This could become a rant, and I have had my one rationed rant for the week yesterday. However, I need to come back to some of the issues relating to our culture. Most of our culture completely ignores the flesh sack. It considers what we do with our bodies to be of no consequence. From that we get both morbid obesity and a celebration of the promiscuity and infidelity.
Now, this should not be. The boys Aunt would say this — she has been single all her life, never been in a relationship, does not have kids out of wedlock, and despite having to live with the consequences of long term injuries from a road crash, she continually works at keeping herself fit. In my town, one does not walk everywhere all the time, but one walks when you can. My sons say this, for they are not going to the local pick up area on Thursday night through Saturday night — and they call the boys in their class who do this fools.
We have to remember that this culture is not wise. Society judges us as fools if we discipline our lives, watch our tongues, and do not indulge in every pleasure at any time. If we have dignity.
10According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. 12Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw – 13the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. 14If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire.
16Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? 17If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
18Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. 19For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” 20and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” 21So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, 22whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future – all belong to you, 23and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
Now, Mark Driscoll fell into this trap. He wrote a sermon on the International Day of Elimination of Violence for women. I recognize the list. It is the one used by the trolls who come in to my work and my place of employ and try to shame me for not supporting white ribbon day, Which I have refused to do for years: when women’s violence is talked about as much as men’s violence I will support this state propaganda. As Stoner’s little friend says, the sermon is enough to make you remain single.
I won’t cite this, but in addition to the previous posts on this issue, consider this abstract, which took a minute on Google scholar to find.
The paper reports results from analyses of the physical aggression against dating partners by four samples of university students in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Mexican Americans and Non-Mexican Whites in El Paso and Lubbock Texas, and New Hampshire (N=1,544). The percent reporting partner violence (PV) was high in all samples, but also differed significantly between samples. The lowest rate was in New Hampshire (29.7%), followed by Texas, Non-Mexican Whites (30.9%), Texas Mexican American (34.2%), and the highest rate was in Juarez (46.1%). When only severe assaults were compared, the differences between samples was similar, i.e., lowest in New Hampshire and highest in Juarez. In all four samples, there was no significant difference between males and females in either the overall prevalence of physical aggression or the prevalence of severe attacks. Among the 553 couples where one or both of the partners were violent, in almost three quarters of the cases (71.2%) there was gender symmetry in the sense that both partners engaged in this type of behavior. When only one partner was violent, this was twice as likely to be the female partner (19.0%) as the male partner (9.8%). Among the 205 couples where there was an act of severe aggression, symmetry was less prevalent (56.6%), but when only one partner was violent, it was again twice as likely to be the female partner (29.8% female only versus 13.7 male partner only). These results are consistent with the gender symmetry in PV found in many studies. They extend those results by showing that gender symmetry prevails in four different cultural contexts. The presence of gender symmetry in these different cultural contexts, combined with studies showing that women are injured more often and more seriously by partner-assaults, and studies showing that women initiate PV as often as men, suggests that programs and policies aimed at primary prevention of PV by women are crucial to ending PV and for reducing the victimization of men and women. Aggr. Behav. 33:281–290, 2007.
Where I agree with Driscoll is that violence is wrong. But the way we approach it is similar to the way we approach fitness or fidelity. We blame men — for hitting (when women hit just as much) — for not dieting (when we told eat more sugar (low fat) and carbohydrates, and changing your diet (less sugar, carbs) and hitting the gym work) and for the current high rate of bastardy (because men will not “man up” and marry a woman despite her past)
Driscoll forgets we are swimming in an ideology that denigrates not only men, but tradition, thus cutting itself off from the wisdom of previous generations. They call us fools. They say we may be violent, dangerous, because we try to live by the teaching of the apostles.
Ignore them: in fact oppose them. For they are fools.