I can’t say how often I’ve heard ordinary Americans defend Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and their popular TLC television show, 19 Kids and Counting. “I wouldn’t choose to have nineteen kids,” they say, “but if they can manage it, who am I to question their choice?” “The kids look happy and healthy,” they say, “look how polite and well mannered they are.” I hear these comments and I just have to sigh.

First of all, I want to pout out that I would have concerns about the Duggars even if they were your ordinary family plus seventeen extra children. For one thing, there is no way any two parents can give nineteen children the individual attention and time they need. It’s just not feasibly possible. The Duggars like to say that “love multiplies,” but the thing is, time doesn’t. And then, of course, there is the population issue.

But it’s not these things I’m going to discuss here. The fact is, the Duggars aren’t just your ordinary family plus seventeen extra children. There is a great deal of editing that goes into making TV, and one thing that gets edited out are the Duggars’ religious beliefs and their beliefs about child rearing. There is much, much more going on here than you see on TV.

I know this because I grew up in a family very much like the Duggars. We had a third fewer kids and we didn’t have a TV show, but otherwise it was about the same. Our beliefs were nearly identical to theirs, as was our way of living. When I look at the older Duggar girls, I see myself. I was them. With that in mind, I’m going to take a moment to outline nine specific concerns I have about the Duggars.

1. Isolation and Indoctrination

The Duggar childern are homeschooled in part in order to shelter them from bad influences, i.e. from other kids and teachers who hold different beliefs or live different sorts of lives. The Duggar kids don’t have friends who aren’t pre-approved by their parents. In fact, the Duggar kids aren’t even involved in church activities – their family participates in a “home church” where they and several other like-minded families get together on Sunday mornings and worship together.

Furthermore, even the older Duggar children are not allowed to go anywhere without having an “accountability partner,” i.e. another sibling, to keep tabs on them. When one of the older boys volunteered at the local fire department, one of his sisters always went with him to keep an eye on him and make sure he didn’t get in trouble.

Another reason the Duggar children are homeschooled is in order to teach them “God’s truth.” This means that they use religious textbooks, creationist science curriculum, etc. I understand that we have this thing called “freedom of religion” in our country, but I also believe that children have a right to an education, and teaching children one side of everything becomes indoctrination rather than education.

Not surprisingly, the Duggars’ computers have internet access limited to about seventy “approved” websites. To get unlimited internet access, the children – even the older ones – have to get a password from their mother and then have another sibling sitting by them watching the screen as they surf the web to make sure they stay out of trouble. The main reason for this is likely to keep the children from viewing internet pornography, but it also helps ensure that they don’t get subversive information or other viewpoints.

2. Children raising children

If you think Michelle is the one raising all of those kids, think again. Those older daughters, some of them already adults, are the ones who are actually doing the majority of the cooking, cleaning, and childcare. They are, in effect, raising their younger siblings.

Now I’m not saying Michelle sits back and watches soap operas while the kids work, but rather that with that many children there is simply too much for her to do on her own. She doesn’t have the time or energy to raise her children without her older daughters’ help. And fortunately, because the Duggars homeschool, those older daughters are available to help 24/7.

The Duggars have this thing called the “buddy system.” When each new child is born, that child is assigned to one of the older children. In this way, the older children are responsible for dressing, feeding, and even educating the younger children. Michelle had this to say about the buddy system:

This house would not work if we didn’t have the buddy system. The older children mentor the younger ones. They help them with their little phonics lessons and games during the day, help them practice their music lessons. They will play with them or help them pick out the color of their outfit that they want to wear that day, and just all of those types of things.

I’m all for siblings helping each other and playing together, but this goes way further than this. This is siblings raising each other. And as we’ll see, this means a lot of sacrifice for the older siblings doing the raising.

3. Authoritarian discipline

Though they have not directly admitted it, there is a lot to indicate that the Duggars follow Michael and Debi Pearl’s discipline methods. This means they require absolute obedience from their children and see even bad attitudes as signs of disobedience. It also means they use corporal punishment. The Pearls suggest that you begin to spank your children at around six months, and they urge parents to spank a disobedient child until that child submits completely. Complete submission to the parent’s will is the hallmark of the Pearls’ teachings. Here is a quote:

If you are just beginning to institute training on an already rebellious child, who runs from discipline and is too incoherent to listen, then use whatever force is necessary to bring him to bay. If you have to sit on him to spank him then do not hesitate. And hold him there until he is surrendered. Prove that you are bigger, tougher, more patiently enduring and are unmoved by his wailing. Defeat him totally. Accept no conditions for surrender. No compromise. You are to rule over him as a benevolent sovereign. Your word is final. (To Train Up A Child, page 49)

The Duggars have stated that they use blanket training. What they do is place a baby on a blanket and tell the baby not to get off. If the baby crawls off, he or she is spanked on the leg, told “no,” and placed back on the blanket. If you do this for long enough, the baby will learn to stay on the blanket, and then you can safely leave the baby there while you cook lunch or school the older ones. This all seems counter to the nature of a naturally curious baby.

Authoritarian discipline shuts off questions and leaves little room for children to explore. The emphasis on obedience overrides anything else, and as I’ve written before, this can be highly problematic.

4. Bill Gothard and IBLP

The Duggars are big fans of Bill Gothard and are enrolled in his Institutes for Basic Life Principles. Outside of the circle of his followers, Bill Gothard is frequently regarded as a cult leader. He teaches, for instance, that troll dolls delay labor, that cabbage patch dolls are possessed by demons, and that Christians today must follow Old Testament sexual purity codes, including abstaining from sex the evening before weekly worship. Oh, and he teaches that tampons take girls’ virginity.

Until 2002 Gothard ran a group home for delinquent children in Indianapolis, Indiana. Children were sent there by the juvenile justice system for years until the place was closed down under allegations of abuse, including Gothard’s notorious “prayer closets.” There has been a growing movement among young people raised on Gothard’s teachings to expose the abuse, physical, emotional, and spiritual, they suffered at the hand of Gothard and his multiple ministries, including orphanages in places like Russia.

What bothers me most about the Duggars’ involvement with Gothard and IBLP is their use of his “re-education” camps (my term). It is my understanding that Josh Duggar attended Gothard’s military boot camp for young men, the ALERT Academy. Similarly, a number of the Duggar girls have been sent to Gothard’s Journey to the Heart program, which reminds teen girls of their horrible sinfulness and emphasizes that following God means obeying their earthly parents.

