Your son is your boy, right? They are all young enough for me to call them boys. They are young men. So, yes, they are still boys in the grand scheme of things.
They know who I am. And you do too if you ask them.
But this is a deflection on your part. Nobody is calling you a bad man. Nobody is saying Tim Bayly is not fit to be a pastor. Nobody is bringing a charge against you.
You have hurled a lot of thunder on this subject, and those of us who actually have skin in the game are asking how to make sense of contradictory statements you’ve made. How does it apply to us? Are we men who refused to carry women into combat at fault because women volunteered for the military, sued, and some unelected federal judge gave them what they asked for? Do we need to repent?
What are we supposed to do? Rebel? Insurrect? Overthrow federal judges?
How can a man like me have stopped women from volunteering for the military, suing, and being awarded a judgment by a lawyer/judge who statistically was probably a Roman Catholic or a Jew?
If you want to, fine, deflect and say you cannot answer because pseudonyms. That’s your decision. I don’t judge you for it. But, call me all the names in the book, you will lose face over this. If you cannot answer an honest question, then nobody who has ever served in the military will listen to anything else you have to say about anything, Mr. Bayly.
Let’s see you take a position on Biblical headship of husbands over their wives, Chris. Then we call your employer HR department and see what they think about it. Then tell me how brave you are and what a coward I am. You too, Jason. You both work in the software business. We know how fair minded the majority of software companies are these days.
==Update==
Chris deleted his comment, after it was pointed out to him the risks posed to a man with a job opining on this subject of male headship. Enough, said. (I have no intention whatsoever to dox you Chris, I was just pointing out why this subject requires a pseudonym for gainfully employed men.)
When deployed the majority of women soldiers get pregnant on purpose, and then get airlifted to Germany for abortions, as happened in Desert Storm I & II.
(EDITED TO ADD: Writing this, I mistook Joel to be addressing the Majority Report, but it was the Minority Report he spoke of. Sorry for the mistake. I’ll leave the text as it is, though for the sake of context.)
Dear Joel,
I’ve been loath to respond to you for several days now, and so have set the matter aside. But knowing your comments will be taken by some as trustworthy, let’s examine this statement you’ve made that the report didn’t speak to woman’s inherent nature. It’s inconceivable how you could have arrived at that conclusion. Here are some excerpts:
We speak over and over again of “man’s duty to protect woman,” but never of woman’s duty to protect man. This never stops declaring the “inherent nature of woman.”
We state that woman taking on the work of warrior defender is “androgyny and sexual anarchy” and a “violation of God’s creation order.” Thus we declare the “inherent nature of woman.”
We wrote “the PCA declares that any policy which intentionally places in harm’s way as military combatants women who are, or might be, carrying a child in their womb, is a violation of God’s Moral Law.” Woman is lifegiver. Woman is mother of the living. This declaration could not be more tied to “the inherent nature of woman.”
We wrote “This Assembly …condemns the use of women as military combatants.” We said nothing about capacity, here. Only that woman is not to be used as a military combatant. Thus this too is a statement solely about “the inherent nature of woman.”
Now these are merely the first three pages of the report. Must I continue? Honestly, to do so strikes me as a fool’s errand.
But the “use of women as military combatants” does not deal with the question of women who volunteered to become military combatants, and sued to be given access to all combat arms branches of the military. Who is at fault there, Mr. Bayly? The Army? The federal judge who ruled in the women’s favor? Or the women who sued and the women who volunteered and sought out those combat positions in an era of volunteer military?
I actually have sympathy for this point. I truly do recognize the reality that we have entered an era where those of us employed in the “layman’s” sphere do actually have vested interest in discretion in their online activity when it comes to affirming clear, biblical doctrine. So frankly, I’d have a hard time faulting you if this was your concern, lest the pot call the kettle black. I am a guilty coward.
But I do think if you’re going to come onto a public forum like this and start citing charges of sin against a specific individual, then you ought to be prepared to sign your name to it. Because that’s really what you’re doing here — public charges. You aren’t seeking the restoration of a brother, or the adjudication of a matter of church discipline. You are charging a man publicly. And if you are looking to the patrons of Sanityville to judge this matter, then we must know the accuser, lest we be false judges (Deuteronomy 19:16-18).
