Women Registering for the Draft

The Public Square
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Men’s Rights Groups are not representative of men so it says absolutely nothing of the view of men as protectors that they should do this. This is the classic fallacy of composition where one asserts that what is true of a (very tiny) subset of a population is true of the entire population.

MRAs are men who apply the same flawed premisses of feminists to areas where society gives women preferential treatment. If feminists want absolute equality, goes the argument, then let them experience it even in areas that women would not want to experience it and not simply get all the benefits of equality with none of the downsides.

MRAs make a valid argument but not a sound one. A valid argument is where the conclusion must be true IF the premiss is true. A sound argument is a valid argument whose premiss is also TRUE. The premiss in this case is that men and women should be treated identically by society and that their sex should not be relevant in any of the decisions made by law or social custom.

What a horrible premiss. The feminists argue this only in areas where they see benefit to women. And the MRAs argue this where they see benefit to men or detriment to women.

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I wasn’t really intending to make an argument, more lamenting the fact that this was being done in the name of “men’s rights.” But, as you and several others pointed out, these groups are essentially identical in philosophy to feminists, just in reverse. Much like feminism, their actions show how pathetic and wicked rebellion against God and His Word is.

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They are feminists, yes. Their presuppositions are identical — universal across the board sameness between the sexes. However, and this is key, men’s rights activists are not for the most part women. Thus, though feminism can be blamed, nobody who wants to limit the blame to women is being honest with himself. Or more to the point, nobody who denies the responsibility of men for this action taken by men is being honest with himself.

Men’s rights groups are absolutely representative of men today in our country in that they are 1. Insistent on making themselves into victims, and 2. They accept the presuppositions of feminism.

That doesn’t make every man part of their movement or error, of course, but it is perfectly legitimate to lament the fact that men of our nation were involved in attempting to force women into harm’s way via our courts. It is a sad commentary on the state of manhood in our nation, the state of our courts, and many other things.

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I guess one of the key differences where I agree with the “Mr. Anonymous” side of this is that while there may be fathers, husbands, generals, and politicians who are men capitulating to the feminist push to get women in combat, the men who should not be blamed is the average Joe who may or may not sign up to join the military. The services are not hurting for volunteers and to suggest that women are being pushed into combat roles to compensate for cowardly men being unwilling to fight is, as “Mr. Anonymous” says, as dumb as saying that gays are being recruited to compensate for cowardly straights or transgendered people are being recruited to compensate for cowardly cis-gendered people.

Since neither of my daughters have any interest in the military, I guess my own courage would have to be to inquire as to whether my church has any policies about women members in the military and whether our pastors have anything constructive to say on this issue or whether they are going to weasel out of it. Failure of church leadership to stand up to feminists is definitely an area where men can take the blame.

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Regarding your conclusion, yes, we work first in our family, then our local church, etc.

If the services are not hurting for male volunteers, then that’s an error in the PCA position paper. However, given the high-ranking military official(s) that helped draft it, you’ll understand if I don’t just take your word for it.

If it’s not “cowardly men being unwilling to fight” physically that has pushed women into combat roles, then it is cowardly men unwilling to fight political correctness and feminism that has pushed many women into combat roles. I see very little difference.

If patriarchy is natural law, then men are responsible for letting the country go to seed, even if it’s often women doing the work.

And the average Joe is no more nor less guilty of it than we all are corporately guilty of abortion. And we are. That’s a pretty major stumbling block for many people.

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There “may” be? These men are everywhere and a number of them served on the committee. This doesn’t even include fathers and brothers and pastors and elders and husbands with authority over these women—many of whom are confessionally Christian—who are capitulating very personally. Men responsible for this are everywhere! I’ve suffered at their hands. I’ve been mocked and lampooned and dissed and passed over for honors. So have all the other men who stood for God’s truth on this committee. One of them was in line to become a chief of staff in D.C. and I have on my hard drive this minute his email saying he’d sacrifice his career rather than dishonor his Master and Church. The most precious email I have on my hard drive. My saving it is intentional.

