Wednesday, August 02, 2006

"Twerp's" Story

I am complementarian, and was also on the CCC board. I posted under the ID of twerp828. Some discussion -- I think it was whether women wearing slacks was biblical, or unbiblical, was getting pretty heated, and I simply said I would be not posting for a while, but reading. No one was attacking or flaming anybody or anything, as far as I can recall, including myself.

So Mike [McMillan], the list owner, kicked me off the list for saying that I would back away from the discussion underway.

I wrote to two complementarians about this, one is a man who is another moderater on the CCC list, and another man moderates another, much larger theologically oriented discussion forum.

The other moderator from the CCC discussion list wrote me off-list, and was not in the least supportive of Mike McMillan's decision, and the other man did not see the reason for kicking me off the list, either.

"Twerp" requested that we include this correction to the original story:

I just looked up the CCC moderator's comments to me. He actually wrote me BEFORE I was kicked off the list, and said it appeared that Mike was "pigeonholing" me unfairly, in his comments to me. I had said on the board that I would be asking some people to look at my posts and give me their assessments. This CCC moderator was one of the people I contacted. So he never said anything to me about disagreeing that I was kicked off the list, but he did seem to think Mike's comments to me during that particular discussion did not represent a fair assessment, it appeared to him. Just want to issue that correction.

I can understand quietly telling vocal egals that the list is for complementarian discussion only, and rejecting their posts, but the way I have seen both egals and comps kicked off that list, I mean the way the public e-mails are worded, is uncharitable, unchivalrous, and unChristlike.

Just my opinion.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yah. This is Twerp. I see now they are surrounding Laurie Ellen like sharks and she is the chum. It gets kind of predictable to watch.

Someone asked her a personal question to which she answered "yes" but said little more. So now she's being tagged as being evasive.

I don't blame her for not talking about her private life on a public board if she doesn't want to. She was asking about the concept of what kind of authority does a husband actually have if the Bible doesn't specifically tell him to enforce submission from his wife.

It isn't appropriate to dig for personal information on a public forum and then tell someone she's being evasive for not giving it. She asked them some questions, too, but nobody was under obligation to tell her about his or her personal life, nor should she accuse them of being evasive if they don't answer her about their personal lives.

Oh, well. I have no desire to go back to that board. There is very little biblical discussion going on there.

I hope my post to this forum made it clear that not everybody on that forum is alike. There are some very reasonable people there, including on the moderator list.

The list is moderated. All (or most) members' comments have to be approved. There doesn't need to be this kind of "stuff" going on with that kind of mechanism in place. Things can be dealt with more discreetly.

Remember Joseph thought Mary had committed fornication? Instead of flaying her publicly, he considered his biblical options and found out he could quietly divorce her.

Anybody getting a bit heated in conversation on that board is nowhere NEAR doing something like breaking marriage vows by doing that.

Yet they seem to delight in publicly trashing people -- whether they deserve it or not.

Joseph was called a righteous man for dealing with the bad things privately.

Think about it.

You can read my posts if you wish, and see if you think the treatment I got during the summer of 2005 was deserved. But in saying that, be assured I am telling the truth in that I DON'T want sympathy. I really don't care. It's been a long time, and I just don't care about what happened to me there. I just want people who may feel bad to know they are not the only ones. Once again, my ID is twerp828.

God bless,
me

Anonymous said...

yes, MsMac has been ousted and she was told :
"If you are typical of other egalitarians who have visited us lately,you'll go to ECA and lodge a fresh wave of slander......I
truly hope you dispappoint me on this matter, and I hope this for
your sake."

Sound like a threat to you?

For whoever is reading, MsMac does not post on the ECA board. Perhaps, I can get her to post the email that was rejected and why she was told she was "wheedling". From what I could tell, MsMac was one of the politest questioner they've had lately, much politer and more respectful than they were in answering her.

Badge of Honor Postmaster said...

I hate that there's been another casualty. One of the purposes of this site is to warn other Christians what kind of treatment to expect at certain notorious online "Christian" groups/communities/venues. I've been reading CCC's archives for several years now. Nothing has changed at CCC. Join at your own risk, "comp" or "egal"! You'll be comfy there only so long as there's somebody more "egal" than you for the long-time members to rip apart.

Right now, one of two things is about to happen; it's a very predictable pattern: 1) A new person joins and is judged "too egal" to last long; or 2) Two or more long-time members start tearing into each other. There has never been a significant period of time on that group when at least several of the prominent participants wasn't devouring
someone. And it's never one-on-one. There's always a dogpile before it's over.

And their brand of patriarchy's supposed to be godly and attractive? Not to anyone who reads what they actually say.

Just A Berean said...

