I do.
It’s all very simple. I have it all worked out. I even have my mums’ jewellery, her wedding band almost fits me. I just need to get my dad to be reasonable; well he needs to listen to me without talking or looking at me like I am a child, once we have seen where he is wrong then we can move on to discussing when I may get my ears pierced and I only want my ears pierced. I have my mums earrings and I want to wear them.
Michael, there’s a midpoint between boys should be good girls, and boys will be boys and sow their wild oats. While no Christian man should want a ‘bad woman,’ the reverse is also true – no Christian woman should want a bad man. Some of the purportedly Christian monarchs of yesteryear for instance had scores, even hundred of illegitimate children!
You ask to whom boys should pledge their virginity? How about their Father-in-Heaven until the day they give it to their wife? If a man cannot control himself before marriage, why should a woman presume to think he’ll control himself after marriage? Remember celibacy, or if you prefer chastity, was prized historically.
As for makeup, neither you nor I are female so our views will differ slightly to the female half of the population. Older women apparently feel they need it to disguise age damage, and professional women may need it to keep with the dress code, or perhaps dress expectations. Of all the Christian women I know only one has explicitly chosen to generally avoid it, and she’s late 20’s.
Regarding 1 Peter 3:3-4, while I agree that a woman’s beauty should be inward, I don’t agree that 1 Peter offers a binary choice. Character should be primary, but we choose to wear clothes that complement our physical nature rather than burkhas (or the male equivalent) , and likewise haircuts – guys tend not to braid their hair for obvious reasons. Gold jewellery for men is usually restricted to a wedding ring if married, and perhaps a gold watch if very very wealthy – or perhaps I’ve just watched too much TV? I’d contend that where makeup is chosen to complement a woman’s nature it’s acceptable, but not where physical appearance is the exclusive focus as that does conflict with passage in 1 Peter. You see the passage differently?
Dear Sarah and Andrew,
Like Sarah likes to say “Phew, there’s a lot here lol.” but I’ll just talk about one small thing and then one big idea.
Starting with the small thing.
Remember celibacy, or if you prefer chastity, was prized historically.
Andrew, if you can show me a historic mention of a men’s chastity belt, I’ll agree with you. But you won’t find one because chastity belts were only ever made for women because historically it’s only women’s chastity that mattered.
Now here’s the big idea.
Christianity was founded nearly 2000 years ago by our Lord Jesus Christ who sent out the Apostles to teach believers how to live their lives in ways pleasing to God. Over the last 2000 years some things have always stayed the same and some things have changed, and sometimes the church has gone off the rails and correction was needed.
One of the things that has always stayed the same is the Christian view of men’s and women’s sexuality, and the rules for each sex. Men and women are different and for 2000 years different rules for men and women applied, until the sexual revolution anyway.
If you’re saying these two sets of rules are wrong, it’s like you’re saying “The Apostolic church thought the old two sets of rules was okay, the church in 500 and 1000 A.D. thought it was okay, Martin Luther and John Wesley and all the other theologians thought it was okay, but I’ve just read the Bible again and decided 2000 years of unerring Christian tradition is wrong.”
It’s easy to see why churches trying to fit in in a modern world want to think like this. The Sexual Revolution tells us men and women are equal and it’s okay for women to have sex outside of marriage (and “science” helped them with the pill). We then say no it’s not. The secular world then says but Christian leaders historically turned a blind eye when men had sex with women who weren’t their wives (thanks Andrew for bringing up the kings with scores of illegitimate children, did any of them ever get refused communion for infidelity? Don’t think so. Some were even Head of the Church of England!) so why can’t women do the same? Instead of arguing for the nearly 2000 years of Christian tradition that says men and women are different and different rules apply, we just cuck and say ok, ok, let’s keep the rules for women’s chastity but to avoid secular judgement let’s make men follow them too.
In a changing world, Christian customs that have not changed for 2000 years shouldn’t change just because the secular world challenge us to change.
We should not change our beliefs and behaviour due to the influence of the outside world. Sarah, that’s why I’m so worried when you talk about needing make up to compete with non-Christian girls. We as parents want our children to marry other Christian boys and girls but what has developed in many churches is a form of youth and young adult dating that is more like how non-Christians date. Do these Christian boys ask the girl’s father for permission to court her? Nup. They just go off and do whatever they do.
One evangelical church I visited had a young unmarried but “dating” couple who are totally open about how they go for trips together and when they do they share a hotel room “to save money”. Sarah, this was the church where I asked the youth pastor who had known these two for many years what sort of morality he teaches. He said it’s a lost cause to try to tell his youths to avoid all physical intimacy before marriage so he tries to “set boundaries” with the last and most important one to save full penetrative sexual intercourse for their wedding night.
I’ve gone on and on. But the main point is do we want to restore today’s church to how it was, or are we so arrogant we think we know better than 2000 years of church custom and history and under pressure from a hostile secular world we think we can create a “better” church? I’m in the first group, and I think trying to make our morality acceptable to a secular world that wrongly thinks there are no differences between man and woman just ends up with us compromising our beliefs in other ways, like that youth pastor does. You can’t change to avoid the judgement of the secular world and then expect them to leave you alone. No they come back again and again wanting more change from you, and then more, and then some more, and before you know it in 30 years time you will have female priests marrying two men. All in the name of the “equality” that started with women’s rights.
Stand up for our tradition. 2000 years of Christianity can’t be that wrong!
Wow, that was a great post, Mr Taouk.
Ok, I think I can see where the issues arise that prompts your post(s) to me and its a misunderstanding of my standing (in the Christian faith) you and I agree on 99% of what Christian values and traditions are. If we made a list independently they would match in the main. so let me make a list for you, this list may be verified btw by reading the summation of my posts on here so I am not recrafting my argument it’s just you and I perhaps have inflated the 1%, since that was relevant to what I was talking about.
So I believe:-
1. I will marry a Christian boy.
2. I will not date someone who isn’t Christian.
3. As a Christian Girl, I am to present myself to my husband pure.
4. I am not allowed to date until I am 16. (My dad’s rule which I am as a Christian girl to obey ).
5. On my 16th birthday, a boy may approach my dad and ask if he may date me. My dad will tell the boy he will consider his request and send him away. My dad will ask me if I want to date this boy. If I happen to be in my bedroom and do a summersault on my bed, my dad would take that as a yes, but a verbal yes would do too. My dad will already know this boy since he is very likely to be a boy from our church. If it’s a yes from me and my dad, the boy will be called back to my dad’s office where I will join them (I am to remain silent at this meeting, which will be very difficult for me.) the boy will be told the rules of dating me which I haven’t heard yet but I can imagine what they will be.
6. On our first date, I will tell the boy how important it is for me to be pure as we meet before God on our wedding day. I’m looking for a strong man to be a father and a husband and I won’t see him as strong if he tries to coerce me into having sex with him, but a weak man. He may have sex with me any time, but he must first invest his life in me as I will in his. There is a contract we will sign to this end and it’s called marriage. I realise when I tell certain boys this I won’t be getting a second date with them.
7. If I realise a boy isn’t for me I will dump him that means I will stop dating him and seeing him. he will do likewise hopefully.
8. I am everything a man isn’t, so compliment a man by supplying what he does not have.
9. I am dependent on a man to provide my completeness from his stance he may think I do likewise.
10. I have a responsibility to my children (even though I do not have any at the moment.) to ensure the father I choose for them is what I would choose for myself.
11. if the above steps are followed I will be reborn into oneness and stand before God as someone washed in the sanctity of marriage.
