Monday, January 30, 2012

The Task of the Church: To be an Honest Broker between Disputes, Not to Shout 'Me Too' with the Culture

Presently the Church as a whole stands accused of being a one-eyed watchdog on a lot of issues.  By this I mean it sees two sides of a dispute, both of whom can be accused of being in violation of some command or covenant, and it chooses to hold merely one party responsible, and that party invariably being the one that the Culture also generally chooses to sanction.  Thus you see the majority of the Church, and nearly the entire 'elite church' taking the anti-male and anti-white sides whenever possible in disputes.  I do not believe that shouting 'Me Too' is a productive form of Christian witness.

For instance, lots of males and an overwhelming preponderance of women have seriously defaulted on the command and covenant that used to exist and which the Church still nominally upholds.  We call this marriage 1.0---woman respects, man loves, woman obeys, man sacrifices.  You see the breakdown of the extended social version of that covenant (Women and children first) in recent events.  The extended social version was based on a level of social solidarity basically making the pact---we'll sacrifice for YOUR woman and children if you'll do the same for ours.  Now, of course, neither the social solidarity nor the original man-woman covenant has the strength to be a moral hegemon.  Why should we be surprised when we no longer see the sacrificing behavior?

The problem arises when the Church selectively decides to shame and scold only one side of this social default.  This sort of thing is but one reason of the many why most churches have a serious deficit of males (I've recommended to readers looking for a good church in the past that they look for one where men are not significantly outnumbered by women, since men will go where they are wanted and stay where they are well treated).  This would be one thing if the culture were, say, a culture that seriously shamed women who defaulted so and gave the men a totally free pass (e.g., said 'boys will be boys').  There it would be an example of redressing a imbalance.  But when the Culture is pushing hard in only one direction, the Church must exercise extreme caution if it decides to push in the same manner.  Yes, you get called names when you push in the opposite direction, but Jesus never promised you that the culture would like you.  Rather the opposite, if my memory serves.  But the calling of the church when two groups have mutual grievances is to make peace where possible, and to provide a sterling example always.

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