5. Emotional control

The Duggar children are also taught to carefully control their emotions, and emotions like anger or ingratitude are not acceptable. I’ve often heard people argue in favor of the Duggars by stating that “they look so happy!” Here is an excerpt from blogger Dulce, who was raised on the same teachings as the Duggars, dealing specifically with this issue:

One of the creepiest things about Gothard and the Pearls is that they teach that happy is the only acceptable emotion.  If you do not have a joyful countenance, you are publicly shaming your authorities.  In other words, if the kid looks unhappy, it is a personal offense against the parents.  Pearl also has nauseating quotes and anecdotes about how any time his kids expressed unhappiness or anger they were hit even harder and longer until they were cheerful.  How twisted is that?  Children are taught from babyhood to always be cheerful, or else they deserve a spanking.  As they grow older, it is not just the fear of a spanking that causes them to keep smiling.  It is the sincere belief that they are sinning with ingratitude, rebellion and more if they don’t present a happy face.

As I said earlier that a bad attitude is seen as rebellion, and immediately dealt with. I have no idea whether the Duggar children are happy or not, but I know that if they are unhappy they aren’t allowed to express it, especially for the TV cameras (being a Christian “witness” to the world and all that jazz).

6. A quiver full of expectations

As I said in my introduction to the Quiverfull movement, Quiverfull is more than just seeing children as a gift from God. It’s also about seeing children as potential culture warriors. Children are “arrows” who are to be sent out into the world spreading the gospel and Christian values and replicating their parents beliefs and lifestyles. This mindset leaves little room for children who may differ from their parents or what a different sort of life.

In a family influenced by Quiverfull beliefs, children who embrace different beliefs or ways of life from their parents are seen as failures. The idea is to raise ideological clones. The amount of expectations this places on children is immense. I really don’t know what those older Duggar kids want out of life, but I do know that if they want something different from what their parents want for them they are in for a lot of trouble, a lot of emotional manipulation, and a lot of guilt.

7. A patriarchal family order

The main emphasis in the Christian Patriarchy movement, as I pointed out in myintroduction to it, is on a hierarchical family order where each member plays his or her role and everyone stays in their place.  As an example, click here and here to see what the teachings the Duggars follow regarding the proper role of the husband and of the wife. The gist is, of course, that the husband is to lead and the wife is to submit.

The main way this plays out for the children is threefold. First, the children are required to obey their parents without exception. Second, the children are being raised for their future roles – the boys are to be providers and protectors and the girls are to be homemakers. They’re taught this from day one. Third, daughters are taught that they must obey their father even after they become adults.

Those older Duggar girls have been taught that they are under their father’s authority, and that they must follow his will for them. His commands are absolute, just as their obedience is to be absolute. By obeying their father, they are preparing for the time when they will similarly obey their future husbands. Furthermore, by staying at home rather than leaving the home to attend college or get a job, they are preparing to spend their lives as homemakers, as mandated by their gender.

8. Courtship, modesty, and purity

Like many Americans, the Duggars teach their children to remain sexually abstinent until marriage. But they go further, teaching that even kissing should wait until the wedding day. Furthermore, virginity is not just physical, it is also emotional. “Giving away pieces of your heart” through crushes or childhood romances is viewed as permanently damaging, and sexual thoughts are strictly forbidden.

The Duggar girls are also taught that they must dress extremely modestly so as not to “tempt” their “brethren in Christ” (why is this always the female’s responsibility?). That is, of course, what is behind their long jean skirts. This sort of emphasis on “modesty” can be damaging to both girls and boys.

In addition, the Duggars believe that their children should find spouses through parent-guided “courtships” rather than through dating. Dating is portrayed as “practice for divorce” rather than more realistically as “practice for carrying out relationships.” I’ll give an overview of what such a courtship looks like below, but for a young woman’s excellent courtship story, which finishes with damning analysis, clickhere.

First a young man goes to a young woman’s father and asks to court her, and the father says either yes or no (or sometimes maybe later). The young woman is given the chance to veto the courtship if she is not interested in the young man. If a young woman has her eye on a guy, she can share that with her father and he can possibly talk to the young man or the young man’s father, but she can’t initiate anything herself.

A courting couple is ever under the watchful eye of parents and other chaperons, and sometimes is not given a chance of privacy at all. The father can call or suspend the courtship off at any time for any reason. Eventually, if the courtship goes well, the young man asks the young woman’s father for permission to marry her, and if he obtains that permission he asks the young woman, and if she says yes a wedding follows almost immediately.

9. No teenagers allowed

Perhaps the most disconcerting thing about the Duggars is that their older children aren’t allowed to be teenagers or make their own choices. You can see this strung throughout this entire post.

The older children spend their teen years raising their younger siblings and are only allowed friends from a small pool of approved families. Their access to the internet is strongly curtailed, and they aren’t allowed to go anywhere without an “accountability partner.” Disobedience or ingratitude is seen as rebellion and dealt with swiftly and immediately, sometimes through one of Gothard’s many “re-education” camps. Extreme modesty is enforced and dating is forbidden. Contact with the opposite sex is watched closely. Adult daughters are expected to obey their father’s will for them, are taught that being a homemaker is their God-mandated role in life, and are only allowed to marry through a courtship controlled by their fathers. Furthermore, teen and adult children are expected to adopt their parents exact beliefs and way of life, and any other option is seen as failure.

All this is seen as a good thing. Just like my parents, you see, the Duggars don’t believe in teenagers. Let me quote myself on this issue:

It’s true that the word teenager is less than a hundred years old, and it’s true that our current modern conception of the teenager is new. But the reality is, in our society today, being a teenager is not simply about gossip and boys and a lack of responsibility, it’s about figuring out who you are as an entity separate from your family and their beliefs. Because I was never allowed to be a teenager, I never differentiated myself from my parents at all. I never learned who I was. I was never allowed to.

While I do wish I had been allowed to be a teenager in external trappings – clothes, dating, hanging out at the mall – what I really regret about not being allowed to be a teenager is not the material trappings but rather not ever separating myself and my identity from those of my parents. I wish I had been allowed to be different from them, and encouraged to find my own interests and beliefs. I wish I hadn’t been so enmeshed in my parents’ lives and identities as to lose myself completely.

The Duggar children are given no real chance to differentiate from their parents and to explore what they themselves believe and want from life. Instead, they are set off along a prescribed path and are quickly nudged back onto it if they so much as angle to toward the edge. Rather than forging their own paths, the Duggar children are expected to simply follow the path forged by their parents. No questions, no buts, no backtalk.

Have you noticed that all the Duggar girls share one room and all the Duggar boys share another? Michelle said that’s because that’s how the children wanted it – they didn’t want to be separated. That may well be true, but it’s worth noting that when you share your room with your eight sisters, some still toddlers or babies, it’s really hard to find a moment of privacy or a place for sharing secrets.