My dad made a mistake that I also made initially in reading your comment, @joel. He missed the fact that most of what you talked about was the minority report.
Seven days ago I told Nereus “This is your only warning, and given your interaction with identified men, you may not comment further without using your real name.” Yes, he has identified himself to me, but he has refused to do what I required. Sadly I did not see these numerous comments until just now. As of now, I’ve suspended his account.
I did not delete the comment out of fear of being doxed or having someone contact my employer. I have no problem affirming male headship.
I deleted the comment because I quickly realized that I had no business inserting myself into this argument. I was eager to defend Pastor Bayly because I felt (and still feel) the public charges were unfair when brought forth anonymously. However, I am a young man who should be learning from these exchanges and not hastily commenting without careful consideration.
I have been told that I am a good writer in my professional work, but perhaps that doesn’t carry over to this medium. Is there something I am doing wrong in writing my blog comments?
In my first comment I wrote: It seems that the Minority Report essentially views womanhood in terms of bare function rather than inherent nature. In the rest of my first comment, I gave reasons why I thought that was so. Was I wrong in my characterization of the Minority Report? And if it was not clear that I was talking about the Minority Report, how could I have made it more clear than opening my comment with: It seems that the Minority Report…?
My second comment talks about the Final Report, as I thought I made clear in the first sentence: The final report seems…. It’s true that I did not explicitly affirm that the Final Report speaks to woman’s inherent nature, but I certainly did not suggest anywhere in my second comment that the Final Report made arguments in terms of capacity rather than inherent nature. How could I have communicated more clearly to you and @tbbayly?
But in case it was not clear before, I will now reiterate my criticism of the Final Report. Yes, it speaks to woman’s inherent nature, but it shies away from making any statement to women that they should not voluntarily become military combatants out of their own personal choice. It’s like making a strong statement condemning abortionists because killing a child in the womb is against woman’s inherent nature but failing to make any statement to women that they shouldn’t seek abortions. Elsewhere on this forum I read that @tbbayly personally told a woman not to go into the military, but it seemingly was not possible to get that sort of statement passed as a resolution at GA.
Edited to add: Unlike Nereus I do not fault @tbbayly for failure to pass stronger resolutions at GA.
Good question. The entire way up the line from enlistment to basic to deployment, this woman you say “volunteered” is under the authority of man and men. She has a pastor, elders, husband, father, brother, commander in chief, DOD staff, enlistment officer, basic training instructor, and on it goes–every last one of whom has, whether passively or actively, approved her wearing the uniform of a man and violating God’s Order of Creation. Every last one of those men sinned against that woman and against God.
Now in what way does that statement leave the woman guiltless? If each of these men sinned by allowing this woman to volunteer, she sinned also. The action was not just sin on the part of the compliant and complicit men, but also on the part of the woman herself. How or where does assigning the major blame to man deny woman’s moral agency?
This is the disconnect with the men who inhabit the manosphere. As it is inherent to the nature of woman to help, it is inherent to the nature of man to lead. If a woman helps sinfully, it is her pastor, elders, husband, father, brother, commander in chief, DOD staff, enlistment officer, and basic training instructor’s duty to stop her. Every one of them sinned against her by not telling her “no” and stopping her.
Would they have been successful? We’ll never know because they didn’t fulfill their male duty.
The problem in the world today isn’t the rebellion of woman, but the infinite number of men who “listen to the voice of woman” and follow her lead. Yes, God cursed Eve, but the entire race of Adam was ruined because of Adam’s sin—not Eve’s.
Dalrock never stops whining about women when man is the problem. Always has been and always will be—First Adam.
Just as man is also the solution—Second Adam.
Men who occupy the bitter manosphere haven’t yet learned the fundamental truth about sex known by every boy in Colonial America whose first primer lesson was “In Adam’s Fall, we sinned all.”
