There was a large and interesting conflict between Doug Phillips of Vision Forum and Boerne Christian Assembly (a small San Antonio church where he was pastor) and a parishioner named Jennifer Epstein, a conflict that was all about submission and asymmetrical rules. The condensed version is that Jennifer Epstein’s husband Mark had problems with anger and Phillips simply kept telling her to be more and more and more submissive; she tried to argue her case, and Phillips ended up throwing both of them and their children out of the church.

Epstein met her husband when both were in the military.

She’d thrived under military discipline, memorizing long lists of rules and regulations, willing to submit to such authority, she says,

It’s helpful that they come right out and say it.

Narrated by Amy Gunn [wife of Colin, one of the brothers Gunn], Monstrous Regiment argues that “Christians can’t be egalitarians. We believe in hierarchy and inherent authority.”

Oh. Right. Thanks for spelling it out. That’s why we hate and fear you. We think that belief is evil.… Read the rest

Meet the Gunn brothers. They make exciting Christian documentary movies that win awards from organizations that give awards to Christian movies.

They made Shaky Town, which is about the persecution of Christians by the evil gayz in San Francisco.

You’ll hear testimonies from Christian Heroes involved in a front-line battle against immorality in the so-called“tolerant” city. You’ll also see real video footage of Christian churches in San Francisco being attacked by violent groups of homosexuals. So be warned, this movie is not for the faint-hearted!

And they made The Monstrous Regiment of Women, which you can guess what it’s about (hello John Knox!). The page is super super super scary though, so be warned – it includes … Read the rest

How exciting: a new fresh original unexpected take on theNewAtheism. (Illustrated, I have to add, by a staggeringly banal sculpture called “the Hand of God” which is…a big hand, with a Man perched on it. Wo!!!!!!! Mind-blowing, huh?)

It’s James Wood who has the excitingly new fresh original unexpected take. He breakes the mold in the very first sentence.

In the last 10 years or so, the rise of American evangelicalism and the menace of Islamist fundamentalism, along with developments in physics and in theories of evolution and cosmogony, have encouraged a certain style of aggressive, often strident atheistic critique.

And everything that follows is equally challenging and paradigm-exploding.

I can’t be the only reader who finds himself in

A wives-submit type explained to Kathryn Joyce.

“Man is ultimately responsible, when he stands up before God in heaven, for how he ran and managed his family. We women are responsible for how we were as helpmeets. We’re not supposed to be wearing the pants to the elbows, like a lot of women do. We’re equally intelligent and capable of doing the things theat men do, but that doesn’t mean we have to or that we should.” This is a common rejoinder of biblical womanhood advocates…they acknowledge women’s equal capacity, but they suggest that women lay their abilities aside with their pride as a living sacrifice fit for their Savior. [Quiverfull p 71]

But why? That’s what I want … Read the rest

Frank Schaeffer points out that Michele Bachmann is not telling the truth about whether or not she submits to her husband. He knows what he’s talking about, too: his father was one of the sources of the anti-feminist Dominionist movement.

Bachmann understands just how extreme her part of the evangelical movement is. She also understands that a certain amount of godly lying will be needed to mask that. She understood that the question she was asked the other day was about a biblical teaching that is misogynistic to the core and advocates total submission of a wife to a husband. It is teaching she’s signed on to long ago.

The people, churches and groups that shaped Bachmann’s thinking are far