Conclusion

Most of this stuff doesn’t come across on the TV show, does it? On the TV show the Duggars try to portray themselves as just one big happy family following God’s commands – a witness to others. What you don’t see is that the Duggar children live lives in a fishbowl, carefully scripted lives from which no dissent or differentiation is allowed. Their lives are laid out for them, and growing up is not about exploration but rather fulfilling the expectations of their parents. Conformity is key and stepping out of line is not acceptable.

Bowing to negative publicity, the Duggars recently enrolled some of their children, including the older girls, in an online college program highly promoted by premier Christian Patriarchy group Vision Forum. This program promises bachelors degrees in as little as two years and has the advantage of keeping the Duggar children safely under their parents’ watchful eyes. Not surprisingly, the girls are interested in studying things like nursing and midwifery. I have no idea whether they’ll actually finish, but it would be great for those older girls if they were able to get college degrees of some sort, because it might open more horizons for them in the future.

As for what’s in the future for the Duggar kids, if all follows their parents’ plans the boys will be set up with careers of some sort and will court girls from like-minded families and then start their own families with a baby at least every other year. We’ve already seen Josh Duggar follow this prescribed path.

The Duggar girls, in contrast, will remain at home until some suitable suitor approaches Jim Bob to ask to court them, and they will then move to their own homesto continue their duty as homemakers and begin having numerous children of their own.

If things work out differently, though, and one or more of the Duggar kids strike out on their own, I can only guess how hard things will be for them. And I have to say, the TV cameras and publicity won’t help. I can only wish them the best.

A blogger who is also a Christian home-educating parent and a self-described creationist has created a blog called “Jonathan Park Reviews” for her reviews of the Jonathan Park series. According to the blog’s about section, the author:

…decided to write reviews for the Jonathan Park Audio Adventure series after a friend loaned them to her and she was appalled at what was being touted as ‘science’. As first, writing the reviews started out as an opportunity to exercise her research and thinking skills. However, over time, as she listened to more episodes, the idea that many people are listening to them and accepting them as truth started to get real depressing.

To read the reviews, click here.

One caveat before I begin this one, this post is not about all parents that happen to go to Dominionist focused churches, there are people even within those churches who dearly love their children and treat them right but trends that are happening with different areas and with some teachers. I am going to be taking on multiple trends, they all come out of circles of Dominionist influenced “Christianity” and to me show how the totalitarianism of Dominionism is not just intended for the political order but the family as well.

More and more you see abuse out there put under false “Christian” guises. That is a major problem but in Dominionism, there is definitely an emphasis on extreme authoritarian parenting that is growing. One thing about young people, too many Christian parents think they can *make* them be Christian and *force* them to be good people. It’s not going to happen. Only God can truly convict hearts and every individual’s faith must be personal, it does not come about via Mom or Dad. It doesn’t happen that way. A grown child or child needs to be born again themselves, and in freedom, train a child in the way they should go as the Bible states but the Bible also states this:

Eph 6:4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Notice one of the words NURTURE??

One of the most evil two words together I have always seen is the misnomer known as TOUGH LOVE. You wonder who came up with that one? While I can understand parents not giving into to their drug addicted grown-child’s demands, much of tough love was forwarded for the younger set. As if this world isn’t tough enough, in pummeling the young person with unemployment, coldness, and endless competition just to survive, instead of parents being told comfort and help their children, they are told to be tougher, and hard. While children should be brought up with some responsibility, and self reliance, things really got out of whack here. How much of this was used to undermine natural family ties of love and affection?

While decent parents may face times when it is necessary to let an older grown child go in making their own decisions that are ungodly, and deal with children who are facing other problems, there is something seriously wrong out there, in that too many parents think they can CONTROL their children and even grown children and force them into submission.Too many are making it about breaking the child’s will in fact that is the focus, to break the will of the child, so they become a broken person, to submit and bring total unthinking blind obedience. The seeds of Dominionism, are not just for the government and politicians, they are working on the social order, the families and have for decades.

I have talked about how in Vision Forum and patriarchy has been advanced where obedience to one’s father [not the Heavenly Father] is put at the top of the list even for grown women and adult sons. Actually few realize all this total obedience is just how Islam does it in their fundamentalist circles for women, where even a widow must obey her grown son. Vision Forum advances total patriarchal obedience this is sold to well meaning people under the guise of ‘protection’. Of course Vision Forum never addresses the problems of abusive fathers, or ones who may not even be Christian, or the oddness in a grown woman never becoming her own person. The reality is that if you remain unmarried and at home “obeying”, that one day, your parents will die from old age and when people hit their middle years, this is more common then not. This website is right about this aspect of Vision Forum:

Young women will be protected from the debauchery of college men, Vision Forum promises – if they stay home and obey their fathers. Middle aged women will be free from the pressure to conform to an idealized image of sexy, Vision Forum asserts – if they stay home and obey their husbands. What is this? You will be valued and protected if you surrender all your rights and obey your male authority? THIS is the solution Vision Forum offers!

The other day I had the Duggars on, now I have written about the Duggars, being connected to Quiverful and Vision Forum. One odd scene was Michelle Duggar shaking her finger at some of the toddlers telling them to obey. Nothing wrong with that at least on the surface, all parents tell their children to obey. While the children are nice and respectful, few realize how intense the “training” behind the scenes is:

This doesn’t sound so bad to a point, who doesn’t want a child to learn to be able to sit still, and listen to their teacher or to their parents or not spending hours bickering…But few have heard of something called “blanket training” and this is something the Duggars have used. [I do not know if the Duggars use any of the physical punishments or not spoken of below.]

One lady with seven children describes how to blanket train on her website, while some of her ideas are good like keeping children busy during long sermons looking for certain words, the blanket training methods seem pretty worrisome. Do not forget a child’s natural inclination is to explore the world around them, and this definitely puts a stop to that.

Blanket training” has been one of the most helpful tools for me! I only wish that I had heard about it before my 7th child came along!! The sweet lady who explained blanket training to me called it her “playpen in a purse”! This concept involves placing your baby or toddler on his/her favorite blanket, explaining to the best of their understanding that they must stay on their blanket, and then demonstrating the consequences of getting off the blanket with a small rod or switch. Simply switch the floor or carpet all around the outside edges of the blanket and firmly but sweetly say, “No, No! Don’t touch!” Give your child few favorite toys to keep his attention, and switch the toys out every little bit, and that child will learn to stay on his blanket for quite a long period of time. Begin with just 3 – 5 minutes with very young children, and after practicing every day for several weeks, he will build up his time to play happily on that blanket until he can stay there for an hour or more! What a joy and a help this was to me when I had the older 6 children in school and needed to spend time with them! The joy of this training is that you can fold that blanket up, put it in the diaper bag, and take it easily to a friend’s house, or visiting new church members, and your child will sit quietly without disrupting the visit! One of my pet peeves is when folks come to visit and just “unleash” their children to invade every room of your home! What chaos! This blanket training is easily converted to “church training” when you begin taking your young child into the services. Simply fold the blanket and put it on the pew and your child will already understand the limitations and rules!

