This continues a series I’ve called “Blogging Dobson” – (1) – (2) – (3) – on some comments in the Dobson book “Straight Talk to Men and Their Wives”. I pull out some “interesting statements” which illustrate the fallacy that these kinds of ministries perpetrate of being “godly” or “family-affirming”.
In writing before, it’s been described that the pattern with feminist commentators in Churchianity such as those of Focus On The Family (and most all others) is to continually push and place a call for men to “step up and lead their families”. As mentioned there, this call is coupled with efforts to undermine and ultimately eliminate any authority the man has over his family. This is intentional as the feminist goal of Marriage 2.0 is to have an arrangement where the wife is head of the family and the husband submits to her as god, placing himself under her as her personal slave.
This moves us to Dobson. For this quote, we need to keep in mind that the book was written in 1980, when the toleration of wickedness in marriage was much lesser. Several things were considered self-evident and it was required to wedge different thoughts into people’s minds to give them the freedom to choose against God’s ways and push them further down the path to seeing evil as good and good as evil. We see this much in the so-called “ministry” of Sheila Gregoire, who aims to further Marriage 2.0. Her pattern is to take a situation that is so obvious to most (at least from an emotional appeal) and then uses appeals to man’s wisdom and the flesh in order to garner acceptance of the non-Godly path (point #3 in my list here). Dobson writes in a chapter which has sample “questions” (emphasis added by me, 1):
1. I agree with your belief that the father should be the spiritual leader in the family, but it just doesn’t happen that way at our house. If the kids go to church on Sunday, its’ because I wake them up and see that they get ready. If we have family devotions, it’s done at my insistence, and I’m the one who prays with the children at bedtime. If I didn’t do these things, our kids would have no spiritual training. Nevertheless, people keep saying that I should wait for my husband to accept spiritual leadership in our family. What do you advise in my situation?
That’s an extremely important question, and a subject of controversy right now. As you indicated, some Christian leaders instruct women to wait passively for their husbands to assume spiritual responsibility. Until that leadership is accepted, they recommend that wives stay out of the way and let God put pressure on the husband to assume the role that He’s given to men. I strongly disagree with that view when small children are involved. If the issue focused only on the spiritual welfare of a husband and wife, then a woman could afford to bide her time. However, the presence of boys and girls changes the picture dramatically. Every day that goes by without spiritual training for them is a day that can never be recaptured.
Therefore, if your husband is not going to accept the role of spiritual leadership that God has given him, then I believe you must do it. You have no time to lose. You should continue taking the family to church on Sunday. You should pray with the children and teach them to read the Bible. Furthermore, you must continue your private devotions and maintain your own relationship with God. In short, I feel that the spiritual life of children (and adults) is simply too important for a woman to postpone for two or four or six years, hoping her husband will eventually awaken. Jesus made it clear that members of our own family can erect the greatest barriers to our faith, but must not be permitted to do so. He says, (quoting Matthew 10:34-38 RSV).
This is Dobson’s pattern as well. He presented a scenario that most people will find reasonable and even can find a few examples in Scripture to uphold themselves on. The scenario itself isn’t important, but what Dobson is giving wives license to do is important. He can’t be as non-subtle as Gregoire is at times, but he has a bigger mission, which has represented his entire organization, that requires it. He must disenfranchise the authority of men in marriage, and then establish a new authority in the marriage. He can not establish the wife directly (no one ever can, since it’s SO fundamental that most still *say* that husbands are to be the head) as the head of the marriage. So what does it take? As 1 Corinthians 11:3 states:
But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God. (1 Corinthians 11:3)
So he uses the recent established idea (in 1980, though I’ve heard old preachings as far back as the late 1960’s against it) of a “personal relationship with Jesus” (also of feminist background) and gets the woman to buy in that if the husband isn’t living up to his proper role of “leadership” in Christ, that she gets to step in and lead the family. But who is making the judgment? Not Christ, not the husband, HER! It’s by her standards and her thoughts and her ways. By virtue of the personal Jesus, she gets to lead the marriage, irrespective of the Scriptural standards of Christ. So it is not her talking, but Christ talking through her. But it’s not really Christ, it’s her personal Jesus.
