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Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Divorce, Equal Protection, Equal Protection, family law, Fundamental Rights, Religious freedom, Substantive Due Process

Would a Ruling that Unilateral No-Fault Divorce is Unconstitutional REALLY Be “Legislating from the Bench” ?

November 20, 2018 standerinfamilycourt Leave a comment

by Standerinfamilycourt

The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;–to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;–to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;–to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;–to Controversies between two or more States;–between a State and Citizens of another State; –between Citizens of different States, –between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
United States Constitution, Article 3, Section 2, Clause 1

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. United States Constitution, Article 10

Two landmark cases of the Sexual Revolution in the U.S., namely Roe v. Wade – 1973 (depriving pre-born children of their fundamental right to life), and Obergefell v. Hodges – 2015, legalizing sodomy as “marriage”, were seen by conservatives and original constructionists (with a fair amount of justification, we daresay) as “legislating from the bench”. An extra-constitutional fundamental right (to “privacy”) was established without actually amending the Constitution via Congressional and state legislative action as called for in Article 5. Leading up to those cases, several other cases also turned on a judicially-presumed “right of privacy”, including Eisenstadt v. Baird – 1972 (establishing the right of unmarried individuals to purchase contraceptives) and Lawrence v. Texas – 2003 (declaring state laws against sodomy “unconstitutional”). It should be noted that the fundamental right that is explicit in the Bill of Rights is the right to freedom of association, which came to be closely associated with a presumed “privacy” right which, even worse, has come to override the priority of other conflicting fundamental rights of impacted parties, in order to arrive at some of these activist, individualist decisions that don’t comport with balancing fundamental rights in a way that is best for society as a whole.

As for prioritizing the protection of fundamental rights that inherently conflict with one another, most reasonable people would concur with the principle: “My fundamental rights end where yours take up.” For example, a baby’s right to life was ruled in Roe v. Wade to unduly infringe upon a woman’s right to “free association”, but is that reasonable? A homosexual pair’s right to “free association”, protected by local SOGI laws (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) was ruled to have priority over a wedding professional’s free exercise of religion in a matter before the U.S. Supreme Court last year with a landmark ruling in his favor delivered in June.

SCOTUS did (effectively) rule in 2015 that homosexual couples have a fundamental right to remain married, but our unilateral divorce laws continue to deny that same fundamental right to innocent heterosexual spouses who oppose the purported “dissolution” of their marriage as profoundly harmful to their immediate and extended families’ true best interests, and significantly infringing on the family members’ rights to free association and free religious exercise. In fact, the Petitioner’s presumed right to “free association” with an adulterous partner, and “privacy” are treated as trumping their innocent spouse’s right to free religious exercise and conscience, as well as their right to protection of property with due process of law, along with their right to protection of decades of extended family relationships. My right to bear arms must necessarily yield to your right to life if I misuse my fundamental right in order to advance my individual selfish interest at your expense. And so forth.

Most immoral laws and court rulings indeed result from immoral prioritization of conflicting fundamental rights – a balancing that always has been unavoidable when it comes to the Bill of Rights protections. It is popular (and ridiculously false) to claim that “you can’t legislate morality”, but is that not precisely what laws against murder, rape, battery, larceny and defamation actually do? Don’t discrimination laws of all types “legislate morality” ?

C.S. Lewis famously said,

“There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.”

Indeed, if someone isn’t legislating morality, it certainly doesn’t leave just a neutral vacuum. The evidence is all around us that somebody else is surely going to be legislating immorality –and in constantly increasing amounts, to the corrosive detriment of the whole of society. As the morality and sense of the good of the whole thereby disintegrates, the whole nation can go down to historic ruin because immoral laws can be exceedingly difficult to reverse no matter how much vile impact they’ve produced.

This concludes the long introduction to the topic at-hand.
Our U.S. Constitution and state constitutions were designed with an intentional separation-of-powers so that the three branches, legislative, executive and judicial, historically operated with prudent boundaries; checks-and-balances on each other. It wasn’t perfect, but it continued to pervasively function well over a long period of time — until the Sexual Revolution hit in full force in the 1970’s. In addition, the concept of Federalism served to set boundaries of balance between states’ power and the power of national leaders. Unfortunately, both of these mechanisms in recent decades have worked together to make the erosion of equal protection in marriage laws enacted with unconstitutional statutory provisions increasingly difficult to counter or overturn, at least with regard to the heterosexuals who (after all) produce the children who become the next generation of citizens.

As we’ve seen since former President Obama swept into office in 2008, it’s been a far different story with regard to homosexuals, who achieved superior protections to all other citizens, and relaxation of those legal boundaries, vis-à-vis heterosexuals . Homosexuals have typically not been required to undertake the expensive burden of taking marriage cases through all levels of the state courts before a lower Federal court would hear and rule on the case. Homosexuals have often been extended special privilege in overturning a state marriage law that state judiciary authorities declined to review. By contrast, heterosexuals in modern times have been forced to bear the expensive burden of exhausting all state channels of review, with SCOTUS being the first allowed Federal engagement point of review. The odds of getting a constitutional challenge heard there are approximately 90 to 1 as recently reported. Reportedly, less than 1% of the 9,000 some cases submitted for SCOTUS docketing ever make it oral arguments. Unless at least four Justices agree to hear the case, it will never be heard, and no reason need be given. To make matters worse, the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Court revealed that the Justices had been using a “vetting pool” of clerks, rather than having their own clerks read the cases, reducing the chances of a case which so fundamentally “takes on” the Sexual Revolution having its day in highest court in the land even more remote. To his credit, Justice Gorsuch announced that he would be joining Justice Alito in breaking with that convenience. Most recently, Justice Kavanaugh was mum on that issue, so presumably he’s using the “cert” pool, as the now-retired Justice Kennedy did. That means liberal clerks still probably outnumber conservative clerks in that pool, but “standerinfamilycourt” digresses except to say that even the conservative clerks are going to have an ideological bias against the perception of “legislating from the bench”.

Unfortunately, the whole concept of “legislating from the bench”, tends to be ideologically charged. It refers to using courts to violate the constitutional separation of powers in Articles 1 and 3, also the interference with Federalism and states’ rights prohibited by Article 10. Our constitutional republic is gravely harmed in the clear-cut cases of “legislating from the bench” where special rights have been created for a group of people in a case precedent that will in fact deny fundamental rights to everyone else in order to implement and enforce the same. Our constitutional republic is equally harmed when an ideological majority uses the concept as an excuse to deny fundamental rights to a group of people whose state constitutions and the Bill of Rights is supposed to guarantee them. The latter has historically been accomplished either through applying an inappropriate standard of judicial review, or wrongfully declining to hear such a case coming from a lower level.

For example, in 1986, Florida pro-se constitutional challenger Judith Brumbaugh related in her book, “Judge, Please Don’t Strike that Gavel on My Marriage”, that she managed to get her appeal of Florida’s unilateral “no-fault” divorce law docketed at the U.S. Supreme Court. They ultimately declined to hear the case “for want of a Federal question”. It was striking that Judith’s request for “cert” even got docketed. This blog has documented many earlier challenges to unilateral “no-fault” divorce laws based on religious freedom and equal protection grounds, where the state appeals courts applied the rational basis standard of review, instead of the strict scrutiny basis that is constitutionally required when fundamental rights are being denied by a state statute. The latter requires that the states prove a compelling interest in denying those fundamental rights, and that such laws be narrowly-tailored to meet that interest in the least intrusive way upon those rights. What tends to happen is that SCOTUS will apply Article 10 first, and say there is no “Federal question” (unless conflicting results are found in lower courts in different circuits on the same issue) even when it is clear that not only is the Bill of Rights being violated, but the state courts are tolerating wholesale violations of Articles 1 and 3, and thereby compromising the separation-of-powers between the branches of government. What’s really happening is the actual inverse of “legislating from the bench”, that is, taking away true judicial discretion and validating a phony cause-of-action from the floors of the state legislative bodies, while being allowed to do it through what amounts to judicial collusion and self-dealing.

Although SCOTUS intervened twice in equal protection cases involving marriage or divorce between homosexuals between 2013 and 2015, the last heterosexual divorce case “standerinfamilycourt” could find that was heard appears to be in 1996 out of Mississippi, and it involved the termination of parental rights for a mother who had suffered a divorce to which she probably acquiesced. (Mississippi’s “no-fault” law is the only one in the country that was comprehensively enacted in 1972 so as to not force divorce on a non-consenting spouse except on a fault basis.) The matter at issue was not even the divorce itself, but her inability to pay the transcript costs that blocked her from fighting the termination of her parental rights at the request of her now-“remarried” husband. There was already significant precedent for the costs of access to courts not to be permitted to deny access to her avenues of initial hearing or appeal. That case was simply remanded back to the state on that very narrow basis.

In the landmark case, Loving v Virginia (1967) there were no such concerns with violating Article 10. The Lovings had secured the help of the ACLU to fight the state’s anti-miscegenation laws all the way up through the state appellate system in a class action suit, until certiorari was requested and granted from SCOTUS. However, neither was there any artificial requirement imposed by SCOTUS to wait for differing outcomes in other regions of the country, lest the spurious claim be made of “want of a Federal question”. The Supremacy Clause (Article VI, Clause 2) ….

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

….makes such assertions highly questionable when Bill of Rights protections are being denied by state legislatures to its citizens.
The sequence of events in the Loving case, as laid out in the majority SCOTUS opinion:

“On November 6, 1963, they filed a motion in the state trial court to vacate the judgment and set aside the sentence on the ground that the statutes which they had violated were repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment. The motion not having been decided by October 28, 1964, the Lovings instituted a class action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia requesting that a three-judge court be convened to declare the Virginia anti-miscegenation statutes unconstitutional and to enjoin state officials from enforcing their convictions. On January 22, 1965, the state trial judge denied the motion to vacate the sentences, and the Lovings perfected an appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia. On February 11, 1965, the three-judge District Court continued the case to allow the Lovings to present their constitutional claims to the highest state court. The Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of the anti-miscegenation statutes and, after modifying the sentence, affirmed the convictions. The Lovings appealed this decision, and we noted probable jurisdiction on December 12, 1966…”

Fundamental rights to stay married, and to live where they wished were on the line in this case that was decided unanimously by the Justices, two and a half years before unilateral “no-fault” divorce laws began to be enacted in the various states. While it should never be the case, the ugly reality is that the changeable prevailing morality tends to drive landmark SCOTUS decisions and fundamental rights get some lip service, but tend to take a back seat. For more on the constitutional challenges to unilateral “no-fault” divorce that were decided at the state level under an erroneous standard of judicial review, but never heard by SCOTUS, please click here, and here. Several of the gay marriage cases decided in 2014 cited the right to stay married.