Another website, describes blanket training more.

1: STAY ON THE BLANKET! Place the baby or small child on the blanket with a basket or Rubbermaid container full of items that are only taken out when blanket time is in session. Explain, even to babies, that they are to stay on the blanket and not get off or they will receive a small swat on the diaper. This may seem harsh, but the Bible clearly teaches that rods of discipline are to be used for training and discipline. With consistency your child will only require a few swats, at best. As soon as your baby or small child leaves the confines of the blanket, swat first and then explain gently as to why he or she was reprimanded. Place the child back on the blanket and repeat, as needed.

She writes on the website, the “swats” are to be light taps, I think it’s scary for someone to spank babies too young to know what is going on, and it’s very worrisome, notice the focus on CONTROL. Is doing what is easiest for parents, always best for the children? What about the child’s natural inclination to explore. What about natural interaction between mother and child, where the mother does not become a prison warden? Is that what these “Christian” parents want to be prison wardens of perfect little robotic step-ford children? Some of the rules are odd, in telling the other children not to talk to the “baby” being blanket trained. Many of this “training” is not starting at one year or two years, but for babies who are just starting to crawl.

While the Bible speaks of training [disciplining not training like a pet] a child, this definitely takes things way too far. Now the Duggars do seem to love their children, but one wonders how things will be for them as they grow up where so much of their lives have been directed and seemingly from a young age. One can see the blanket training still in operation. Are personalities of total obedience and repression healthy ones? That is something to think about.

To me it sums up some really weird attitudes out there in some areas of the “Christian” world about young people. Do some of these people even see children as unique human beings who have the same dignity in God’s eyes as themselves but happen to be younger ages? Do they see them as one day future adults who will have to stand on their own two feet? What is very odd to me, and I am thinking back to college psychology classes here, is that a lot of the “training” not just the blanket training seems to remind me of extreme godless psychology, especially from the branch called “Behaviorism” made famous by B.F.Skinner. He operated via Operant conditioning principles, the blanket training doesn’t seem to far off, to tell you the truth:

B. F. Skinner’s entire system is based on operant conditioning. The organism is in the process of “operating” on the environment, which in ordinary terms means it is bouncing around its world, doing what it does. During this “operating,” the organism encounters a special kind of stimulus, called a reinforcing stimulus, or simply a reinforcer. This special stimulus has the effect of increasing the operant — that is, the behavior occurring just before the reinforcer. This is operant conditioning: “the behavior is followed by a consequence, and the nature of the consequence modifies the organisms tendency to repeat the behavior in the future.”

His Skinner boxes used rats, but he wanted these things used on human beings, where reward and punishment would direct all behavior. I saw the use of such things even in a R.E.T. [Rational Emotive Therapy] System popularized by a different psychologist that was used in a secular school I worked in to the point that reward, demand and points were all scripted, and children not treated as individuals but had points mechanically assigned for good behavior and reduced for bad. If any of the staff deviated from the scripts [we had scripts we had to follow even during their misbehavior], we were to be reprimanded. In high school I remember reading Walden II where Skinner imagined a “new Utopian society” with use of his behaviorism. I have even known of schools of psychology where behaviorism was idealized and promoted at least 25 years ago. Hate to say it, but I see it’s tendrils having entered in all over the place with these youth schools, “Christian” child training programs and the rest.

When I read about some of the child training, nothing about it seems biblical, they throw out a few verses but who ever heard of blanket training for babies in the 1890s the period of time they love to invoke? Even the Pearls seem to use a few of these “behaviorist methods” where “negative stimuli is supposed to invoke desired behavior”…This one is pretty scary:

A tiny stimulus to direct the child when they are small is enough. For example, if a 3 month-old nursing baby bites, don’t spank. She does not know she did bad. Just gently pull a hair on her head. She will startle back in momentary discomfort and immediately start nursing again. The tiny bit of discomfort makes the baby relate the biting down with the gentle pulling of the hair. You have not made her obey, you have only conditioned her to respond differently. That is training.

and here too…

But they cannot be absolutely trained. Proper application of the rod is indispensable to communicating the divine principle of retributive justice, but any child, military man, employee, the neighbor’s kid, your dog, cat, or the birds in your yard can be trained through manipulating their relationship to their environment. Any creature that is self-motivated and has likes and dislikes can be trained if you are in a position to reward or deny any pleasure or need. Where humans are concerned you have the added tools of reason, moral persuasion, social persuasion, and conscience. Where it concerns those that are close to you, that is, they depend upon your fellowship for their mental satisfaction, you have the additional tools of persuasion and example.

Are parents supposed to “CONDITION” children or are they supposed to teach them in a loving fashion? How much of these teachings are based on CONDITIONING and inherited from the psychology world, where ‘conditioning” was used to ensure desired behaviors from animals and then translated onto children? The Pearls themselves even connect their methods to animal training and you can see multiple examples on the first page of their book “To Train Up a Child”.

Here we see the promotion of things, that lead to more disconnection between humans. One part of human growth is learning to be connected and loved by their first care givers. It is supposed to be about a relationship not about control and a long list of rules. Even thinking regarding one’s relationship with God and what that is to entail, you wonder how these people went this way.

Where is the humanity in all of this stuff? Why have parents be ‘drill sergeants” instead of loving, teaching, providing care or preparing young people for an independent adult life. While parents do have to put down some consequences for bad behavior and teach children right from wrong, total control is wrong. A true Christian adult life, should be directed at the Lord’s behest, conviction via the Holy Spirit, not just following a long series of rules, that others have set up for you or via CONDITIONING that started in infancy to keep you compliant. It shouldn’t be about not allowing you to grow up.

There is some natural separating from children and their parents as they grow into adulthood, seeing this suppressed so adamantly is scary. If you want your child to be a Christian telling them, you better be a Christian [or else!] isn’t going to cut it. Telling them follow these rules with no rhyme or reason, will not lead to a life where they are directed by God. Thinking that over-controlling them will keep them from sin is wrong, in fact it will actually open many of them to more open rebellion. You must lead by example and with love. Once your child is of age, while you may seek to instruct and influence, their decisions are to be their own.