He and I barely got the votes to be the majority report, and this among an entire group of male officers of Christ’s Church. The report was NOT adopted by the Assembly, but only the resolutions, and this is very unusual. It was male pastors and elders who debated and voted…

But Anonymous One and his followers are sure men are not to blame.

That there are Christians sympathetic to these whiners (and that is precisely what they are) complaining that men are not at fault for women in dangerous positions in the Armed Forces today, and should not be blamed, is incomprehensible to me.

But then, Anonymous One and his acolytes did not suffer on the committee, did not write for the committee, did not shepherd the vote of the Assembly on the committee’s work, did not suffer under the condescension and cynicism of the male-only commissioners on the Assembly floor, did not suffer in their reputations because of their work, and on it goes… They are not pastors and so their words are costless. They are anonymous, and so their words are cheap.

The disconnect between their echochamber and the world where men work and suffer under their real names is so obvious.

How I wish we had never dignified them on this site. Sincerely,

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Does the PCA position paper even suggest that the services are hurting for male volunteers? I skimmed through and didn’t notice a statement like that.

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Who knows? It was back in 2002. Read it and let us know. But really, who cares?

Has anyone here read Blackhawk Down? The entire world knows the US no longer has the will for men to die. That’s the whole story of the book. A decadent nation always lacks the willingness to die for the fatherland. Look at how women are taking over all leadership in all professions and all gorvernment and all courts. Are we really going to fault women for that? What a pathetic view of the leadership and authority of fathers, husbands, brothers, pastors, and elders. Love,

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Before we condemn men for unwillingness to die for the fatherland, I would like to see it first demonstrated how any of the fighting the U.S. has undertaken in recent decades has any practical effect in defending the fatherland.

From Wikipedia:

Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War is a 1999 book by journalist Mark Bowden. It documents efforts by the Unified Task Force to capture Somali faction leader Mohamed Farrah Aidid in 1993, and the resulting battle in Mogadishu between United States forces and Aidid’s militia.

How does seeking to capture a faction leader in Somalia do anything to defend the United States? I am certainly unwilling for any American man to die for the purpose of meddling in the internal affairs of a country on the other side of the globe. Recall that the Founding Fathers intended for the United States to have a very small standing army to discourage the historical temptation for kings to engage in war for personal aggrandizement rather than defense of the nation. That certainly applies to the United States now.

From Wikipedia:

What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it? * To Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the 1990s, on Bosnia, recounted in Madam Secretary (2003), p. 182

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We’re getting fairly far afield at this point, but regardless of how you would or wouldn’t decide when and where and who to engage, that’s not the point of mentioning Black Hawk Down. The point is that if you decide to engage and then demonstrate to the world that you aren’t willing to pay the price, everybody knows you’re a soft nation. And that is in spite of the fact that many of the men on the ground might well be willing.

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Unfortunately, there’s no salute emoji, 'cuz this needs it.

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Actually, this is pretty close to my previous point that the U.S. isn’t fighting wars to win.

Exactly. And we’ve had a long string of feckless leaders who have been writing checks they can’t cash. But wherein lies our decadence? I still argue that it has not yet been demonstrated that it is unwillingness of men to defend the fatherland. Rather I would guess it is unwillingness to take responsibility – Congress unwilling to go on record to officially declare war, the President unilaterally deciding to engage in a police action but unwilling to see it through against negative polling, the voters wanting something to be done to help out those poor people shown on TV but unwilling to actually sacrifice. Although I’m not sure the last is actually true – the American people generally seem to be much more isolationist than the political leadership.

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I don’t understand where the disagreement is @Joel. We are a decadent nation, correct? Therefore you argue that men should not feel guilty for refusing to join the military to potentially die in decadent “wars,” correct? I certainly don’t have any argument against that.

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If I might chime in…on the one hand the thought of my beautiful tender daughter who is now only four, being forced to disassociate with her identity as God made her, to don the clothes of a soldier, to be not treated as a weaker vessel that she is, to be sacrificed as mere fodder for an agenda that clearly hates womanhood, makes my blood boil.

On the other hand, my son who is only almost three, who loves to “muscle” papa on the living room floor, who frequently dons makebelieve superheroe attire, could grow up to be soldier and keep within the identity of the one who made him.

