Promise Keepers

I had forgotten about this organization until Da Bomb mentioned he was going to a meeting. My father went to a meeting in the mid to late 90's and tried to get me to go. I didn't go. I am just going to go over their 7 promises real quick.

Promise Keepers is a Christian organization founded by the ex-football coach of the University of Colorado at Boulder. You can read all about it on their own page or on the wiki page.

The Seven Promises:

1. A Promise Keeper is committed to honoring Jesus Christ through worship, prayer and obedience to God's Word in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Okay, I thought that was just being a Christian, so you have to promise to be a Christian? I don't know of any non-Christians that go to this, so this seems rather redundant. Also, you have to promise this? Shouldn't this be more of a given as a Christian?

2. A Promise Keeper is committed to pursuing vital relationships with a few other men, understanding that he needs brothers to help him keep his promises.

So you have to promise to have male friends. Again shouldn't you be doing this already? And aren't friends supposed to be able to keep you honest? This is just another part of life. Why should anyone be told to do these things or make a promise to do them? They should already being doing it.

3. A Promise Keeper is committed to practicing spiritual, moral, ethical, and sexual purity.

I am assuming they mean a sin free life. If you are a Christian, shouldn't you already be striving to do this? Otherwise you come off as a hypocrite, especially when you are trying to pass laws to force others to follow what you say.

4. A Promise Keeper is committed to building strong marriages and families through love, protection and biblical values.

They are really going out on a limb, you should love your family. Again who has to make this promise? This should be an evolved trait that everyone but sociopaths have. Do the leaders think every Promise Keeper is a sociopath?

What is meant by protection? I will protect my loved ones at any cost. Again this is something I don't have to be told to do or promise to do. There is a line I won't cross though, and that is when it infringes with the rights of others, especially because of imaginary threats. I, of course, am speaking of the bullshit lies like Gay Marriage will destroy regular marriages.

Lastly, if you want your family to live by "biblical values" that is fine by me. As long as you are not denying your children or any member of your family their own life, like the Nuemann's of Wausau, Wisconsin nor is physical abuse acceptable. Now if you try to implement your archaic "biblical values" on others is when I have a problem. Separation of church and state is to protect everyone and especially religions themselves. For some reason, dominionistic fundamentalists can't seem to understand this.

Examples of good "biblical values":

"Let the women learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." (I Timothy 2:11-14)

"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything." (Ephesians 5:22-24)

"Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is just as though her head were shaved. If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut or shaved off, she should cover her head. A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man." (1 Corinthians 11:3-9)

"women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church." (1 Corinthians 14:34-35)

{1Corinthians has one of my favorite chapters in all the Bible, chapter 13, but is full of misogyny also}

"Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.

Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers." (1 Peter 3:1-7)

"Give me any plague, but the plague of the heart: and any wickedness, but the wickedness of a woman." (Eccles. 25:13)

5. A Promise Keeper is committed to supporting the mission of his church by honoring and praying for his pastor, and by actively giving his time and resources.

Seriously, you have to be told and promise too help out an organization you support and take on as your lifestyle?

6. A Promise Keeper is committed to reaching beyond any racial and denominational barriers to demonstrate the power of biblical unity.

You have to be told and promise not to be racist???? WTF?

7. A Promise Keeper is committed to influencing his world, being obedient to the Great Commandment (see Mark 12:30-31) and the Great Commission (see Matthew 28:19-20).

Another promise to obey the Bible. Again, maybe I completely misunderstood Christianity while I was a part of it, but shouldn't this be automatic. Isn't one of the tenets of Christianity to follow the Bible?

So there are the 7 promises. It seems to me that the founders seem to think that most of the men coming to these things are sociopaths, because all of these you should be doing anyway. I do all the ones that are not religious specific without being told too or having to make a promise to do it. This is the core of Promise Keepers but not everything.

Easter Service

I went to Easter service with my family. In part because my father and his cancer, of which we still know very little, and because my family asked me to come. Part of the reason they asked me was because my family is either in the choir or part of a skit and that would leave my grandfather by himself. He is recovering from a stroke and at times gets very disoriented so having someone with him helps. I agreed to go. I have no problem helping my family.