Now, as regards what started this conversation I think we came at it from different angles which I failed to pick up on and it’s this,- when I look at a boy my measure of him, is that of a potential husband and father. You need to consider what that means in relation to our conversation, so when you say things like boys will be boys I am thinking that is what my husband is saying to me when our son is behaving immorally, it could even relate to my husband being unfaithful and his only response is boys will be boys. A boy outside of marriage doesn’t exist for me and you can understand why perhaps since the ones outside marriage are, boys will be boys, but, of course, I can’t be associated with such boys since my good name and standing would be affected. You, on the other hand, live in boys will be boys. I have to see that as abhorrent as if I didn’t I could be pulled into it believing its just part of getting to marriage. Further, I am always in observation mode so everything you say I am imagining that is the standard you will have for your (our) son and that may be our 1% disagreement since I would be horrified to hear my husband telling our son immoral girls are there for the taking since that is exactly what Muslim dads tell their sons and the immoral are any girl of any age that isn’t Muslim!
Therefore, given what I have said above, in that, who am I wearing my makeup for, the answer is my husband, it’s just the sun shines on the husband to be and the husbands not to be. Therefore, I have to ask each and every possibility-
1. If you like what you see apply to get to know me better.
2. Only Christian boys need to apply.
When I say only Christian boys may apply, that has to have some value and meaning and the value and the meaning is, Christian boys should NOT behave like secular boys their standards should be higher, in fact, all the ones I know do have higher standards, are they perfect, I doubt that, but I would hope their failings aren’t related to their lack of striving.
I offer the following-
Men and women are different, they have to be since when they come together they become a whole. The sum of the parts makes the whole.
I am only equal to a man when I stand before God, I will not be held responsible for my husband’s failings only my own, otherwise, in some ways, I am better than my husband and in other ways worse. A wise husband will defer to his wife on matters where her gifts lay and a wife subjects herself to her husband’s leadership, the husband leads sacrificially btw.
In matters relating to sex, men are on the whole weak at deferring sexual gratification until they are married. I do not know why this is but I think it may be due to testosterone in their bodies, but I may have that wrong it may be testosterone that makes them aggressive I can’t remember.
The problem I have with your stance is that it pitches tradition against morality. It is right to expect a high moral standing from a woman since the quest is high morality. If the quest is for high morality then the goal should be strived for by both sexes. If a woman finds it easier to achieve all that means is that women will be more successful, it does not mean the success men contribute isn’t welcome in a world in need of every bit of purity it can get.
Further, you made a type of taxicab fallacy argument when you said great men of the past accepted the failings in men, hence their failings were to be accepted, as just tradition, remember the same men accepted slavery too!
Your comment on the lack of chastity belts for men is in error too since you failed to realise that if men were failing in sexual morality, that failing would result in them not subjecting themselves to enforced purity and, of course, enforced purity is no purity at all which you failed to notice since why did women need to be locked away so to speak if their intention was purity, well there is one of two reasons, either they wasn’t intentionally pure or men were so depraved that they had to lock up a woman’s purity away from other men.
The truth is the cost of sex is higher to a woman than a man. If my brother behaves immorally night after night he is not the one who has to carry the results of that act for 9 months and then continue caring for the outcome of that pregnancy for at least 18 years. The dream becomes a nightmare for a girl, a girl like me, who dreams of being a mother one day.
Your comments on the pill were correct, but for the wrong reasons. I thought as you did, but your comment red pilled me lol. The truth is we have as many pure girls today as before the pill, the difference in numbers between now and then is simply, what we have today are the willingly pure, which is the essence of purity isn’t it, as opposed to the willingly pure + the forced pure, due to concerns of becoming pregnant.
The sad thing is that men’s attitude such as boys will be a boy justifies the pro-choice women’s claim of saying it’s my body! When a man has sex with a woman without any responsibilities it gives a woman the “right” to exclude the man from every aspect of that action including killing his baby. To put a halt to that it will take a higher morality from both men and women, to perpetuate it, we just have to accept boys will be boys. Do not miss understand what I am saying here. I am saying boys will be boys, however, when they are they should understand it has consequences and it would be enormously helpful if dads were to educate boys on this matter since then we would see the genuine pure boys, however few that may be, but those few should be acknowledged for overcoming what could be said, nothing more or less than what we ask from a homosexual.
Dear Sarah,
I have to clear up one thing first, we don’t “ask” anything of homosexuals. We tell them to repent and give up their deviant ways and come to the Lord. If not they will burn in Hell for eternity. There’s no asking there. Just telling it how it is.
I’m glad we agree on so much. It gives me hope for the future that there are still good pure young women out there who will make wonderful obedient Christian wives one day. But there is something I think you miss.
Men and women are different. Boys and girls are different. A girl becomes a woman through marriage and bearing children. Boys don’t become men through marriage, they need to be men already in order to become husbands. Sarah I’m sure you want to marry a man who can lead you, not a boy unsure of himself.
Young men used to go off to war and come back as men. Even now, we given freedom to our sons that we would never give to our daughters, to go out in the world and to come back as men. If they have sex with loose women that’s not a bog deal because it’s what a man is that matters not what he has done. With girls and women, what they have done is important. It tells us if they are good women or bad women.
Throughout the Bible it is obvious that a girl’s virginity is worth than a boy’s virginity. Do boys’ fathers have to show the proof of their sons’ virginity? No. Because God did not give boys hymens. No such proof can ever exist. If it mattered to God boys would have something like a hymen. He creates all, and there is always a reason for His creation. He said boys’ virginities is no big deal.
Now you have seen proof of how from the time of the Apostles till now the Christian World has recognised there are two rules for purity, one for men and another for women. To deny this is to deny church history and to deny complementarianism and to be a Christian feminist. So how conceited is it for any one of us to sit here in 2019 and say we know better than 2000 years of church history, tradition and practice?
Sure, the Bible was not always perfect. Jesus was sent to perfect the imperfect Law of the Jews that previously existed for 4000 years. But the church founded by Christ Jesus is perfect and if it has done something a certain way for 2000 years with no change until the “sexual revolution”, who are any of us to say they were wrong? Who are you to “perfect” the New Covenant Law Jesus gave us to observe?
How the church has been for 2000 years is how it should be until our Lord returns otherwise He will come back and the first thing he will say is “What have you done with my Church?” and “Why have you let Satanic feminism infect my Church?”
Mr Taouk, my dear brother in Christ, what am I to do with you, you are like one of the children I babysit who I continually have to ask to behave.
I think I have given you ample evidence as to your error, however, I think I may not be reaching you since I do not have the necessary skills due to my gender and age, therefore I am going to give you a scenario that will appeal to the father in you in the hope it will indicate to you where your reasoning leads, however, you are going to have to be strong and fight off your need to reject perfectly valid points, such as my closing point on the homosexual vs the immoral boy in the last paragraph of my previous post since changing a word does not change the meaning in that last paragraph.
The scenario:-
A boy knocks on your door to ask for your precious daughter in marriage (I am pretty sure you do not have a daughter btw since you have a remoteness to their plight.) and you ask this lad, how he is going to support your daughter (she has expensive tastes, after all.) then you ask him about his intention of providing you with grandchildren, he says to you, “No problem there Sir, I have availed myself of Boys-will-be-boys- sluts. I have at least 17 children by these, immoral Boys-will-be -boys- sluts, I would have had so many more sir, but, those totally immoral- sluts aborted at least 10 to my knowledge, and they are just the ones I paid for their abortions, sir”. You pour this young man a drink and say, welcome to the family son. It’s like a horror story isn’t it.
Here are some important points I have offered you in my posts that you need to consider more seriously.
1. Tradition does not trump morality.
2. You should not look for purity in a woman, but recognise it in Jesus and emulate that to a disbelieving world and hope the women are doing likewise.
