Pastor Bayly,
I have had positive interactions with you in the past under my own name, but for valid reasons cannot discuss this subject in public under my own name.
Mr. Pseudonymous “Dalrock” quoted you on what you’ve publicly written. He couldn’t know about your private counsel to a woman not to go in the Navy. Have you ever publicly made the biblical case that it is always immoral and sinful for women to serve in the military? Does your church take this position? I would be quite interested to read it.
There is cognitive dissonance between Nathan, who dismisses Dalrock out of hand as so ridiculous he doesn’t need to answer, and Pastor Bayly who indignantly argues that of course he is hard on women too.
Your passionate denouncement of Dalrock here seems to be conceding that his basic argument is valid, that women have moral agency, and are just as prone to sin as men, but that he has slandered you by misrepresenting you as someone who puts women on a pedestal. If that is what you really mean, then rather than being indignant at Dalrock, it might make more sense to go on the record on this point.
Part of your passionate defense is that you condemn unborn children being ripped apart by their mothers, as you should. Have you ever spoken to the question of appropriate punishment by the State to women who kill their own children?
It was interesting in early 2016 when Trump decided to be “pro-life” in order to win the election, he made a statement that women should be punished for killing their unborn babies. Very quickly he had to walk that one back, because nobody in the pro-life movement actually believes that women who abort their children should be prosecuted by the magistrate for murder. How naive of Mr. Trump to think we actually meant the logical conclusion of our arguments.
We place all the blame on the abortionists and the bad bad men who deceived those poor innocent women into killing their own children. This is the kind of double standard that Dalrock has repeatedly pointed out. It’s quite different to the way Moses dealt with the women of Midian in Numbers 31. “Look, these women caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the Lord in the incident of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord.” Moses then ordered them all executed.
Dalrock’s point is the same one that Moses made. Woman have moral agency and are fully liable for their sins and crimes, particularly in the area of sexual immorality.
It is interesting that both Nathan, and now you, have denounced Dalrock as Mr. Anonymous, a very bad man. But neither of you have actually answered any of his arguments. And you haven’t given us any arguments why he is a bad man, other than the fact that he has chosen to write under a Pseudonym.
There are several books of the Bible which many believe to have been written under pseudonyms, including Ecclesiastes, two of Peter’s epistles, and Jude. The Federalist Papers were written under pseudonyms.
The reason someone like Dalrock might choose to do that today is the same reason people did it in the past - persecution. A pastor has to answer to the people of his own congregation and presbytery, and a few trolls who might make his life miserable. But a man who is not a pastor probably has a job with a company. In today’s environment discussing such controversial subjects under your own name online is very likely to get one fired. Should all Christian men be silent because we need to support our families? A pseudonym can be used to debate ideas, though it does not come with the weight of spiritual authority that an elder or pastor of the church does.
I recognize and admire that Tim Bayly has courageously taught and written in his own name. That is admirable. But it is not the only lawful path. Thank you for your years of service and teaching, Pastor Bayly.
You and Nathan would better serve your own reputations by either dealing with Dalrock’s actual arguments on the basis of their merits, or not dealing with him at all. Nathan’s heavy use of the ad hominem argument signals that he has no real argument.
I have been in the reformed faith my entire life, and I’m not a young man. I don’t agree with everything Dalrock writes, but his message is definitely one that needs to be heard and discussed. He is representing the Biblical antithesis in an area where the church is failing to resist the depravity of the culture. He is reading to us the parts of the Bible that we simply don’t want to listen to. His words deserve to be taken seriously.
Respectfully,
“Nereus” - also a pseudonym, and not Dalrock