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General One of our own gets called out
- Thread starter Pacman
- Start date
I may make these guys a special project but they’re pretty small. I’d hate to give them attention they couldn’t get themselves.
Actually, JK is considered a serious theologian. Some of his works are very heavy and well researched reading. He's published probably 30-40 books... just DOA on this topic.
Wilber is less well known, but the presumed author of the 119Ministries video we all took apart last year... he has a following and influence in the Torah community.
Both deserve 'some love..' lol.
Well maybe I’ll go a few rounds with him then.
This is hard to watch. These guys are juvenile morons who know they’re pushing a false message.
I don't engage in commenting on anything on YouTube or any social media; how would I actually comment? I looked for a button or something but couldn't find it.
[I see from subsequent messages here that the comments were removed, anyway. I have my own comments and will share them here as soon as I finish them. I just finished watching the video. My first one, though, only qualifies as snark, so I'll share it right here and keep it out of my full analysis: this is an example in action of how low-sensation-seekers tend to overpopulate the regulatory world, doing their best to delegitimize anyone who wants more sensation (or, really, more anything) than they do. Furthermore, no women are ever going to want to fight over either of them, anyway, so in their individual cases, polygamy is an entirely moot point.]
Permission granted in advance to quote any of this anywhere one wants to post it.
I agree with Zec: no matter how much they've published, drawing attention to this doesn't seem to present anything but a waste-of-time down side. (I've also loved listening to your live cast playing in the background as I've been writing this missive.)
I also must admit up front that I think this whole argument on either side probably qualifies as one of those angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin distractions from the truly monumental messages of Scripture.
Best succinct commentary among the many other great ones above. I was reminded of those -- and Paul's -- admonitions to resist adding or subtracting from Scripture over and over again by these two self-appointed purveyors of (in this case, Messianic) Condemnation Christianity.
Aside from repeatedly being guilty of confusing their own interpretative opinions about the meaning of scriptural passages for the purpose of condemning what they are each clearly personally uncomfortable with -- and referring to extra-scriptural documents like the Talmud as if they are equivalent in stature with Scripture itself -- the main downfall of their apologetic approach was a tendency to conflate various words (whether Greek, Hebrew or English) and thus improperly use them interchangeably: subject, submit, lead, follow, love, respect, and serve. That they did this from the beginning tainted the entire discussion for me. Perhaps they are right to a degree; perhaps @PeteR does have a tendency to see everything through the lenses of patriarchy, reunion of the two kingdoms, and polygamy. However, Wilber and McKee at least as strongly see everything through the lens they've already determined to be their favorite pet project: mutual submission. It's the particular approach to marriage that they've each embraced, so they see support for it everywhere, even if they have to ignore the context that elsewhere they insist is paramount.
Throughout Scripture, when rules, instructions or regulations are presented, a pattern is followed: first the general rule, then clarifications and exceptions; Ephesians 5:15-33 is just one of nearly countless examples (the Torah is replete with them). Paul clearly addressed Ephesians 5:15-21 to the men ("brethren") who would read his epistle and thus, as would have been appropriate in pre-postmodern-feminist circles, comes across as giving them a general admonition to treat each other as equals in the Body of Christ and to, in a non-specific sense, subject themselves to each other. We discussed this earlier in another thread, and I don't think we need to either agree with Wilber and McKee's interpretation or promote feminism to find some wiggle room in considering what Ephesians 5:21 asserts to exhort us to bow to each other's leadership without denigrating ourselves in the process. If that were their definition of 'mutual submission,' I would have no reason to quibble over it. However, they have over-interpreted 5:21 by failing to note the shift from general to specific clarification/exception between 5:21 and 5:22, at which point Paul is no longer writing generally about Christian men (or even perhaps about Christian men and women) having no hierarchy among them in the Body but is instead addressing the specific hierarchy between individual husbands and wives throughout 5:21-33. The message to me is clear, "Dudes! We are all equal here and must be devoted unanimously to each other's well-being, and we are thus all expected to love one another as fellow members of the ecclesia, but loving one another is demonstrated differentially in differing situations and between different genders and relationship roles. Ladies! The men are expected to take care of you in a thousand different ways, but by the same token you're supposed to follow their leadership -- is that too much to ask?"