The problem lies in that there is no honor in killing just anyone, there’s no glory fighting any mere enemy. We might say to him good job on fulfilling your duty if drafted to fight an unjust war, but only in the same vein of paying his taxes. He didn’t really have a choice to kill only the unrighteous, his leaders said go and kill and he would.

But add to that mandatory evil the wickedness of compulsory dewomanizing our daughters, and well it’s just plain…in reverse the moral equivalence would be like…maybe this is extreme…allowing NAMBLA to draft boys for their pleasure.

So to be frank I don’t care if this decision is seen as a win for men’s rights, or against feminism, my daughter isn’t a feminist, and I’m not a big fan of the draft in general, because our military leaders have not shown to be God fearing in their decisions to send our children to do their unjust bidding.

No doubt we have the nation we deserve. We are a people in rebellion against God so our leaders reflect that. But we can’t stop calling people to repent of their unjust desires, their unholy wars, and their hateful vengeful grievances that multiply and propel our sinfulness.

Anyways, I know I’m not saying much new here, and I’m not calling anyone out, but this issue has been stirring me up lately.

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For months now, the anonymous man who writes publicly as “Dalrock” has been claiming I denied the moral agency of women and did not rebuke women warriors in a report I wrote back in 2002 for the Ad Interim Study Committee on Women in the Military of the Presbyterian Church in America’s General Assembly. I encourage everyone to read this report, particularly now as it appears we are on the path to the conscription of women for our Armed Forces.

Of course, as is his habit in criticizing others’ work, Dalrock misreprented what I wrote. I haven’t felt the need to show his incapacity for accurate dialog in the past, but now that he is being discussed here and some of his supporters continue to quote his deceptions, this morning I read the report and pulled out of it a sampling of the text that faults women, and not just men. Here then are those texts from our Final AISCOWIM report to the 2002 General Assembly.

We speak of “woman’s inability to act independently of that male authority which God has placed in her life for her own well-being and protection.”

We state: “it behooves us to recognize that such teaching constitutes implicit guidance on the role and responsibilities of womanhood. But Scripture also teaches explicitly on womanhood…”

We state: “Devoting herself to her children and home is a central part of the curriculum older women are to teach younger women of the Church, warning that those Christian women who turn away from these things dishonor the Word of God…”

We affirm: “A woman shall not wear man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God…”

We affirm: “…it is disgraceful for …women to affect manliness in their dress and gestures.”

We affirm this by Calvin: “The words of the heathen poet (Juvenal) are very true: 'What shame can she, who wears a helmet, show, Her sex deserting?’”

We declare: “Deuteronomy 22:5 declares that God abhors woman camouflaging herself as a man (and vice versa). Man and woman are not to exchange clothing because to do so is an attack upon the glory God has attached to sexuality. Thus it is that the Church has condemned women warriors. For example, Luther comments on this text: 'A woman shall not bear the weapons of a man, nor shall a man wear female clothing.…for it is shameful for a man to be clothed like a woman, and it is improper for a woman to bear the arms of a man.’”

We affirm: “No woman shall put on the gear of a warrior…”

We declare: "If our church finds herself unable to say more than that it is ‘unwise’ for her daughters to enter the military because of the ‘difficulties attendant to her service there,’ what possible reason will PCA daughters give for refusing conscription? Will they tell their Selective Service Board that their church believes women should have ‘freedom of conscience’ in this matter, but that such freedom of conscience is a matter of their church’s counsel—not duty under the Word of God? Such an apology for conscientious objector status will not suffice.”

In other words, we here state this is not something women can disagree with. It is NOT a matter of her conscience. She is to obey the Word of God and make it clear to the civil magistrate this is her duty.

We declare: “We, the undersigned, are convinced that the creation order of sexuality places on man the duty to lay down his life for his wife; and further, that those who, in a sustained way, deny this duty in word or action thereby oppose the Word of God.”

“Those” is both men and women.

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I’m sorry, @jtbayly, my intent is not to be the resident contrarian, but I think it is very important to identify what the specific problem is because if the problem is not properly identified, we will be working toward the wrong solution.