3. An immoral woman isn’t something to be used but pitied.
4. An immoral boy isn’t radiating an image of Jesus to his church, he is failing to demonstrate his suitability as a leader. but giving ample evidence he is of the world.
5. I have not once demanded a pure boy, but only concerned myself first to ensure I am pure before God when I marry in his presence since I have a part to play to a disbelieving world.
6 My purity does not come from me, it’s a gift from God I am to carry to my husband. I assume rightly or wrongly a pure gift from God should be received by the pure, but if not pure the repentant pure.
7. Boys-will-be-boys aren’t the repentant pure, they are slaves to sin.
8. A boy/man only exists as a husband in a relationship. Boys are like lions they look cuddly but are very dangerous indeed. Christian boys should have a higher morality than a lion but all the strength of one.
9. You are to lead a woman, but sacrificially, she does not walk a few yards behind you, she travels on your shoulders and thanks God every day for you.
10. if you can’t stand for a weak and vulnerable woman, you will fall at the feet of an immoral one.
Now, this is your last warning, any more backchatting me and I’m going to send you to your room. . . . . lol.
The commands against adultery and fornication in the Bible are directed to all mankind, not just the women.
Just because we in our stupid fallen condition might make more excuses for the boys doesn’t mean that they will be judged any less harshly by God when they face him.
Remember, “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.”
We should make no excuses for sin. It needs to be repented from by both men and women. No double standards. Men’s idiotic cultural traditions won’t save us on judgement day. Our consciences bear witness of the truth.
I personally wonder if the defence of the “boys will be boys” mentality may just be a sign of past sin yet to be repented from. If I’ve judged incorrectly then I apologise, but if correctly then some repentance needs to come.
I previously lived an unrighteous lifestyle before coming to Christ, but I refuse to claim that it was ok, as it was not. We need to abhor our past sin, not make excuses for it.
Hi, Mr Giuliani,
I do not want to comment further on this point since I have said all I can on this subject. I would be saddened if I offended anyone with my comments, as it isn’t my intention to offend anyone. I think we take ourselves to seriously at times, to be honest, a little humour and banter should be part of the Christian diet I think.
But I would like to if I may address you.
I can see by your comment that you are grounded in the faith, however, your sister in Christ nevertheless may offer her brother some comforting words that you may not hear often enough.
You Ernest, I will address you by your English rendition if I may, are a new creation, no more in condemnation. You may choose or may already have chosen a pure girl, pour by act or pure by grace since you are pure. The old is history and when you stand before God, God will neither request of you him that is past or request him in his presence for condemnation, your ransom has been paid in full. to this end. I a simple schoolgirl only see a pure man in you, as I only want to see what God sees.
All that you have to do is enjoy the grace given to you, take the grace very seriously but be careful not to take yourself too seriously.
Sometime in the future, it will be necessary for you to hand back purity to a woman who has fallen and asked Jesus to help her back up, make sure the gift of purity given to you and its acceptance by your brothers and sisters is given to her. You have had a practice run here, be ready with open arms as Jesus was for you.
Sarah. xx
Make a case relating to the importance of family to who?
To have to make such a case to any person is a classic example of – who cares what they think as they are not smart enough to be idiots.
Any person who doers not understand the importance of family is brain dead and does not to be considered – end of story.
John Abbott
Great article Bill and without even including what God obviously says about the family in the Bible. Good material to share with those who don’t claim to be Christians.
I was interested in your above quote from the American sociologist, William Galston. I haven’t been able to track down its source. Do you know in which year he uttered these wise words?
As you doubtless know, Galston is a lifelong Democrat and, in recent years, has supported same-sex marriage. However, almost three decades ago he was a much sounder thinker.
In 1990, for instance, he conducted a study into the causes of, and remedies for, poverty and came up with a solidly conservative – indeed, Biblical – solution (although this was probably not his intention).
Galston identified three steps to escaping poverty: 1) finish school, 2) avoid teenage parenthood, and 3) get married before having children.
In other words, Galston, despite his later political wanderings, seems to have been the originator of the useful concept of the “success sequence” for young adults.
Thanks John. Here is the reference:
William Galston, “Causes of declining well-being among U.S. children,” David Estlund and Martha Nussbaum, eds., Sex, Preference, and Family. Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 303.
Many thanks, Bill.
Thanks Bill, timely article, all the more so given the loss of the “Family First” brand from Australian politics. At least while “Family First” existed even family-hostile media were forced to utter the phrase! 🙂
Family First was an absolutely brilliant name for a political party, and we should mourn the loss of the phrase from Australian lips, if not the party itself. At least it gave ‘the 4%’ across pretty much all electorates and states a meaningful label under which to park their primary vote. Cf. FF’s ‘replacement’ which shied away from the recent Qld and Vic state elections. And I fear the ‘Common Sense’ party that has subsumed Family First will be even more vulnerable to man-centric (rather than God-centred) thinking than was demonstrated by the terrible episode of the FF Senator Fielding’s ‘soft’ stance on abortion. (I’m hoping the likes of Lyle Shelton (Qld Senate candidate for AC) will prove my fears unfounded.)
Thankfully, it is not just William Galston reconsidering.
Jordan Peterson is coming (again) to Australia. He brings some radical ideas, which the Left do not like.
https://amp.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/nothing-wrong-with-good-oldfashioned-sense/news-story/8fb0c3b89ac362bb26920eb7cba6bbcd
The attack directly against God’s creation, is now in full flight. This world-wide and massive abuse includes abortion, euthanasia, marriage, children, gender, heritage and Christianity itself.
We should all support Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Otban for his very strong support for families.
While Jordan Peterson is not a Christian, he has argued very effectively against transgenderism. He has many YouTube videos.
Finally – Transgenderism will destroy women’s sport.
https://pluralist.com/trans-powerlifter-jaycee-cooper-womens-record/
Mr M, I received 8 Valentine cards yesterday, but my best friend Katie received 10, however, she counts the one that she gets from her dad which doesn’t count and I think her mum makes her brother get her a card too, but he may have sent me one too since he likes me very much if so that counts more than the one he sent Kate. Just think how many more I would have received if I were allowed to wear makeup. Anyway, I thought you would like to know this. oh and I received flowers too, Katie didn’t, but my dad said they were on the step when he got home, plainly my dad bought them since only my dad would buy flowers from the garage, therefore, in the interest of fairness I will not count the flowers since I don’t count Katie’s dads card, nevertheless, I did get flowers and she didn’t so next valentines day there will be two dads buying flowers from that garage.
I thought you needed to know this since it relates to your family article, as a boy in his family is reaching to me (a girl in my family) in the hope that our families may be joined by me taking his family name and he taking me as his wife. That’s what I think. I know a valentine card isn’t a marriage proposal but it’s a seeking out, isn’t it? I think some of the boys probably sent a card hoping to find favour with me, sadly for them, I do not do favour, only, do you take Sarah Laura Clark to be… and then BABIES…
Dear David,
It was a sad day when Family First decided to “merge” with the Australian Conservatives.
I had big hopes for Cory Bernardi’s new party but can any of us honestly say we’re not disappointed how things turned out?
Centralised control that makes members feel they’re not being listened to. Picking up and then dropping like hot potatoes good Christian candidates like Rachel Carling-Jenkins. Selecting a weak candidate in the Bennelong by-election (nice, good Maronite boy but too young and a Lebanese boy maybe not the best pick for this white Aussie and Chinese electorate) and getting only 4.29% of the vote from people who voted majority NO to fake homosexual marriage, and then getting so spooked they don’t run in one single election between Dec 2017 and Mar 2019.
