Seppis: I Think the Hypocrisy is Genetic

[teachergirl]

Don't forget Esther was a teacher too.....yeah, they are a special kind of crazy. How sad that Regina will be homeschooling her children soon......

[punkiepie]

Wait, Regina had a breakup?! Who is the guy holding pieces of her heart and when was this? I don't see any references to it on their blog, but they are also prolific scrubbers, so I guess that would be expected. 

[DomWackTroll]

I've been following them for ages, and I don't remember them ever saying anything about it. Why Regina would bring it up now is beyond me. 

[nelliebelle1197]

Maybe Regina had a crush on someone and he did not reciprocate. So she married the 200 year old man and considered the crush a breakup. Can anyone remember why Greg divorced his first wife. I don't think his first wife died. Does he have custody of the daughter?

[hoipolloi]

Maybe Regina had a crush on someone and he did not reciprocate. So she married the 200 year old man and considered the crush a breakup. Can anyone remember why Greg divorced his first wife. I don't think his first wife died. Does he have custody of the daughter?

Don't think that the divorce was ever explained or even mentioned overtly; if he had been widowed, THAT would have been mentioned prominently in blog postings.

Custody must be at least shared if not his because she's been present on various occasions besides the wedding. Hope for the daughter's sake that it's shared and that her mother is well out of the cray-cray.

Would be interesting to know the back story on the divorce -- hard not to believe that it was about the cray-cray and perhaps his ex-wife's reluctance or refusal to get drawn in any further.

[DomWackTroll]

I think they did say at least once that Greg went through a "biblical divorce." 

[salex]

I think they did say at least once that Greg went through a "biblical divorce." 

Which can mean many things.  (He found out she was impure, she had an affair and he dropped her, he had an affair and she dropped him, they divorced over what ever and he didn't remarry until he was sure she had sex with someone else, or, my personal favorite, he took her with his complaints before the elders of their church, and the elders put punitive expectations on her.  She either failed at meeting these, or left the church, and is given even more ultimatums that result in her being driven from the church and her home.   Because of that she would be defined as an unbeliever, specifically an unbeliever who has left a believer, which means the unbeliever is free of the marriage. 

I have read or heard of each of these as being biblical divorces, plus I've heard that the problem adultery on remarriage is only a problem for the woman who was married before because men in the bible were allowed multiple wives, so second wives are not a problem..... 

[hoipolloi]

Here's a simple guide:

[Fundie Name Here*] divorcing a former spouse and marrying someone else is Biblical and Godly, no matter what the reason. 

[Anyone else including YOU, ungodly FJer] divorcing a former spouse and marrying someone else is Unbiblical and SIN, no matter what the reason.

*Fundie names = James & Stacy McDonald and Greg, obviously!

 

 

[punkiepie]

I'm pretty sure the Seppi's either, directly or indirectly, implied that Greg's ex wife was either an adulteress or had left the Christian faith.  I can't pinpoint a post, but I remember reading it and thinking that it all sounded a bit too convenient.  I absolutely hate to search their blog because it makes me unreasonably crazy to read through so much hate and intolerance- but it's there somewhere! 

[punkiepie]

I didn't  want  to start a whole new Seppi thread, so I'm just going to piggyback onto this thread.  I saw this on David Seppi's FB page (the post is public) and I couldn't decide if maybe I was reading it incorrectly or If I was just missing something...

He wrote "The economic and social reasons for the war can only be understood when subservient to the basic worldviews of Calvinism in the South and Utopianism in the North. Ultimately, the war was a clash between those who believed in the Biblical authority and its hierarchal structure and those who believed in human autonomy and a social ordering consistent with this view."

There is a 75 page thesis attached, which I briefly perused before having to stop for my personal sanity.  My question-  is he actually claiming that the enslavement of Africans in America was/is biblical and those who were opposed to it were going against the bible?!  I know the bible has many passages pertaining to slavery- most are in the Old Testament and are a product of the time on which it was written.  To my knowledge, there is nothing that ever says all people with dark colored skin are lower on the hierarchy and must be enslaved to those who are lighter colored.  I need someone else to tell me I'm reading his words all wrong, that he couldn't possibly be saying what I think he's saying. 

[Leftitinmysnood]

  My question-  is he actually claiming that the enslavement of Africans in America was/is biblical and those who were opposed to it were going against the bible?!  

Yes, he is saying that. See Rushdooney  (whom they practically worship) and slavery. A common opinion in this crowd is that a slave society with "Christian masters" to keep the lesser race (also a Rushdooney construct, don't get me started on "the race of Ham.") forced into religious observance is highly morally superior to our current society.

[Jasmar]

Yes, the descendants of Ham garbage probably plays into all this. But the South was Calvinist? Huh? I thought it to was free will Baptist. That part of church history is shaky for me though.

