John MacArthur and The Curse on the Woman

[dairyfreelife]

So basically I've grown bored of studying for my Chemistry final and I'm still waiting to get all my surveys back so I can finish my research paper. I'm not working much this week because of finals, so when I get bored, I look up interesting things.

I came across a blogger who quoted a man named John MacArthur. His quote is sickening so I decided to look up this John MacArthur guy. In doing so, I ran across a sermon title The Curse on the Woman Part II.

The blogger: themominitiative.com/2012/05/01/i-am-a-controlling-woman/

John MacArthur's sermon: gty.org/resources/sermons/90-244/the-curse-on-the-woman-part-2

Just the sinful reality of your children and the sinful reality of your husband is enough to bring a measure of trouble into your own life. A feminist in the modern world, of course, damn husbands collectively as abusers and inhibitors of women. They disdain marriage. They celebrate childlessness and they advocate lesbianism as the ultimate assault on men.

Funny, most feminists I know, including myself get married or hope to get married one day. I really don't know many who disdain marriage, if any. Even those who don't wish to marry aren't bothered by others who do. I don't know any feminists who celebrate childlessness. I, as a feminist who doesn't know if she wants any children or not, believe it's an couple's decision to decide to bear children or not and there may be reasons for that. Judging someone without children is sick. You don't know why they don't have them. And I definitely don't any feminists who advocate lesbianism. You can't turn a straight person into a lesbian. Advocating for rights of lesbians isn't the same as being a lesbian or telling women to be lesbians. And yes, feminists just want to assault on men. They hate men. That's why they want to be seen as equal. :roll:

But in spite of such efforts, it's amazing that women continue to be naturally drawn and necessarily drawn to husbands and to children as the source of their fulfillment and their joy, even though they know that those are the realms in which there is the potential of the greatest pain and sorrow. They're still drawn there, almost inexorably because that's the way God made them. They find their greatest hope in marriage and in childbearing.

Women couldn't possibly be naturally drawn to men and having children because that's the biological drives at work or anything. I mean, that's ridiculous. Humans are social creatures and most people have sex drives and a biological drive to reproduce. Feminists don't advocate against marrying and having children, but that couple's get to make the decision to marry or not or have children or not and how many they want. It's about equality and choice. I want to get married one day because I want that companionship with a man and have a high sex drive. I don't know if I want children. I have my own reasons why.

even when they are told that men will be their enemy and the source of their disappointment and abuse and children will bring them grief, they find themselves magnetically and inexorably attracted to that environment nevertheless. And that is because it is part of their created makeup.

I've never believed men are my enemy as a feminist. I don't think they are the source of my disappointment in life either (other than the fact that I suck at picking men to date and keep staying single as a result ;) ) I never felt children would bring me grief. I do feel that children need a stable environment and I'm not ready to settle. I am moving next year to get my masters. I hope to get a Ph.D one day, maybe live in a foreign country for a period of time, etc. If I got married by next year, I'd still not be ready for a child because I'm not settled and trying to get degrees and have a baby seems very difficult. Of course, I'm certain these types would tell me to give up my dreams and silly degrees and make babies.

We closed last time by asking what can a mother do to alleviate this curse? What can a mother do to reverse this in some measure? What can a mother do to turn this sorrow into joy? And the answer, as you remember, is in 1 Timothy 2:15, "Women will be saved, women will be rescued, women will be delivered," or as the NAS says, "Women will be preserved from the power of this curse through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self restraint."

And he brings up that women will be saved through childbearing, but later says it's Christ. So is Christ and childbearing or...what?

Deliverance from the curse and the stigma comes when women have children. In other words, the very mitigation of that curse comes in the childbearing itself if the woman is a godly woman. That is to say, her life is marked by faith in the Lord, by sincere love for the Lord, by sanctification or holiness, purity of life and self-restraint or self-control. This marks her as a godly woman who will produce godly children.

So, childbearing delivers women from "the curse", but only to "Godly" women.

given that a woman suffers so much, she's in great need of some tender comfort. She is in great need of some understanding. She is in great need of some deference. She is in great need of some sympathy. She is in great need of some compassion.

Ah, too bad, too bad because the fact of the matter is, historically husbands have very little of that to give.

You look like you need a hug...too bad because you ain't gettin' one.

In her sin Eve took the lead. She acted independently. She spurned her husband's authority. She was going to go out on her own and call her own shot, as it were, act on her own behalf. She took the lead, she led the man into sin, usurping his role, acting independently of him in the temptation, overturning the divine order. She should have submitted to him, sought his counsel, let him be the leader. By taking control she lost it permanently, just as by seeking the delight of the forbidden fruit, she lost delight. She wanted to take the lead and she lost it for good. And the legacy of this is conflict with her husband.