But things get worse. I’m in Sydney so I was very happy when AC said they would run in the state election here. But they have alienated many ethnic Christians when they recruited pastors from ethnic churches to run for the Upper House but then they put them in unwinnable positions down the ticket. Why? An AC volunteer admitted they just wanted to “harvest” the votes of ethnic Christians to get their number one candidate “over the line”. I know it’s all politics but as an ethnic Christian myself I hate when our communities get used like that.
Be warned:
If you say,
“there is a correlation between the number of people who are Muslim in a country and the number of terrorist attacks”,
this has been determined by the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal as,
“likely encourage hatred towards, or serious contempt for, Australian Muslims by ordinary members of the Australian population”.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6707475/Sonia-Kruger-DID-vilify-Muslims-Today-show.html
In the book-
Science and Babies: Private Decisions, Public Dilemmas.
It says-
Religious Involvement.
Studies show that adolescent girls are more likely to be sexually active if they are not regular churchgoers and if they state that religion is not very important to them. More important than any particular religious affiliation, these studies found, is the tendency to be devout and concerned about religious teachings and customs. Some observers postulate that religious teenagers may be more traditional and less inclined toward risk-taking in other aspects of their behaviour. In addition, the important family and social contacts in their lives may be supportive of traditional behaviour.
—————–
I think the above is very true. My secular friends in school tend to get their values from soaps and celebrities where my Christian friends and I tend to get our values from our family and church. I think it could be said we are both acting tribal. When we chat with our secular peers informally we tend to have the same aspirations which are relationship based. where we differ is we Christian girls tend to see things right and wrong and hold things in either high value or low value where our secular friends would have a view of something is right if it feels right and, truth as subjective. If a boy accidentally touched my hand it would embarrass me. I don’t know why. Boys play wrestle some of the secular girls, they are gentle and do not hurt the girls, but us Christian girls think it’s shocking for a boy to touch and handle a girl like that and the secular girls think it’s shocking we would think that. most of the Christian girls are frightened of their dads, they are not frightened in the sense they fear harm from their dads they fear to disappoint their dads, well perhaps not disappoint but make unhappy. If one of the boys asked me out I have to tell him I’m not allowed to date until I’m sixteen and they often say do you do everything your dad tells you as though he expects me to put my dad second to him. obviously, it would be nice to have a boyfriend but it would be important to me that my dad liked my boyfriend and my boyfriend respected my dad. where the secular girls do not have their dads involved in their activities away from home.
The other issue the above book points out is the fact girls today have a large time gap from the point of being able to become pregnant and when they marry. wherein times past apparently, the gap was two years, as girls in those times started their periods later and married earlier, wherein the west today it’s not uncommon for a 10-year-old to start her periods and not marry well into her mid-20s. so if those girls are sexually active and do not want to become pregnant let alone get an std (which may affect her chances of becoming pregnant when she gets married) then she needs to be very disciplined with her routine of taking the pill and most that I know take the pill while they are in a relationship and stop taking it when they are not and some have on-off relationships. I have known 3 girls who worried they had become pregnant since their periods were late, me when my head hits the pillow at night the only worry I have is if I have got my maths homework right and after a few minutes it’s dreaming of pink balloons and wedding dresses.
I think the secular girls have much more freedom than us Christian girls but their freedom relates more to poor family relations than their dads giving them something, it tends to be they give them little time and do not want the battles dads have to take on and win with their teen daughters. My dad tells me most days how beautiful and valued I am, he’s brainwashed me as I believe him lol. I am not starved of affection or attention I tend to measure boys against my dad and to date the boys have a lot of catching up to do but my dad was once one of those boys I suppose
I truly understand John Abbott’s line of thinking in his response here. But even the highly educated, i.e., not full-blown idiots or even those you may regard as “unworthy” of being called such, can be faulted entirely for their lack of understanding about the importance of the nuclear family unit. I would contend that any family without Christ, without an orthodox Christian worldview is bound to be a dysfunctional family, some with societal results worse than others. We were all at one time deceived regarding the truth. Let’s spread Bill’s article here and pray it will reach the hearts of those yet deceived. Let’s give his message and our prayers that it falls on good soil a chance to accomplish that which only God can achieve. (I don’t mean to be rude to you, John A., but I know all to well what a mess a family without Jesus can be).
Dear Michael T., I’m saddened, but grateful, for your ‘insider’ news on AC. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
A Christian acquaintance who had twice been an (unsuccessful) election candidate for first a major party then later a minor (overtly Christian) party said to me in a highly disillusioned tone nearly two decades ago, “Politics is a DIRTY business.” I didn’t really know what he meant back then, but now, increasingly, I see.
Dear Sarah,
How do you define “sexually active”?
The sad truth is that the “sexual revolution” has infected Christianity too.
Many of our young people think “saving themselves for marriage” means not having sexual intercourse. Everything else is ok. I even spoke to a youth leader who said they don’t preach biblical purity because the kids would just ignore them. He said it’s better they listen to part of the message, no sexual intercourse before marriage, instead of ignoring all of it.
Looking at the “Instagram” of some young church-going Christian women is also very sad. I think you know what I mean. Some in my own Maronite community are probably the worst too.
Hi Mr Taouk,
I would define sexually active as allowing a boy to treat me as if I was his wife.
I am not sure if the girls I hang around with and myself consider we are saving ourselves for marriage, we are saving ourselves for our husbands. Let me offer you this, see what you think.
So, I want you to view marriage through my eyes for a moment.
1. Marriage is sacred.
2. Marriage is a play in the sense it tells a story to a disbelieving world.
My husband first chose me (I never chose him), and I have the freedom to accept him or reject him. If I accept him he will be my lord and master (don’t get too excited lord and master, lord and master are in lower case lol) he will be my leader, the head of the family (the church).
Marriage will be born in the shedding of blood and pain. I am the “innocent” pure lamb and my husband the one I am going to sacrifice myself for. I give myself willingly to him (that’s my gift to him) and he performs the sacrificial act, which births our marriage in pain and blood, sadly mine, but without that there is no gift and we haven’t become one.
If someone does not hold that view of marriage then of course marriage then becomes something not sacred but just something you could give the name, Pleasure, or my right to equality, what about a union of love that sounds good doesn’t it. it’s really important to understand that we can make marriage anything but only God can make it sacred and only a sacred marriage is marriage acceptable to God.
It may seem there is no hope for the girl who turns up to her wedding minus her gift, however, she has a safety net, and we call that the GIFT of the grace of God, you see God is the one who gives the purity she is the one entrusted to deliver it. If she messes up and calls on Jesus to forgive her, grace arrives in abundance. If she does not, then she has a play to perform where she is nothing more than a bad actress.
Yes, I do agree the church has married the world. and the values of the world are the values of the church in large part, however, we are the church so we must first point to ourselves before pointing to others. I am pretty much the least in my church, but I can be a role model for those younger than me, the little girls look up to me and I look up to the women. It starts with me I think not ends with another.
I am in a very good church. I lost my mum in a car accident 3 years ago and I have six ladies in the church that I can go to any time for advice and help. They are proper mums if my skirt is to short I get told off! obviously, it isn’t the same as having my own mum, but I do not lack a mothers attention or love since they are godly women and realise I need their guidance, as my dad can’t always relate to my needs.
I was saddened to hear your experiences with the youth pastor. I think the youth pastor possibly gave himself too much authority and expected too little from his young adults. It isn’t his role to pick and choose but to deliver and leave the rest to the Holy Spirit, its best to aim high as you want to feed the hungry and those who are not hungry leave those to their peers as they will drive them out or bring them on.