[punkiepie]

Yes, the descendants of Ham garbage probably plays into all this. But the South was Calvinist? Huh? I thought it to was free will Baptist. That part of church history is shaky for me though.

That part I get- it's Pa Seppi's revisionist interpretation of history.  You are correct- there were few, if any, Calvinists In the South at the time.  Most of the religious people in the North were either Calvinists or Catholics;  the south consisted of mostly Freewill baptists and Pentecostals.  But the Seppi's are hyper-Calvinists, which creates a discrepancy that needs to rationalized.  He's trying to say it was the heathens in the North who weren't following the Bible by not supporting slavery- but they were the Calvinists.  Since he is advocating for the Biblical support of slavery, and thus, the South, he can't very well say that it was the Freewill Baptists who were following the right biblical principle while his Calvinists were wrong.  

[defraudingjezebel]

I didn't  want  to start a whole new Seppi thread, so I'm just going to piggyback onto this thread.  I saw this on David Seppi's FB page (the post is public) and I couldn't decide if maybe I was reading it incorrectly or If I was just missing something...

He wrote "The economic and social reasons for the war can only be understood when subservient to the basic worldviews of Calvinism in the South and Utopianism in the North. Ultimately, the war was a clash between those who believed in the Biblical authority and its hierarchal structure and those who believed in human autonomy and a social ordering consistent with this view."

There is a 75 page thesis attached, which I briefly perused before having to stop for my personal sanity.  My question-  is he actually claiming that the enslavement of Africans in America was/is biblical and those who were opposed to it were going against the bible?!  I know the bible has many passages pertaining to slavery- most are in the Old Testament and are a product of the time on which it was written.  To my knowledge, there is nothing that ever says all people with dark colored skin are lower on the hierarchy and must be enslaved to those who are lighter colored.  I need someone else to tell me I'm reading his words all wrong, that he couldn't possibly be saying what I think he's saying. 

Oh my God, thank you for bringing that nutty post to my attention. I skimmed the thesis and couldn't help but chuckle while reading it. I'm doing a PhD in history and there is no way in HELL that any such paper would even be passable at an undergrad level. Its methodology and inherent suppositions are unprovable and deeply flawed. I could pick this thesis apart for days if I felt like it. It is definitely claiming that abolitionists were indeed unchristian and that slavery was totally okay and not dehumanizing. Not surprisingly, he refuses to engage with or refute the vast corpus of scholarly work that argues slavery indeed was filled with violence, hatred, abuse, and formed on the basis of white supremacy. This blatant slavery apologia makes me want to laugh and cry all at once. 

[Leftitinmysnood]

Doug Wilson has to work through the same Southern/Calvinist dilemma. If the aspiring greatest-Calvinist-who-ever-lived can figure it out, who is David Seppi to think otherwise?

[BerkeleyGrad]

For those of you interested in the Seppi family, here is some information.  David Seppi is from Sacramento, California.  He played football at UC Berkeley where he majored in Criminology and graduated in 1970.  He later got a teaching credential  and a Master’s degree in Psychology at San Jose State where he coached football for a time.  As I recall, he was a very normal, fun-loving young man who liked partying with his frat brothers and was certainly not sexually repressed in any way.  He  got a job teaching elementary school in Pixley, California, a small town in the San Joaquin Valley, where he met and married Esther.

His metamorphosis into an uber religious Christian Dominionist and member of the John Birch Society is completely unexpected.  I think this must all have come from Esther who definitely rules the roost in the family.  The family was featured in a documentary film about beekeeping (unfortunately, I cannot remember the name) where her personality is quite apparent.  

I know the above because I dated Dave throughout college.  We parted on very bad terms in a rather traumatic way.  He was always a rather weak and easily led person.

[dripcurl]

19 minutes ago, BerkeleyGrad said:

For those of you interested in the Seppi family, here is some information.  David Seppi is from Sacramento, California.  He played football at UC Berkeley where he majored in Criminology and graduated in 1970.  He later got a teaching credential  and a Master’s degree in Psychology at San Jose State where he coached football for a time.  As I recall, he was a very normal, fun-loving young man who liked partying with his frat brothers and was certainly not sexually repressed in any way.  He  got a job teaching elementary school in Pixley, California, a small town in the San Joaquin Valley, where he met and married Esther.

His metamorphosis into an uber religious Christian Dominionist and member of the John Birch Society is completely unexpected.  I think this must all have come from Esther who definitely rules the roost in the family.  The family was featured in a documentary film about beekeeping (unfortunately, I cannot remember the name) where her personality is quite apparent.  

I know the above because I dated Dave throughout college.  We parted on very bad terms in a rather traumatic way.  He was always a rather weak and easily led person.

Damn!