With few exceptions, the Epistles of the New Testament address men. And even in the places where women are mentioned, it is men who are told how to lead and govern those women. Then, in those rare cases where women are addressed directly, they are commanded to submit. Even when women are addressed directly concerning leadership (Titus 2), they are commanded to teach women to submit.
When we wrote what became the AISCOWIM Majority Report, we were men speaking to an assembly of men. No woman wrote. No woman spoke. Every person who opposed our report was a man. Every member of our committee who mocked and laughed at us and obstructed our work by lies and manipulations and devious parliamentary tactics was a man. Every one of those men was an officer, many both military and church officers.
And hey, what do you know: like the entire New Testament Epistles, the Majority Report addressed men!
If this sick world we inhabit filled with rebellious women under weak and conniving and fearful and lustful and bitter and whining men is to be healed, it will not be due to taking women into the village square, locking them in stocks, hiding behind trees, and throwing trash talk at them while the children look on.
It will be because pastors, elders, husbands, fathers, brothers, commanders in chief, DOD staff, enlistment officers, annd basic training instructors all do as the general on our committee did: firmly declare that his job comes after obedience to the Lord, and so he will risk his job for the sake of protecting women by signing the majority report.
Publicly. With his own name.
I have a Navy Captain in our congregation who did the same. He said “no” to other men’s abuse of women, allowing them to serve in harm’s way in the Navy, by resigning his commission. Ask these men whom they fault for the women who are on ships and targeting airstrikes and flying helicopters and doing recon?
Of course they will say the women are wrong and should be told “no.” But being Christian men who are both Armed Forces officers and church officers holding Biblical commitments on leadership and Biblical sexuality, they will principally fault all the men who put the women in harm’s way.
@Joel, I think a lot of people would misread your post because there was only one report under discussion this whole time. Your language is clear enough, but in context, it’s very easy to miss that you’ve introduced a second report into the discussion, because it’s not what we are expecting.
Dalrock refuses to identify himself. Meanwhile, two weeks ago I spent hours on the phone counseling a man who is not in my church whose wife filed for a restraining order against him and is pursuing divorce, keeping him from his children. Offered to let him stay in our house. Judge for yourself who is helping these men. Judge for yourself who is willing to help them. Judge for yourself how many of these men want help. Judge for yourself what “help” looks like.
But when they are done complaining, done feeling sorry for themselves, done with drinking away their sorrow, and ready to take responsibility for the rest of their life, ready to take action, guess who they come to? Men whose fruit they can judge. Men who are not afraid to let them see their faces and hear their voices. Men who do not deny that they have any authority or responsibility for the very men they are leading. Men who do not claim to be merely reporters trafficking in ideas while they walk among the men on the field of battle telling them how their leaders are doing it all wrong but never come to the front lines themselves.
What you have here is men—pastors and elders—who actually take responsibility for men and care for them. We have examples of providing help for such men on this very site in private. And we put countless hours into this work. And when we make mistakes, real people are harmed. Men, women and children.
The sympathy we have for men who have lost their positions, homes, wives and children because of feminism is real. And you can see it on our faces and hear it in our voices. Because we’re willing to suffer for the sake of the cross. Proclaiming Christ, advancing His kingdom.
If you were a soldier in a cultural battle and you were a casualty, having fought faithfully, we thank you for it. We honor those men who were willing to risk their position just as we honor those who were willing to risk life and limb in physical conflict. But we do not apologize for it. This is a battle. In battles there are casualties. We call all men today to join in the fight. Talk is cheap. Especially anonymous talk on the internet.
Any who want to learn how to fight should get a copy of Daddy Tried.
I read @tbbayly’s comment as an invitation to read through all of the background material, so I did so and introduced my comments as a beginning of an informed discussion of all of the material.
Like I said, dear brother. It was my mistake and I’m sorry. About those materials, even having been on the committee, it’s hard to keep track of all the documents and who said what, when and where. Consensus. Minority. Majority. Assembly actions. Etc. Love,
Nereus, Warhorn decided on the clear name policy here at the beginning and everybody here knows about what’s at stake - their jobs, their reputation, their “normal” life.