I’m only allowed on certain platforms and Instagram isn’t one of them so I’m not sure about what goes on with that platform. I do not know any Christian girls who act or behave immorally, as if I did I would tell them what I thought of them, as its the loving thing to do and if it wasn’t, I would do it anyway since I get told off for the slightest infringement.
“…..The Overwhelming Importance of the Family….”
Yeah – and that’s why individual gays can biologically conceive children.
After individual gays changed and had kids because they were the last people and community on earth…… they would hold a public ceremony so as to conserve mankind from the consequences of inter breeding. ‘Their kids’ would be given the surnames of their fathers, and their daughter’s would take the surname of her future husband…. and would certainly treat courtship in the way Sarah Clark above describes….. – why?
Because individual gays want marriage that much, and children too, but seriously as humans; a purpose, and that is what would be done under the circumstance, the survival of mankind by the natural order of things – God’s Creation.
Marriage is then clearly a heterosexual matter; survival of the species by intergenerational parentage – and I’d also like to re state the obvious – gay humans can and will wilfully change under circumstance – maybe even just by meeting someone of the opposite sex!!
Thanks for explaining Marriage so well Sarah.
God Bless Bill.
Bill, can we have more on ways of encouraging and growing families in our secular world please? With families under fire in almost all media ,how can Christians encourage those who are working on beginning their families, growing them up ,and strengthening them
>>Mary S.
Oh, you can’t grow families in the secular world, Mary, you can only grow secular citizens. it’s easy to see all around you. Single mums pimp themselves to the government since the secular mindset believes she pimp herself to her husband before that, so remove the husband, tax him so the pimp mother can pimp herself for benefit money and the pimp will hold her on the drug of free stuff so she continually votes to have a gun put to men’s heads to pay taxes for citizen Jonnys upbringing, after all, citizens do not need fathers they need teats so the government can suckle from them.
You, of course, as a Christian may produce families since your mindset isn’t that of a prostitute but of a Wife and Mother.
I hope you do not think I am being harsh here. but I do not think my dad should fund via tax the rearing of another mans child since its that fathers gift to provide for his family that is his. as for single mums who have no support from her sperm donor then men like my dad would donate to our church to help those needy women and our church will have her vote and we will pass it on to God, of course, my dad’s tax demand would reduce since the government are not paying that single mum for her vote with my dads money. if there is any spare money in my dad’s wallet he has a daughter who would have little trouble spending it. My dad could benefit too since he could persecute that single mum by withholding her makeup since its a known fact, makeup on a teen girl will get her pregnant. I think they ought to make me prime minister.
Even if it doesn’t lead to pregnancy it does lead to premarital sex and the loss of a girl’s most precious possession to someone other than her husband. No self-respecting man wants spoiled goods do they?
Be assured Mr Taouk, wearing makeup doesn’t lead to pregnancy lol. Neither does it lead to premarital sex which is immoral behaviour, how could it? What leads to immoral behaviour is immoral people. Further, making the claim “No self-respecting man wants spoiled goods, do they?” would depend on the Goods, for instance, many men buy second-hand cars, the vast majority buy second-hand properties. Of course, If we were to apply goods to a human being then, of course, the human being has already been reduced to that of an object and objects do not have to consider your likes or dislikes. It may be the case that a man is used in the same way, as a woman is i.e. someone has used his future wife but he has used someone else’s future wife. In which case he is hardly in a position to demand what he himself isn’t prepared to provide. If a man desires purity, he himself should consider his own purity, since a man who sees humans as objects isn’t looking for purity, but something to criticise perhaps.
I hold my purity for my husband, as my gift to him, that gift isn’t dependent on how I appear, but how I behave. You are confusing someone appearing pretty with someone behaving seductively perhaps. I am not asking my dad if I may behave seductively I am asking him if I may wear a little makeup, the amount and application could be supervised by one of the Christian mums in our church, he could choose the most strict if he wants since I only want to look as pretty as I can and look my age or a little older since I am very mature for my age.
I would only date Christian boys and only those boys who had the same values and aspirations as myself. They would value purity so it wouldn’t be like I had to continually fight them off and if I put them under too much temptation they would only have to say and I would ensure I reduced that about me that caused the temptation until we were married, then it would be full on seduction and temptation since I want Babies.
A wife is not a car. A good detailer can restore a car to new condition. A woman’s virginity once lost can never be restored.
For the last 2000 years Christian culture has understood there are “good women” and “bad women”. And because boys will be boys we have always forgiven what our sons do before they get married. The girls they go with, they’re not the girls we want them to marry. No Christian man who respects himelf and has the respect of his family, church and community would ever marry a “bad woman”. Those sorts of women end up as other men’s wives but those men are obviously not self-respecting Christians. Or in the West they end up as single mothers with 5 children!
You might think this is harsh but it is how it has been for 2000 years. Some contemporary “Christians” have tried to teach that the purity rules that apply to girls should also apply to boys. These people are cucks who are afraid to defend Christianity in a hostile world. Where teenage girls make purity pledges they pledge their virginity to their fathers until the day they are given away by their fathers. Some people say boys should make purity pledges too. Ok who should the boys pledge their virginity to? Their fathers? Do you want your groom’s father to walk him down the aisle to give him and his virignity away to you at the alter? I can’t think of anything more ridiculous.
“Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.” [1 Peter 3:3-4]
The face God gave you does not need make up. If you put on make up you are saying to our Father in Heaven that the face he gave you in not good enough. Remember, make up is of this world and there won’t be one person wearing make up in His Kingdom.
>>Mr Taouk,
“A wife is not a car. A good detailer can restore a car to new condition. A woman’s virginity once lost can never be restored.”
My point exactly. You should not think of her as such, but you did, further, God restores her via her husband’s forgiveness, in the same way, a church would forgive the repentant homosexual in a worldly sense. “Such were some of you” rings a bell here. Your error here is to think she has committed the unforgivable sin, she has in the sense it’s unforgivable to you, but it’s not to God neither would it to some godly men, but to others, I do agree it may be. I would not want my brother marrying “such a girl”, however, that’s my failing, not my crown since If she has repented of her sin and sought forgiveness then it’s my hard unforgiving heart that needs repenting of and she needs a tender loving husband. This is all very simple it’s just the gospel I do not see why you find it so difficult.
——
“For the last 2000 years Christian culture has understood there are “good women” and “bad women”. And because boys will be boys we have always forgiven what our sons do before they get married. The girls they go with, they’re not the girls we want them to marry. No Christian man who respects himself and has the respect of his family, church and community would ever marry a “bad woman”. Those sorts of women end up as other men’s wives but those men are obviously not self-respecting Christians. Or in the West, they end up as single mothers with 5 children!”
Phew, there’s a lot here lol. There are no good women (or men) but I will let you make your point as I think you may be talking in a worldly sense perhaps.
——-
“boys will be boys”
WHAT! $!%£^&. . . . oh my goodness I can see we are going to have some fun here Lol. bless you, Mr Taouk I am going to read that as you hold me and other women in high regard since
1. I am not a feminist by nature.
2. I do not want Mr M to give me a life ban.
3. My dad tells me to look for the good in people, (but then doesn’t see the good in me as I hand him another letter from my teacher.)
4. I think you are a very nice man indeed, a little faulty but nothing too serious, well it has to do with man and it may be necessary to remove the man bit to repair you and that may be the equivalent of taking the thing out of the car that makes it go along perhaps. As I am likely to go into attack mode we will move on lol.
The rest of your paragraph says the following, but you may not have realised, sadly for you I did Lol-
Boys with the full knowledge of their parents, “Christian” parents at that, go seeking out immoral girls to impregnate, then when they have done so get’s a pat on the back from dad (the leader of the family btw) and dad says to his wife, boys will be boys honey, turning to his son, now go find yourself a girl another man hasn’t used, as you have, and marry her since we are a Christian family, after all. Our role isn’t to make the world a better place, but just to make sure we are behaving like Pharisees. Do I need to comment further on this paragraph? I think not. I am greatly tempted to though lol.