This was the quote on the blogger's site originally that had me look up this man. I'm confused. If Eve didn't have to be led before the fall because there was not any sin and Eve was only required to submit after the fall, then where does MacArthur get the idea tha Eve should have submitted to Adam BEFORE then. Genesis says Eve would be under her husband AFTER the fall, not before. This quote=epic fall in logic and understanding of the myth.

As much as she resisted by virtue of being the weaker vessel, she is subject to the man. And sad to say, he is not a perfectly fair man, he is not a perfectly loving man. He's not a perfectly kind man as unfallen Adam was.

I guess MacArthur's never heard of Lilith. Missionary sex or die (literally).

The subordination of women was always God's plan but in a lovely and enjoyable harmony of perfect fulfillment of mutual wills delighting in God and in each other.

Really? God's plan? Or man's plan?

She can't do what she wishes. She isn't going to live her own life totally independent like the feminists demand because her husband rules over her. Whatever she wishes, whatever she desires is subject to his will. She won't always get what she wants. She won't always have what she desires. She's going to have to bear the sorrow of unfulfillment. She's going to have desires and dreams and ambitions that aren't going to be fulfilled because her husband does not have a perfect love for her, does not have a perfect understanding of her, or even might say an imperfect understanding of her. And he's going to rule her in ways that lack compassion and sympathy. This is how it is in the world. This is how it is.

This quote speaks for itself. He doesn't see a need to try and help women from this fate. It's how it is.

There was a liberation of women movement going on in the world of the Apostle Paul. Women were shaving their heads and going around bare chested with spears in their hands and trying to prove that they can do everything men did. There have always been that kind of...there's always been that kind of movement in history because it's reflective of this curse. The man has to deal with the fact that his wife wants to control him.

Okay, I've added "a man who doesn't fear I will try to control him and manipulate him" to my short and unwritten list of what I want in a man. People like this scare me. Trust is super important to me in a relationship and fearing me for being a woman isn't trust. This fear of women leads to control of women. It's a sick, never-ending cycle.

She wants control. She wants what she wants. Maybe she wants control of the checkbook, the credit card, or whatever.

Women shouldn't have any control at all? Not even with a checkbook? Not allowing a person any control over their life will lead to conflict and lead to women manipulating to get a little bit of control over their life back. People rebel when they lack any control. Johnny needs to learn human behaviour because he epically fails at common sense.

The idea is as the woman seeks to overthrow the rank, as the woman seeks to twist the divine order, as the woman seeks to master her husband, seek control over him, he dominates her. As the woman tends toward rebellion, the man tends toward despotism. And you have the battle of the sexes right here. That's why there's conflict in marriage.

This is why I think marriage should be a partnership. When no one is trying to dominate, there's no dominace conflict.

It's the desire to get her way. And it even shows up, sad to say, in places where it shouldn't show up. Paul is writing to Timothy in the church at Ephesus and he says, "I permit not a woman to teach nor to...what?...usurp authority." Because that's a tendency.

Yes, how dare a women ever lead. How dare she try and teach a man anything. Philistine!

The woman then has the same desire for the man that sin has for Cain, a desire to control, a desire to have its way. And the husband has the same need to control his wife that Cain had to control sin.

I can't even with this quote. :angry-jumpinganger: :angry-cussing:

there was a missionary there who had just graduated from a liberal seminary in America. And I...we were talking in a little circle and I said to him, I said, "You've just arrived in India after your training, what is your goal? What is your mission? What is your great objective?"

I'll never forget what he said. He said, "My goal is to liberate Indian women from male oppression." I just was a blank, just like you. Oh, you're going to liberate half a billion women from male oppression. One thing they didn't teach him was Genesis 3:16. Well, I suppose somebody spent a lot of money to get that guy there. I don't think he stayed very long. You're not going to eliminate oppression, male oppression. You're not going to eliminate female rebellion.

Again, MacArthur isn't even going to try to help women in oppressive and abusive conditions. It's how it is to him and though he pretends like "yeah, it's bad men who abuse their wives", but that's how it is and it's what women are cursed with. Again, I can't even with him.

You know, it's almost safe to say rarely will you ever find a marriage among unbelievers that lasts a long time that is anything more than a truce for whatever reason, they just agree to stay together. You don't find marriages generally around the world among unbelieving people filled with joy and fulfillment and happiness and love and satisfaction to the point where they never considered any one else because they are so totally fulfilled with each other, where the friendship is the best friendship, where the love is the deepest. Rarely will you ever, ever find that outside the realm of Christianity.