If subsequent state legislation conflicts with a state constitution, there is no violation of Federalism for SCOTUS to enforce the state constitution where a state supreme court denied certiorari.

First-level state appeals are required to be heard, but are sometimes dismissed on technicalities, and hearings for state Supreme Court appeals can be declined without comment, simply based on the number of cases submitted, with “standerinfamilycourt’s” constitutional attorney advising that the state Supreme Court might hear perhaps 5% of the few thousand appeals submitted each session. Given the influence-peddling on the state level for states that have an elected judiciary, which was ongoing both before and after the jaw-dropping Citizens United ruling by SCOTUS (money is “speech”), it is important, in theory at least, to have an unobstructed path to SCOTUS. Appellate decisions at the state level, and demonstrably also by SCOTUS, are becoming almost uniformly ideological rather than independent, with the effect that constitutional checks-and-balances between the branches of government are becoming ever-weaker, and stare decisis (ruling by precedent) is pretty much a joke these days. While in a rare instance there might be a favorable individual challenge where the ruling would be limited in its impact to the law as applied to just that case, no state appellate court wants to invalidate 50 years worth of unconstitutional marriage dissolutions by admitting the laws are unconstitutional on their face, knowing the social chaos that would result, so these courts will be duplicitous in avoiding ever being put in a situation where they would have to so rule. Some basis is going to have the be found for taking a constitutional challenge up through the Federal court system despite the long history of being barred from doing so by Article 10 arguments.

In one sense, given the long history of barriers and difficulty of getting any true appellate justice in 1st and 14th Amendment-based challenges to unilateral “no-fault” divorce laws, either on the state or Federal levels, the question of whether it would be “legislating from the bench” to declare them unconstitutional on this basis might seem like a moot or futile question. However, if judges could be sued in Federal court because they ruled while having no true subject matter jurisdiction due to the Article 3 violations entailed in the statute, then this might suddenly become a very relevant question. As this post is being written, the theory that state divorce statutes unconstitutionally strip judges of the discretion required by Article 3 is being tested in Federal court in several states. As soon as some initial outcomes are available, the updates will be the subject of a future post.

Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against those who swear falsely, and against those who oppress the wage earner in his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien and do not fear Me,” says the Lord of hosts. “For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.
– Malachi 3: 5-6

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal “No-Fault” Divorce!

Discipleship, Lost culture, morality, Spiritual Warfare

Who’s That Back-Door Funding the Southern Baptists These Days…(And WHY)?

May 25, 2018 standerinfamilycourt Leave a comment

by Standerinfamilycourt

Give us that Marxist social gospel
Give us that Marxist social gospel
Give us that Marxist social gospel
It’s good enough for most

It was good enough for the mainstream Methodists
Good enough for the Episcopalians
Good enough for the leftist Lutherans
It’s even good enough for this Pope

Yeah!….( okay, “SIFC” will behave now.)

In the not-so-humble opinion of “standerinfamilycourt”, it’s way past time to recognize that the bride of Jesus Christ is not some sort of demographic-sensitive, finger-to-the-wind organizational hawker. Her Husband never did allow one single soul to come to Him on his or her own terms while He walked the earth, not even the man who wanted to go home first and bury his ailing father.

It has been hard to miss the leftward drift over the past 3 or so years of The Gospel Coalition publication (TGC) and the related Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), both of which are Southern Baptist-affiliated organizations. What do we mean by “leftward drift” ? It’s easily recognizable to some of us with adult children whom we raised in conservative evangelical homes, or in traditional Catholic homes, but those big kids are now thinking Jesus died for “social justice” – and they choose their current church accordingly, leaving some of us grateful that our grandchildren are in church at all, but….

Did Jesus die for “social justice” ?

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.
Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth.
– John 18:36-37

Jesus laid down His life to bring the poor and lost into a future kingdom. Yes, He taught us to do unto others as we would have done for us, but the temporal (as He demonstrates Himself) is only PART of the equation, and it is, in fact, by far the lesser part.

While it might seem comforting to reason that the SBC is doing what all major organizations do in the 21st century, especially after losing a million members over the last decade, and they are appealing to what they perceive as their future demographic to try and recover the loss, yet there may possibly be a little more that’s afoot along with the demographic appeal, and it just might be a bit sinister. This may seem a crass suggestion, but once the choice has been made to shift (or drift) mission from the eternal to the temporal, is not such discernment fair game?

In the fall of 2015, TGC contributor Joe Carter did an excellent three-part series of articles on the Communist roots of the U.S.
50-state unilateral divorce laws, and the deleterious impact they have had on the civility and stability of our society. He promised a fourth installment which the marriage permanence community eagerly awaited, but for some reason, he has not delivered it –almost three years later. Why? Some have sought to find out, but Joe’s not saying. (More about the reinvented Joe Carter below.)

As the Southern Baptist Convention gears up for its annual convention June 10-13 in Dallas, shortly after the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., it appears the agenda will be heavy with more of the same. The media has managed to keep the national attention riveted on “racism”, despite a rash of multi-racial school shootings, carried out by fatherless young men. Denominational leaders are tripping all over themselves to “apologize” for our “segregated” churches, despite the fact that people quite freely make their own choice where they feel most comfortable attending, and you never see a “blacks only” or “whites only” sign in front of any church in this country. Likely to be ignored (again) in the agenda is the fact that the 2018 host state and the neighboring state both have unilateral divorce repeal bills pending on the floors of their legislatures, and it’s a prime opportunity for the SBC to act on its year 2000 resolution — that is, presuming the denomination ever meant a single word of it.

The PMS Pasting of Paige Patterson

The family-friendly year 2000 SBC resolution entitled, “The Baptist Faith and Message” was presided over by the man who this week lost his job as head of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary over allegations that he is a “misogynist” and “patriarchal”, guilty in the first-degree of the unspeakable crime of counseling a physically and emotionally battered woman, some years earlier, in the identical fashion the Apostles Paul and Peter would have. As described in the preceding blog post, homosexual journalist Jonathan Merritt brought a Y2K radio interview audio of Dr. Paige Patterson to Spiritual Sounding Board, a blog site that “exposes” traditional biblical church conduct and morals (and especially, church leadership that cultivates this) as “abusive” and “controlling”. SSB then proceeded obligingly to second-guess Dr. Patterson’s pastoral ministry of 20 years ago as “misogynistic”, “paternalistic”, and insufficiently protective of battered women. This inflamed the likes of leftist-leaning Liberty University professor and ERLC (Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission) research fellow Karen Swallow-Prior, also media evangelist Beth Moore to raise a petition garnering over 3,000 signatures demanding Dr. Patterson’s removal from his post. The undersigned claimed to “affirm” The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 principles (we’d beg to differ), which reads, in part:

“…All Christians are under obligation to seek to make the will of Christ supreme in our own lives and in human society….In order to promote these ends Christians should be ready to work with all men of good will in any good cause, always being careful to act in the spirit of love without compromising their loyalty to Christ and His truth…

“Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. It is God’s unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel of sexual expression according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race….The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God’s image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to His people. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation…..Children, from the moment of conception, are a blessing and heritage from the Lord. Parents are to demonstrate to their children God’s pattern for marriage. Parents are to teach their children spiritual and moral values and to lead them, through consistent lifestyle example and loving discipline, to make choices based on biblical truth. Children are to honor and obey their parents.”

Given that Jesus was abundantly and repeatedly clear that all “divorce” is man-made rebellion against the created order (Matt. 19:6,8), representing an un-Christlike and deliberate decision to take one’s own revenge, to never forgive, and to covet a different spouse, is it not at least possible that what really offended these women on Patterson’s part, is that many of them actually are adulterously-“remarried”, and therefore, Paul’s instruction for abuse found in 1 Cor. 7:11 casts an implicit moral judgment on their own unbiblical life choices, when counseled and publicly endorsed by a seminary head? Around this blog, we call that the “shoe fits-syndrome”; nobody likes to be exposed, by the double-edged sword of God’s word, as a hypocrite – even indirectly. This tragically-successful petition treats the socially conservative SBC year 2000 Resolution as though it were a bag of trail mix, because these same women (and possibly their pastors as well) have grown accustomed to treating God’s word the same way. Don’t think for a moment that the well-financed globalist players pushing the Marxist breakdown of the family aren’t intimately familiar with the utter hypocrisy of the contemporary adulterated church (as well as the 50-year advanced pastor-intimidation-factor which unrepentant congregation members routinely wield), or that these globalist malefactors would even hesitate to “play” these gullible women, along with their horde of well-meaning sympathizers!

But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. – 2 Timothy 3:1-7

Swallow-Prior has also been openly critical of Dr. Patterson’s leadership to exclude women from theology professorships at the seminary, a feminist issue that can reasonably be associated with biblical instruction for a woman not to teach or exercise authority over men. Swallow-Prior’s actions indicate that she is an LGBT sympathizer and is in alignment with a faction that wants to push the SBC in the direction of a leftist social-justice gospel.

( SIFC: Regrettably, Karen Swallow Prior was reported to have been hit by a bus on Wednesday in Nashville, one day after Patterson’s removal, and suffered serious injuries requiring emergency surgery. Please be upholding this confused lady in prayer – Matthew 5:43-48 – for a healing from head to heart to toe, as God is gracious to deliver and instruct. She reportedly is recovering well, according to an update from the same source.)

In the four-minute “smoking gun” audio, Dr. Patterson is asked by the interviewer about a wife’s submission to her husband, asking him what he says to a woman he knows is being physically abused. Dr. Patterson tells the interviewer (approximately 52 seconds in) that it “depends on the level of abuse to a certain degree”, and that he’s never in his pastoral ministry ever counseled a woman to seek a divorce. Both are biblically-valid statements, but there is nothing Dr. Patterson could possibly have said that could be more inflammatory to the ideology that (in fairness to Dr. Patterson) was yet to emerge in these “abuse ministries” — already violating two of their core tenets within just 53 seconds of opening his mouth. From there, Patterson continued in the interview to make clear that where there was actual endangerment, he counseled chaste separation with the seeking of professional help, and said he had even assisted in bringing it about on occasion. (This is the correct scriptural approach, in fact). He then transitioned to the more typical case (approximately 1:50) where perhaps the abuse is not physical yet, and while stating unequivocally that he considered all abuse to be serious, Dr. Patterson related a specific story that should have been credited for its redemptive nature, sensitivity to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and the effective instruction in spiritual weaponry he imparted to this lady–rather than the “reckless endangerment” the cast of feminazi’s have vocally characterized it as. One has to seriously question the born-again experience of histrionical critics whose words and conduct show they do not trust the ability of God to supernaturally protect those who obey Him, and even worse, who cast aside as inconsequential the kingdom fruit of a former abuser being transformed, regenerated and born into the kingdom of God.

