September 26, 2004 by s.z.

Some Other Sunday Thoughts   1. Here are some teachings for women from Mom Of 9 (who apparently isn't a sexy Borg like "Seven of Nine"). First, her thoughts on Head Coverings (she says you don't have to wear a scarf or something on your head, but you DO have to have long hair): If a woman's hair is short like a man's, she is dishonoring her head and is sowing confusion in the created realm. I remember when I was a child and got one of the then-popular "pixie" haircuts. I personally don't think I sowed confusion in the created realm, but I did look stupid,  which probably means I dishonored my head.   Anyway, on the day of class photos, my mother tried to dress up my scant locks by sticking one of those Christmas package ribbons on my head.  For days after, kids called me "that girl with the bow on her head."  But the story does have a good moral to it: a couple of years ago when my niece J. was complaining that she was a victim of child abuse because her mother wouldn't buy her whatever the new preteen fad was, my sister showed J. my first-grade class photo and told her the story about me being known as the girl with the bow on her head.  And so J. was forced to acknowledg that she had it good in comparison.  So, I don't think God necessarily sends you to hell for having too-short hair -- but you still shouldn't dress your kids funny.   But back to Mom of 9: The hair is the natural covering God has given to the woman to signify her humility and submission. If she cuts it short, she is dishonoring herself and is displaying a rebellious spirit.  [...] Likewise, the man's hair is to be short to signify his headship under Christ. Hair is humiliating, so women should wear it long, while men should cut it short.  Got it. Now for some advice on Proper Attire: I have 5 girls, they have never for one day in their lives worn pants or shorts...(with the exception of my oldest--she was on a mission trip in Venezuela and it was necessary in the jungle for protection from gnats) And even then she called on a ham radio, and said "Mom, I dont know what to do"...I knew that day that it was a conviction for her...she wasn't afraid of disobeying me, she didn't want to do anything to disgrace her Lord. For God hates it when women wear slacks.  Mom has a scripture to prove it: Deuteronomy 22:5 - The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God. [...] While most church members react in disgust to Sodomites who parade down the street in dresses, they readily accept and even defend women wearing pants. According to God’s Word, it is no more of an abomination for a man to wear a dress than it is for a woman to wear a pair of pants. Those guys in dresses were Sodomites??? I thought they were just cross-dressers!  Or Scotsmen. "Yeah, but that’s in the Old Testament, so it doesn’t apply to Christians today."  Ah yes, the battle cry of the liberal and the carnal church member. If Mom ever got a break from pregnancy and had her period, she presumably brought turtles and pigeons to her pastor, like it says in Leviticus (a law which Glenstonecottage pointed us to last week).  Because only a liberal or a carnal church member would fail to obey all the laws set out in the Old Testament. It’s kind of funny that for nearly 6000 years, women always wore long dresses, but only since the last 40 years, a dress is suddenly "impractical" to wear. You cannot change history to validate what you want to make acceptable for today. Nowadays, women think that they cannot so much as rake a few leaves without adorning themselves in a pair of pants. If you saw a man wearing a dress, what would you call him? Holy Father? Uh-huh, you would have no trouble knowing that it was wrong, and an abomination to God (even if his dress had a fly). Why would a dress need a fly? But we have been conditioned by the world and erring brethren that a pair of pants is a good and acceptable thing for a woman to wear today. Just because it is common does not make it right. In fact, I believe that it is all part of Satan’s plan to further defile mankind by mixing the genders. Have you noticed how wimpy the boys are getting and how masculine the girls are getting? Women’s sports are becoming the rage. We would rather have our girls learn how to "Kill ‘em on the court" than to learn to be chaste and skilled at homemaking. This is how we have come to put our women in military combat positions. We would have never even considered this 20 years ago, but now we are eliminating the difference in the sexes that God made. Yup, let women wear pants to rake the leaves, and the next thing you know, they are serving in combat, while the boys are turning wimpy.  I blame Satan.  And so does Mom.  But she also blames women for always being the first to sin. A feminine woman is in her rightful place of an elevated position. But as soon as she steps down off her pedestal to wear pants and be "equal" to a man, it drags everybody down, which is exactly what Satan wants.  