We have the advantage of time and the expansion of this doctrine for ever wider things to be evident. This doctrine has been so insidious and so accepted that it’s taken some pretty outrageous things (as well as the advent of the manosphere) for any people to wake up and see it. I’ve chronicled these things before as well as many others such as Dalrock and empathologism (whose description of dressing up in robes and doing paper cutouts of Jesus or some such thing to please the wife’s personal Jesus on spiritual leadership still cracks me up). As I wrote here regarding Albert Mohler’s twisting of Scripture to carve out a right of the wife to condition her sexual access (and submission) on how well her husband pleases her personal Jesus (i.e. her):
So we are taught by Mohler, if the man pleases her by following her direction, making her feel good, saying the right things to her, spending enough money on her desires, and generally doing everything she says, imagines, or desires (giving the perfect personal Jesus to her here on earth), then he is rewarded by sexual access from her.
The reason I fastened onto the comment here is that it describes the fully ripened fruit of the doctrine of the personal Jesus perfectly that we see today. While I could have commented on it there, this post happened to turn into a perfect commentary of it. The personal Jesus is self over God. The personal Jesus is the rebellion against God. The personal Jesus is the vehicle that has been used to accomplish the feminist goals within church in a way that sounds religious. Dobson finally writes (2):
Returning to the question, I would like to caution women not to become “self-righteous” and critical of their husbands. Let everything be done in a spirit of love.
This is almost laughable if what has been done hasn’t been accomplished. In other words, Dobson says “I’ve now given you ownership over your husbands, ladies. You rule now. Use your rule benevolently.”
(1) “Straight Talk to Men and Their Wives” by Dr. James C. Dobson p 70-72. (2) ibid page 73.
Ballista74's Blog 
(and any suggestions on what to caption that photo with would be good – I’m kind of running out of interesting/witty things and there’s about 4 or 5 more of these left).
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A couple of thoughts spring to mind. The first is that the only way a husband can be a “spiritual leader” is by doing devotions, praying with the kids,etc. I vehemently disagree with that.
My husband prays with our family each day before leaving for work, but the “little things”: praying with the little ones at bedtime, teaching them Bible stories, and the like, I do that. And I never make my children feel as if their father is deficient because of it. It’s like any other household duty; the one who has the most time and is most readily available does it.
The most important issue isn’t who does what. It’s the spirit behind who does what and the absolute understanding that dad is in charge, no matter what. Women have been taught that there is a spiritual headship checklist that their husband must meet in order to earn their respect.
That quote from Dobson was terrible.I see no evidence in Scripture to support the notion that a man is less godly than his wife simply because he doesn’t lead devotions. That’s our problem in the church; too much formalities, not enough living. All form, no substance.
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Lots to say, as expected.
First, outstanding summation and response to Brad A who I think persists in his misunderstanding of what we are objecting to regarding Personal Jesus. There is an examination that needs to be made of his misunderstanding and defensiveness and how that plays exactly into the furthering of the doctrine of the personal Jesus you describe.
Elspeth nails something huge. I have referred to it repeatedly as they task list approach to spiritual leadership, or giving way to my inner Luddite, the Daytimer approach to it. Its off topic but have you noticed how the language of not just self help, but specifically corporate, business type self help has crept into the churches discourse in general? In one church I was involved with for many years, these task lists were central, and it inspired my tongue in cheek, dressing in robes and sandals and making cut out dolls of Bible characters, absurdity illustrates absurdity, because just read Dobson’s advice to the woman…he prescribes modern churchian tasks. These things are simply not anything but made up things by a modern people with too much time and too little hardship. They approach the things of cults when deeply bitten into. These things are not laid out in scripture at all. Yet the large Protestant mega churches hold these things out as just next to salvation itself. I have read story after story from women who say they are unhappy in their marriage because their husband is not doing these things, even to the point of divorce. Like the one who wrote the question.