——-
“You might think this is harsh but it is how it has been for 2000 years.”
Yes, it has.
——–
“Some contemporary “Christians” have tried to teach that the purity rules that apply to girls should also apply to boys”.
Well, I’m wondering if that would be what Jesus thought. You do know Jesus spoke of this indirectly in John 8:1-11 and it doesn’t say “boys will be boys, Mr T you are making me giggle.
———-
“These people are cucks who are afraid to defend Christianity in a hostile world”.
I am not afraid to defend Christianity, neither is anyone on this site including you.
——-
“Where teenage girls make purity pledges they pledge their virginity to their fathers until the day they are given away by their fathers”.
No, that is not the way it works. I honour my father, bring honour to his name. My promise of purity is to my husband, plainly it honours my dad to do so, but there are dads who think their daughters should “enjoy” themselves. If I had such a dad, bringing honour to his name would still be staying pure since purity is honourable, in the same way if my dad was a burglar it wouldn’t be honouring to my dad for me to be a burglar too, it would bring honour to his name for me not to be wouldn’t it.
——-
“Some people say boys should make purity pledges too”.
Yes, but some people say boys will be boys too lol.
I am confused with the notion of a pledge, a boy shouldn’t pledge to stay pure, neither should a girl, they should just strive to do that. I do not pledge to honour my dad I just honour him to the best of my ability. I do not pledge to stay pure, it’s just a minimal requirement of morality.
——
“Ok, who should the boys pledge their virginity to”?
They shouldn’t pledge purity, they should just strive to be pure. I understand its harder for boys (since boys will be boys lol) but if I were a boy I wouldn’t pledge to do something that isn’t in my heart to do. I would just strive to be pure if I were him.
——
“Their fathers”?
No lol.
——-
“Do you want your groom’s father to walk him down the aisle to give him and his virginity away to you at the altar”?
No, that is not traditional, neither is it necessary, as, by the time my dad is walking me to my husband I will have performed my due diligence tests on the one who I am going to give myself too, that would be the responsible thing to do, wouldn’t it? after all, daddy has just finished patting his son on the back for his immoral acts over the last 10 years hasn’t he Lol.
——–
“I can’t think of anything more ridiculous”.
Me either.
——–
“Your beauty should not come from outward adornments, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewellery or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.” [1 Peter 3:3-4].
You need to consider this passage as to what it teaches a female and what it teaches a male.
So who is the warning of outward beauty too and who would suffer beauty that has a hard heart? It affects the man more than the woman, men chase beauty and crash into hard hearts by doing so often, but they may find a kind heart in beauty too.
All that passage tells me is that I am to work on my character before my outward beauty. Further, I have not sought beauty, but just to be as pretty as I can be. I need to be pretty to get the “interview” for I would like to get to know you better. The object isn’t to dazzle but to play to a boys weakness so he can demonstrate his strength. You must see that most boys are very shallow we girls can manipulate the gullible ones with a smile, seriously they can’t hold a two-minute conversation with us girls without trying to peer down our dress, they are addicted to, female! seriously they must have desperation as part of their wondering eyes to view a girl in her school dress as a source of sexual interest when plainly her dress is designed to make us look unattractive. That passage in 1 Peter 3:3-4, is a warning to boys not to seek beauty as the measure of the heart and it’s a warning to me to work on my heart before my beauty. Note it isn’t a condemnation on a woman it isn’t even a message solely for women there is an important message for boys in there too.
——-
“The face God gave you does not need makeup. If you put on makeup you are saying to our Father in Heaven that the face he gave you is not good enough”.
No, that is not what I think. What I think is we live in a fallen world. The most beautiful woman ever to grace the earth would have been Eve since she was created before the fall. I do not think God gave a girl born with a serious disfigurement that face I think that its a consequence of the fall, so she would not be in any way spiting God if she got surgery to correct the issue she had. When you see a beautiful woman I mean one that knocks you off your feet all that you are seeing is what should have been as the norm and when I use a little makeup I am just trying to get back to what God intended.
——-
“Remember, makeup is of this world and there won’t be one person wearing makeup in His Kingdom”.
Yes, and you need to ask the why question, is it because in heaven we have love all around us, there will be little babies that I can love that I won’t need a husband to get.
Further, (back to earth now) I do not see why Christian boys should be left to the mercy of pretty secular girls. Christian boys should have the best, that being, pretty Christian girls who have the hearts of wives and mothers that may become theirs with – I do.
It’s all very simple. I have it all worked out. I even have my mums’ jewellery, her wedding band almost fits me. I just need to get my dad to be reasonable; well he needs to listen to me without talking or looking at me like I am a child, once we have seen where he is wrong then we can move on to discussing when I may get my ears pierced and I only want my ears pierced. I have my mums earrings and I want to wear them.
Michael, there’s a midpoint between boys should be good girls, and boys will be boys and sow their wild oats. While no Christian man should want a ‘bad woman,’ the reverse is also true – no Christian woman should want a bad man. Some of the purportedly Christian monarchs of yesteryear for instance had scores, even hundred of illegitimate children!
You ask to whom boys should pledge their virginity? How about their Father-in-Heaven until the day they give it to their wife? If a man cannot control himself before marriage, why should a woman presume to think he’ll control himself after marriage? Remember celibacy, or if you prefer chastity, was prized historically.
As for makeup, neither you nor I are female so our views will differ slightly to the female half of the population. Older women apparently feel they need it to disguise age damage, and professional women may need it to keep with the dress code, or perhaps dress expectations. Of all the Christian women I know only one has explicitly chosen to generally avoid it, and she’s late 20’s.
Regarding 1 Peter 3:3-4, while I agree that a woman’s beauty should be inward, I don’t agree that 1 Peter offers a binary choice. Character should be primary, but we choose to wear clothes that complement our physical nature rather than burkhas (or the male equivalent) , and likewise haircuts – guys tend not to braid their hair for obvious reasons. Gold jewellery for men is usually restricted to a wedding ring if married, and perhaps a gold watch if very very wealthy – or perhaps I’ve just watched too much TV? I’d contend that where makeup is chosen to complement a woman’s nature it’s acceptable, but not where physical appearance is the exclusive focus as that does conflict with passage in 1 Peter. You see the passage differently?
Dear Sarah and Andrew,
Like Sarah likes to say “Phew, there’s a lot here lol.” but I’ll just talk about one small thing and then one big idea.
Starting with the small thing.
Andrew, if you can show me a historic mention of a men’s chastity belt, I’ll agree with you. But you won’t find one because chastity belts were only ever made for women because historically it’s only women’s chastity that mattered.
Now here’s the big idea.
Christianity was founded nearly 2000 years ago by our Lord Jesus Christ who sent out the Apostles to teach believers how to live their lives in ways pleasing to God. Over the last 2000 years some things have always stayed the same and some things have changed, and sometimes the church has gone off the rails and correction was needed.
One of the things that has always stayed the same is the Christian view of men’s and women’s sexuality, and the rules for each sex. Men and women are different and for 2000 years different rules for men and women applied, until the sexual revolution anyway.
If you’re saying these two sets of rules are wrong, it’s like you’re saying “The Apostolic church thought the old two sets of rules was okay, the church in 500 and 1000 A.D. thought it was okay, Martin Luther and John Wesley and all the other theologians thought it was okay, but I’ve just read the Bible again and decided 2000 years of unerring Christian tradition is wrong.”