The devil is still whispering in Eve's ear to destroy mankind.  If you look at it, you’ll find it was usually the woman that lead in the matters of sin and error. You can begin at the garden, through Israel’s idolatrous apostasy and even into recent history, with cults, Charasmania, and other errors. Charasmania?  Not actually Charas, but an incredible simulation? Now the boys are wearing earrings and have long hair, while the girls are wearing pants and chopping their hair off, even though this is forbidden in scripture (I Corinthians 11). To top it off, most preachers will not preach against short hair and pants because this would affect a majority of the women in his congregation including his wife and daughters! Well, at least none of Mom of 9's daughters have worn pants (except for the hussy who said she needed them for jungle gnat protection), so the world hasn't totally gone to hell.  Yet. 2.  Our friend David E. has an intriguing idea: I think the way to distract the evangelical Christians, and get them to focus on something other than gay marriage and abortion, is to start a movement to change the names of the days of the week because of their pagan derivation. Sun, Moon, Tiw, Woden/Odin/Wotan, Thor, Freia, and Saturn are the origins of Sunday, Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday -- covering pagan (sun, moon), Norse (Tiw, Woden, Thor, Freia) and Roman (Saturn) gods.    Isn't that just the kind of the thing that they'll focus on? Petitioning Congress to rename the days of the week?   Yes, it is.  But there should be somebody they could boycott too, to feel extra righteous.  Maybe ABC, for reintroducing the concept of a TGIF TV lineup.  For not only does this abomination reference Freia, Norse goddess of weekends, but it also includes a program called "The Savages."  Here's part of the Wash Post capsule review of this ungodly program: "Complete Savages" The tagline you'll never see: It's completely void of humor! The basics: Single dad Nick (Keith Carradine) raises five sons (all of whom, in the grand tradition of "Quintuplets," don't look remotely related) with the help of his brother Jimmy (Vincent Ventresca). The inspiration for the show loosely comes from executive producer Mel Gibson's own experience bringing up boys. Unfortunately, these boys grunt and groan their way through a pilot full of jokes about overweight girls and incontinent senior citizens. (Are you laughing yet?) The lowdown: It used to be ABC owned the TGIF comedy lineup, but despite what the grating laugh track would have viewers believe, this alleged sitcom isn't funny or remotely family friendly. It's hard to believe that Mike Scully and Julie Thacker-Scully, writers on "The Simpsons," had anything to do with this dreadful half-hour. Gibson, who received accolades for "The Passion of the Christ," clumsily directed the pilot. A sit-com based on Mel Gibson's family life?  Hey, that's blasphemy right there, because we all know that Mel's mother (and wife) are virgins, so he HAS no family life!  Besides, Mel should be out there making the sequel to The Passon of the Christ, not directing TV pilots.  So, yes, let's get the wingnuts working  on a crusade to amend the Constitution to make it illegal to have non-Christian names for the days of the week, and let's get Focus on the Family to call for a boycott of ABC's TGIF programs.     More things they should busy themselves with as I (or David) think of them.  7:36:18 AM

Lisa Teaches the Facts of Life Lisa "Hot Sauce" Welchel answers your parenting questions at Today's Christian Woman Mag: Could My Teen Be Gay? We're worried about his disinterest in dating. By Lisa Whelchel My 16-year-old son's more interested in the arts than in athletics, seems to have no interest in girls, and doesn't have many male friends at school or church. With all the publicity about homosexuality today, we can't help but worry our son could be gay. What should we do? You just described my husband, Steve, as a 16-year-old. He was First Chair in band, never dated, and spent more time working and studying than hanging out with the guys. Today we have a healthy 16-year marriage and three wonderful children. Sure, Steve is gay, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have a rich, full life.  And if the advisee's son is gay, it's probably because of all the publicity that homosexuality gets these days -- kids would never even THINK to be gay if they didn't hear about it from the media.    But back to Lisa's answer:  So just because your son doesn't resemble the stereotypical high-school boy doesn't mean he's gay. Which is true, of course.  This would have been good advice if Lisa had stopped there.  