I know fully well that I can lose customers and friends and a lot more if somebody decides too doxx me. But guess what: Then so be it! At one point it must come to light anyway or it is worth nothing. I trust my Lord and Saviour to provide for my family and me. BTW: I do work in the software business too.
Guess who taught me audacity, at least in part. It was @tbbayly
Now to the criticism at hand: You are basically saying a woman is responsible too for enlisting in the military. If I read you right you mean she is insubordinate, right? What am I as her husband supposed to do then? Divorce her? That’s not a biblical reason to divorce her. Or as her father? Disown her? As her Elder? Throw her out of the congregation?
No, God the father will come to me and ask me “What did you do?” Your answer is “The woman you gave me…” and that one has been tried already.
I am willing to be sympathetic to Nereus for his fear of being doxed (I just learned this term for the first time yesterday – fascinating) for making bold claims about the nature of biblical manhood and womanhood. That isn’t to say I condone or validate such fear, but I sympathize as one who is also in the flesh.
But what we should not be sympathetic toward is the idea of anonymous public charges of sin against a specific individual. It’s one thing to pseudonymously get on the internet and regale the masses with rhetoric about the general woes of society. It’s another thing to come against a specific man with public charges of sin. The Bible certainly permits us to confidently resound the general indictment of the sinfulness of all mankind (Romans 3:10-12), but there is no biblical category for anonymously charging a specific person with sin (Deuteronomy 19:16-18, Matthew 18, etc.).
So one cannot possibly come around to a public forum like this, anonymously indicting a pastor with charges of sin, and assert himself as having the moral high ground. Here, as in many other situations, does the saying ring true, “The wicked flee when no man pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.” (Proverbs 28:1)
Friend, speaking as a fellow layman, I think you have a naive understanding of what it means to be a pastor, and the pressures they face in pursuing their livelihood. No other profession on earth calls a man to faithfully preach the whole counsel of God to people – which means preaching to people concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment – while simultaneously depending upon those same people to put food on his table.
I personally know a number of pastors who serve within wayward denominations, who have conveyed secretly to me that they live in constant fear of upsetting the status quo, lest they lose their rectory and their income. These men betray their calling of faithfulness to God’s word because they feel they must tow the company line. I don’t say this in a spirit of judgment toward them, but one of pity – for them and for God’s people.
There are pastors among the churches in Kenya that are being reformed as we speak, but these men now face the difficulty of going against the grain of the establishment denomination.
Pastors are in anything but an antifragile position. The gospel, we are told, is a message that has no natural friends – only enemies. Jews seek signs, and Greeks seek wisdom, but God’s men preach Christ crucified… and somehow still have to raise a family in the process. History is filled with stories of pastors who were kicked out of their churches for speaking the truth.
If the Clearnote pastors – or other pastors on this forum – happen to be able to speak boldly concerning unpopular truths from an antifragile position with the full backing of their congregation, then let us praise God for such men, and let us praise God for such congregations. If God has been pleased to build up such a congregation that is united behind faithful, biblical leadership, then let us rejoice! For such a testimony ought to give us great hope that the gates of hell have yet to overcome Christ’s church.
If you and I are fearful to speak boldly in our own vocations, let us all the more rejoice that there are pastors in a position to say the things that you and I believe, but are apprehensive to say. Let us rejoice that they write books that may prove instrumental in the reforming and repentance of the church in this country. Support such men. Pray for them. Don’t condemn their boldness. To condemn them would only serve to belie that you are envious of their courage.
Speaking as a layman who isn’t even a Presbyterian, much of this discussion has been pretty far inside baseball. I think I’ve mostly followed along, but is also have the nagging sensation that I’ve missed some important details.
I’m not asking anyone to fix that for me, but I don’t think I’m the only person who has missed details.
Shoot, I myself miss details, like that he said “minority report,” not majority report. Seriously, when I go to the PCA archives to find our documents, my eyes glaze over from confusion. Love,