What happens when all life life long conditioning takes precedent, and extreme sheltering and dependence come out in wash? One odd aspect of these movements seems to take sheltering the young people blocking their eyes, or ears, or brains from even knowing anything that happens in the outside world. Here is an example of a book written for Dominionist parents.

8 The Concept of Sheltering 103

9 The Biblical Basis of Sheltering 115

10 Our Example and Instruction

As Parents 129

11 Sheltering from the Negative Influences of Things 139

12 Sheltering from Negative Influences of People 151

13 Sheltering from Other

Negative Influences 169

14 The Reality of Our

Sheltering Choices 187

Do they really expect their children to be able to cope with the world, hiding them from everything. I can understand guarding your child’s eyes and ears from things they are not ready for, violence, sex on TV and movies, and protecting them from things that would harm them even physically AND emotionally, but there is a line where over-protection gets carried away and where it becomes about locking that child’s mind up. Untested “Christianity” remains facile, if they do not even know the existence of other religions or the deceptions people can fall into, if they are left ignorant on purpose. What happens to a Christian child who has never encountered or learned about the “outside” world at all even to be ready for it? It’s like the Christian Dominionist world took secular helicopter parenting and raised it a few notches.

One thing I want to inform here, does Jesus Christ teach total obedience to parents or sheltering by parents when he states this?

Mat 10:35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

Many out there will be at variance with relatives, parents, fathers, in obeying Jesus Christ. I dare say that will apply to the Dominionist and Patriarchy strands of false religion as well as leaving any other cult a grown child may have been raised in.

As I have written The Patriarchy movement with its extreme authoritarianism is an extreme example of this, where even a “Stay At Home Daughter” 30 year old daughter is taught she has to have every move approved of by the father she still lives with and where she must obey like a 10 year old.

You also see the weird Purity Balls, where daughters are instructed to swear their virginity to their fathers. To be frank while parents should teach their daughters to save sex for marriage and keep themselves pure, this all smacks of severe unnecessary regulation and distrust of those same daughters to make the right decision. It also crosses boundaries that should not be crossed. That should be between them and God when they are adults, and hopefully they will make the right biblical decisions. Why is there a trend in some circles of “Dominionist Christianity” where fathers will be choosing or at least having to approve these girl’s future husbands? How come purity is never spoken of regarding the young men? One odd trend in purity circles and one saw it with the Duggars oldest son and wife to be, is the extreme of teaching daughters they cannot even kiss a fiance’ and must wait til the wedding day. Years ago when I was a liberal UU, while the Handmaiden’s Tale was a wicked book, that promoted abortion in inverse, this set up seems to follow the story line of an extreme patriarchial theocratic society.

Do these “Christians” even realize they are following in fundamentalist Islam’s footsteps? What next, a bride price and negotiating between fathers for each marriage? What about having the teachings of Christianity where the Holy Spirit leads a daughter to make the right decisions instead of having it forced upon them via supervision by her father? Again it makes everything about authority. Even if society is disgustingly debauched and you fear for your daughter, you do not impose such things upon then. The odd statement within the video, “The father is everything” is just more of that backwards promotion of patriarchy. Sadly people who have rightly tired of the moral decay of society are being seduced into these programs.

But then you see the popularity of the Pearls whose program focuses on training children to submit to authority [or else! in many cases] and it really makes you start to wonder. The Pearls whose writings are used in many conservative and fundametnalist Christian circles, do advocate ‘training”, and “harsh punishment” for children. Bill Gothard as well focuses on ‘character training” and “obedience drills” where children sing the praises of obedience and to announce they are grateful for the opportunity to follow orders:
and

Gothard teaches in his seminars that obedience brings godliness. Authority figures – the father, the politician, the minister, and the boss – are to be obeyed as if Christ were giving the orders. Gothard’s ideas of family life are rigid, as wives are taught to be submissive and men are encouraged to be the absolute head of the household. Quotes from the Bible are used as backup to his assertions. The biblical justification for always being subservient to the boss comes from 1 Peter 2:18: “Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear.”

Authority figures, according to Gothard, are on a higher spiritual plain than ordinary folk, and obeying them will help one get closer to God. He tells his followers that they are to obey everything, except orders to do “evil.” If your boss is dead wrong, Gothard says it’s OK to make a “Godly appeal” to him, but if the appeal is refused, the worker must live with it.

Blind obedience to authority figures is never a good thing. It is scary to me that Gothard teaches that authority figures have more moral claim and are on a higher level, it reminds me of Catholicism where we were taught that clergy and the “religious” were better people and we were to obey them. Even the extreme emphasis on “virginity” and “purity” is nothing new to me since even in the Catholic church, as I was educated by nuns, this was a constant theme. These are good things in themselves but can be abused. Now blind obedience has infested the evangelical world. This isn’t the only Catholic saint, who demanded blind obedience to religious authority. It is a theme of every cult out there.

Obey blindly , that is, without asking reasons. Be careful, then, never to examine the directions of your confessor….In a word, keep before your eyes this great rule, that in obeying your confessor you obey God. Force yourself then, to obey him in spite of all fears. And be persuaded that if you are not obedient to him it will be impossible for you to go on well; but if you obey him you are secure. But you say, if I am damned in consequence of obeying my confessor, who will rescue me from hell? What you say is impossible.” St. Alphonsus De Liguori, True Spouse of Christ, p 352, Benziger Brothers, NY.

See how that works? One thing with all this blind obedience that is advocated, is the authority of priests, popes, well in this case evangelical preachers, and teachers and religious figures, and even your own biological father in the case of patriarchy is elevated to the extreme. This would include the politicians and other “leaders” of the world too. What better way to keep people unquestioning sheeple, then by training them from childhood to always obey and if they don’t or they dare to question, that the punishment will be swift, sure and severe?

There is something being advanced in many Dominionist “Christian circles”, where all the NUTURE has been taken out of child-rearing, all the comfort and more. Is there a sociological reason for all the extreme hyper-authoritarian parenting that has taken hold among Dominionism and related partriarchy groups? I realize some are well meaning people who are getting sucked into this stuff, the changes in this world are scary, the moral decay the rot, they know too many young adults falling into the abyss of drugs, sexual debauchery, and rejecting moral values, but squeezing the hand of parental control to super-rigid extents is no answer too. It makes one wonder. I remember reading books on German history that spoke of the years before Hitler, where authoritarian parenting was cultural and it makes one wonder how it could be used to make for a passive populace. As I have written on this blog, some do not see the luciferian big picture, but for this “child-rearing” changes, to me there is one. It is about CONTROL and about the waxing cold of the last days, where natural affection and love, are canceled out.

Rom 1:31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful.