Men were by design leaders, women followers, and the fairly rare exceptions only prove the rule.
I noticed that what we had in front of us throughout the video were two men who solely referenced the works of other men. If Ephesians 5:21 is, in fact, referring to mutual subjection beyond an overarching sense of equality between the brethren to which it is addressed, and the assumption is that this is speaking not only to males and females in general but also husbands and wives in particular, why, then, don't we see the interpretation these two men have of the meaning of mutual submission acted out in the implementation of their ministries, their book writing and their online presence? Where, for example, are their wives on this podcast? Where are the women of their life in the authorship of their books or the research of these weighty theological topics? How often do you change course in your writing because your wives have schooled you on something? The answers are obvious, and, if we're being intellectually honest, we don't have the luxury of explaining them away with, "Oh, our wives just don't feel like engaging in such endeavors," because such an assertion automatically begs the question of why is it that women in general leave those things to men (just as they tend to leave most all things to men other than bearing and nurturing children and whatever the current mainstream culture assigns as ancillary roles)? The answer is clearly because they were designed by God to expect men to lead, and an intellectual construct like 'mutual submission' lays a false template over stark realities that have existed since God removed the female parts from the originally-androgynous Adam (Hebrew for, 'the human being').
The admonitions in I Corinthians that are repeated in Ephesians 5 after the beginning of Paul's revelation of the Mystery are consistent with each other: the status in Christ between husbands and wives is equality, but the manner in which wives vs. husbands demonstrate their mutual respect and love is different for each gender; in fact, the instructions to women are more simple: follow the lead of your leaders. For husbands, not only will you lead, but you will demonstrate your love in a wide variety of ways, including providing and protecting to the point of being willing to lay down your life for her. It is indeed the pernicious influence of feminism leaking into Christian marriages when women who (a) expect men to do all the teaching, leading, protecting and organizing (b) also want a formal say in every decision.
Wilber and McKee also conflate 'form' with 'equivalence.' The Son is simply not the equivalent of The Father, so it's not analogous to marriage to assert that Christ served his equal or that he was serving us just because our redemption by His propitiation was part of His Father's Plan -- Christ was in fact, I would assert, demonstrating the model articulated elsewhere: He was being submissive to His Father, just as we husbands are to be submissive to Christ, and our wives are ideally to be submissive to us. It's the chain of command among equals who are not equivalents. Tough concept to wrap one's arms around, but nonetheless it requires far less torturing of Scripture to get there. Despite our being the beneficiaries of Christ's crucifixion, He was not serving us; He was obeying His Father!
Then there's polygamy. The bias, as @MeganC mentions, is right up front and especially all over McKee's nonverbals: "Crap," he calls it. He also resorts to the fallacy of reverse logic by picking any human flaw exhibited by a polygamist and blaming that flawed behavior on polygamy, as if the actions of Hitler could be blamed in reverse on monogamy. And I thought McKee should have been embarrassed when he used as the formative example of his disapproval of polygamy his me-too-movement sisters not being comfortable with older men in their Messianic community desiring them as potential second or third wives. (No, that's not thought-control feminism! Why would anyone think that?) Where was the full adult in the room when those girls were demanding that they be prevented from the horror of learning that someone wanted them to share a husband? I say this as someone whose own daughter never lets an opportunity go by in which she can condemn her father's support for and pursuit of plural marriage, but why didn't someone with some common sense at least instruct those daughters to (a) get off their princess ponies and (b) just engage in selective rejection in the same manner in which they will inevitably turn down dozens or hundreds of potential monogamous suitors who will want them as solo wives over the course of their youth or middle age? (The answer is something that prissy little brats should witness being articulated more often: they have no right to expect the world to prevent them from having to contemplate anything they'd prefer not to have to experience.) Instead of turning the fact that he identified with his sisters' immaturity into a theological philosophy, McKee should have considered rising above it.