But she didn't . . . Two common threads exist among those who struggle with homosexual tendencies. First, does your son exhibit any signs of childhood molestation or incest? If you suspect this is the case, seek help from a local Christian counselor. Then look at the father/son (and for girls, the mother/daughter) relationship. Does your son feel accepted by his father? Is your husband a jock who rejects or even ridicules your son's interest in the arts? Perhaps your son's father isn't even in the picture, either by divorce, absence, death, or passivity. The father holds the key to affirming a boy's manhood. Without that blessing, a gaping hole is left in a young man's life. Fortunately, a healing substitute often can be found in a strong father figure. If not, some young men attempt to "cannibalize" other men through homosexual actions to fill that void. So, if your son wasn't molested, has a father who doesn't make make fun of him for being a sissy, and he isn't a cannibal, then there's no way he's gay.  Now, Lisa tells us how to make sex so creepy that your kids will never be heterosexual either. Taking On "The Talk"How do I bring up the "birds and the bees"? by Lisa Whelchel I have two children ages four and six. I want to train my kids to lead sexually pure lives when they enter their teen years. When and what are the best ways to talk to my children about sex? Here's how we've handled this issue in our family; you can decide whether you think it might be effective with your children. When each of our children turned ten, my husband, Steve, and I took them to a hotel for an overnighter, just the three of us. We would check in one early afternoon and spend the rest of the day doing something fun together. Before heading out to dinner, we read the chapter "Male+Female+God's Gift of Life=Baby," from a book entitled How You Are Changing (Concordia), by Jane Graver. This was the moment when our son, Tucker, responded with, "I should have packed a barf bag!" and when our daughter, Haven, began with, "You mean our pastor did that?" then proceeded to ask the same question about every parent she knew. So, the plan so far: never say anything at all about sex until the kid is ten.  Then, take him (or her) to a motel and read him the chapter of the book that tells him that the man puts his thing in the woman's you-know-what, and God sends the woman a baby.  Reassure him that although this is disgusting and icky, that the pastor does it too -- just not with Mrs. Pastor, 'cause she's too spiritual for that kind of thing. Over dinner, we answered any questions our children had (although at this point, Tucker never wanted to hear the word "sex" again!). See, the plan works!  Tucker is now effectively asexual, and Lisa will never have to worry about him defiling his purity.  When we returned to the hotel, we read a few chapters from the book, What's the Big Deal: Why God Cares About Sex (NavPress), by Stan and Brenna Jones. Steve and I like this book because it forthrightly answers so many questions from a godly perspective without giving more information than necessary. Before our son or daughter hit overload, we laid the book down for the evening, snuggled up in bed together, and rented a family movie. Finish off your child's sexuality by keeping him in the motel room as you read to him several chapters of a book on how sex is bad unless it's to make babies -- and then crawl into the motel bed with him.  The next morning was interspersed with a few more chapters, a lot more fun, a few more questions, and a lot more hugs, until we completed the book together. And so, like Alex in A Clockwork Orange, the Wechel children have been effectively conditioned.  But if Lisa finds out they weren't, I'm sure she has some Creative Corrections for the occasion.  You know, like a clothespin on the body part that offended Christ. And speaking of Lisa's book about discipline and bondage, here are some excerpts from the scarier Amazon reviews of it: ***** Finally, someone not afraid to PARENT!!!, September 7, 2004 Reviewer:    Mom of 3 - As parents we need to accept the responsibility of raising our children, not catering to their every whim and desire. For many of the people who have commented here, I question how many of the have actually read this book. I would much rather my child have a drop of hot sauce (an actual edible food!) than to grow up to become a liar having never suffered any consequences for their action. I am also a daycare provider for 16 years and while I leave the discipline up to the parent (it's their responsibility!!)I can always tell which children have pansies for parents. I usually end up asking them to leave my care as they bring their disrespective habits into my home. The above review expressed some sentiments common to many of the five-star reviews of Lisa book: (1) that children should be bullied into obeying their parents in all things; (2) "I was physically disciplined as a child, and it never hurt me, so why should my kids get treated any better than I did?"; and (3) "My children are docile and cowed, and yours aren't, so my methods have been validated, while you are responsible for the breakdown of society."  And I have to say that his woman sounds like a really scary daycare provider.  