Most of the “Christians” being led into these child-rearing methods are unknowing people, they want to do the “right thing” they want to protect their children from harm, drugs, teen pregnancy, witchcraft, alcoholism, but sadly they are being led down yet another false rabbit trail, and it is not just the very extremes of the Dominionist Quiverful Patriarchy crowd, it’s infested itself everywhere into American society from James Dobson to the high schools with their guards at the front door.

One sees the “tough love”, “keep the young people under control” ethos all over the place, there are ‘fundamentalist” colleges that treat 20 year old young adults like children, and ‘ground’ them or what they call “campus” them for a variety of offenses, some rather small. Some have rules where no young woman can leave the campus without chaperones or permission. What is astonishing about this, is how will such a young woman learn to survive in today’s world when she is graduated from that college? Husbands work and cannot accompany them everywhere they go in the future. If behavior is not self-directed from the inside, but only imposed by strict forces from the outside, a child or teen does not mature and grow normally.

Rome had its schools of evil where children were beaten, abused and even put to work such as in the Magdalene laundries, but it’s scary when you see in the news so many evangelical and fundamentalist Christians schools seeming to go that way. I ran across this recently and was horrified.

Anyone who runs a school like this is a definite wolf. There is no Christian love in beating, abusing and humiliating children to submit to your will. Those who think they can turn their children into loving, obedient Christians via FORCE have already lost the plot. Ever wonder why so many of these schools keep popping up? Why do they all seem run by fanatical mad tyrants? One can see the endless lists, Hephzibah House the Roloff Homes and many more. Why is so much of this happening?

A very likely spiritual outcome is they could turn those children into die-hard atheists for life, as the main example of “Christianity” they see includes beatings, abuse and an endless list of draconian rules even for the ones who are not out and out physically abused.

Some years ago, on a message board, I even saw a couple of “Christians” defend this story where a girl was tied to a truck at a boot camp and dragged. They acted like she deserved what happened to her. No Christian love there. That is one of the times I have been most upset dealing with false Christians online. To defend such a thing was sickening. This girl could have been killed.

A teenage girl attending a Christian “boot camp” in Texas was allegedly tied to a van and dragged along the ground after falling behind during a morning run.

Police said yesterday that a pastor and camp counsellor [sic] were arrested on aggravated assault charges after the 15-year-old girl suffered injuries at the Faith Outreach Centre in a suburb of San Antonio.

A police spokesman said the incident took place in June and was reported to police by the mother of the girl after she was hospitalised for unspecified injuries.

Charles Flowers, a senior pastor, and Stephanie Bassitt, a counsellor, were arrested on Friday.

The girl, who has not been named, was apparently participating in a running exercise at the military-style Love Demonstrated Ministries camp when she became tired.

Why are “Christians” running schools that are like military camps and treating young girls the same like young men? Of course even the regular military has laws against what happened to that girl. Isn’t it ironic that those who claim to care about biblical femininity and promote “patriarchy” set up schools and institutions that hold expectations for young women that match those for the most hard core Marine?

Many do not know about the whole “troubled teen” industry where wealthy parents send supposedly out of control teens to out of country or out of state wilderness and other schools where boot camp and austere living are promoted and extreme punishments for the smallest infractions are given. Many of these schools claim they are “Christian”. One wonders how much deep “mind control” and other evil agendas are tied to these places given their sometimes out and out torture of young people. How much of this is about experiments for control of the populace and the planned totalitarianism? After all if you break down the young people under extreme oppressive authority what will they become? Even the public schools have rapidly changed to this sort of thing: “Life in US Public Schools is Just Like Prison”.

See here

The school has a current enrollment of 63 children, placed in the school by parents in an effort to remedy behavior problems. New Horizon uses a boot-camp atmosphere to place children onto what school officials believe to be the right road for life.

A handful of protesters showed at a Founder’s Day celebration this month at the Marion campus.

“We want people to ask us about our experiences in the program, educate those who didn’t know about the program and let students see that we are rooting for them,” said Lisa Brown Wilbur of New Castle as she held a sign reading “Stop the Abuse.”

The protesters painted a picture of complete dictation, a life completely monitored by counselors.

And yes in those places their lives are totally controlled and monitored. Many of these schools including secular ones, are full of human rights violations, extreme punishments, like withholding food and sleep and hours of hard labor, and oppressive behavior modification methods.

This is just one of the many examples among many. Some young people have lost their lives in the worse places. These schools grew numerous in the 80s but kept expanding in the 90s. Many parents were told this was the best way to deal with their troubled teens. In some circles, harsh punishment was promoted for every problem a young person was to face, strip their room clean of every item except the mattress, send them off to “wilderness camps” or “bootcamps” where intense physical exercise and brutality ruled. Young adults who encountered health problems or could not take the strain, have died at these places.

The “or else” reached an alarming level in the wilderness programs where kids have actually died as a result of untrained staff taking them to potentially dangerous wilderness areas. The most notorious case was that of Aaron Bacon. As a small child, Aaron was the kind of boy who brought food to the homeless and let them take showers in the guesthouse. “II sat him down and said, ‘Look, you can’t do that,’” his mother,Sally recalls. “‘We don’t know if these people will harm you.’ And he looked at me and said, ‘Mom, we have a house. We have love. We have each other. They don’t have anything and I won’t stop.’”7

In high school, Aaron began taking drugs. His mother put him in North Star Expeditions. She expected him to be “out there with God and Nature and himself writing.” The program gave Aaron a pair of cheap boots that were too small, a sleeping bag and a backpack. He was never given warm enough clothing. A few days later, he developed the first symptoms of intestinal problams. The staff told Aaron that “all counselors, therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists are quacks.8 The campers had to learn how to make a fire with a native bow drill technique and were not allowed to cook their food until they learned. Already hungry because most of the food, such as lentils and rice, was inedible if it wasn’t cooked, they were put on a two-day fast. He had trouble from the very start, developing blisters in his too-tight boots, staggering and falling from the combined weight of his backpack and lack of food. The worst thing was the ulcer that began on the first day and developed until it became perforated (intestinal fluids leaking into his abdominal cavity, causing peritoritus).

Often desperate parents with drug addicted children with nowhere else to turn, sadly are exploited by such places.

Years ago I read a book called

It’s a autobiography by a woman who had abusive parents who sent her to one of these schools. They put forth themselves as Christians, but seem to be psychopaths, the father even breaks one of her adopted brothers arms in a fit of anger. In this case they attend an ultra-strict Calvinist church, but the story of how they are sent to this school overseas that is so strict, they enforce endless stupid rules, force them to live a dangerous third world lifestyle, with starvation and over-work included. They also prevent the sister and brother from having contact with each other. The school is the zenith of totalitarian rule, and control. Thankfully they both escape, but barely.