He counseled this lady, “you must not forget the power of prayer….I want you to every evening get down by your bed, just as he goes to sleep…when he’s just about asleep, you just pray for him, out loud, quietly…but I said, ‘get ready because he just might get a little more violent’…. Here, Patterson might have explained it a little better so as not to be misconstrued, but SIFC knows from firsthand experience that he was talking about violence due to the nature of spiritual warfare, not because she was necessarily overheard. He failed to be more specific about the days that most likely elapsed before what happened next occurred….
“…sure enough, she came to church one morning with both eyes black, and she was angry with me and with God and the world….and she said, ‘I hope you’re happy’, and I said ‘yes, ma’am I am, I’m sorry about that, but I’m very happy’, but what she didn’t know when she sat down in church that morning was that her husband had come in and sat at the back, the first time he ever came, and when I gave the invitation that morning, he was the first one down to the front. And his heart was broken. He said ‘my wife’s been praying for me, and I can’t believe what I did to her. Do you think God could forgive someone like me?’ Patterson went on to make clear that the regenerated man was transformed into a great husband after that, and there was no further violence.

Additional audio “skeletons” came out of the closet where Patterson either showed some bad judgment in sheltering sexual offenders, or related some anecdote in a way sure to inflame the “feminists-for-Christ”, who insisted he was “objectifying” women and girls, including this audio from 2014. Lastly, a late-breaking claim from a former seminary student who reportedly told blogging Enid, OK pastor Wade Burleson just this week that she had been raped on the campus of another Baptist seminary in 2003, and she alleged that Patterson had counseled her not to report it to the police. This last story literally broke via the Washington Post (given by Burleson to young religion writer Sarah Pulliam Bailey) just as the deliberations for Patterson’s job were getting underway on Tuesday this past week, and this 11th hour story pretty much sealed his fate. Since Patterson had earlier removed Burleson from a job on a missionary board, the latter was hardly a “disinterested party” when he took the tasty morsel to WaPo. Snarks the previously-vanquished former underling of Patterson’s: “A woman divorcing a man is far worse than a woman enduring physical abuse. A single woman inviting a man into her apartment is a far worse sin than a single woman being raped by the man she invited over.” Tell me this false shepherd Burleson isn’t a cultural Marxist–and one with a festering personal vendetta, at that!

( SIFC:While any failure to timely report a felony crime to law enforcement officials is seriously unacceptable on the part of any school official — or any Samaritan with firsthand knowledge, for that matter, what was conveniently left to the side by Burleson, Dreher, et. al. in their screeds was any mention whether this perpetrator (another student) forced his way into the victim’s [apparently] on-campus living accommodation or was invited there, in violation of campus rules. These schools typically require all students to sign their pre-consent to strong morals agreements as a condition of remaining a student in good standing. Critics like journalist Rod Dreher, a former evangelical converted to Roman Catholicism, are decrying that the female victim was put on probation… while the male student was expelled and permanently barred from attending another SBC seminary. While not completely conclusive, this strongly indicates that the victim violated the campus moral policies by inviting him in, and she received a proportionally lesser penalty that at least allowed her the opportunity to complete her studies if she was so-inclined. The real question is whether the disciplinary actions were appropriately documented by school officials and whether those files still exist 15 years later. Apparently, normal seminary disciplinary policies, formally pre-agreed by the students, aren’t supposed to be enforced, under #churchtoo ideology, against victims who suffer crime as a direct result of themselves violating school morals policies, because “it adds to their trauma”. This, as concerns a seminary student, is supposed to be the moral equivalent of blaming a rape victim who–proverbially–had dressed like a streetwalker, according to the social justice ideology.)

Ironically, the only story we’re aware of about Patterson’s leadership malfeasance that doesn’t seem at least questionable by objective biblical standards never even surfaced during this food fight in Fort Worth, but was well-known to SBC leadership for years. We come by it due to a brief mention by relatively sympathetic Pulpit & Pen, who thinks disciplinary action against Patterson should have occurred ten years ago, and that he was politically singled out while other known bad and worse actors have come away unscathed so far. The others, apparently, are lesser-known to the noisy outside social justice warriors–and they don’t run the institutions that influence church doctrine and shape future pastors.

We’re Being “Played” : Abuse As a “Silver Bullet”
Many believe the bottom line was that unless a way was found ahead of the conference to shove Patterson to the side, there was a reduced chance of carrying off a social justice theme at the June conference. “Abuse” is one (but not the only one) of those potent, emotional core themes of the Left, right along with “bullying” — one that even the most ardent social conservatives will cast aside years of professional expertise in evidence and due process to treat an allegation emotionally if a painful personal experience stirs up those emotions. As we saw with the successful last minute smear of former Chief Justice Roy Moore (who was for years an active advocate for intact, biblical families in carrying out his duties on the bench–in addition to his powerful opposition to the LGBT political agenda) prior to the December, 2017 special election in Alabama. It is a signature trait of Soros interference with democratic processes that unproven (or unprovable) allegations will indeed carry the day if visceral human emotions are skillfully played ,with inadequate time or means to investigate allegations. It has become an article of Leftist faith that to call man’s divorce immoral, and to require a man or woman to remain in a marriage they no longer want to be in is “social injustice”.

The Gilyard debacle could have been spun as precisely what it looks like: insensitive and negligent failure to protect female members of the congregations and staffs of a succession of churches from an obvious sexual predator. One who was convicted, went to jail, and was installed in yet another pulpit as soon was he was released, as a matter of fact. Why wasn’t it spun this time? Perhaps the issue is that this sexual predator, apparently sheltered by Dr. Patterson for a couple of decades, is black. Not good for the narrative. The operatives knew that predominantly-female emotions were high enough over uninvestigated and questionable charges, that it was unnecessary to hang the man over a real crime which didn’t fit the narrative. And who was sheltering Dr. Patterson in the nine years since Gilyard went to prison – any of the board members who voted this week to depose him, perchance?

( SIFC: Update, June 1 ,2018 – documentary evidence has now been made public by the wife of Dr. Patterson’s chief of staff, showing that it is likely that the 2003 “rape victim” at Southeastern Baptist Seminary was actually caught in consensual fornication, and more recently lied to the media about it. This includes correspondence the “rape victim” sent to Dr. Patterson in 2003.

This should not be at all surprising, given the highly political rush to judgment, the revenge factor of some of the players, and likely outside meddling. As the actual facts come to light, the Patterson proceedings bear even more resemblance to the politically-pivotal Roy Moore incident in December, 2017, where unsubstantiated allegations cost a Senate election. Regrettably, on May 30 a faction of the Board of Trustees voted to reverse their May 23 decision based on continued feminist pressure, and vindictively stripped Dr. Patterson, age 75, of his retirement benefits, while he was out of the country, claiming, there was “new” – but undisclosed – “urgent” evidence.)

Another pastor from Oklahoma, Grady Arnold, was interviewed this week on the Janet Mefferd podcast show. Pastor Arnold has written a resolution, discussed at the 20 minute mark, which he will be presenting at the conference to try to turn the SBC back from formally or informally embracing cultural Marxism. May the Lord put the wind at his back, but the resolution’s prospects don’t look very good at this point.

Rent-An-Evangelical
Mentioned earlier was the connection between removal petition instigator, Karen Swallow-Prior and the ERLC, between Jonathan Merritt and the George Soros-controlled secular publications that frequently carry his work. Independent journalists such as Pulpit & Pen have been alleging for the past three years that one or more of the complex funding networks of Mr. Soros has been donating to both the ERLC and to The Gospel Coalition, which has manifested in the leftist undertones both have been steadily taking on. In fact, Pulpit & Pen asserted on an April 10 facebook post that Soros / Riady-placed board members run the ERLC, but did not name any names. The ministry website names only a massively large “Leadership Council” but does not disclose the names of ERLC board members. This information is also unavailable on either Charity Navigator or Guidestar. Presumably, this board would include the likes of Tim Keller, and others involved with the Acton Institute.

Source: Full length video, American Association of Evangelicals, 2016

Another Janet Mefferd podcast on May 18 featured an interview with Tom Littleton, another Southern Baptist pastor and writer, where Soros funding of SBC entities was discussed at the 20:30 mark. where Littleton says, “at some point I think that’s [the dirty money] going to surface….and it’s going to be a really damaging thing for some of these leaders when we see where some of this money is coming from.”

Unfortunately, conclusively proving the money trail is not so straightforward, because both of these SBC “suspect” organizations are able to classify themselves as disclosure-exempt religious organizations according to IRS rules for nonprofits. That means the IRS Form 990 information returns that disclose financials and major donors which we might otherwise be able to look up on sites like Guidestar and Charity Navigator are not available to the public. That said, the serendipity of a 2016 hacking and leaking incident resulted in access to strategy documents of the (Soros) Open Society Foundation that at least provide some pretty good circumstantial evidence. The first “rented” evangelicals were already liberals, such as journalist Jim Wallis of Sojouners, who was forced to admit in 2011 to taking Soros money after originally denying it.

This is a map of the various locations for Soros funding organizations in the U.S. — showing plenty of them in and around the SBC’s operating hubs. Most deal with open borders immigration initiatives (which is how the first financial involvement with the ERLC was orchestrated), but not all do.

Source: Soros FY2015 Reception and Placement Program Affiliate Sites

( SIFC: Here’s a quick guide to those Soros-funded organization acronymns on the above map illustration:

CWS*~^ – Church World Service (open borders)
EMM*~ – Episcopal Migration Ministries (refugees)
ECDC* – Ethiopian Community Development Council (refugees)
HIAS* – (refugees)
IRC^ – International Rescue Campaign (refugees)
LIRS^ – Lutheran Immigration and Rescue Service (refugees)**
USCCB*~^ – United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (ecumenism)
USCRI* – U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (open borders)
WR*^ – World Relief (“human flourishing” – a.k.a. humanist responses to human suffering)

* Eight of these “social justice” organizations have a presence in the Chicagoland area, home to The Gospel Coalition.
~ Three of these have a presence in the Louisville, KY vicinity of the SBC / ERLC national headquarters
^ Five of these have a presence in the Dallas / Fort Worth area where important SBC seminaries, including the one Dr. Patterson was just deposed from, are located.