What started this? Somewhere along the way someone figured out that these tasks were pleasing to women. Its that simple. They were a source of delight for women, and a source of power to women. They helped cement in place the idea that standards are set by God and measured by women, not by God. So men are under Gods standard and held to account by God who is perfectly equipped to discern the man’s success or failure, but now, woman is equipped to measure man by God’s standards. That’s the trick, see, because these tasks are NOT God’s standards, but by painting them as God’s standards, and placing women over the execution of these tasks it creates a launch point from which she can then wade into enforcement of things that are actually indeed set as God’s standards, even to the point where it is things that are really matters of the heart of her husband and she cannot possibly discern, she still walks straight into judgement over those things.
Shame on Dobson again and again for his role in this. Shame on Mohler and Moore and Stanton and the rest for their blindness that while the use the catch phrase of relationship not religion, they sell trinkets and tools that they expect people to use with religiosity.
I remember reading stories from two separate women on CF. One told how whenever she felt ill, she would put tea in a coffee mug that was printed with a scripture based cliche (I forget which), lay on her bed which had some scripture cliche embroidered pillow, tune her clock radio to the Christian pop music station, and thereby feel better quicker.
The other woman (who was in a long frivorce of her neglectful husband) explained that her days were also better because of all the paraphernalia she had at her office, mugs, coasters, magnets, music, a Beth Moore devotional, it went on…..
Does it look superstitious? Cult like? Just weird? Or, like many things, is it just me?
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For the record, I tend to be much more centered, much less testy, and far more self-restrained in every area of my life when I am involved in a personal, daily spiritual discipline. It could be a devotional, praying the hours (no, we’re not Lutheran) , or any other number of things that uplift me.
It could be that we women are simply morally inferior and need these things to help remember to behave, LOL. My husband seems to be able to remain consistently disciplined whether he is engaged in a systematic Bible reading plan or not.
However, for me to assume that what I need onto him is to usurp his authority and put myself in the place of the Holy Spirit in his life. I have no authority to impose a spiritual discipline program onto him. The idea is abhorrent to me frankly.
I’m not sure how we reached a point where things meant to encourage became requirements and signposts of faithfulness, but it’s clearly another example of elevating things that women enjoy to the place of pre-eminence in the church, even above the Scriptures.
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Clearly there is not a tone of negativity about any spiritual practices as such, though the trinkets and things are iffy if anything other than simply what they are….trinkets.
Foisting the things on anyone, man woman or child, using products that are mass produced by man is problematic. I too like to read my daily Oswald….but I do not read the scriptures aloud to my kids, teach Bible stories, etc.
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Let me back up…..I did read to the kids, and still do read from scripture on occasion, aloud….that came out wrong….and they have all been taught memory verses regularly when they were younger, the 7 yr old still recites nightly.
Nuff said
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@Elspeth:
Christianity as Status Symbol. I think that’s what drives a lot of it. That and intentional corruption by the father of Lies.
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@empathologism
There’s some point where you have to recognize that there just isn’t a desire to understand the message for whatever reason, so you just have to dust your shoes off and move on. BradA trolled this post (and to a certain extent the last one), so I have his response in moderation. I made a big response to what people were saying in the comments to the other post and realized 90% of it was just repeating myself, especially since I’ve done numerous posts addressing the concept. So I trashed the comment I was making. Granted it gets frustrating that people seem to not recognize what you have written in response to them. The only really new things I can think of saying/clarifying:
1. No one is saying that God and Christ doesn’t have or require personal involvement with His followers. I haven’t said any different and never even addressed it on this blog in any way. Scripture is very clear on this, and no one following this should think I’m advocating different. In fact, my theology is very non-mainstream on some points because I hold to this point very dearly.
2. That said, I think there might be confusion in both of our writings regarding the definition of the word “personal” (I borrowed the phrase myself). I also stated that I was shaky regarding a good term to use regarding “the real Jesus of Nazareth”. I think people are buying it in terms of “personal interaction” instead of the strict dictionary definition that we are using. We’re both speaking of a personal Jesus akin to “personal vs. public transportation”. My car is my personal transportation meaning I own it, and no one else has any rights to it. While the bus that runs town is public transportation meaning everyone paid for it and everyone has rights to it.