The two go on to blame Solomon's downfalls as being a result of polygamy, as if nothing could be more obvious, whereas they fail to mention the nature of Solomon's later-stage polygamy leading up to his demise: not only giving himself permission to marry pagan women but succumbing to the practice fully promoted at the time by their pagan culture of seducing men for the purpose of insisting that those men pledge allegiance to pagan gods in exchange for connubial bliss. The manner in which Solomon at least partially turned his back on God was the paganism, not the polygamy -- just as masturbation wasn't the sin for Onan but his disobedient refusal to fully treat his dead brother's wife as his own as God had insisted.
The bottom line, I guess, is that Wilber and McKee are intent on condemning polygamy. I'm really wondering, though, what difference that makes to any of us. @PeteR has been dissed, but he's a big boy and knows that he's been an invitation for such slings and arrows. Thanks, @Pacman, for sharing it with us. It was good food for regurgitative thought, but in the end the only real conclusion I've come to is that I'm glad Wilber and McKee won't be attending any Biblical Families gatherings -- although if they had the courage to meet with us in person the ensuing discussions would certainly be enlivening.
I agree with Zec: no matter how much they've published, drawing attention to this doesn't seem to present anything but a waste-of-time down side. (I've also loved listening to your live cast playing in the background as I've been writing this missive.)
I also must admit up front that I think this whole argument on either side probably qualifies as one of those angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin distractions from the truly monumental messages of Scripture.
Best succinct commentary among the many other great ones above. I was reminded of those -- and Paul's -- admonitions to resist adding or subtracting from Scripture over and over again by these two self-appointed purveyors of (in this case, Messianic) Condemnation Christianity.
Aside from repeatedly being guilty of confusing their own interpretative opinions about the meaning of scriptural passages for the purpose of condemning what they are each clearly personally uncomfortable with -- and referring to extra-scriptural documents like the Talmud as if they are equivalent in stature with Scripture itself -- the main downfall of their apologetic approach was a tendency to conflate various words (whether Greek, Hebrew or English) and thus improperly use them interchangeably: subject, submit, lead, follow, love, respect, and serve. That they did this from the beginning tainted the entire discussion for me. Perhaps they are right to a degree; perhaps @PeteR does have a tendency to see everything through the lenses of patriarchy, reunion of the two kingdoms, and polygamy. However, Wilber and McKee at least as strongly see everything through the lens they've already determined to be their favorite pet project: mutual submission. It's the particular approach to marriage that they've each embraced, so they see support for it everywhere, even if they have to ignore the context that elsewhere they insist is paramount.
Throughout Scripture, when rules, instructions or regulations are presented, a pattern is followed: first the general rule, then clarifications and exceptions; Ephesians 5:15-33 is just one of nearly countless examples (the Torah is replete with them). Paul clearly addressed Ephesians 5:15-21 to the men ("brethren") who would read his epistle and thus, as would have been appropriate in pre-postmodern-feminist circles, comes across as giving them a general admonition to treat each other as equals in the Body of Christ and to, in a non-specific sense, subject themselves to each other. We discussed this earlier in another thread, and I don't think we need to either agree with Wilber and McKee's interpretation or promote feminism to find some wiggle room in considering what Ephesians 5:21 asserts to exhort us to bow to each other's leadership without denigrating ourselves in the process. If that were their definition of 'mutual submission,' I would have no reason to quibble over it. However, they have over-interpreted 5:21 by failing to note the shift from general to specific clarification/exception between 5:21 and 5:22, at which point Paul is no longer writing generally about Christian men (or even perhaps about Christian men and women) having no hierarchy among them in the Body but is instead addressing the specific hierarchy between individual husbands and wives throughout 5:21-33. The message to me is clear, "Dudes! We are all equal here and must be devoted unanimously to each other's well-being, and we are thus all expected to love one another as fellow members of the ecclesia, but loving one another is demonstrated differentially in differing situations and between different genders and relationship roles. Ladies! The men are expected to take care of you in a thousand different ways, but by the same token you're supposed to follow their leadership -- is that too much to ask?"