Really? Is that so? Statistics to back this claim up, MacArthur? Yeah, didn't think so.

You come to it in verse 22, "Wives, stop desiring to overpower your husband and submit to your own husbands as to the Lord." You don't rebel against the Lord, you don't rise up against the Lord and try to take authority over Him. You don't want to control Him, so don't do it to your husband. Why?

Gee, there's not at all a difference between types of relationships or anything. I want MacArthur to answer what he thinks the purpose of marriage. Not that God designed marriage, but what is the need for it? What is the purpose of getting married? Why do people get married?

It doesn't say you are to obey your husband, that's reserved for children and servants, later in the passage. The husband and wife relationship is different, it's not a commanding and obeying motif, it's a more intimate, inward vital kind of thing. And that's why it says, "Wives, be subject to your own husbands." There's intimacy there. This subjection doesn't imply spiritual inferiority, for in Christ there is neither male nor female, Galatians 3:28. The Lord Jesus, after all, is subject to God the Father but in no way inferior, neither is the woman inferior to the man. But for the sake of unity and the sake of harmony and the sake of peace and because of God's created design, she is commanded to be subject to her own husband as she would be subject to the Lord Himself.

Still want an explanation on what he thinks a marriage is for and why people get married. Why do people who aren't Christians get married? And yes, MacArthur, you do think women are inferior. Your statements before state this. Admit it and don't pretend you are trying to tell women to do this because it's God-ordained and not at all inferior for them.

You think of Him as a Savior. What is that? That is a protector, that's a rescuer, that's a preserver, that's a provider, that's somebody who has your well-being in His heart, that's somebody who is interested in your welfare, somebody interested in the very best for you, that's somebody who rescues you from sin and rescues you from death and rescues you from hell and rescues you from trouble, somebody who protects you, somebody who safeguards you.

So in Christ the husband becomes a savior of his wife.

What are men protecting women from? Other men or are they supposed to protect women from themselves? I'm thinking MacArthur is trying to tell us it's the latter. That's not at all stating women are inferior and not the least bit degrading. Nooo.

The whole thing is about women submitting to their husbands and about the sin in not doing that. A women doesn't want to submit. This means she wants what she wants. This means she tries to control her husband. Then her husband has to gain control of her and squash that rebellion. She hates that he's doing as God intended. This is why marriages have conflict.

Maybe if the husband and wife stopped trying to dominate each other, that conflict wouldn't even exist. Other conflicts would still exist because everyone's different and no one is perfect, ergo conflict. Stress creates conflict too. Life can be stressful and sometimes we take it out on people we love knowing they'll forgive us (or hoping they will). All marital conflicts aren't about the struggle for control. That is very simplistic thinking.

[OohLaLa]

When my parents started going to their horrible new church, with the horrible pastor, I heard traces of shit like this starting to come from them. Then next time I came home, the entire house was covered with John MacArthur books. They tried to send me one once, I made it about 3 pages before I was so enraged I couldn't keep going. My husband only made it to about page 12, and said he'd looked up all the verses that fucktard quoted. He said it seemed MacArthur was just picking sentences of verses here and there, taking them totally out of context, to squeeze into his own views. He sounds like a horrible man, but I don't have the willpower to read him even as long as you did.

[kpmom]

.

I think this was my favorite quote. Yes, you women are subordinate to men, but in a really fun, delightful way!!!

dairyfreelife, I'll bet chemistry doesn't seem so bad after reading this nonsense.

[shesinsane]

The world is a much nicer place when you realize a majority of suffering of women on this planet is their own fault. :D

I can't wait tell my grandmother, married from age 18 until her husband passed away when she was 79, that her marriage was just a truce - since she and my grandfather weren't Christians, all the happiness and love they had was just an illusion.

[ladypuglover]

Move over Dairyfree, I'm sitting next to you. I am just as pissed and shocked as you and I hope you will give a sometime to sort out what I want to say. :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:

[Beb]

In other MacArthur teachings, he promotes the chain of command, i.e., woman submit to man; man submit to God. Therefore, in his little whine about how woman tempted and led the naive man, where, then, did man's responsibility to God lie? Isn't Adam even more liable/culpable for "the fall" than Eve, since he magnified all of Eve's purported sinfulness by directing it at God?

Talk about a classic case of cognitive dissonance.