Apparently msmac's questions and their answers were of some concern to the owners of the list. They have removed two days worth of discussion and all msmac's posts where she asked her polite questions. I don't think I've ever seen them so scared before. This action gives more validity to her questions and more importance to their evasive non answers.

Anonymous said...

They removed posts? That's their privelege. But Badge, you might want to start saving things to your hard drive . . . read twerp's and gh's and others posts and save them and the responses.

Anonymous said...

This is twerp again. The reason I got involved in this thing is because I received an e-mail asking me about the issue, and wondering which blog it was. So I did some searching, and started reading CCC again.

I see they have erased many posts, including Laurie Ellen's and their responses to her.

Just to leave an example to this group as to how I argue, here is one from the "women in slacks" thread from June 2005. Mike Klos said I didn't believe Scripture and was making culture the standard not God's word. This is about as heated as I get in discussions, so it is a representative sample of how I write when I get a little hot under the collar about a topic in debate (my name is Lynn, btw):

============================

Re: Fundamental Problem with Scripture

(Deuteronomy 22:5 NKJV) "A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman's garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the LORD your God.


Mike Klos:
> We can't even agree that God's word is to be obeyed. Why do we bother with anything else if some are just going to dismiss God's word as irrelevant. Is culture is the ultimate arbitrator of God's word?

> I don't think so. >>


Lynn:
Nobody argued against disobeying God's Word. I am arguing against you making up ideas and then trying to pass them off as God's pronouncements.


YOU are the one who is making culture the ultimate arbitrator of God's Word, NOT *I*, because it is MAN'S OPINION, and ONLY MAN'S OPINION which says trouser type garments are male only clothing.
This is something which was CULTURALLY determined, not biblically, because trousers as external garments didn't exist back then, at
least in ancient Israel.


Then, when I say I am free to wear slacks, you go back to Deuteronomy to try to prove your point that that attitude of mine is rebellion.


What is happening is you are reading your OPINIONS back onto what God said, when in fact GOD ALMIGHTY NEVER SAID ANYTHING ABOUT IT AT ALL.


Eisegesis, is what that is called.


And the ONLY thing I have been saying in this discussion is your argument that women wearing slacks constitutes rebellion against the
created order isn't biblical.


"Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have,"

Lynn

Corrie said...

I can't remember who this point right on the head but if this is *the* example of patriarchy and how men are supposed to behave then I am running far from it. I don't see Jesus at ALL on that discussion board. When I was on it, I had one moderaotr demean me in private and rebuke me telling me that my private post to him, asking why my post had been rejected was proof positive that I cannot follow authority and that I was an unsubmissive woman. I kid you not.

Compare it to another woman on that list who hounds the moderators of other boards and levels public accusations against said moderators for being heavy-handed by rejecting her posts.

I wrote one private, VERY respectful question to the mod who rejected my post and it was proof in his eyes that I was unsubmissive.

They think they are authorities over anyone on that list like church leadership is in authority over their congregation. They think because they are elders in their own churches that they are authorities over all Christians.

Am I to submit to everyone who calls themself a pastor or an elder even though I don't go to their church and I think their doctrine is abberrant?

I don't think so.

What they did to Ms. Mac is typical and shows what sort of men they really are. I like Ms. Mac simply because she is obviously a fellow Mac lover like myself. ;-)

They are running scared for some reason to have removed all of those posts. If it is Biblical to discipline and enforce obedience of one's wife, then what are they so afraid about? Why don't they tell us how a husband is to go about doing that very thing if it is in the Bible? As for the comments by the men about women punishing their husbands by withholding sex...well, that is telling in and of itself.

Badge of Honor Postmaster said...

Re: your last point, Corrie: As Mouser outlined concerning his upcoming book, the whole Bible is a story about sex...so why *wouldn't* a list that supports his writing also support the view that women seek to control men by withholding sex? Really, at CCC it's about those two things: sex and control. Dress it up all they like, but that's what it all boils down to.

I think human sexuality is a wonderful gift from God, but it is NOT supposed to be the be-all, end-all for Christians. And control is a purely worldly motivator. As Christians, we're to set aside whatever power and control the world may give us, in order to be servants to one another--even in marriage. One would think these folks would at least try to be a *little* different from the world!

The only worldly motivator missing there is money, and I'm not sure for the author(s) among them, that's not a motivator as well. But I don't see where sales are that brisk. The seminars, though...who knows? Convince enough churches of how unbiblical and sloppily researched the "manhood/womanhood" materials are, and there could be some financial setbacks for those who profit from them. But if a church finds these seminars and materials attractive, I'm afraid they're already so far immersed into the historic worldly tradition of patriarchy that this stuff just soothes itching ears. They're just giving them what they want and receiving praise for it.

simplegifts3 said...

"I wrote one private, VERY respectful question to the mod who rejected my post and it was proof in his eyes that I was unsubmissive."

