I love masculine conversation: where one can use sarcasm, where one need not care about trigger warnings, and where there is a nugget of truth contained within. The correct word for a servant who is looking after resources for his master is the Steward. Or, if ennobled, the seneschal: if married, the husband, if a parent, the mother and father.

The irony is that Churches could actually disciple young men and husbands if they taught the unvarnished truth: Please God through desire to adhere to His will.

It’s not about performing for God. God doesn’t need men to perform for Him. Rather He wants us to desire to do His will and worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. Out of the heart comes the desire to do His will and that springs forth good works.

Instead they revert to teaching the heresy of performance. “Servant leadership” becomes the task about serving the wife the way the wife wants to be treated — serving her feelings — rather than God. Even if you had the most pious wife in the world installing her approval over that of God is akin to a false idol

But the modern church no longer worships God. It instead worships feelings: that sense of spirituality has to be enhanced, and that sense of guilt and shame expunged. There can be no negative consequences, and all must be winners. There is no sin, no damnation, no guilt, and therefore no need for repentance, and we stand congratulating ourselves in front of a meaningless cross, in some perverse inversion of everything the gospel says. And using oxymorons like Servant Leadership helps. The concept is subverted by those who would destroy the gospel and keep the form of religion having gelded it. If they are offended by Keoni’s blunt speech, then they need to examine their souls.

In my opinion, “Servant Leader” is the perfect description of the Supreme Order of Latter Day Orthodox Churchianity: It is a title for any husband who is a member of The White Knights of Our Lady’s Sacred Imperative.

It’s a title for an office that bestows upon all married men of the faith, all of the responsibilities and accountability of being a leader, but restricted solely to the privileges and benefits of being a servant.

Martyrdom Inc. – Churchianity sanctioned Marriage 2.0.

I say one should quit worrying about using that term or trying to reclaim it or say it’s the proper answer to WWJD. It’s more like a signal or red flag, clearly revealing to those who have the eyes to see, a false prophet preaching a false and corrupt doctrine.

If you are in a church in which the Father, Pastor, Preacher, Reverend, Bishop or whomever is supposedly in charge of the congregation, and you hear them preach the doctrine of defining husbandry as SERVANT LEADERSHIP… NEXT that church and find one that truly worships the Father and the Son, rather than that pagan goddess bitch.

Now, Scott has linked in the same conversations and in his own blog to what some are calling the Benedict Option: seeing the monastic movement as something that preserved civilization. That small, intentional communities will survive. This can be summed up in this paragraph, but go read Scott’s comments.

An eloquent case for traditional families is currently being made by the chaos and dysfunction set in motion by their absence. No amount of legislation or social programs will succeed in replacing the most natural of human traditions. The social corrosion represented by our over-populated prisons, births outside of marriage (over 40 percent in the general population and over 70 percent among non-Hispanic African Americans), and similar phenomenon continue to predict a breakdown of civility on the most fundamental level. We passed into the “Dark Ages” some time ago. The “Benedict Option” is already in place. It is in your parish and in your marriage. Every day you endure and succeed in a faithful union to your spouse and children is a heroic act of grace-filled living.

I am seeing the damage caused by this fungible marriage. As Hearthie pointed out today, our legislators are doubling down: they are driving us into as deep a marital debt as a financial debt. But what cannot continue, will not. What the elite are managing, in all the Western social democracies, is an elaborate system of transfer payments that rely on the force of law and sufficient productivity to afford to subsidize day care, have make-work jobs, and a substantial proportion of women neither productive at home nor at work, but living with the state as their husband and various men as sperm donors.

But the places where this is most apparent: New York, Illinois, California, France and Greece — are bankrupt. (In NZ we have reformed this. We have changed our family laws to encourage shared care. We have got rid of alimony. And women on the domestic purposes benefit get it docked if they are not in training or employment when their youngest is five — these reforms were pushed through by a politician who herself was a solo mother).

So yes, we should stop expecting pagans to work by Christian values. In the more post Christian parts of the West, this has been obvious for a generation.

Yes, we should be intentional.

This will mean being very realistic about the weaknesses we all have: given a choice we will move to a physical relationship (so we ensure that we have chance of this until we are married).

This will increase the task for our womenfolk, for they will need to overtly teach women how to behave, using the many tragedies that happen as examples of what to avoid. This was the role of sensible women in the time of Austen: the cooler head of the married Lady was to guide the passions of the single woman.

This will probably mean subverting higher education, and moving to informal apprenticeships: attending the guild merely for certification examinations, and letting much of “higher education” collapse for it neither trains in righteousness, nor practical skills, nor supports scholarship.

But let us not delude ourselves. If we formalize this, as Augustine and Benedict did around the collapse of the Roman Imperium, we will be censured and closed. We need to do this locally, we need to avoid accreditation, and when confronted we should not ask for approval. If there are ministries that support young people to qualify and live righteously, we should use them. For me, this consists of letting my sons live at home and attend school from there.

We need to move to teaching life long marriage as vocation, agreed. And those of us who have been broken at the wheel need discernment. It may be that limiting remarriage (or not allowing it) may allow the church to keep discipline on this issue: that has been a solution in the past. My reading of reformed theology does allow remarriage, but I am afraid that this may lead to an acceptance of serial monogamy. And this I share with a certain theological geek called John Calvin.

So, let us all examine the scripture. Not the law of this land. For it is written by pagans. And on this issue, we do not ask them for permission, nor beg their forgiveness. It is God we need to obey, not the social workers or family courts.