The problem in the standing doctrine of a “personal relationship with Jesus” or “the personal Jesus” is exactly this – the Jesus is personal to the person involved in the same way and not “the public Jesus”. Instead of you and I and Elspeth and Brad A worshipping the exact same Jesus in the way He dictates, we each worship a different Jesus with different requirements that suit our tastes. I mentioned this as a feminist invention because they used it as a tool to remove themselves from the authority of God. There is another reason I’ll get into below.
3. This (#2) may be part of the source of others problems, but I think BradA is persisting because he actually believes in what we are speaking against. Comments like: “I was asked ballista74, since he is the one deciding who is not saved and who is.” along with a few “yah buts” seem to indicate this.
As you pointed out, the “relationship not religion” phrase along with the related “relationship not ritual” phrase has been used. I’ve heard them several times myself in my 20 years of church going. The “personal relationship with Jesus” phrase is related to these things. The smell you get when you scratch the “relationship not religion” phrase is one where “everyone does what is right in his own eyes”. The phrase (as I was reminded of) was a marketing tool against the Catholic and Orthodox denominations. In essence, they were trying to say that “we’re not going to make you do anything to worship with us, just have a relationship with Jesus and you’re welcome with us”. This is why I’m confused that the TC reaction wasn’t one of white-hot rage that anyone would legitimize the phrase. Of course, this happens to introduce true unbelievers into the deception that they are “saved” – the reasoning behind this is detailed within this post (namely putting the Hegelian Dialetic into practice). The speaker in the video below also spends a lot of time on this.
4. The personal Jesus is ultimately whatever suits the believer. You get “my God wouldn’t send people to hell” phrase, along with the “my God made homosexuals that way, He wouldn’t condemn them for it” and so on. This is what BradA is saying by what I quoted as well. “Relationship not religion” churches basically say “we ain’t laying no rule trip on you”, so the dynamic becomes what BradA expressed and not anything Scriptural. “WHO ARE YOU to tell anyone who is following Christ or not!” is the real intent behind it and it isn’t anything I haven’t heard before in trying to uphold the standards of God as outlined in Scripture.
This is why there is such acceptance of divorce (I heard a sermon a couple of weeks ago where the pastor said divorce is okay with Jesus), Marriage 2.0, pre-marital sex, the Sunday morning nightclub, abortion, homosexuality, and the like within churches. With most churches I’ve stepped in, I could bring a different woman every week, boast about how I “banged her” and I wouldn’t be disfellowshipped. I wouldn’t even have a word said to me about it at all. After all, who are THEY to tell me whether I’m following my personal Jesus or not? I’ve seen too many real examples of this (for example a man claiming that the Holy Spirit told him to divorce his wife) to not believe this wouldn’t be true.
Even the unbelievers get the silliness of such a phrase (which I found gets used by multiple faiths, not just “Christian” ones). I researched the “relationship not religion” phrase for about five minutes and found several “Christian skeptic” sites that address the phrase along with other folks such as myself. One of the things I’ve found that keep people from throwing in with Christ is the witness that these churches make. Unbelievers generally search and figure out what is supposed to be going on and see that what is happening doesn’t match up with the words. Most of them know what the Bible professes, and see accurately that Jesus said no such thing. They also saw accurately that the Bible does say that Jesus wants to be approached in a very specific way and the “relationship” involves doing everything He said exactly the way He said. (this is one reason why I reject the relationship phrase, Jesus never called anyone to Himself by that phrase. It’s “Follow Me” not “have a personal relationship with Me”.) Not much of a “relationship”, as it were. So, it’s not about relationship it’s about religion. For example:
Note the stress on abiding in the doctrine of Christ. He’s our Master and we are His disciples. There is nothing else that is Scriptural.
(as a off-topic side note, I find Jesus has a way of affirming Himself when I encounter these things, including showing me that I was much too lax on the “personal relationship” phrase – I had a good conversation with two men who went to churches much longer than I who agreed with my assessment of the “relationship not religion” phrase, along with a Bible study whose verses happened to speak against this concept and gave me opportunity to preach some against it. Oddly enough no one disagreed.)