It’s easy to see why churches trying to fit in in a modern world want to think like this. The Sexual Revolution tells us men and women are equal and it’s okay for women to have sex outside of marriage (and “science” helped them with the pill). We then say no it’s not. The secular world then says but Christian leaders historically turned a blind eye when men had sex with women who weren’t their wives (thanks Andrew for bringing up the kings with scores of illegitimate children, did any of them ever get refused communion for infidelity? Don’t think so. Some were even Head of the Church of England!) so why can’t women do the same? Instead of arguing for the nearly 2000 years of Christian tradition that says men and women are different and different rules apply, we just cuck and say ok, ok, let’s keep the rules for women’s chastity but to avoid secular judgement let’s make men follow them too.
In a changing world, Christian customs that have not changed for 2000 years shouldn’t change just because the secular world challenge us to change.
We should not change our beliefs and behaviour due to the influence of the outside world. Sarah, that’s why I’m so worried when you talk about needing make up to compete with non-Christian girls. We as parents want our children to marry other Christian boys and girls but what has developed in many churches is a form of youth and young adult dating that is more like how non-Christians date. Do these Christian boys ask the girl’s father for permission to court her? Nup. They just go off and do whatever they do.
One evangelical church I visited had a young unmarried but “dating” couple who are totally open about how they go for trips together and when they do they share a hotel room “to save money”. Sarah, this was the church where I asked the youth pastor who had known these two for many years what sort of morality he teaches. He said it’s a lost cause to try to tell his youths to avoid all physical intimacy before marriage so he tries to “set boundaries” with the last and most important one to save full penetrative sexual intercourse for their wedding night.
I’ve gone on and on. But the main point is do we want to restore today’s church to how it was, or are we so arrogant we think we know better than 2000 years of church custom and history and under pressure from a hostile secular world we think we can create a “better” church? I’m in the first group, and I think trying to make our morality acceptable to a secular world that wrongly thinks there are no differences between man and woman just ends up with us compromising our beliefs in other ways, like that youth pastor does. You can’t change to avoid the judgement of the secular world and then expect them to leave you alone. No they come back again and again wanting more change from you, and then more, and then some more, and before you know it in 30 years time you will have female priests marrying two men. All in the name of the “equality” that started with women’s rights.
Stand up for our tradition. 2000 years of Christianity can’t be that wrong!
Wow, that was a great post, Mr Taouk.
Ok, I think I can see where the issues arise that prompts your post(s) to me and its a misunderstanding of my standing (in the Christian faith) you and I agree on 99% of what Christian values and traditions are. If we made a list independently they would match in the main. so let me make a list for you, this list may be verified btw by reading the summation of my posts on here so I am not recrafting my argument it’s just you and I perhaps have inflated the 1%, since that was relevant to what I was talking about.
So I believe:-
1. I will marry a Christian boy.
2. I will not date someone who isn’t Christian.
3. As a Christian Girl, I am to present myself to my husband pure.
4. I am not allowed to date until I am 16. (My dad’s rule which I am as a Christian girl to obey ).
5. On my 16th birthday, a boy may approach my dad and ask if he may date me. My dad will tell the boy he will consider his request and send him away. My dad will ask me if I want to date this boy. If I happen to be in my bedroom and do a summersault on my bed, my dad would take that as a yes, but a verbal yes would do too. My dad will already know this boy since he is very likely to be a boy from our church. If it’s a yes from me and my dad, the boy will be called back to my dad’s office where I will join them (I am to remain silent at this meeting, which will be very difficult for me.) the boy will be told the rules of dating me which I haven’t heard yet but I can imagine what they will be.
6. On our first date, I will tell the boy how important it is for me to be pure as we meet before God on our wedding day. I’m looking for a strong man to be a father and a husband and I won’t see him as strong if he tries to coerce me into having sex with him, but a weak man. He may have sex with me any time, but he must first invest his life in me as I will in his. There is a contract we will sign to this end and it’s called marriage. I realise when I tell certain boys this I won’t be getting a second date with them.
7. If I realise a boy isn’t for me I will dump him that means I will stop dating him and seeing him. he will do likewise hopefully.
8. I am everything a man isn’t, so compliment a man by supplying what he does not have.
9. I am dependent on a man to provide my completeness from his stance he may think I do likewise.
10. I have a responsibility to my children (even though I do not have any at the moment.) to ensure the father I choose for them is what I would choose for myself.
11. if the above steps are followed I will be reborn into oneness and stand before God as someone washed in the sanctity of marriage.
Now, as regards what started this conversation I think we came at it from different angles which I failed to pick up on and it’s this,- when I look at a boy my measure of him, is that of a potential husband and father. You need to consider what that means in relation to our conversation, so when you say things like boys will be boys I am thinking that is what my husband is saying to me when our son is behaving immorally, it could even relate to my husband being unfaithful and his only response is boys will be boys. A boy outside of marriage doesn’t exist for me and you can understand why perhaps since the ones outside marriage are, boys will be boys, but, of course, I can’t be associated with such boys since my good name and standing would be affected. You, on the other hand, live in boys will be boys. I have to see that as abhorrent as if I didn’t I could be pulled into it believing its just part of getting to marriage. Further, I am always in observation mode so everything you say I am imagining that is the standard you will have for your (our) son and that may be our 1% disagreement since I would be horrified to hear my husband telling our son immoral girls are there for the taking since that is exactly what Muslim dads tell their sons and the immoral are any girl of any age that isn’t Muslim!
Therefore, given what I have said above, in that, who am I wearing my makeup for, the answer is my husband, it’s just the sun shines on the husband to be and the husbands not to be. Therefore, I have to ask each and every possibility-
1. If you like what you see apply to get to know me better.
2. Only Christian boys need to apply.
When I say only Christian boys may apply, that has to have some value and meaning and the value and the meaning is, Christian boys should NOT behave like secular boys their standards should be higher, in fact, all the ones I know do have higher standards, are they perfect, I doubt that, but I would hope their failings aren’t related to their lack of striving.
I offer the following-
Men and women are different, they have to be since when they come together they become a whole. The sum of the parts makes the whole.
I am only equal to a man when I stand before God, I will not be held responsible for my husband’s failings only my own, otherwise, in some ways, I am better than my husband and in other ways worse. A wise husband will defer to his wife on matters where her gifts lay and a wife subjects herself to her husband’s leadership, the husband leads sacrificially btw.
In matters relating to sex, men are on the whole weak at deferring sexual gratification until they are married. I do not know why this is but I think it may be due to testosterone in their bodies, but I may have that wrong it may be testosterone that makes them aggressive I can’t remember.
The problem I have with your stance is that it pitches tradition against morality. It is right to expect a high moral standing from a woman since the quest is high morality. If the quest is for high morality then the goal should be strived for by both sexes. If a woman finds it easier to achieve all that means is that women will be more successful, it does not mean the success men contribute isn’t welcome in a world in need of every bit of purity it can get.
Further, you made a type of taxicab fallacy argument when you said great men of the past accepted the failings in men, hence their failings were to be accepted, as just tradition, remember the same men accepted slavery too!
Your comment on the lack of chastity belts for men is in error too since you failed to realise that if men were failing in sexual morality, that failing would result in them not subjecting themselves to enforced purity and, of course, enforced purity is no purity at all which you failed to notice since why did women need to be locked away so to speak if their intention was purity, well there is one of two reasons, either they wasn’t intentionally pure or men were so depraved that they had to lock up a woman’s purity away from other men.
The truth is the cost of sex is higher to a woman than a man. If my brother behaves immorally night after night he is not the one who has to carry the results of that act for 9 months and then continue caring for the outcome of that pregnancy for at least 18 years. The dream becomes a nightmare for a girl, a girl like me, who dreams of being a mother one day.