That reminds me . . . one more reason I don't wish to participate in that board any more is because one of the male posters (not a moderator, and I doubt the mods know about this) takes the time to write either a) private derogatory letters to women with which he disagrees, or else, b)private e-mails with moderately detailed advice as to how to help arouse their husbands in a sexual way.

A woman who received such letters shared them with me. They were highly inappropriate for private exchanges, IMO.

I agree with those who say they don't make patriarchy attractive at all. Just from seeing the way Laurie Ellen was treated publicly would clue one in on that. I remember Mike Klos' comment to her, and Chris' cackling that he just wanted to "bait the egal." And then someone posted Mike McMillan's warning that Laurie shouldn't talk about what happened to her on other boards! If that happened in a church it would be called spiritual abuse.

As it is, that was just verbal bullying.

But knowing about those other private e-mails gives me the creeps, and I don't wish to participate there any more, even if just for that reason.

Badge of Honor Postmaster said...

That really is a disturbing practice, Simplegifts. It ought to be unthinkable for ANY Christian to send suggestive or threatening e-mails to anyone. Maybe that kind of numbing of the conscience is what results from a long-term claiming of unearned authority and accepting virtually no one else's rebukes.

The rotten fruit borne at CCC is also immediately apparent in the public posts. The popular thing right now is to claim that egalitarians are really "patriarchalists" whose "father" is the devil. A few of them are really jumping on this lie of a bandwagon. Christian author John Stackhouse is declared to be not a Christian because (as the title of his book says) he is "Finally Feminist." He's said to need "the gospel, not understanding." (At least that statement is a perfect example of their consistent refusal to understand what biblical equality is.) Embracing the world's practice of patriarchy as if it is Christian, has become the litmus test for being Christian, according to several vocal CCC participants. Well, we certainly can and do know them by their fruits. I don't think they intended to be known for that kind of sour, rotten fruit, though. But apparently it's just to their taste, for they produce so darn MUCH of it! I have not seen one reasoned defense of patriarchy as (supposedly) Christian, in months at CCC. It's all about ridiculing and excommunicating Christian egalitarians from their exclusive little list of who's Christian.

Anonymous said...

Many of us have been watching the deceptive tactics of one of their list members on her (now deleted)blogs.

I think it was this woman, who has since rejoined CCC and has started posting there again, who started this issue of the devil also being a father on her blog, and brought it back to CCC. She said everybody who was talking to her was of "your father, the devil."

Some person on her blog responded by asking her to consider who her father was, if she was accusing fellow believers of being of the devil.

After that, she took down her offensive wording, but made the poor commenter out to be the first one accusing her of being of Satan.

Changing blog entries like that but leaving the comments the same, and then accusing the group that *they* were the ones who accused her in the first place is proof of her lying, baiting, goading, tactics.

She's just taken the idea that she lied about on her blog and is now philosophizing about it on CCC, and they seem to be lapping it up

Badge of Honor Postmaster said...

Yes, I have seen that sad little poisonous "non-accusation," which has now been expounded upon in blog and forum. What she and the vocal CCC pro-patriarchy fans appear unwilling to acknowledge, is that egalitarians simply recognize that the Bible never commands men to usurp God's authority by claiming it for themselves in relation to their wives. Instead, they've now constructed this lie that says that if egalitarians don't accept the world's patriarchy (i.e., human men's inherent authority over women) as God's "pattern" or "design," we're rejecting God's authority and therefore "have the devil as [our] father." They're saying that there is a "biblical" patriarchy" that is commanded for Christians, though that is untrue. Scripture describes many things, including various patriarchal patterns of family and government (which include polygyny, fwiw), that it never prescribes or commands. I suppose this is a somewhat novel way to deny the Christian faith of patriarchalists' "enemy" (their term, repeatedly expressed), the egalitarian Christians. But let's remember: no matter how the lie is repeated and re-told, it is still a lie. CCC's false characterization of biblical equality and those who embrace it, can never be true, for biblical equality and Christian egalitarians are just that: biblical and Christian. I don't deny that many patriarchalists are probably Christians, for a number of them claim to be. I believe them to be sadly mistaken, and there is legitimate reason to question the depth of their faith when they so willingly declare "non-Christian" those of us who disagree with their eisegesis of "biblical" patriarchy.

Anonymous said...

She just keeps at it over at CCC. More about "pole dancing" and defending calling an egalitarian author "Borg queen." She's apparently proud of herself. Maybe she keeps saying stuff like this because she gets attention from the men she says she likes so much. Sad thing, isn't it, to crave attention from such egotistical, worldly-acting men--yet they're so wimpy they won't tell each other the truth when they're acting like horses' *sses on public sites. Sick and sad. And typical.