My sister was in the skit. She is a creationist and moving towards fundamentalism. The skit is what I had the most trouble with. It was supposed to be the story of two individuals and a family and the struggles that we all face underneath our cheerful exterior. One of the characters was a single female. She was upset because she was sad and made the comment, "No wonder no one wants to marry me. No one will ever love me." That little comment made me upset. Basically it says that a woman can only ever be happy when she is married. Also only through marriage can a woman be assured she is loved. Sick, sick, sick. I love my girlfriend and all but I know she was happy before she met me. If we ever split up, I am sure she will still be happy. I do not make up the entirety of her happiness. This is a good thing. Being so dependent on another person for your own happiness is not healthy.

The main reason for this is we are all human and at some point will let our partner down. No one can keep their partner happy all the time. This all just emotional dependency, but I think I understand partly where it is coming from. The church itself requires the believers to be emotionally dependent on it. They require the person to give themselves to God and be dependent on him. So really how much of stretch is it for the woman (not the man, he has to be tough and resolved no matter what) to also be dependent on her spouse. This does not make it any better, in fact I think being dependent on the church is even worse.

The other thing that bothered me was a little story the pastor gave. He talked about when George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin met for the first time and Putin told this fanciful tale about his grandmother's cross. The fact that Putin told this story and Bush (and apparently the evangelical world) bought this story is all true. The story itself, probably not. Putin was in the KGB and this just reeks of manipulation. Apparently I was not the only one that thought that.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/121305.html
http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/1752

What the Fuck?

Well I plan on getting to the pictures of the Museum at some point. I took almost 200 pictures, but I still need to weed through the ones I deem worthy. On the way back home though, I had a big "What the fuck?" moment.

Driving through these little towns in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma can be an interesting adventure. While traversing through the town of Holdenville, I noticed a billboard, right as your enter the town. The billboard exclaimed "If you want to marry a lady, then you should stop living with your girlfriend." Near the bottom it claimed to be sponsored by the such and such community, I didn't stop to check further.

There is just so much wrong with this little sentence. First, it is trying to call back to almost Victorian era language with this "marry a lady." It reminded me of something written on the Slacktivist recently (a great blog and I highly recommend its reading, Fred Clark is a liberal Christian who is not afraid to call out the loonies of the far right Christian movement), "The male supremacist dogma that so many evangelicals euphemistically refer to as 'traditional gender roles' usually expresses itself through an emphasis on almost Victorian manners. Tim LaHaye's wife, Beverly LaHaye, is a leading proponent of this chivalrous, gentlemanly approach to male supremacy." (The post this comes from can be found here) This could be me just reading too much into the phrasing but I get the feeling that the wording on this billboard is meant to be a reference to "traditional gender roles" as described in the Bible. These of course are where the woman is to remain quiet in public and obey her husband.

Second, the sentence does not follow, it is a non sequitur. Marrying a lady has nothing to do with the living conditions of the relationship before marriage. Unless you are trying to say that the action of living with a person, whom you love, care, and trust, somehow disperage this person into not living up to some ideal, which few if any can actually live up too. Which is the purpose of this billboard to shame the females living in this kind of relationship.

This brings me to my third point. This billboard is clearly misogynistic. Who is being shamed? The female. Whose the one you should get rid of? The girlfriend aka the female. Who should be living up to the ideal of "lady", whatever that means? The female. The male only needs to beware of these loose moraled women who wish to live with them, it is clearly not the man's fault.

This is what is being taught to youths in these little towns, deep in the Bible belt. When pointed out you can see how disgusting this philosphy truly is. When you grow up around it, the misogyny is very subtle and that makes it very dangerous. This billboard did not claim any religion behind it, but my best guess says that it was religious in nature. I would also say that it is a Christian message. I just found it to be extremely disgusting and patronizing. What is wrong with living with someone that you love, respect, cherish, and trust? Is this not a way to cut down on divorce, finding out how well you get along seeing each other every day? Why are you still reading a book that at best is almost 2000 years old and think it has anything to do with modern society?