This turned out much too long than what I originally had intended, but my hope is that it will benefit someone. I know it probably won’t benefit BradA, but it will hopefully bring into focus some things for others. I know you already know all this from you using the “personal Jesus” phrase yourself. But it might be helpful for this “examination” you speak of – I don’t know what would need to be addressed that hasn’t already been done, but it probably would be useful if it hasn’t already repeated anything already said here multiple times.
Yes this is an elemental part of the new and redefined Church centered around what we’ve been talking about. Peter Drucker is the one that introduced it through the efforts of Rick Warren and Bill Hybels (though I’ve heard the works of Stephen Covey be highly esteemed as well). The speaker in the video posted here does a wonderful job in describing the changes in the Church beyond the fundamentals that we’re talking about.
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@Elspeth
This is why most questions like this are usually in pretty bad taste. We don’t have the other side of the story, and if we did it’s not taken seriously. It’s not as much in bad taste as what is evident in Gregoire’s site when she takes questions, but it’s still there. In the question, we are missing the information of what the husband’s true position is, especially since the drive is to satisfy the woman’s personal Jesus anyway. He might have delegated like you describe (a lot of men really do), or just doesn’t do things in a way that suits her perfectly.
One of Gregoire’s goals that comes out when she talks about such things like romance or prayer or the like is the tendency to make men behave like women. It just isn’t natural and shouldn’t happen. One of the prime differences comes out in this make-work churchian ritualism, where the wife holds much more value in such things than the husband. Personally, while I have much more practice in facilitating things than the average man, what I would do would still fall short in the eyes of the average Churchian woman, especially when it comes to prayer. Any woman that would pray with me would find my prayers to be agonizingly short and non-flowery. I think God treasures that, too, given Ecc 5:2 (“let thy words be few.”).
But that’s in general too – one of those things (out of many) Gregoire falls short of in her ministry is teaching wives to love their husbands as men instead of wanting to change them into her own image (Marriage 2.0).
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You have me all figured out I guess. You may intend one thing, but what you are saying is another. The quote you mentioned focused on taking his family to Church and leading devotions. I didn’t realize those were such controversial subjects.
No one clarified what should have been said, only complained that it was horrid, at least overall.
You should talk with my wife if you think I am in favor of a lot of the things you imply. I adjust a strong advocate for the truth, and I didn’t see a lot of it in this post. Perhaps being up all night made me a little strong, but the point remains. I did not get back until now because I had other things going on today.
I asked about what your belief was on how one is saved to better understand the context of your other statements. You never did answer or even agree with the other poster that I saw. (I very much agree with that poster, though I wanted to know your view, as that would be what colored what you wrote,
I did note a personalized Jesus, which fits your description is much more accurate than a personal Jesus, though perhaps I am caught on semantics here.
Call me a troll if you want. Was just noting that this post lacked some things. Clearly you don’t agree. I guess this is an echo chamber, so I will not intrude.
I would note that the Jesus I worship is the one noted in the Scriptures, to the best of my ability. I remain human, so I need continual course corrections, but I go by what is written, not my feelings or those of others.
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Elspeth, the quote indicates a husband who was not involved with their Christian growth at all, not just that he didn’t lead devotions. I saw it discuss taking them to church and leading devotions.
Children raised by a father that doesn’t treat his faith seriously are likely going to see it as just one of “mom’s things” rather than something integral to the family. They may still rebel even with a father involved, but it is much more likely they will see the father’s lack of involvement as a reason they shouldn’t do anything themselves. Is this what we want to aim towards?
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The examination I mentioned is pretty simple. The grip the notion of the personal Jesus has people is as strong as the very will to live, self interest and self preservation, once they find the comfort of having the creator of the universe endorsing each decision they make because “He understands”. This alone accounts for the massive growth of the Willow Creek Association churches. I learned from the inside, being a central figure in a church of a couple hundred that followed the Willow Creek and Saddleback models into growth to 15000 plus in under 10 years. Those were heady times, and lots of good came out of it.