** One of SIFC’s adult children is presently part of a liberal Lutheran church located in a university town in a Deep South state–which is also gay-affirming, divorce-and-remarriage-affirming, and deeply involved with this Soros-funded organization. The church’s local leadership consists largely of liberal professors from the nearby secular university. SIFC has attended services there numerous times and is quite familiar with the liberal culture of that church, where gay literature is displayed on the reception tables in the church lobby.)

Says Pulpit & Pen, December, 2017:
“THINKING THIS THROUGH together for a moment… Joe Carter came to the ERLC soon after Russell Moore’s ascent and radical altering of the standard conservative Southern Baptist messaging on key topics, especially LGBTQ issues. Carter serves as ERLC “Communications Specialist” while he still holds his Senior Editor job with Rev. Robert Sirico – the once radical left wing, Marxist gay activist Pentecostal (later) gay church pastor and founder of Metropolitan Community Churches (the world’s first gay denomination), who conducted some of the nations first gay marriages and boasted he would perform exorcisms to rebuke the heterosexual spirits from his opposition – who is now a Catholic Libertarian priest. If that is not disturbing we are simply NOT paying attention! Carter has also worked in high level editing positions with at least two other Catholic publications according to his biography….

( SIFC: This blogger personally became aware of a sodomy-affirming MCC evangelical “church” during the 1980’s while residing in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the “buckle of the Bible Belt” and sequential polygamy capital of the nation–and considered both very disturbing!)

This December, 2017 article continues….
“Civil City Utopian Prophets and The Funding Machine
The following collaborations outlined as bullet points show the depths of Faith-Based involvement of Tim Keller and other evangelicals and institutions. Several have been mentioned in previous articles without mention of the role Acton played in them.

Leading up to the 2009 infusion of untold billions of tax dollars by the Obama administration into the Faith Based Partnership overhaul – Tim Keller (page 80) and Friends, including the Acton Institute, worked with a Faith Based Partnership model in Orlando called “Seeking the Welfare of the City” (STWOTC) which resulted in the Polis Institute. Richard Florida’s pro homosexual ideology was promoted by the Human Rights Campaign and Albert Mohler played a key role (page 76) as has the Acton Institute. Acton still heavily promotes the “Welfare of the City” concept which centers around Faith Based Partnerships. If participants like churches and ministries want to find funding to “save their cities” through Community Development grants, they must be inclusive and welcoming of one of the more destructive influences within the communities they are asserting they wish to help. The erosion of the family and sexual liberation are two of the most compelling issues urban centers face.
……….
“Are Money Changers Funding Acton and an Evangelical Deep State?
- Another major player in what appears as an Evangelical Deep State is the National Christian Foundation of Alpharetta GA. According to its history with Conservative Transparency and a 2016 990 forms /report, the NCF has brought about $6 Billion into its Christian philanthropy circles since 2011 (page 15 of the 990 shows $1,396,381,203 in 2016 alone.) On requesting NCF to provide its donor and recipient list and history, the organization refused to supply any information whatsoever. Various philanthropic sites do track some of the money and its sources, but given that NCF is a “Donor ADVISED fund,” the agreement upon giving is the intention of the donor is to be recognized but not required in the distribution. What the Conservative Transparency tracking shows is that NCF giving in large part goes to political organizations like Acton Institute, Heritage Foundation, and a variety of organizations, many being Libertarian like Acton instead of conservative Christian organizations or ministries. NCF helps coordinate giving for the Frankfurt School / Marxist-inspired Civilitas Group in which Tim Keller and Rick Warren serve as Board Members…..Since 2012 a marked departure from classic Evangelical conservative stance has taken place and Russell Moore, Tim Keller and others have been peddling the new, more civil, culturally relevant tone on social issues. Given that their partners, like Acton and Sirico, all share the goals of harnessing Christian giving while promoting a Social Gospel and Faith Based Partnerships (FBP) it is fair to ask, “WHY?”Marvin Olasky, crowned the father of the Bush FBP agenda, later heavily funded and loaded with LGBTQ activism in the Obama years, provides conservative Christians with unquestioned news “from a Christian world view” in World Magazine. Perhaps he should answer for his Fellowship with Acton Institute and Father Sirico knowing the LGBTQ infiltration of these circles and the programs he (Olasky) promotes. Would Albert Mohler, the highly regarded head of Southern Seminary and SBC/ TGC/ evangelical leader clarify exactly what part of Richard Florida and HRC’s pro gay urban planning he believes is so vital for the church that he endorses it along with other strategies of the homosexual agenda. There is little else in the Florida rhetoric except a heavy dose of Cultural Marxism. So what is the Appeal and what part of the ideology are we as the church to follow if NOT its push for LGBTQ “inclusion”?”

Another Christian journalist, Brannon Howse (World View Weekend), echoes this history and web of sinister connections between TGC and ERLC principals in his two-part series, “Exposing the Religious Trojan Horse of the Globalist Deep State” (March 28, 2018). Presumably, these leaked documents enabled the reporting that was coming to light in 2017 and 2018 by these sources.

( SIFC: While Howse’s documented fact-gathering is indeed very useful, we put a heavy “disclaimer” on the toxic Calvinism that intrudes at the halfway-point of the Part 1 video. Obedience to the commandments of Christ is not “salvation by works”, as Howse wrongly contends while critiquing Dr. John Piper as a “neo-Calvinist”.)

There are documents dating from at least 2008 to 2016. In June, 2016 the Open Society Foundations also had several documents leaked by DCLeaks. Bloomberg reported that the foundation notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation to the hacking. DCLeaks.com link was provided in a PJ Media article, but no longer works. One leaked memo posted by DCLeaks.com from Soros’ “Open Society” Foundations, for example, outlines a plot to co-opt Catholic officials and push Soros’ views within the Catholic Church and within the Christian world more broadly. To do that, Soros provided funding to two so-called faith-based organizations, PICO (People Improving Communities through Organizing), and Faith in Public Life (FPL) that would advance his extremism against a “faction of the church” that does not support it.

Among other schemes, Soros provided “essential resources” to secure the “buy-in of individual Catholic bishops to more publicly voice support of economic and racial justice messages.” The agenda was to create a “critical mass of bishops” to promote Soros’ interpretation of Pope Francis’ perceived anti-free-market activism and “racial justice agenda.” Numerous prominent Catholics have said Soros is radically distorting the pope’s message to further his own fundamentally anti-Catholic agenda. Debatable, since the pontiff and the financier actually appear to be significantly aligned on matters of relativistic morality and “social justice”.

Soros money was used to help create an advanced propaganda campaign to promote one of Soros’ “Christian” puppets as a “leading commentator in high-profile outlets, such as USA Today, Newsweek, CNN, NBC, NPR, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, and the Guardian.” Of course, if a “commentator” agrees with Soros, by definition he or she disagrees with the bible Possibly five of these bad actors, who were key in the removal of Dr. Patterson last week, seem to fit this pattern very well: Jonathan Merritt, Ed Stetzer, Sarah Pulliam Bailey, Karen Swallow-Prior, and Beth Moore. This 2014 Gospel Coalition video involves three of these individuals, and it accurately foreshadows (at about the 38 minute mark) what unfolded in 2018: learning how to “play church nicely”, removing any obstacles to doing so, so that we can grow at the expense of souls and, if necessary, while setting aside the word of God for “pragmatism”.

The Hard Facts about Declining Baptist Church Membership
This whole conversation has been far more about heat, rather than light. What gives any group of people the right to demand that church leadership move away from biblical practice and principles? Or the right to murmur about everything else, short of whether Dr. P’s wife uses bagged salad greens in her submission to the “troglodyte” she married? One of these days, either SIFC or somebody else is finally going to prove the unsavory, undisclosed financial connection between this whole initiative and the demonic pocketbook that has successfully “rented” evangelicals over the past few years in the SBC, RCC, and even in other countries, for immoral political ends that go well beyond the church. Such would never be enabled if individuals claiming to be Christ-followers possessed the personal integrity to match their level of popular cultural influence. Identity politics and victimhood doesn’t look any better on well-published “Christians” than it does on anyone else.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

To be fair to the Southern Baptists, there needs to be some acknowledgments: the Assemblies of God reportedly picked up 1 million members after they liberalized doctrine and practice in the area of marriage permanence. The Roman Catholic Church also appears to be gaining members after a long drought which let up after the death of conservative John Paul II, and liberalization of sexual morality commenced in earnest under the last two popes. The “social justice” gospel is attracting millennials and their young families back to mainline churches some four decades after their conservative evangelical parents once derided them as “dead churches” whose remaining members were primarily the elderly. Even so, God does not care at all to have pews packed full of spiritually dead and morally lost people who are “compassionate” in the temporal sense only. The Baptists and Catholics are about to find out what’s already evident in the resurgence of the mainline churches: the “social justice” pact-with-the-devil contains a price tag out of which the homosexual agenda cannot be “line-item vetoed”. That makes ERLC head, Dr. Russell Moore’s famous last words in 2015, “Evangelicals Won’t Cave”, (likely written while that SBC pact was being made with OSF) laughable only three years later, as we predicted at the time in our rebuttal.

While it’s strategically tempting to hope to fill empty pews by opening the U.S. borders and becoming gay-friendly, if the SBC doesn’t get back to true biblical bearings, and tell all opposed critics to take a hike, what we’re going to have is a strengthening in an already-strong, growing movement inside and outside the churches, to dump the corrupted denominations and opt for small house churches / lay pastors, which nobody can argue isn’t a 1st century biblical model. In other words, a continued loss of membership despite “inclusion” (heretical liberalization) efforts. I’d personally hate to see that transpire at this nasty and pivotal point in our national history, because we really need the GODLY political power of the collective church to restore a little of the kingdom of God in our nation for everyone else suffering from 50 years of Leftist misery, most especially the poor, during which the salt lost its savor. Instead, we’re squabbling about whether the Apostles and church fathers were “misogynists” in the clear instructions, presumably God-breathed, they left today’s leadership to follow. SIFC’s current young pastors would call this contemporary vexation a “first world problem”.