Men were by design leaders, women followers, and the fairly rare exceptions only prove the rule.
I noticed that what we had in front of us throughout the video were two men who solely referenced the works of other men. If Ephesians 5:21 is, in fact, referring to mutual subjection beyond an overarching sense of equality between the brethren to which it is addressed, and the assumption is that this is speaking not only to males and females in general but also husbands and wives in particular, why, then, don't we see the interpretation these two men have of the meaning of mutual submission acted out in the implementation of their ministries, their book writing and their online presence? Where, for example, are their wives on this podcast? Where are the women of their life in the authorship of their books or the research of these weighty theological topics? How often do you change course in your writing because your wives have schooled you on something? The answers are obvious, and, if we're being intellectually honest, we don't have the luxury of explaining them away with, "Oh, our wives just don't feel like engaging in such endeavors," because such an assertion automatically begs the question of why is it that women in general leave those things to men (just as they tend to leave most all things to men other than bearing and nurturing children and whatever the current mainstream culture assigns as ancillary roles)? The answer is clearly because they were designed by God to expect men to lead, and an intellectual construct like 'mutual submission' lays a false template over stark realities that have existed since God removed the female parts from the originally-androgynous Adam (Hebrew for, 'the human being').
The admonitions in I Corinthians that are repeated in Ephesians 5 after the beginning of Paul's revelation of the Mystery are consistent with each other: the status in Christ between husbands and wives is equality, but the manner in which wives vs. husbands demonstrate their mutual respect and love is different for each gender; in fact, the instructions to women are more simple: follow the lead of your leaders. For husbands, not only will you lead, but you will demonstrate your love in a wide variety of ways, including providing and protecting to the point of being willing to lay down your life for her. It is indeed the pernicious influence of feminism leaking into Christian marriages when women who (a) expect men to do all the teaching, leading, protecting and organizing (b) also want a formal say in every decision.
Wilber and McKee also conflate 'form' with 'equivalence.' The Son is simply not the equivalent of The Father, so it's not analogous to marriage to assert that Christ served his equal or that he was serving us just because our redemption by His propitiation was part of His Father's Plan -- Christ was in fact, I would assert, demonstrating the model articulated elsewhere: He was being submissive to His Father, just as we husbands are to be submissive to Christ, and our wives are ideally to be submissive to us. It's the chain of command among equals who are not equivalents. Tough concept to wrap one's arms around, but nonetheless it requires far less torturing of Scripture to get there. Despite our being the beneficiaries of Christ's crucifixion, He was not serving us; He was obeying His Father!
Then there's polygamy. The bias, as @MeganC mentions, is right up front and especially all over McKee's nonverbals: "Crap," he calls it. He also resorts to the fallacy of reverse logic by picking any human flaw exhibited by a polygamist and blaming that flawed behavior on polygamy, as if the actions of Hitler could be blamed in reverse on monogamy. And I thought McKee should have been embarrassed when he used as the formative example of his disapproval of polygamy his me-too-movement sisters not being comfortable with older men in their Messianic community desiring them as potential second or third wives. (No, that's not thought-control feminism! Why would anyone think that?) Where was the full adult in the room when those girls were demanding that they be prevented from the horror of learning that someone wanted them to share a husband? I say this as someone whose own daughter never lets an opportunity go by in which she can condemn her father's support for and pursuit of plural marriage, but why didn't someone with some common sense at least instruct those daughters to (a) get off their princess ponies and (b) just engage in selective rejection in the same manner in which they will inevitably turn down dozens or hundreds of potential monogamous suitors who will want them as solo wives over the course of their youth or middle age? (The answer is something that prissy little brats should witness being articulated more often: they have no right to expect the world to prevent them from having to contemplate anything they'd prefer not to have to experience.) Instead of turning the fact that he identified with his sisters' immaturity into a theological philosophy, McKee should have considered rising above it.