For example, is the problem that men are unwilling to die for the fatherland or that our leaders are leading us into unnecessary wars for utopian goals? The solution is not the same for each.

For another example, is the problem that men are unwilling to lead in all professions, government, and courts such that women merely step into the void, or is it that women are using force of law to push their way into these positions? Again, the solution is not the same for each.

Edited to add: it is not sufficient that we repent of decadence in general, but we must repent of how we have been specifically decadent (WCF XV.5).

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There are lots of problems, Joel. Read the paper and you’ll learn more. Then there can be an informed discussion among men who have studied these issues. It’s a study paper. Love,

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I gave it a good once over yesterday, with the unfortunate mode of allowing Siri to read it to me while driving across the state for work.

A couple impressions, I see how this work clearly saw coming what a lot of people were willfully ignorant to, as inevitable. I could see and appreciate the need to achieve majority opinion if not a consensus. But what struck me most, was that I thought there was no way the PCA General Assembly would affirm such a statement today, if put up to a vote.

I think even my former pastors, who prided themselves in being representative of the old school TR, and loved wearing robes and all, would necessarily wince at some of the points. Though they might breath a sigh of relief that no consensus was made on whether this was a matter of conscience or whether the church should actually require pastors to enforce it.

It struck me that it was so thoroughly consistent that to fail to act in subject matters related therein it would be clearly pastoral malpractice, but since the denomination refused to give it teeth, they pretty much were willing to wink at such malpractices. And hence here we are today.

It’s certainly no fault of the document’s primary author. He does not control the constituent make up of either his committee or the general assembly. But I can see why staying within that denomination subsequently would be just untenable.

I’m baffled frankly by the PCA. As a mere sheep I had truly hoped to be shepherded by men, who like David, were flawed but men after God’s own heart. I know such men are still in the PCA, but I don’t believe they hold a majority stronghold given the string of shenanigans we’ve seen in the last number of years. With the passing of RC Sproul I fear many enemies of the truth have become emboldened. :pensive: Seriously praying for a faithful witness.

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Dear Ken,

The majority report was “received,” but not adopted. The majority’s recommendations were, in fact, adopted by the assembly, as follows:

FINAL RECOMMENDATIONS OF AISCOWIM TO 30TH ASSEMBLY

  1. Acknowledging that the child in the womb is “a person covered by Divine protection” (Statement on Abortion, Sixth General Assembly); and that women of childbearing age often carry unborn children while remaining unaware of their child’s existence; and that principles of just war require the minimization of the loss of life-particularly innocent civilians; the PCA declares that any policy which intentionally places in harms way as military combatants women who are, or might be, carrying a child in their womb, is a violation of God’s Moral Law. Adopted
  2. This Assembly declares it to be the biblical duty of man to defend woman and therefore condemns the use of women as military combatants, as well as any conscription of women into the Armed Services of the United States. Adopted
  3. Therefore be it resolved that the Thirtieth General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America adopts the above as pastoral counsel for the good of the members, the officers, and especially the military chaplains of the Presbyterian Church in America. Adopted
  4. Be it further resolved that the Presbyterian Church in America supports the decision of any of its members to object to, as a matter of conscience, the conscription of women or the use of women as military combatants. Adopted

TE Steve Leonard
RE Bentley Rayburn
TE Tim Bayly
RE Keith Stoeber
TE Peter Lillback
RE Don Weyburn

The entire record of the matter can be found in the PCA Archive under AISCOWIM (ten items, including the Minority Report.)

Note the assembly condemned as opposed to “God’s Moral Law” the service of women as combatants who are or might be pregnant. Really, the argument about little babies in their mothers’ wombs being taken into harm’s way is one of the most explosive truths in our whole work, but remains suppressed in any debate on any level. Did you read the footnote concerning Poythress?

Warmly,

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I guess between my ignorance and my method of reception ala Siri speak text, I missed the distinction.

I would love to go through this in more detail, and really found it helpful. I just didn’t catch all the ecclesiastical/polity implications.

As for the Poythress point…I did actually allow Siri to read all the foot notes to me and did catch the comment from Poythress, which seems to be the essence of what was adopted. Did I get that much right?