If you ever see a copy of Lisa's book at your babysitter's house, I would advise you to make other arrangements. ***** Creative Parenting, September 6, 2004 Reviewer:    John   The book is great reading and very informative, provided the parent reading it has some form of intelligence and logic in their brain. If they don't, forget it, they they need to apply for a job as a Social Worker so they take perfectly good children out of the home and totally destroy not only the family but the child. No where in her book does she state that her children are disrepectful to her for using her ideas. The person that suggested that the children grow up hating her needs to to be evaluated by a Pysciatrist cause they have the problem. My wife and I were raised by strict parents, I had a belt and switch taken to me on several occasions nad we still LOVE our parents. We CAN NOT have a society of undisciplined and unruly kids that become adults. That is the problem with our society today, the government has taken away the parents right to discipline our own children and thus our juvinile jails have become filled with problems, that if a little discipline was used early on they would not be in jail. Any self-righteous individual that would like to prove there side is more than welcome, provide you have a form of intelligence in your brain. I have been down that road with the social worker and won. You parents need to grow up and get a life. It is your children that will run the country someday and I for one don't want to be here when that happens, remember Hitler, Stalin that is what you are creating by not disciplining your kids now. The BIBLE states "SPARE THE ROD, SPOIL THE CHILD". For those of you that say Jesus would not have done that to a child, you are right. But if you would like to look at it from that perspective, then a child that is out of control and unruly could be possesed by a demon and just being in the presence of Jesus the demon would have been driven out and the child would become obediant. So, unless you are claiming to be GOD, I suggest that you come up with other ways to drive out the demons, unless you like little devils running around your house, which from your reviews I guess you do, just make sure the you keep the pentagram out of my way, and keep your self-righteous attitude and comments to yourself and Satan. It's not surprising that this fellow has had some run-ins with Child Protective Services.   I just hope he doesn't go too far in his attempts to drive the demons out of children and we hear about him on the evening news. ****Excellent Book!, September 6, 2004 Reviewer: D. (New York)       It's very sad to read that most people consider this to be a book about child abuse. Yet when we walk down the street and see a parent curse their children out, hear children speaking profanity, having sex before marriage at a very young age with multiple partners, listening to rap music with disgusting lyrics, watching sexually explicit videos, movies and television shows, dressing in provacotive clothing, hating the world - this is what is considered normal in today's society. A Christian family today trying to raise their children in any manner not described above is considered a child abuser, not normal, crazy, retarded and should be locked up among other things. That's ok really because as Christians we don't mind all the negative publicity that we get because in the end we know what our reward will be and the ignorant ones who do not read the bible and learn to love the Lord will be sorry in the end. Even in New York, I don't believe you can walk down the street and see kids having sex outside of marriage at a very young age with multiple partners.    Oh, and I have some Christian friends (and relatives) who I think have some weird child-raising ideas.  But I don't think any of them are child abusers, because none of them (as far as I know) spends time thinking of creative ways to inflict physical and emotional pain on their children in order to break their wills.   Anyway, I think that's enough child rearing advice for today.  But I'm sure you'll be as happy as I was when I read this announcement from Howard Publishing : Howard Publishing's Spring 2005 releases will include, among others, titles by a well-known recording artist, a familiar actress and award-winning authors.  [...] Lisa Whelchel, known for her role as "Blair" on the sitcom "The Facts of Life" will serve as spokesperson for The Motherhood Club, an innovative new resource center for moms. Along with "The Busy Mom's Guide to Prayer" by Whelchel, The Motherhood Club will include an array of Christian living, fiction, and gift-book titles, as well as future plans for a Web site with chat rooms, a book club, annual events, contests, e-newsletters, and more.  Yes, it made me happy to learn that Lisa is going to be the spokesperson for "The Motherhood Club," because she'll presumably be on the road a lot, and so her kids will get a break from her parenting. 5:49:30 AM