Yes, the SBC has lost a million members over the past decade, while the liberalizing RCC seems (temptingly) to be picking up members the past few of years, with their Leftist, gay-affirming, “annulment”-expediting, communion-adulterating Pope. AOG likewise picked up members like nobody’s business from 1971 to 1984, adding 1 million members (far fewer souls, I daresay) as a direct result of voting to desecrate heterosexual marriage in the wake of unilateral divorce enactment in the early 1970’s. The price they paid was the swift exit of the power of the Holy Spirit, as numbers grew by yet another million to-date, and it gradually became acceptable to haul exposed cleavage, drooping pants and the “spouse”-du-jour into church. I know because I was there for most of it. “Come as you are, stay as you are” does indeed work wonders for membership — until it doesn’t. In this case, the Southern Baptists can be presumed to be on the same side of “until it doesn’t” as the Pentecostals. Tulsa didn’t get to be the divorce capital of the United States due to Catholic dominance. It’s small wonder some SBC leaders are so keen to import potential new members through open or porous borders, rather than set a godly example that gains power over the “nones” as our godly forebears did.

Teaching unbiblical, culturally-popular pseudo-values (including, never piss off the women) to future pastors also works – until it doesn’t. The fixed moral wall that has been hit a couple of times previously in church history is Islamism (and its ancient predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar), a reprise of which would be perfectly fine with Mr. Soros.

Many of the lost members from these denominations and from the RCC are legally-discarded spouses (and their children) whose pastors failed in very significant ways to honor and uphold the lifelong sanctity of their biblical, God-joined covenant marriage, their numbers being added to by perhaps 400,000 to 500,000 a year in the U.S., based on current unilateral divorce rates. Nobody at a major evangelical publication ever writes a single word about these disciples (except to insinuate that there’s something “wrong” with them), though the conservative Catholic publications increasingly connect with “standers’ ” obedience to biblical instruction. Perhaps 25% of the disaffected women find their way into Anabaptist-heritage churches, or a few of the dwindling number of virtuous Catholic parishes. The rest, including most of the men, join the virtual church, house churches or settle for spiritual isolation, if they want to obey the Lord and not take a replacement “spouse” adulterously.

Women like Beth Moore and like Karen Swallow-Prior, who claim that Jesus prescribed marriage dissolution for all manner of perceived and actual abuse, as opposed to chaste separation with rehabilitation in mind and appropriate reliance on the criminal justice system (where warranted)–are hussies and Jezebels, no matter how many books they sell. They will be found “correct” the day that Jesus accepts hard-heartedness, unforgiveness and self-promotion as acceptable attributes in His disciples. And those who become so presumptuous as to build “abuse ministries” around the same ideology, are apostates misleading others toward moral destruction. Quite amusingly, the hard-Left feminists have recently expressed their extreme displeasure with the nouveaux “conservative” feminists who promote the judicial murder of God-joined covenant marriages; who promote sequential polyandry in the name of domestic “justice” — but still won’t give their unqualified endorsement to abortion on demand for all.

Dr. Stephen Baskerville (May 3, 2017 – How the Church Must Confront the Sexual Revolution, Crisis Magazine) : “The church must take a firm and decisive stand on other aggressive and destructive legal abuses of the Sexual Revolution, principally fabricated accusations of new gender crimes like “rape” and “domestic violence,” and “child abuse.” The feminists claim that these are epidemic. Either they are right, in which case the church is silent in face of a great evil. Or they are false and the feminists are using them for political purposes, in which case the church is likewise silent in the face of a systemic injustice. “

But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place—unless you repent.Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. – Revelation 2:4-6

Will the Southern Baptist Convention not even measure up to the Christ-rebuked Ephesian church, by the time this story of shameless social pandering and denominational prostitution ends? Will there be anyone left in power to “hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans” by the time of the 2019 annual conference ?

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal Unilateral Divorce!

Church Discipline, Discipleship, Lost culture, Marriage Restoration, morality, Spiritual Warfare

How Discern We The Various Covenant Marriage Ministries?

March 1, 2018 standerinfamilycourt 18 Comments

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by Standerinfamilycourt

Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.
– John 7:24

…and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. – Matthew 5:22

Who are you to judge the [household] servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

….But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written,

“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me,
And every tongue shall give praise to God.”

So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.

Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way.
– Rom 14:4, 11-13

Last week, a deeply-respected ministry leader in the marriage permanence movement reposted an earlier-year piece that showed a photo with various faceless members of the marriage permanence fellowship he had founded, whom he said had given up on God to restore their covenant marriages, and were “no longer standing” (whatever that means in practical terms), while blaming a range of other marriage ministries for the “confusion” that allegedly caused these folks to stray from purpose. In so doing, he lumped several ministries, good, bad and ugly, all together in one all-encompassing “heresy bucket”, and quite possibly complained prematurely about some redemption stories that were not yet fully written by the Author.

A comment to this gentleman’s post, challenging this ministry leader to provide example evidence of unbiblical public teaching and conduct for one of those denounced ministries was quickly deleted, and a late-night PM exchange, initiated by the ministry leader, ensued about the commenter’s alleged “disrespect” and “anger”. In his estimation, his own ministry audience wasn’t entitled to objective support for his position, and asking for it on his ministry wall was (in his estimation) “slander” of his integrity which constituted “accusing him of lying”. It is always tempting to put a time and means limit on God in our human impatience.

(Furthermore, we might all be eerily reminded of one other prevalent human authority that claims the right to press unsubstantiated charges and impose non-objective labels that require no evidence to establish–and where the slightest dissent or challenge causes immediate out-of-proportion backlash: namely, “family court.” )

SIFC has often blogged about the intense, wearying spiritual warfare that constantly dogs the covenant marriage movement.
At our best, satan finds himself unable to assail either our theology on the indissolubility of God-joined holy matrimony, or our personal integrity in walking joyfully in its truth over the long term–and I do emphasize the latter. So, the next best thing, and the low-hanging fruit for the demons of hell, is to constantly introduce endless internal wedge-issues and jealousies that discredit the movement and make it appear to be a reactionary “cult”, majoring in the minors (with our own tendency to fully cooperate, sadly).

Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”

“Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward. – Mark 9:38-41

The offending, deleted facebook comment which was deemed “slanderous, angry and disrespectful” in the estimation of this ministry leader went like this:

“Too broad a brushstroke, my brother. Some of these “ministries” are rightly associated with each other, and in some cases it is shameful slander to associate them. We should “judge” each of these solely by what they actually teach and by the personal example of their leaders.

“You say, ‘I have personally met [the founding couple of the ministry] and have exchanged numerous communications with [the restored, repented formerly prodigal husband, now deceased] before he passed, as well as various others at all levels in their organization over the past 15 years.’ …..

“But, in fact, this is saying nothing at all that is of discernment. You are not the only one who has met and corresponded with the [extended ministry family].

“I am asking you to please stop slandering Rejoice Marriage Ministries unless you can prove that they teach falsehood or prove they live ungodly lives. I am proud to be a monthly supporter, as I have been for over 10 years.”

Although this particular post (and others like them) have been repeatedly reposted, the virtuous leaders of the maligned marriage ministry have never, to the best of my knowledge, chosen to answer back or retaliate in any way — something which is very much to their credit. Instead, they forgive, overlook, and allow God Himself to defend them, just as most individual standers must do with respect to their prodigal spouse and the sinning allies of the prodigal in their extended family. Perhaps an argument can be made that SIFC should best follow their example (which is ultimately following Christ’s example), and this is not without biblical justification. Unfortunately, as described in an earlier recent blog,

“On the other hand, outright slander against a very effective and godly pioneering marriage restoration ministry was actively defended by the [separate] site owner when interjected by another commenter, interfering as she was with help SIFC was attempting to provide to a new [group page] member in the crisis of his wife leaving him. Nope, this site is clearly not safe for referrals from Unilateral Divorce is Unconstitutional as originally hoped. ”

….these unsubstantiated allegations are directly interfering with actual instances where opportunities to minister to real, hurting people, according to their core needs at that point, have suffered as a result of inflated egos and unfair biases. And this disappointing public conduct is well below the normally high character of some of the players involved.

In the humble opinion of “standerinfamilycourt”, it is most just and most helpful to look at some objective attributes of these ministries and recognize that each ministry falls along a continuum, in terms of faithfulness to the kingdom of God with regard to marriage permanence. In such a framework, we can put into perspective the really flawed ones that God nevertheless finds a way to use to His purposes, the ones in the middle that are biblically faithful but whose structure and kingdom strategies we might not personally find to our taste, and (finally) those we are most aligned with. Attempting, as the offending post did, to put them all in one bucket is divisive at best, and ineffective-to-slanderous at worst.

Some key marriage permanence ministry attributes, from SIFC’s perspective:

1- How consistently are their public teachings perfectly-aligned with God’s undiluted word, after applying rigorous hermeneutics?

2- Are any of their leadership, board members or featured public “restoration testimonies” objectively in a marriage that Jesus would call continuously-adulterous according to Luke 16:18?

3- Do they pre-screen members according to whether they are standing for the God-joined marriage of their youth, or (instead) have an estranged, living spouse somewhere in the picture?

4- If the latter, what is the evidence of their motive or objectives for not screening out people in who are in legalized adultery? Is the motive godly, on balance? (Note: this is closely tied to the first attribute.)

5- Do they teach that dying in an adulterous remarriage is a heaven-or-hell issue, either directly or indirectly? (Note: this is a reliable proxy for whether or not they counsel people out of their adulterous civil subsequent unions, but not necessarily a direct proxy for their beliefs.)

6- Do they believe in and teach the concept of inseverable, instantaneously-joined one-flesh, which can only be created and terminated by the hand of God?

7- Do they believe and teach indissoluble, unconditional covenant, including God’s participation in that individual covenant?

8- Do they explicitly understand that there is a massive difference between “marriage permanence” and “holy matrimony indissolubility” according to Matthew 19:8 ?

If we were to assess each ministry by assigning “kingdom faithfulness points” on a scale of 1 to 10, most faithful to least faithful, for each separate attribute suggested above, this continuum would emerge on an fairly objective basis that is far better than smearing “anyone who is not us”. We thereby avoid the stain of judging “another man’s” house-servant unjustly within the household of God. We give a more appropriate and measured weight to things that are more a matter of preference, rather than true doctrinal or practice issues. We also see more objectively the degree of difference between the least faithful “ministries” and the most faithful ones. A perfect score – most faithful – on this test is (8), and the worst possible – least faithful – score is (80).

There are some additional criteria crucial to marriage restoration ministry that are more difficult to assess and objectively measure for comparison purposes which have been excluded for this reason in the (8) criteria chosen above. The most important of these is the rate and extent they are leading those they attract, and to whom they minister, to saving faith in Jesus Christ. A ministry that decides as an operating principle to screen out those who are in estranged “marriages” Jesus called adulterous (but they are not ready yet to admit it) is quite likely excluding the religious unsaved to a large extent, given how pervasive divorce and remarriage is in the cultures of all western nations. Therefore, the testimonies of people who say they authentically came to the Lord as a result of their marriage crisis, and learned to stay in Him regardless of the marriage outcome, are important.

