My opinion on that particular thread is that she was posting an opinion and a particular viewpoint, (which she’s entitled to even if its wrong) and multiple guys jumped on the one or two items that are their own personal trigger, and proceeded to absolutely ruin a thread that had all kinds of upside potential for encouraging discussion with the women about what is probably the largest hurdle most families have in realizing a plural family.
IF I could double, triple, quadruple LIKE this one, I would because it's slam dunk spot on!!!!! BAM! This is exactly what happened. Then because her husband read what was being said about his wife by other men--name calling, labeling, questioning her salvation, just because her definition of submission didn't dot her "i's" and cross her "t's" like they want it in their home, she was "poison" "ungodly" "bad influence" and the list could go on--and HE stood up for her, covered her--now he's the bad guy! Really?!? What's being said by all of this is that if the man is a man's man, a real Patriarch who stands at the door of his tent, protects his woman from other men who have a mouth and little sense of decency, not only is his wife not welcome in this Biblical Families community, he isn't either!
Or perhaps that's just your
interpretation,
@rejoicinghandmaid, my dear friend. Going toe-to-toe doesn't necessarily mean 'unwelcome.' I agree with
@Verifyveritas76 that it's a shame that we missed out on a discussion that could have been highly enriching and enlightening, and I'm also not one to philosophically or theologically agree that Jennifer's position on submission was dangerous, but this could also be a situation of wanting to have your cake and eat it too: if one needs to be covered in a discussion, then why wouldn't we expect one to just have the man who does one's covering (in Jennifer's case it would be her husband; in yours that would be @Verifyveritas) do one's speaking for one from the very start?
There is a bit of feminist duplicitousness in some of the comments people are making in this discussion. Which is it? Should women be granted full-privileges access to serious discussions? Or should they be protected from the full ramifications of such full participation? Culturally, we have shifted to a point of incongruency in which we're trying to have our cake and eat it, too: yes, women can fully participate, but we still have to treat them with kid gloves; we can be yelled at for either opening doors for them or not opening doors for them. I do recognize, as
@Well loved wife has reminded us from Galatians, that we're also reasonably discussing the need to demonstrate the fruits of the spirit, but at the same time it's clear that backs are up because the treatment in question was directed toward a
woman. I'm not justifying all particular behaviors that occurred in the Just An Observation thread, but I am pointing out that we're at risk of heading down the road toward invalidating some of the core building blocks of patriarchy. I've been very clear that I do not favor the bullying interpretation of patriarchy that favors (b) iron rule and silent female acquiescence over (a) a combination of loving male leadership and deserved submissive female followership.
However, it's important to keep in mind that male headship is a
cornerstone of patriarchy. Any given man isn't required to
be a patriarch, and any given woman isn't required to be
seeking patriarchy, but it is foundational to Biblical Families, so it's only natural that many patriarchs are going to be vigorous in their reactions to those who propose anything that smacks of asserting that men shouldn't be the heads of their families -- and at least that much is clear to me about Jennifer's motivations.
I would have liked to have heard much more from her about the way she and her husband structure their marriage, but what she described (and don't forget that it was done in the context of the teaser of it being related to a mystery religion) was not submission by any normal definition of the word. Submitting was not what she was describing. Personally I'm not threatened by however anyone else structures their marriages; based on my own experiences with trying to be egalitarian resulting in crash-and-burn relationships, I wouldn't
advise anyone to purposefully structure their marriage in that manner, and I know you're not looking for an egalitarian marriage either, but I do not consider Jennifer's assertions to be dangerous to me.
However, the more time I spend reading the Just An Observation thread and the discussion about it, the more I'm beginning to see what ultimately transpired as being fruit of the poisonous tree. I've already said that she should have subdivided her original post into three different threads, preventing almost all of this. I'm not going to try to get into her mind to determine what her motivations were for mixing everything up like that, but it's unmistakable that she
did create a poisonous tree -- as well as that none of those who later wrassled with her forced her to plant that poisonous tree. In toto, that first post by Jennifer reads in retrospect like she knew full well she was stirring up a hornet's nest, but when she couldn't get out of the way fast enough to avoid getting stung she acted like she hadn't been the one to inspire the hornets' ire.
Given having read all the remaining posts on here up to this point, I believe I should point out before closing that I neither have had telephone contact with Jennifer or her husband, nor have I any additional information which you don't have,
@rejoicinghandmaid, but I do know this: just having additional information doesn't necessarily make one fully informed. There are always multiple high horses in situations like these, and it's essential to recognize that the high horse one chooses will inevitably gallop down the path determined by the bias inherent in the people whose viewpoint on the matter one chooses to accept as the supposed whole truth.
Anyone who's been horseback riding knows what happens when the horse is in charge.
Lastly, I have the following caution: we live in a broken world, and because of that we have all had experiences in our life that have left us with unresolved pain. It is
always beneficial to require of oneself that one doesn't conflate our own unresolved pain with reports from others of experiencing pain. It's far too easy otherwise to unconsciously assume that what is going on with someone else matches what happened to oneself, when that may actually be the furthest thing from the truth. Sometimes people unwittingly present distorted versions of what they've experienced. Sometimes people present only what makes them look good and others look bad. Sometimes they altogether leave out things that are pieces of the puzzle necessary to have an educated full picture of the situation. Sometimes they even outright lie. And sometimes, though, they tell falsehoods and don't even realize they're doing it.
I believe we'd all probably be better off if we limited ourselves to being willing to stand up to tell our own stories and to share our own painful experiences, making suggestions about how we would have felt more welcome if matters had been handled differently in our own experiences instead of jumping to the defense of others. And I'm sure the place to start with this is for me to take some of my own advice.