Lots of things broke my attachment, but one was particularly visceral. I volunteered and did prison ministry for a few years. The believers inside the walls of the max security prison, men incarcerated 30 plus years for murders and rapes and such, they had a very different flavor of faith. One would imagine the Personal Jesus would thrive amongst men who need a tool to rationalize past behavior. I learned the the opposite was true. The Personal Jesus was inadequate there, but the real Jesus was edified, feared, respected, loved and worshiped. My own faith has never been the same since those days as I grew increasingly less comfortable with the emotionalism. Irony was that I was back then on a mission to discredit experiential worship that manifested in all sorts of quackery, the Binny Hinns, the slain in spirit, the Vineyards under Wimber, I was into Hanegraff big time, and I still dislike all that raving lunacy, but I came to realize that The Personal Jesus is just a different type of experiential worship, one that won’t attract too much attention in church or out of church.
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I should be clear that I am not impressed with much modern worship in general. It does seem rather effeminate to me in many ways, so I have been pondering it a lot recently.
Though would the older song, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus. All our sins and griefs to bear…” fall into the “bad” category by this view? It is definitely not modern. I see what is written here as attacking the concept expressed there in many ways.
Though connecting to Hanegraff would explain the desire for no criticism. He definitely has a “I am right and anyone who disagrees with me is wrong” attitude from what I have seen. I am not clear if you are still connected to that or not.
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@rbradleyandrews
Your post was held in moderation not because you disagree with me, because you are being disrespectful in your disagreement and being disruptive in it. We know you are an advocate for the personal Jesus (at least the use of the expression) and you have expressed that and it was discussed at length in the other threads. You also seem enraged because I have not dropped my position and bent to the almighty wisdom of rbradleyandrews. We disagree and that will not change no matter how much you choose to rage against the posts here.
Also in your blindness or rage or whatever, several people (including myself) have addressed several of the things you have written and yet you choose to not see them. I (and others) can only repeat themselves so much before it gets annoying. Your attempted reframe of the topic to “how one is saved” was even answered, yet you chose to not acknowledge it and ask more questions. You would do that if your intention was clarification and not disrupting this place.
You even choose to completely miss the point of this post entirely. Clue: It’s nothing to do with taking the family to Church and leading devotions. It’s about the wife standards setting for the husband and stepping in when things don’t suit her with the Church’s blessing. Dobson is giving the woman involved license to do this (and I specifically bolded that), and it usurps both the husband’s authority and Christ’s. To do this, she (and the church) have to make the pretense that Christ is speaking through her so people will buy it – hence her personal Jesus. This is ultimately not Christ but her own desires being expressed. Hopefully just a cursory perusal of the Adam and Eve story would reveal to you that Christ would address problems with the husband WITH THE HUSBAND. I would hope you would disagree with this general teaching of Dobsons (like I wrote, he used a plausible scenario that people would be hard-pressed to move against, for balking at his solution to the issue – he chose his vehicle well), because by putting the standards-setting for the husband in the hands of the wife it puts her as the head over her husband. As I mentioned, that comment I selected in the post before is the fully ripened fruit of this doctrine.
Perhaps so. But as I stated then, I have to use the culturally significant and understood popular language if I’m speaking of the culture. Given your picture, you might not be connected into that culture as much as 20-40 year olds are (and I should note most of the older folks in most churches, including the pastors, don’t know what their children and grandchildren believe when they say they “accept Christ”, but that’s for another post – lets just say the “personalized Jesus” as you put it only is snowballing into a bigger problem), who would know the cultural meaning of the phrase. If you don’t like the use of the phrase, you’ll have to take it up with the culture.
Since you seem to accept the general idea that we are speaking against (in the voice of your “personalized Jesus”), what is your disagreement? Is it that we are pointing out what the average church-goer believes and hears in the pulpit when it comes to these phrases today? Or just that you hold these phrases in some kind of esteem?
The only echo chamber this will represent is with Christ’s views as written in Scripture. If I’m wrong on those at any point, I would hope people would be willing to say so. I have said as much in other places and will say it here. As the tags indicate, this is speaking more of culture than Scripture and there’s room for disagreement as with anything outside of what God’s clearly revealed will is. I am also willing to learn from others and have done much of that in the past by this blog and other venues. In that respect, I disagree on some point with most everyone that’s commented here, but that’s okay and they’re still here. As for other stuff, I wrote this one post before and still hold to it:
Let’s just say I held to my word. The way things are set up, holding that post held back the rest, but as you see I’ve cleared them all except the post I had issue with. As a polite suggestion, there’s times I get angry when I read something and want to unload, but I’ve found that it’s always best to wait and see what is going on when I’m not angry and form any response I have then. This is from experience, especially since I’ve typed several things in the past that I have later regretted out of anger.