Catholic-based ministries have proven, in “standerinfamilycourt’s” opinion and experience, to be very effective at influencing the broad culture for marriage permanence. However, because by official doctrine, they weight the guidance of their human leadership as equal to or above the actual canonized word of God, it is not really an apples-to-apples comparison to rate them, under these eight criteria, against evangelical Christian marriage ministries who claim to hold themselves directly responsible for operating according to God’s written word alone. Hence, Mary’s Advocates, The Ruth Institute and National Organization for Marriage can probably be compared with one another using some of these guidelines, but they will be excluded here, since they are not part of the divisive controversy that keeps surfacing in the permanence of marriage community.

Here’s an example of scoring outcomes for ten evangelical ministries that in some way help people fight for what they perceive to be their marriage – with a brief description of each, their score, and the main factors influencing each score. Each of these received either a “10”, a “5” or a “1” on each of the 8 criteria, to keep things simple. Long-term consistency of practice, or official public statements in a given criteria resulted in either a “10” or a “1”, while observed minor inconsistencies in specific criteria resulted in a “5” being assigned. These are arranged in descending order by raw score, from most-to-least supportive of “marriages” called adulterous by Jesus, Paul, the other Apostles, and the early church fathers prior to the Nicene period:

Family Life Today (score: 80) – Founded by covenant couple Dennis & Barbara Rainey, this ministry holds to the traditional unbiblical Protestant “exceptions” for adultery and abandonment. It also employs Ron Deal, the infamous “blended family pastor” who is divorced, with a living true spouse, and remarried, who is prominently featured on most of their broadcasts and special events. Hence, they are misaligned with scripture in several crucial heaven-or-hell matters, and register negatively on all of the other biblical faithfulness criteria. Any claim on the part of this ministry to preserve “covenant” marriage is based in part on a faulty definition of what constitutes a covenant marriage.
Scale: this ministry’s facebook community page has about 450,000 followers.

Focus on the Family (score: 80) – James Dobson-founded evangelical and political organization with some leadership and board members in adulterous subsequent marriages following man’s divorce from their true spouse. Similar theology to Family Life, and they regularly feature the “blended family pastor” as a guest on their broadcasts. This broadcast ministry regularly glorifies adulterous remarriage and features theological guest interviews with such e nemies of covenant marriage indissolubility as Dr. John MacArthur, where extra-biblical “exceptions” to the indissolubility of God-joined holy matrimony are emphasized above the bulk of what Jesus had to say to the contrary.
Scale: their facebook community page has 2.85 million followers.

N.A.M.E. (score: 80) – National Association for Marriage Enhance ment is a church-based network of marriage counselors founded by the late Dr. Leo and Molly Godzich, and currently run by Pastors Arnold and Gwen Tackett, who are professional counselors and hold credentials with the Assemblies of God. This organization holds large conferences, and established local church-based chapters. Their score reflects the errant theology of the 1973 Position Paper of the Assemblies of God on Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage, and the fact that N.A.M.E.’s 20th annual conference in 2015 featured — guess who? Ron Deal, the “blended family pastor”. Some of the “marriages” they attempt to save are adulterous remarriages, which hinders the reconciliation of the true covenant marriages that were displaced by the adulterous civil unions. There does not seem to be a central facebook presence for this ministry, only local chapters.

Covenant Keepers International (score: 70 ) – This is a very large international ministry with many local chapters with local leaders. Unlike N.A.M.E. it is not primarily church-based, nor focused on professional counseling. It was founded in Tulsa, Oklahoma by Marilyn Conrad, a stander whose husband passed away before there was an opportunity to reconcile. Current directors are Rex and Carolyn Johnson, a restored covenant couple. This ministry reportedly has some local leadership in marriages Jesus would call adulterous, and they do not screen such couples from their ministry, but this can vary by chapter location. Their statement of beliefs on marriage indicates belief in an “exception” for “sexual immorality”, hence their doctrine appears to have some serious gaps, and they do not believe in no-excuses indissolubility as part of their conviction on marriage permanence. CKI got 5 split points each for criteria 2 and 7, otherwise scoring was the same as for the three organizations listed above them. Standers involved locally with CKI give them high marks for focusing on basic discipleship, the priority of each person’s direct relationship with Jesus, and these particular standers would avoid an adulterously-remarried chapter leader. Scale: the central ministry does not seem to maintain a facebook page, allowing the local chapters to do so, with typically 100-200 followers each.

Desiring God (score: 55 ) – This ministry was established by Dr. John Piper and is an extension of Bethel Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Dr. Piper is faithful to the teaching of Christ concerning the indissolubility of the covenant marriage of our youth, but the Calvinist nature of this church prevents the full biblical belief that believers can fail to inherit the kingdom of God after professing Christ, even if they divorce, remarry, and die in that state. He and his associated pastors teach against remarriage after divorce, but if those things do occur, they teach that repentance from those subsequent unions is “repeat sin”, and that those second vows supercede the original vows. Based on these facts, criteria 1, 2, 4, 7 and 8 were rated at 5 points, reflecting assumptions that there would be some leadership and membership in adulterous unions in this large, Calvinistic ministry, and Piper’s teaching on the covenant nature of marriage is watered-down a bit from the true biblical standard, with basic doctrine skewed by their belief that rewards may be lost from remarriage, but not one’s entrance into the kingdom of heaven. Finally, there would be a belief in permanence, but not indissolubility, if second vows can be deemed to supercede original vows. Scale: This ministry’s facebook page currently has just under 1 million followers.

Rejoice Marriage Ministries (score: 25 ) – This is probably the oldest ministry dedicated to supporting those standing for their authentic covenant marriage aside from Covenant Keepers. It was established in the early ’90’s by restored couple, Rev. Bob and Charlyne Steinkamp. In the early days they say they interacted with Covenant Keepers which was also in its infancy and hadn’t yet expanded into geographic chapters. Unlike CKI, Rejoice has never done so, and in fact, for many years (notably, until a bit after former prodigal, Rev. Steinkamp passed away, and the adult children were added to the leadership of the ministry) they actively discouraged standers following their ministry to develop contact with one another. For this reason, the “levels of leadership” their determined ministry critic claims to have corresponded with, simply don’t exist. Since this critic refuses to disclose any details about that, it’s difficult to comment further. Nevertheless, this remains a very flat and closely-held leadership structure consisting of all born-again family members, all of which reflect God-joined, original covenant marriages. There is some paid office help and web administrators, some volunteer prayer warriors who have been with the ministry for many years. They publish and distribute a wealth of free and low cost books, audio and video content, prayer cards, bumper stickers, and the like, to support covenant marriage stands.

Rejoice does not have a fixed annual conference schedule. They take their ministry “on the road” for conferences periodically, as and when the Lord leads, and they conduct large monthly bible studies locally which are now live-streamed and recorded. They periodically hold large, international conference calls when they have covenant stander testimonies to share, but not on any fixed schedule. “Standerinfamilycourt” attended the December, 2010 funeral of Bob Steinkamp, has personally met the family members, and has been by the very modest longtime home of founder Charlyne. On a separate occasion, SIFC attended a 3-day road conference live and on-site.

As noted, Rejoice is followed by many who are estranged from remarriages and who prefer to stand for the wrong prodigal partner. This is a direct consequence of a longstanding ministry philosophy of not screening out those whom they might potentially lead to Christ for the first time. It is very important to note that SIFC has not, in more than 12 years, ever seen one instance of this ministry compromising, diluting or suppressing the word of God to attract or retain anyone. They strongly emphasize personal discipleship as the stander’s highest priority, and provide them significant aids to assist in this. While it is certainly possible for determined non-covenant standers to tune out the portions they don’t want to hear, SIFC’s suspicion is that over time, they either repent or depart. (We should note that the late Rev. Steinkamp’s pastoral credentials came from the Assemblies of God, and most likely before the 1973 man-voted doctrine change with which his writings make crystal-clear that he never agreed. In SIFC’s opinion, this still had the effect on him to be careful in his published writings to tell everyone in an adulterous remarriage to “seek the Lord” about what they should do personally, but in general terms he unequivocally called all such unions sinful and in need of termination.) Scale: this ministry’s facebook community page has about 19,000 followers.

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall (score: 17) – as we all know, this is “standerinfamilycourt’s” own outspoken ministry, started a little over three years ago. The original intent of the blog and facebook pages was to try and pull together a legal, constitutional “class” of disenfranchised Respondents in unilateral divorce cases to aid in a constitutional challenge to the Illinois “no-fault” law. The Lord, however, had a different vision and took these pages in the direction of pulling together various parts of the marriage permanence community who would not otherwise be aware of each other, so that they may work more effectively together as a voice of conscience to the clergy, to lawmakers, to national pro-family voices who routinely give the indissoluble side of “biblical marriage” the short shrift. There is significant ministry to individuals occurring behind the scenes, but not constantly. SIFC’s professional training and background is in financial and legal matters, not formal bible training. The Lord has provided in such a way that no donations are necessary at this time to sustain the ministry, but in the future, a taxable nonprofit (501c4) may be formed for the purpose of assisting lawmakers and constitutional challengers of unilateral divorce laws, as political opportunities come about by the Lord’s hand. (Or the Lord may again have a different vision, to which SIFC would definitely yield). People contacting our pages for deep ministry are typically referred with recommendations to other ministries, according to the person’s particular need, after receiving prayer here for their situation. As is the case with Rejoice discussed above, there is no practical vision or intent to screen out people estranged from adulterous remarriages, but neither is there the slightest compromise with the undiluted biblical truth about non-widowed remarriage in anything we publish. People who follow these two social media pages either get convicted and repent, or they “unlike” and “unfollow” us (possibly cyclically). It has been our consistent “run rate” over the three years of our existence to lose two “likes” for every five that we gain weekly, so we grow slowly but steadily. Our score consists of seven “1’s” in all of the criteria except #3, as it does not fit our operating model or ministry objectives to screen out anyone from participation and interaction with our ministry. Scale: our facebook community page has about 600 followers.