Your comments on the pill were correct, but for the wrong reasons. I thought as you did, but your comment red pilled me lol. The truth is we have as many pure girls today as before the pill, the difference in numbers between now and then is simply, what we have today are the willingly pure, which is the essence of purity isn’t it, as opposed to the willingly pure + the forced pure, due to concerns of becoming pregnant.
The sad thing is that men’s attitude such as boys will be a boy justifies the pro-choice women’s claim of saying it’s my body! When a man has sex with a woman without any responsibilities it gives a woman the “right” to exclude the man from every aspect of that action including killing his baby. To put a halt to that it will take a higher morality from both men and women, to perpetuate it, we just have to accept boys will be boys. Do not miss understand what I am saying here. I am saying boys will be boys, however, when they are they should understand it has consequences and it would be enormously helpful if dads were to educate boys on this matter since then we would see the genuine pure boys, however few that may be, but those few should be acknowledged for overcoming what could be said, nothing more or less than what we ask from a homosexual.
Dear Sarah,
I have to clear up one thing first, we don’t “ask” anything of homosexuals. We tell them to repent and give up their deviant ways and come to the Lord. If not they will burn in Hell for eternity. There’s no asking there. Just telling it how it is.
I’m glad we agree on so much. It gives me hope for the future that there are still good pure young women out there who will make wonderful obedient Christian wives one day. But there is something I think you miss.
Men and women are different. Boys and girls are different. A girl becomes a woman through marriage and bearing children. Boys don’t become men through marriage, they need to be men already in order to become husbands. Sarah I’m sure you want to marry a man who can lead you, not a boy unsure of himself.
Young men used to go off to war and come back as men. Even now, we given freedom to our sons that we would never give to our daughters, to go out in the world and to come back as men. If they have sex with loose women that’s not a bog deal because it’s what a man is that matters not what he has done. With girls and women, what they have done is important. It tells us if they are good women or bad women.
Throughout the Bible it is obvious that a girl’s virginity is worth than a boy’s virginity. Do boys’ fathers have to show the proof of their sons’ virginity? No. Because God did not give boys hymens. No such proof can ever exist. If it mattered to God boys would have something like a hymen. He creates all, and there is always a reason for His creation. He said boys’ virginities is no big deal.
Now you have seen proof of how from the time of the Apostles till now the Christian World has recognised there are two rules for purity, one for men and another for women. To deny this is to deny church history and to deny complementarianism and to be a Christian feminist. So how conceited is it for any one of us to sit here in 2019 and say we know better than 2000 years of church history, tradition and practice?
Sure, the Bible was not always perfect. Jesus was sent to perfect the imperfect Law of the Jews that previously existed for 4000 years. But the church founded by Christ Jesus is perfect and if it has done something a certain way for 2000 years with no change until the “sexual revolution”, who are any of us to say they were wrong? Who are you to “perfect” the New Covenant Law Jesus gave us to observe?
How the church has been for 2000 years is how it should be until our Lord returns otherwise He will come back and the first thing he will say is “What have you done with my Church?” and “Why have you let Satanic feminism infect my Church?”
Mr Taouk, my dear brother in Christ, what am I to do with you, you are like one of the children I babysit who I continually have to ask to behave.
I think I have given you ample evidence as to your error, however, I think I may not be reaching you since I do not have the necessary skills due to my gender and age, therefore I am going to give you a scenario that will appeal to the father in you in the hope it will indicate to you where your reasoning leads, however, you are going to have to be strong and fight off your need to reject perfectly valid points, such as my closing point on the homosexual vs the immoral boy in the last paragraph of my previous post since changing a word does not change the meaning in that last paragraph.
The scenario:-
A boy knocks on your door to ask for your precious daughter in marriage (I am pretty sure you do not have a daughter btw since you have a remoteness to their plight.) and you ask this lad, how he is going to support your daughter (she has expensive tastes, after all.) then you ask him about his intention of providing you with grandchildren, he says to you, “No problem there Sir, I have availed myself of Boys-will-be-boys- sluts. I have at least 17 children by these, immoral Boys-will-be -boys- sluts, I would have had so many more sir, but, those totally immoral- sluts aborted at least 10 to my knowledge, and they are just the ones I paid for their abortions, sir”. You pour this young man a drink and say, welcome to the family son. It’s like a horror story isn’t it.
Here are some important points I have offered you in my posts that you need to consider more seriously.
1. Tradition does not trump morality.
2. You should not look for purity in a woman, but recognise it in Jesus and emulate that to a disbelieving world and hope the women are doing likewise.
3. An immoral woman isn’t something to be used but pitied.
4. An immoral boy isn’t radiating an image of Jesus to his church, he is failing to demonstrate his suitability as a leader. but giving ample evidence he is of the world.
5. I have not once demanded a pure boy, but only concerned myself first to ensure I am pure before God when I marry in his presence since I have a part to play to a disbelieving world.
6 My purity does not come from me, it’s a gift from God I am to carry to my husband. I assume rightly or wrongly a pure gift from God should be received by the pure, but if not pure the repentant pure.
7. Boys-will-be-boys aren’t the repentant pure, they are slaves to sin.
8. A boy/man only exists as a husband in a relationship. Boys are like lions they look cuddly but are very dangerous indeed. Christian boys should have a higher morality than a lion but all the strength of one.
9. You are to lead a woman, but sacrificially, she does not walk a few yards behind you, she travels on your shoulders and thanks God every day for you.
10. if you can’t stand for a weak and vulnerable woman, you will fall at the feet of an immoral one.
Now, this is your last warning, any more backchatting me and I’m going to send you to your room. . . . . lol.
The commands against adultery and fornication in the Bible are directed to all mankind, not just the women.
Just because we in our stupid fallen condition might make more excuses for the boys doesn’t mean that they will be judged any less harshly by God when they face him.
Remember, “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.”
We should make no excuses for sin. It needs to be repented from by both men and women. No double standards. Men’s idiotic cultural traditions won’t save us on judgement day. Our consciences bear witness of the truth.
I personally wonder if the defence of the “boys will be boys” mentality may just be a sign of past sin yet to be repented from. If I’ve judged incorrectly then I apologise, but if correctly then some repentance needs to come.
I previously lived an unrighteous lifestyle before coming to Christ, but I refuse to claim that it was ok, as it was not. We need to abhor our past sin, not make excuses for it.
Hi, Mr Giuliani,
I do not want to comment further on this point since I have said all I can on this subject. I would be saddened if I offended anyone with my comments, as it isn’t my intention to offend anyone. I think we take ourselves to seriously at times, to be honest, a little humour and banter should be part of the Christian diet I think.
But I would like to if I may address you.
I can see by your comment that you are grounded in the faith, however, your sister in Christ nevertheless may offer her brother some comforting words that you may not hear often enough.
You Ernest, I will address you by your English rendition if I may, are a new creation, no more in condemnation. You may choose or may already have chosen a pure girl, pour by act or pure by grace since you are pure. The old is history and when you stand before God, God will neither request of you him that is past or request him in his presence for condemnation, your ransom has been paid in full. to this end. I a simple schoolgirl only see a pure man in you, as I only want to see what God sees.
All that you have to do is enjoy the grace given to you, take the grace very seriously but be careful not to take yourself too seriously.
Sometime in the future, it will be necessary for you to hand back purity to a woman who has fallen and asked Jesus to help her back up, make sure the gift of purity given to you and its acceptance by your brothers and sisters is given to her. You have had a practice run here, be ready with open arms as Jesus was for you.
Sarah. xx