“For Julia Scheeres and her adopted brother David, “Jesus Land” stretched from their parents’ fundamentalist home, past the hostilities of high school, and deep into a Christian reform school in the Dominican Republic. For these two teenagers – brother and sister, black and white – the 1980′s were a trial by fire.” “In this memoir, Scheeres takes us from the familiar Midwest, a land of cottonwood trees and trailer parks, to a place beyond her imagining. At home, the Scheeres kids must endure the usual trials of adolescence – high-school hormones, incessant bullying, and the deep-seated restlessness of social misfits everywhere – under the shadow of virulent racism neither knows how to contend with. When they start to crack (or fight back), they are packed off to Escuela Caribe.” This brutal, prison-like “Christian boot camp” demands that its inhabitants repent for their sins – sins that few of them are aware of having committed”

Things are getting rather bad out there.

I believe the oppression of youth, comes as a natural outcome of the false DOMINIONIST teachings, they are definitely connected. if everything is about control, authority, oppression, coloring in between the lines for society, wouldn’t it influence the families who are in these churches? Wouldn’t it influence the nature of these so called “Christian” schools for troubled youth? In a burgeoning police state, the heavy hand of authority on all levels is emphasized more and more. Children are raised with submission to authority as the first thing. Fascism married to a false “Christianity” that emphasizes extreme authoritarianism and here you see the evil fruits for the young people.

Make ready for the inevitable oddity–the patriarchs are coming to church! But who is coming to church claiming such an epithet? In fact, the neopatriarchs who are now coming are those who identify with the ancient, old-order patriarchy. And why are they now arriving on the scene and in our churches? And what is their agenda, hidden or spoken?

…

The Truth about the Pursuit of Patriarchy

1. Patriarchy, is not a biblical doctrine. Nowhere is patriarchy mandated by God, nor is it taught anywhere in the entire Bible. Neither is there a single verse in the New Testament linking patriarchy with believers in Christ. Any genuine “New Testament patriarchy” will have to be founded on more than inferences and conjectures from ideas of male “headship” or from texts such as 1 Tim. 2:12. The several New Testament verses about the patriarchs cited at the outset all point backwards to the early Hebrew religious patriarchy that was accommodated with the cultural/social patriarchy of the pagan nations.

   What the Scriptures do reveal about patriarchy is to describe it as a fallen structure, recording the critical predicament it created in the times of Old Testament accommodation: the daily dominance women suffered under male rulership, which hardened into a clearly inferior feminine status, the occasional equilibrium women and men attained within its influence, and the rare exceptions when women leaders transcended patriarchy’s protocol.

2. Patriarchy is a hermeneutical quagmire. A fundamental hermeneutical rule forbids building a Christian doctrine based on a few texts. This is ignored when a “system of patriarchy” is built upon the New Testament churches’ foundation (cf. 1 Cor 3:10-11). There is, of course, the theological truth about Abraham, who “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Jas. 2:23). And this grace, Paul asserts, is the same also to “those who are of the faith of Abraham; he is the father of us all” (Rom. 4:3, 16; Gal. 3:6f.). In redemption’s progress, Abraham was the first to receive the fuller revelation of salvation by grace through faith, and so he is our spiritual “father” (patros) in the broad sense that we all receive that same grace in the same way. But Abraham is not our “patriarch” whom we follow into his “patriarchy.” It is his person of faith being emphasized, not his patriarchy, which has no relevance to our faith in Christ (cf. Heb. 11).
3. Patriarchy is an ancient but contemporary dominion worldwide. There is no “doctrine of patriarchy” in the Hebrew Bible. However, the rationale for gender-specific domination is explicitly traced to the Pentateuch. From the Gen. 3:16 pronouncement that men are predisposed to dominate women, patriarchy survives and thrives in gender bondage worldwide. Although patriarchy took root and was nurtured within ancient religious systems, the socioreligious philosophy festers within national cultures and people groups everywhere in our world. Ominously, patriarchy has long been deeply integrated into the vast ecclesiastical confederations of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Moreover, partiarchal gender discrimination undergirds the sometimes volitle hierarchies of Islam and all other major religions, and most cultes. What is happening to the liberating good news of the gospel? And why are some “preaching a gospel other than the one we preached”? (Gal. 1:6-9). The neopatriarchs’ ambitions are based on unchristian hegemonic attitudes of masculine sovereignty which were instigated by the Evil One in the Fall. The encroaching phenomenon of “patriarchal Christian men” perceiving themselves in charge under God is a parody in Christ’s one body of absolute equals. Jesus prayed for his people “that they may be one as we are one.”

I was browsing through Vision Forum’s devotionals catalogue for girls and noticed that a good portion of them were related to “character”.  This is not necessarily a bad thing but I wondered if law and gospel is being presented in these books.  …  The fiction books seemed to teach moral lessons and the womanhood preparation books taught on subjects like modesty, motherhood, father-daughter relationships, and how to be a godly daughter.  So I wondered where the books are on Christian doctrine and spiritual growth were.  I searched the website but came up with many more books on womanhood, how to be a godly daughter, and only a few that were what I would call “meaty” doctrinally.  …  Overall, the products were more focused on godly womanhood and character than on anything else.  That concerns me since the Christian faith is much more than godly womanhood (or manhood).

I am subscribed to “vision forum” on google, which means I get an email each day with every new internet article or blog post containing the words “vision forum.” Lately, essentially every new article or post has been something on all of Vision Forum’s Christmas sales. Fundamentalist and evangelical blogs across the segment of homeschooling influenced by patriarchy are lighting up in excitement and in preparation for giving their children a very Vision Forum Christmas.

There’s just one problem with this. Doug Phillips, who founded Vision Forum and continues to run it today, does not believe in celebrating Christmas. He says Christmas is a pagan holiday, and he and his family let it go by like any other day. Apparently, for Phillips, money means more than principle. I mean think about it, he could use the Christmas season as an opportunity to advertise the holiday’s pagan roots and urge Vision Forum followers not to participate. He could refuse to offer sales or to give any sign of the holidays on his website. Isn’t this what principle would dictate? But no. Because to Doug Phillips, money appears to matter more than principle.

If you want to see what I mean, go to Vision Forum‘s main page. Oh yes, it calls the sales a “December Kick-Off Special,” but really, who do they think they’re fooling? They’ve marked everything down by at least 20% and some items down by 50% and offered free shipping on orders over $25.

I have to be honest. This is making me sick. I’d like to think that Doug Phillips, along with Bill Gothard, Michael Pearl, etc., are at least sincere. But when I see something like this, I have to wonder.