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The problem with the two “friend” songs comes in a similar light to what we’ve been discussing here, regarding the romanticizing/eroticizing of Jesus in the songs. It’s a Scripture just grabbed without the context behind it to induce a certain feeling. As you might have caught given your other comments, songs are about inducing a certain good feeling in the audience, not the purposes set out within Scripture. As mentioned in that post, try as an exercise counting the number of admonitions you hear in the songs. I always come up with zero.
If you don’t put yourself into full discipleship (in other words, abide by the doctrine of Christ), you are no friend of Jesus. This message of what “the relationship” is supposed to be has been warped so much that almost no one is either seeing this in church leadership or teaching it.
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I would have to dig back through, but you seemed to indicate that having Jesus as a friend was as bad as all the other things you are speaking against. I am still not clear on that though. I would have to dig a bit on whether any songs that say “lover” are wrong (such as “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.” That uses the “wrong words,” but the point seems to be His transformation of us, so it seems Biblical on that point.
I asked about your view of salvation because I wanted to make sure I understood that before I made another comment I was thinking of at the time. No other intent was intended, as I noted.
I have no idea what you deleted, though it looks like the one where I was responding to some points empathologism made. Ah well, I can’t remember what I said now so I will let it drop.
I am still not convinced what Dobson says in your quote here is as bad as you note. It still looks like you were mixing the other things in with it, but go ahead, mix away. It is your blog.
We need to be cautious that we don’t just oppose things and read bad into every statement by those we disagree with though.
I wish I could figure out how to permanently change the name it shows for me in the form, but it seems to be defaulting back to the account name, which sounds a bit hackenyed to me.
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I think I figured out the name. If this comes out right it is fixed.
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@BradA
I think a lot of the problems with such things is that they aren’t Biblical at all (the personal relationship call, it should be a call to discipleship, hence “Follow Me.” as Jesus does say – he does disciple in a personal way. You could call that a “personal relationship”, but again you run into the problem of Biblical meaning not coming out), or not Biblically consistent.
Like the Scripture I quoted says, it’s okay think of Jesus as a friend, but if I’m going to call Him that, it needs to be with the admonishment that He did say that last part. Am I abiding in His doctrine, so He will agree with me saying that (“He calls me friend.”)? “I am a friend of God” doesn’t have this admonition in it at all, and What a Friend We Have in Jesus doesn’t either. But the issue is not the label (that’s Scriptural), it’s that the admonition behind it is always missing.
As you’ll see throughout this blog, a lot of the issue that I take with things in the church is that they really aren’t doing things Scriptural in this way. Of course, I’m one of those crazy people that actually has bought into this stuff (and yes I’ve heard that before IRL). They just throw out enough Scripture references to be seen as spiritual and make people feel good, but they aren’t brought out fully.
As for my view of salvation, I linked to the page entitled “The Gospel” before (which is at the top). I tried to write it in a way to knock down “the personalized Jesus”, especially since there’s so much more that is written about the issue than Romans 10:9-10. That gets used to justify this Jesus because it’s so easy to take “believe and confess” and run with it without any repentance or changes. Yes it’s faith not works, but you have to reconcile “faith” and “believe” with the rest of Scripture (specifically Romans 4:1-5 and James 2:21-26) to get that “believe” requires some action behind it.
I have my failings and memory lapses when it comes to what the counsel of God is as much as anyone, especially in following it, so I don’t place myself as better than anyone else. I fall short and need His grace and forgiveness as much as anyone. To relate to the personal involvement, part of my “conversion story” was the admonition to hold to His words like glue, so I’m trying, especially since it seems He’s led me to talk about it as I have.
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Though connecting to Hanegraff would explain the desire for no criticism
Where did the notion of no criticism come from? Criticize all you like, i have zero need to shout down criticism, and if it is well founded, which happens often, i will yield.