The two go on to blame Solomon's downfalls as being a result of polygamy, as if nothing could be more obvious, whereas they fail to mention the nature of Solomon's later-stage polygamy leading up to his demise: not only giving himself permission to marry pagan women but succumbing to the practice fully promoted at the time by their pagan culture of seducing men for the purpose of insisting that those men pledge allegiance to pagan gods in exchange for connubial bliss. The manner in which Solomon at least partially turned his back on God was the paganism, not the polygamy -- just as masturbation wasn't the sin for Onan but his disobedient refusal to fully treat his dead brother's wife as his own as God had insisted.
The bottom line, I guess, is that Wilber and McKee are intent on condemning polygamy. I'm really wondering, though, what difference that makes to any of us. @PeteR has been dissed, but he's a big boy and knows that he's been an invitation for such slings and arrows. Thanks, @Pacman, for sharing it with us. It was good food for regurgitative thought, but in the end the only real conclusion I've come to is that I'm glad Wilber and McKee won't be attending any Biblical Families gatherings -- although if they had the courage to meet with us in person the ensuing discussions would certainly be enlivening.
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@Keith Martin thanks for the long comment. You make several good points that help bolster my thoughts.
As to your last section, sure... I can take care of myself and expect 'slings and arrows,' but the value in wading into these confrontations is that their (or, most any) audience will not enter our arena for debate, but they allow a door where we can enter theirs! Truth about marriage is a hearts and minds campaign that must engage the teachers and theologians, but that only happens when they allow access to their playground.
By responding and even leveraging any real or imagined 'cancel culture' is to use their weapons against them... my prayer is that it forces greater visibility among Bible believers of all stripes. In doing so, we plant seeds and win new ground each time we engage them.
As to your last section, sure... I can take care of myself and expect 'slings and arrows,' but the value in wading into these confrontations is that their (or, most any) audience will not enter our arena for debate, but they allow a door where we can enter theirs! Truth about marriage is a hearts and minds campaign that must engage the teachers and theologians, but that only happens when they allow access to their playground.
By responding and even leveraging any real or imagined 'cancel culture' is to use their weapons against them... my prayer is that it forces greater visibility among Bible believers of all stripes. In doing so, we plant seeds and win new ground each time we engage them.
Watching this now... ROTFL! Perfectly hilarious at points.
I don't at all disagree with you, @PeteR -- as long as they provide opportunity to post comments that can be seen by others. When they don't, though, I suspect all that is accomplished is for their fellow leash-wearing sophisticates to feel even more self-righteous as they pant for another treat from their female owners.
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Agreed, though the mere fact that they talk about me yet never give a blog address or book info leads to google searches that point searchers to truth... it also provides fodder for multiple content creators (e.g., @The Revolting Man ) to use, thereby further exposing the truth and challenging men and women to think. (No such thing as bad press... )
And, if he filters comments through tomorrow, I'll publicly call him out as I know he reads my blog...
@The Revolting Man, I jumped on too late last night to hear your rant about David Wilber, so I'm watching it now. You are blessedly adding to the personal discomfort I experienced watching the Wilber/McKee obfuscation, because when I watch them I see my own roots, and to put it bluntly it's downright embarrassing. I love you, my brother, for your willingness to take a discussion out past the boundaries of everyone's comfort zones.
Boundaries!?!? I’m not familiar with that word. Is it Latin?
Pffft, you have great boundaries.
They just are not cemented in where do many want them to be.
Not only that, but your boundaries have turrets. Well used turrets.
Lol, that’s awesome!
Okay, because I like you so much I'm not going to reply to this the way I could!