This also confirms something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. Vision Forum, with its snazzy pictures and overpriced merchandise, seems like the ideal marketing scheme. Vision Forum may sell a message, but it also sells products, and LOTS of them. I can’t even begin to tally the amount of money my parents have spent on Vision Forum products over the years, especially at Christmas, but we’re talking thousands and thousands of dollars.

I’ve also heard that Bill Gothard’s training institutes and workshops cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars, and that even participating in Gothard’s character training homeschool curriculum program costs hundreds of dollars per family per semester.

Michael Pearl has been offering a “business in a box” opportunity where supporters can buy No Greater Joy products at 40% the retail price and then set up a family business selling the materials to others. The catch, of course, is that you have to start in the program with an initial investment of at least $2,500.

What is going on here? Are these people about serving God, or about making money? If they’re really about serving God, why not make a genuine ministry of it, taking in donations and then offering conferences, literature, and products for free, or at least for a reduced rate or actual market cost? I mean, didn’t Jesus throw the money changers out of the temple?

6. A man’s authority in the home should be exercised with gentleness, grace, and love as a servant-leader, following the example of Jesus Christ. Leadership is a stewardship from God. (Ps. 103:13; Mal. 3:17; Matt. 11:29-30; Col. 3:21; 1 Pet. 3:7)

Ps. 103:13 – As a father pities his children, So the LORD pities those who fear Him.

Mal. 3:17 – “They shall be Mine,” says the LORD of hosts, “On the day that I make them My jewels. And I will spare them As a man spares his own son who serves him.”

Matt. 11:29-30 – “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

These verses are not tenets, but describe what God is like. Everyone, not just leaders or/ and married fathers, should follow Christ.

Col. 3:21 – Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

I Pet. 3:7 – Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.

This tells to understand and honor her, not that you have authority over her. The word “vessel” is usually used in the Bible for the body or material things, and a weaker vessel probably refer to either physical strength, or that at a time when women often died in childbirth, they were weaker in health.

6a) A man’s authority in the home

TBP have not yet shown from scripture that men have authority that women do not.

b) should be exercised with gentleness, grace, and love as a servant-leader,

Yes, that is how to lead. The problem is when Patriarchy teaches men should lead in areas where the Bible does not prove they should. However gently a man lead where his leadership does not belong, it still is usurping the freedom of another.

c) following the example of Jesus Christ.

Yes. A verse for that will enhance TBP.

d) Leadership is a stewardship from God.

Once again, TBP give no verse for it. Some leadership is stewardship, but wrongly usurped leadership is theft.

Other ways Christians understand this:

Many Christians would not use the term “authority in the home” for an admonition to bring your children up in the faith, something which your wife and your church (and perhaps others) could also participate in. And it is common to believe that wrongly seized leadership is not stewardship.

Summing it up

How reliable is this tenet? I will use a color code:

The color code:

      This is adequately Biblically defended

      This is defended biblically, but another view could also be defended biblically

      This is not Biblically Defended

      This can be defended Biblically, but TBP don’t give such a verse

6. A man’s authority in the home should be exercised with gentleness, grace, and love as a servant-leader, following the example of Jesus Christ. Leadership is a stewardship from God. 

5. A husband and father is the head of his household, a family leader, provider, and protector, with the authority and mandate to direct his household in paths of obedience to God. (Gen. 18:19; Eph. 6:4)

Gen 18:19 – For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, that the LORD may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.”

That speak of God knowing Abraham, the father of all believers. It does not teach anything about what a Christian father is. This use of it in TBP is proof texting.

Eph. 6:4 – And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

Yes. Interestingly enough, the same word that is translated fathers here, is translated as parents in Heb. 11:23

5a) A husband and father is the head of his household,

The text does not teach it. If bringing someone up in the training and adminition of the Lord is headship, then the father (and mother?) is head of the children. The head of his household? “Household” is a bigger claim than “children”, and “the head” mean more than “a head.”

b) a family leader,

He should lead his children, but where does it state he should lead his wife, or sisters or brothers or anyone else in the family?

c) provider,

This is not in the text. And making provision only a male gender role is contrary to 1 Tim 5:16. Technically it is true that husbands/ fathers should provide, but the point of including this in TBP is to claim it as a gender role. And that turns a technical truth into a lie.

d) and protector,

This is not in the text.

e) with the authority and mandate to direct his household in paths of obedience to God.

He has the mandate to direct his children in the ways of God by Eph. 6:4. If the translation as “parents” of that same word is correct in Hebrews, his wife does too. His children are not synonymous with his household. His wife is part of his household, and nothing said up to now show he can direct her. (I think that both husbands and wives can lead spouses closer to God, but it is up to TBP to prove their point if they can.)

Does every father –Christian or not, knowledgeable or not – have the authority to lead his household in paths of obedience to God? Eph. 6:4 does not state it. TBP say a father (without even specifying the father’s religious view) have the authority to lead his household in paths of obedience to God. But the Bible verse itself speaks to believing fathers, and don’t mention authority. The verse could even imply that he need to get the knowledge, wisdom, authority or whatever is needed, to do so. It does not tell he already has it.

Other ways Christians understand this:

(No extra notes here)

Summing it up

How reliable is this tenet? I will use a color code:

      The color code:

      This is not Biblically defended

5. A husband and father is the head of his household, a family leader, provider, and protector, with the authority and mandate to direct his household in paths of obedience to God.

(If the word household were replaced with children, the tenet may have fared better.)

“Courageous” Lacks Artistry and Preaches to the Choir

“Courageous” Subtly Promotes Male Headship and Racial Stereotypes

The Kendrick Brothers Have Ties to Christian Patriarchy Organizations

I have always had issues with the Vision Forum catalog even before I knew it was it’s own movement.

Let’s see, in the Beautiful Girlhood section we have: Dolls. Doll clothes. Clothes that match the doll clothes. Doll tea sets. Dollhouses. Doll furniture. Sew-your-own doll clothes. Paper dolls. Elsie Dinsmore novels. (Nauseating books about a little girl who can’t think for herself and faints in horror because her father asks her to play a piece of classical music that was not a hymn on a Sunday. Needless to say, I only read the first one.) SOME OF US outgrew dolls at eight, thank you, and are uninterested in books such as What Our Father Taught Us About Boys.

What do the boys get?

Fencing swords, bows and arrows, uber-awesome night vision glasses, binoculars, three-man water balloon slingshots,  (I’m drooling here) different KINDS of fencing swords, zip lines, marshmallow guns, How To Stay Alive in the Woods…. the list goes on and on.

And then there is this gem:

Now, try and think of something you know about girls and women that is not “They can have children” and “They like pretty things/are pretty”.