I’m not nor have I ever been “connected to Hannegraff”. I simply liked his scriptural deconstruction of wholly invented charismata, the likes of which the only defense of Ive ever found that was even a true statement was “well, god CAN do anything”.
The idea of the friend is problematic because of all the reasons ballista notes, and more. The human tendency is to take the word friend, imagine our human friend relationships, and slip Jesus right in there like that. Men are guilty of this thing I’m about to mention, but women are far more guilty. Female friends generally will not hold each other to account. This differs in function when men do it. Some men will celebrate and encourage each others sins…think PUA’s, think sexual sins in general. Women are usually not celebrating each others sins so openly like that, boasting of them even. Then, some men will choose to just not get involved and look away. Finally, and specifically among Christians making it more germane here, men boldly hold one another to account. Man have historically done this, sorting out the abuser on the block, dealing with the thief or the rapist, and men still do this among friends. Plain. Blunt.
Women generally do not. They rationalize it that they don’t know the heart, they are not in the shoes, they dissemble and obfuscate while a friend may be destroying her marriage from the inside, or filing divorce and destroying it from the outside, she may be withholding sex, she may complain about her needs and her unhaaaapiness, whatever they do, the “friend” will yak yak yak until they reach the empathogasmic goal….”I know how you feel”…..more pleasurable if stated simultaneously.
THAT is the friend in Jesus that they are drawn to. It takes Him from being a loving but absolute God, to being a guidance counselor who, when presented with her side of the story, He understands and offers work arounds for the absolutes, it may be that he wants her happy, that he will forgive her later because its not unforgivable, He will take care of HER kids so they wont be harmed by the divorce…..The effect of this Personal Jesus is the opposite of the real Jesus.
The notion of friend and relationship are painfully inexact words to use in our comportment with The Lord because they are tainted by their human interaction counterparts, and we have grown a society where everyone is equipped with enough Oprah pop psych mumbo jumbo that when mixed with a Personal Jesus removes all social guardrails that are built of fear and respect of a God who is serious about His business.
Let me ask you, why, if there is even a sprinkle of doubt, a thought that we could be correct, why would you want to debate it and find some degree of correctness to defend? Whats in it for you? Its a crucial question about the motive behind the dogged churchian defense of the Personal Jesus (and was the impetus behind my comment the other day ballista about an examination to be made)
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I debate because it is part of my nature. I have learned that it is worthless since participating in many such “online” debates since college (arguing for Christian things in “science” areas for example), but I keep getting caught doing it in places. My original post was hard and perhaps could be worded better, but I still stand behind the points made. Clearly no one else here does, so discussing them is of marginal utility.
@ballista
Thanks for the answer about your views on salvation. I saw that link long after I posted my note. I can’t remember what point I was going to make, but it was probably related to the need for personal action for salvation. I may look at it later.
We are certainly called to be disciples, but Jesus also calls us His friend, not just his servents, which I would say connects to disciple in attitude.
Jhn 15:15 NKJV – “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.
We are to be and make disciples, but that is no longer the core of our relationship with Him. I need to find out His will for my life, but I still can be on friendly terms with Him.
Gal 4:6 NKJV – And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”
I understand that “Abba” means “daddy” which would be a very intimate term. Please correct me if that is wrong and note exactly what you believe it means.
Note that Abraham was called a friend of God and he was willing to argue with God to spare Sodom. He didn’t just say “yes Sir” even though it ultimately would come to that if God required it.
You seem to be claiming this is not Scriptural, even though the truth is written there. We should not personalize Jesus, but our relationship with Him better be personal or we are in big trouble. I will believe what is written here.
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I will add that this does not always mean our relationship with God should be warm and fuzzy. I have been talking with my wife about what exactly it means to love your wife “as Christ loves the Church.” The clearest example I can find of that is the letters to the churches in Revelation. Those get very hard at times, so it must be love to bring firm correction when needed. Though we also have I Cor 13 which talks about the other “side” of love and I am pondering where the balance lies.
This applies to the “personal” issue because a view that one single position covers it all doesn’t account for the entirety of the Scriptures.
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