[mirele]

John MacArthur can kiss my fat, female, pasty white, single, two-degree holding, living alone with a cat, having a job and a mortgage ASS!

ETA: John MacArthur's world (like that of so many evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants) doesn't know how to deal with or even comprehend that there are single women out there, never married, no kids, and we're not under some "headship." And my father is pretty fucking clear about that too--I'm old enough to make my own decisions.

[dairyfreelife]

John MacArthur can kiss my fat, female, pasty white, single, two-degree holding, living alone with a cat, having a job and a mortgage ASS!

ETA: John MacArthur's world (like that of so many evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants) doesn't know how to deal with or even comprehend that there are single women out there, never married, no kids, and we're not under some "headship." And my father is pretty fucking clear about that too--I'm old enough to make my own decisions.

Even if I marry, I won't be under a "headship". But I believe marriage is a partnership, not a dictatorship. I will not be ruled by my own partner. We're both adults and need to discuss things and make important decisions together and he does not get the final say just by virtue of being a man. Both of us would need to compromise on a solution that works for both of us. MacArthur and other's like him don't get the concept of a partnership though or that when one person isn't trying to dominate the other, there probably won't be any manipulation going on and that supposed problem of marriages won't happen.

I've said it before and I just feel like saying it again ;) : If one person lacks any control in their life, they WILL manipulate the other to get some control back.

I believe that any God who created humans created them to need some control over their lives. No, things happen all the time beyond our control, but when there is not any control at all over themselves or their life, they will fight to get it by any means possible.

[Bookworm]

Ugh. I've had at least one pastor trained by John MacArthur. Boy am I glad I don't have to put up with that anymore. What gets me is how people like this are so idolized in the Christian world. I know a lot of the people in my childhood/teen years church read a lot of his books and I'm thinking maybe that has something to do with one of the ELDERS trying to excuse Lot offering his daughters for rape and saying it must have been a righteous thing for him to do. That was a huge pivotal moment.

[PennySycamore]

Childbearing didn't cure me of the "Curse". Having a hysterectomy did. Perhaps I just wasn't godly enough.

[Fluffy-Boo]

Ugh. I've had at least one pastor trained by John MacArthur. Boy am I glad I don't have to put up with that anymore. What gets me is how people like this are so idolized in the Christian world. I know a lot of the people in my childhood/teen years church read a lot of his books and I'm thinking maybe that has something to do with one of the ELDERS trying to excuse Lot offering his daughters for rape and saying it must have been a righteous thing for him to do. That was a huge pivotal moment.

Oh my gosh...I KNOW. My husband is/was a huge fan of his, my siblings worshipped him. We hailed from his church and it was a total personality cult. I used to walk by him all the time because he'd be out in the back while I was practicing in choir and there was always a little cloud of people around him.

He did seem kind of quiet in person though.

There are a lot of women at Grace Community Church with multiple degrees and careers. JM's church is nothing like Doug Phillip's group. And there are even several divorced Christians there. You'll even see the occasional tank top or rebelliously dressed teens. And during evening service, JEANS! Real ACTUAL JEANS!

Women wear pants all the time.

But the patriarchal theme still emanates.

And theology is the big showdown. You cannot have a theological view that conflicts with the GCC clergy. Be prepared for a mighty battle. This is a seminary church so everybody feels veeeeeery smart. The seminary graduates are intolerable. They actual don't know much about Biblical history, but they are experts in the Master's Seminary theology.

[dairyfreelife]

Childbearing didn't cure me of the "Curse". Having a hysterectomy did. Perhaps I just wasn't godly enough.

In 1 Timothy 2:15, Paul claims that women are "saved" by childbearing. He also claims women should celibate in Ephesians. I don't know how a woman can be celibate and bear children. If one takes Timothy literally, women can only be spared from eternal death in hell through the bearing of children, but also only if they continue in faith and self-restraint and all that.

[Elle]

In 1 Timothy 2:15, Paul claims that women are "saved" by childbearing. He also claims women should celibate in Ephesians. I don't know how a woman can be celibate and bear children. If one takes Timothy literally, women can only be spared from eternal death in hell through the bearing of children, but also only if they continue in faith and self-restraint and all that.

Turkey baster? Does that count as being celibate?

[FireIsCatching89]

Turkey baster? Does that count as being celibate?

Grey area; kinda the same area that tampons occupy. Using tampons could be argued as not being celibate. If that were the case, I lost my virginity at the age of eleven.

My point? NOTHING goes in the hoo-ha (I'd say vagina, but I'm mocking them), just to be safe. Or at least anything that vaguely resembles anything phallic.