Restoration of the Family (score: 17 ) – this biblical ministry was started by another constitutional challenger of unilateral divorce laws, Judith Brumbaugh of Florida who is an older widow, and her low-key ministry has been in existence since the late 1980’s, supported by donations and sales of books. While there is occasional involvement in some family-related Florida political issues, the primary focus is discipleship materials and biblical teaching. As with Rejoice Marriage Ministries and 7 Times Around the Jericho Wall, there is no known pre-screening for interaction with the ministry (mailing list inclusion, etc.) There is here a strong emphasis on personal discipleship. Their scoring is identical to 7 Times Around the Jericho Wall on all eight of the criteria, and differs from Rejoice only in that they do consistently tell people to exit adulterous marriages as a direct heaven-or-hell matter. The founder of this page maintains only a personal wall on facebook rather than a public page, and does not classify herself as a “public figure”, so her ministry scale based on facebook’s count of followers is not available. She shows, however to have just under 500 “friends”.

Christian Principles Restored (score: 17 ) – This ministry was established by Dr. Joseph Webb, also of Florida. Dr. Webb is a seminary-trained, righteously-married pastor who came under conviction through a journey of self-study about the indissolubility of God-joined holy matrimony. He has written several books, done interviews, and spoken at conferences and retreats. CPR’s scoring is identical to 7 Times Around the Jericho Wall and Restoration of the Family on all eight of the criteria, and differs from Rejoice only in that they, likewise, do consistently tell people to exit adulterous marriages as a direct heaven-or-hell matter. CPR’s pages show no evidence of pre-screening their participants so long as they are receptive to the strong truths coming out of their ministry. Scale: this ministry has a couple of infrequently-updated facebook pages with a following of under 200.

Theological Foundations / Spirit of Hosea (score: 8 )- Founded in the late 1990’s by Rev. Stephen Wilcox of New Brunswick, Canada, who has stood for his own covenant marriage for over 30 years, and became an ordained pastor during this time. His ministry encompasses a large fellowship of standers and people who have repented to exit the adulterous remarriages they became involved in, and includes the information page cadz.net which carries testimonies of repentance from adulterous remarriages, a ministry web page marriagedivorce.com and a YouTube channel carrying his audio sermons. He has an outreach to other pastors to encourage them in adopting a fully-biblical view and practice around marriage indissolubility. In addition, he serves as the general online chaplain to the marriage permanence community, including the many who were pushed out of their churches, or who cannot find a church sufficiently supportive of marriage indissolubility that they feel comfortable in. Scale: this ministry runs facebook group pages to which members must be admitted by an administrator, rather than community pages open to everyone. The Theological Foundations facebook page has just over 100 members, and the Spirit of Hosea facebook page has just over 70 members, neither of which is indicative of the very high volume of traffic on the pages outside of facebook.

Please note the vast score gap between the five ministries most supportive of remarriage adultery and the five who are least supportive of continuing in (or attempting to restore) 2nd or subsequent “marriages” where there is one or more estranged spouses in the picture. Note, too, that the only ministry with a “perfect” score does deliberately screen out people from fellowship who are standing for the restoration of non-covenant marriages. The next cluster do not, to the best of our knowledge, do so but neither are there biblical gaps in their consistent teaching, either by error or omission, and they rely on this biblical integrity to naturally winnow out non-covenant standers over time, while getting the essential message across to more of those who need to hear it.
None of this cluster of five ministries has any leadership in such a non-covenant marriage. (Some have leaders who have repented and removed themselves from such.) The four ministries in the cluster with a score of 17 or less actively and consistently tell one and all that dying in such an arrangement is a heaven-or-hell matter, hence, everyone needs to exit those arrangements in all cases.

Rejoice falls in between the two clusters with a score of 25, but this is not due to error or biblical omission in their teaching. The main difference between their score and the cluster of 17’s is due to the fact that they don’t actually tell everyone to get out of their adulterous unions (while still regularly teaching with full biblical accuracy what constitutes remarriage adultery). Instead, they tell their readers and subscribers to seek the Lord about what to do. They also do not directly teach that dying in such a union costs people their souls in eternity. They do teach in general that remarriage adulterers forfeit their inheritance in the kingdom of God, but they don’t emphasize hell. Rejoice is materially more faithful in discouraging and opposing adulterous remarriage than Covenant Keepers because Rejoice has no leaders at all in non-covenant marriages, and would never allow such. On the other hand, none of Covenant Keepers’ founders and current central leaders are in non-covenant unions, but some of the regional leaders reportedly are. Rejoice, on the other hand, never features non-covenant restorations in any of their teachings or events, but Covenant Keepers reportedly does. Rejoice does regularly share audio and video testimonies of people who have penitently come out of adulterous remarriages and reconciled with their true spouse.

(Please click the graphic to enlarge in your browser.)

Sometimes, differences in ministries were actually put there by God Himself to accomplish a specific kingdom purpose. This is true even in the least faithful of them! This is due to cross-pollination, where a faithful ministry is provided an entry-point for conversation with the multitude of followers from something which that less-faithful ministry has published, and also through the mutual “friends” (policy-makers and national influencers among them) who are following both the pure and the popular corrupt ministries. This is true also because of what we call “critical mass” that comes with some of these ministries that tell people what they want to hear. While it is never appropriate to form a direct alliance with unfaithful ministries, it is appropriate for faithful ministries to speak into them opportunistically, as Jesus and the Apostles frequently did. That said, it is never appropriate to label a ministry as “unfaithful” unless they are specifically not faithful with their public handling of the word of God. If they are unfaithful in that way, then the clear evidence of it should be easy to produce. If they are not, then we are accountable to the kingdom of God for slandering them as if they were.

I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.
– 1 Corinthians 3:6-8

We might examine some of the persistent reasons why some in the stander community propagate the impression that Rejoice fosters adulterous remarriages, and promotes their “reconciliation”, given that their teaching is fully biblical on a consistent basis, and there is no remarriage adultery at all in their leadership. One key reason is that non-affiliated sites that are known to be run by site owners who have “married” the spouse of another living person (and are “standing” for that remarriage due to some unbiblical excuse or “exception”) extensively promote their materials. These sites, run by non-covenant standers, regularly redistribute Rejoice’s posts because they admire the ministry’s principles and methods. This, of course, is beyond the practical control of Rejoice Marriage Ministries. Two examples of such non-affiliated sites with owners either in or divorced from non-covenant “marriages” are Malachi 2:16 and RMM Fan Site (which looks quite deceptively like the authentic Rejoice site). They are attracted by Rejoice’s hopeful, positive salvation-and-discipling message, and the fact that non-covenant “marriages” have the (volume-based) appearance of reconciling much more frequently than God-joined unions, since this can happen over and over again in the counterfeit cases.
(Jesus, too, was accused of “apostasy” simply because the sinful followed Him, and because up to a certain point, He did not discourage them. The actual engagement point came for Christ’s sinful followers where He made clear that what He was teaching and commanding made the difference between heaven and hell, invoking a choice. Still today, many think they are following Him who consider obedience to be “optional” in this matter.)

But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them.
Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” – Matthew 13:26-30

Another important reason for the erroneous perception that Rejoice Marriage Ministries promotes the reconciliation of non-covenant “marriages” comes from the tales of those standing for true covenant marriages who attend Rejoice live events and who wind up in a prayer circle next to someone who is “standing” for an adulterous remarriage. Since Rejoice intentionally does not have a policy to screen such people out from their ministry events, this does happen. It is natural (and certainly expected) for those who are standing for authentic Matt. 19:4-6 unions to feel queasy about “agreeing in prayer” for the restoration of a biblically adulterous relationship, but there are certainly reasonable alternatives to so praying, and these prayer circles do not necessarily translate into “support” for such unions, on the part of the ministry or anyone else, IF biblical teaching is never compromised in their publications and events, nor shied away from by that ministry in their one-on-one encounters.

Yet another reason Rejoice is lumped in with unbiblical ministries by some in the marriage permanence movement is that Rejoice strongly encourages all standers to remain accountable to others in flesh-and-blood, brick-and-mortar church bodies, however difficult and uncomfortable that might be (or might become) in a given situation. This runs directly counter to the wounded places that never healed in some individuals, and sometimes even, counter to the desire not to be accountable (on a long term basis) that is harbored in the true hearts of some in the movement, along with their deep desire to avoid the face-to-face conflict that always results from keeping up our responsibility to be salt and light in the world. While there certainly does come a valid time to “shake the dust off our feet”, many would prefer not to get their feet dusty in the first place. To these folks, it becomes very tempting to slam a ministry whose faithful teachings bring conviction about this particular matter, while it offends their own rigid ideology which even has a label in the movement: “pulpit-pew“. Indeed, one ministry that keeps fostering these accusations is a virtual / online church (and a very good one, at that), which is sustained by the donations of people in the marriage permanence community. By defending not only one but two potential “competitors” for those donations, it’s little wonder that this ministry leader subconsciously felt that SIFC had “attacked” his ministry with the brief and bland facebook comment that ended by disclosing longterm financial support for Rejoice. He of little faith!

Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.” Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? – 1 Corthinthians 1:12-13

“Standerinfamilycourt” can be humble enough to admit that the selection of different criteria, or perhaps disclosure of some privately-learned facts we are not privy to, might change this illustration and comparison, so we won’t presume to call it an analysis. No deep interviews were conducted to obtain confirmation of various surface observations made in the scoring. A few of the ministry leaders who have gone on record with their broad-brush criticism of Rejoice Marriage Ministries are from the same southern Florida region where the family ministry is based.
I do believe I have related everything these local critics have told me to-date that is verifiable. Rejoice, meanwhile, does not make a practice of having much public interaction with other marriage ministries, choosing not to use their donated resources in that thankless, bottomless manner. As a continuing donor, quite frankly, SIFC appreciates that. The point of this blog post is to offer some calm perspective and good reasons to stop the senseless carping, to encourage the refocus of everyone’s time and energy within the marriage permanence community to our own assigned role, since there’s plenty of work for everybody. Or we can just continue to play “cult” on some kingdom-inconsequential level, proving our worldly critics absolutely correct! Our choice.

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal Unilateral Divorce!

Church Discipline, Discipleship, Lost culture, Marriage Restoration, Prayer, Spiritual Warfare

Meat Sacrificed to Idols, Inadvertent Shepherds and The Harsher Judgment

February 8, 2018 standerinfamilycourt Leave a comment

by Standerinfamilycourt

All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify. Let no one seek his own good, but that of his neighbor. Eat anything that is sold in the meat market without asking questions for conscience’ sake; for the earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains. If one of the unbelievers invites you and you want to go, eat anything that is set before you without asking questions for conscience’ sake. But if anyone says to you, “This is meat sacrificed to idols,” do not eat it, for the sake of the one who informed you, and for conscience’ sake; I mean not your own conscience, but the other man’s; for why is my freedom judged by another’s conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I slandered concerning that for which I give thanks?

Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God; just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit but the profit of the many, so that they may be saved.
– 1 Corinthians 10:23-33

Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.
– Ephesians 5:16-33

“Standerinfamilycourt” has never been one to belong to dozens of social media sites and pages, being extremely selective and purposeful about which ones merit THE LORD’S time which has been entrusted to advance the kingdom of God. This balance of time is certainly going to look different from disciple to disciple, depending on the particular assignment we’ve been given in these last days. The half-dozen sites SIFC has committed to membership in generally serve these main purposes, consistent with kingdom assignment:

(1) plug into high-quality scholarship of others so that 7 Times Around the Jericho Wall and Unilateral Divorce Is Unconstitutional can be as reliable as possible in dividing God’s word (and on the flip side, promote respectful avoidance of misusing the word of God)

(2) provide a trustworthy connection point to refer opposite-sex individuals who contact our pages seeking to be ministered to deeply — which should be done by a same sex person who is spiritually mature.

(3) extend the reach and circulation of our posts so that the stander community is aware of, and connected with, other voices and communities who are our natural allies in the righteous, interdependent quest to abolish unilateral divorce and clean up the apostate churches to the extent possible.

(4) keep tabs on what satan is up to these days in opposing God’s kingdom. He loves to send in intruders and hang out on standers’ pages, too, while constantly shifting his ugly tactics.

Many covenant marriage standers will belong to an astounding number of sites and seem to be online “contending for the faith” all day and night. Knowing firsthand how addictive social media is, especially to isolated and often-alienated standers, one has to wonder how much time is being truly spent in intercession for the rebuilding of our torn up families, pleading with the throne of heaven for the soul of our estranged one-flesh partners, and praying protective hedges around our impacted loved ones, especially given satan’s particular rage against us. Not a few in the marriage permanence community, if they were completely honest with themselves and others, have seemingly given up expecting the Lord to restore their holy matrimony union (if they haven’t instead come out of an unholy matrimony union). Some, wrongly in my view, see Paul’s instructions in 1 Cor. 7:11,
“remain unmarried [celibate] or be reconciled…”
as “either / or” instead of “both / and”, and this is reflected in how they spend their time and emotional energy. I pray that the Lord will greatly surprise these folks one day.

A well-run site for covenant marriage standers (and for others with hearts open to the truth of marriage indissolubility), will have ground rules that look something like this:
– this is not a dating site
– name-calling, gossip, personal attacks and bad language will not be tolerated here
– off-topic posts and those pushing divisive, controversial ideologies not essential to inheriting the kingdom of God will not be allowed in our space, nor will debate on them be permitted
– promotional posts for unrelated ministries, products, etc. will be removed as spam

It is not typical at the present time for most pages which are geared to a doctrinally pure, continuously-maturing covenant marriage stander or repenting prodigal membership, to have more than a few hundred members or followers, nor rapid net growth (joiners far exceeding the unjoiners). Yet when one gives this reality some reflection, such small following is still equivalent to a small-to-medium-sized church congregation. Given the other reality that in a lot of cases, a particular site may become the church-surrogate for an unfortunate number of standers, the integrity and consistency with which the rules are applied takes on a sobering importance. Everyone in this marriage permanence community has recently had a front row seat for the sad spectacle of what happened under the cronyism, carnality and lack of accountability in Greg Locke’s brick-and-mortar church. Though virtual fellowship is not typically a matter of financial stewardship, the situation might not be too different in some of the stander sites in many other important respects, complete with defecting sheep who fall into carnality because the responsibility for discipling the members wasn’t quite what it should have been in some sites where the defectors were hanging out. When a standers’ site is growing at megachurch pace, it doesn’t hurt to take an objective look at what might be driving that aberrant pace and be a bit wary of failure to consistently apply the site’s own rules.

SIFC joined a fast-growing page recently that seemed to be well-run, at least as it appeared from the outside. Its owner is an organizer of weekly conference calls of very high quality, good attendance, and excellent guests. The live streaming of these calls had just become available on that site, with convenient playback. Despite misgivings some months earlier about the pushiness of the owner in posting the call notices on several restricted-topic sites and being rather obstinate about respecting those owners’ reasonable requests not to do so, SIFC began to join these conference calls on a fairly regular basis due to the quality of the speakers. Site membership had grown to about 1300 with a dozen or so new joiners weekly to site membership. At first it appeared this site would nicely meet all three of SIFC’s top desired purposes for joining, as described earlier, and for committing to being a contributing member of a helpful standers’ group. Some of the handful of soundly-based groups that had been fruitful a year or two ago had since gone fairly inactive, so the time seemed ripe.

After two or three weeks’ participation, SIFC has come away feeling as if comments in response to some of the posts had invited everyone there to a dinner party where, unknowingly, there had been served meat sacrificed to idols, which offended some guests of weaker faith. Let me explain.

At the time point of joining, there was quite the conversation ongoing on about a male stander who had fallen prey to a heretical remarriage apology page, but had simultaneously been a member of this particular group, from which he evidently pursued several female standers (as confessed by one of them) before selecting a another stander to “marry” while his covenant wife remains a living prodigal. To-date, two of our blog own posts have early-flagged and discussed the role of this man’s profuse legalistic ideologies which directly contributed to his moral fall, and (likely) to the ongoing depth of estrangement from his true wife.

Against this unfortunate backdrop, it was incredibly disheartening to see legalistic and dogmatic posts by one of the page’s moderators in the next two weeks on all of the following off-topic issues that drew contentious debate:
– the alleged”corruption” of attending a flesh-and-blood, brick-and-mortar church that has an appointed pastor or pastoral staff
– the alleged “pagan-ness” of Valentine’s Day celebrations
– the alleged “impropriety” of addressing anyone, great or small, by a title

This appeared to be the only type of post ever observed being made by this gentleman in that time frame. Not only were the moderator-poster’s extrabiblical biases being promoted, but anyone not practicing them was being overtly condemned. SIFC’s first appeal to observe the site’s own posted rules was made to the owner in a comment on the post. The site owner publicly commented that he agreed with the legalism complained of, and would therefore allow the posts to remain for the heated and unseemly discussion that ensued. SIFC challenged the moderator-poster on all three of the above distractions, a man whose “story” hadn’t been revealed in SIFC’s short sojourn on the site, but his faith background can likely be guessed from the ethnicity of his name and the apparent appeal to him of these particular dogmas. One of SIFC’s challenges was quickly deleted by somebody with access to do so, and SIFC received two PM’s from the site owner claiming that the dissenting comments constituted “name-calling”. (Apparently because SIFC used the “L-word” as a descriptor). In a display of spiritual maturity, this fellow removed himself for a morning from the page membership, then the next thing SIFC knew, the page was “no longer available”. Not only was I removed, but evidently also blocked from the page.

This site had all of the ground rules described above in place, and then some, as follows:

“This is NOT a dating site. There is ZERO tolerance for name calling, gossip, slander or profanity. If you do not answer questions, you will be ignored, and you and your posts may be deleted. Posts of false doctrines or false teachers will be deleted. This is not a debate forum. Keep posts focused on [marriage, adultery, divorce and remarriage].
DO NOT POST VIDEOS BY UNAPPROVED SPEAKERS. APPROVED SPEAKERS HAVE THEIR WEB SITES LISTED AND/OR ARE MODERATORS. VIDEOS SHOULD BE APPROVED PRIVATELY BY A MODERATOR PRIOR TO POSTING ON [site name].
(Examples: types of baptisms, tongues, women head coverings, dress or other topics that Christians have been divided on hundreds of years) Not a place to advertise your business. Violators and their posts will be deleted without warning.”

These were indeed enforced against infractions committed by non-cronies of the page owner, as SIFC observed on one occasion when a lady was admonished, not for a post but for a question she raised about a legalistic and divisive doctrine. On the other hand, outright slander against a very effective and godly pioneering marriage restoration ministry was actively defended by the site owner when interjected by another commenter, interfering as she was with help SIFC was attempting to provide to a new member in the crisis of his wife leaving him. Nope, this site is clearly not safe for referrals from Unilateral Divorce is Unconstitutional as originally hoped.

Reflecting on this incident in its aftermath, several thoughts come to the surface that (at least in SIFC’s estimation) if heeded will help keep the looney-tunes “cult” perception, not to mention actual stander defections from biblical morality, at bay so that the marriage permanence community as a whole will be taken seriously by people who can potentially help us make a difference for families, a goal I’m certain this site owner shares.

Many years ago, SIFC and spouse were trained in our charismatic, nondenominational church, which practiced a plurality of pastoral leadership as modeled by the 1st century church, into a 13-week course for house church leaders called “The Maturity in Christ Series”. We weren’t very chronologically mature at this time in the early ’80’s, but we then went on to teach this course together to new leaders a couple of times after that, while we co-led a house church with a seasoned couple who were both bible college grads. Without denominational leadership and sound doctrine, the atmosphere was ripe for every kind of lunacy to be tracked in from outside, and indeed, we observed much during this time that was successfully resisted by the framework that the leadership had proactively established and the careful grooming and monitoring of the lay leadership. On one occasion, there was an administration of (Matthew 18:15-17) public church discipline to a male house church leader who had become romantically involved with a troubled female in his charge. This man was put out of the church for refusing to terminate the immoral, extramarital relationship.

In those days, marriage permanence was preached from the pulpit of that church. Unlike the affluent Methodist church downtown, the number of remarried divorced pairs could be counted on the fingers of one hand. The typical dogmas and distractions that regularly surfaced were very similar to today’s virtual communities of believers: dress and makeup legalisms, Sabbath disputes, head coverings, holiday observance, homeschooling, women working outside the home being likened to “streetwalkers”, legalism about pursuing college at a secular institution, order in using the gifts of the Spirit, and so forth. Similar to our virtual communities, people were being born again after spending their upbringing in churches with autocratic authority structures and some clearly pagan or extrabiblical practices, and these folks tended to backlash in the opposite direction of whatever they have grown up with until a period of responsible small group discipleship had brought them into better balance.

But what happens when a stander or repenting prodigal is persecuted in their traditional church, or even worse, put out of it for being outspoken about remarriage adultery being a hellbound sin? The discipling processes can be short-circuited in some cases before a person has matured spiritually. They can easily become distrustful of all traditional churches, due to the widespread apostasy over the remarriage issue, and assume all pastors are incorrigible and all churches apostate. However, it doesn’t stop there. Instead of becoming spiritually secure individuals, it becomes necessary to disparage and accuse anyone who is attending an actual church and attempting to influence their pastor toward scriptural faithfulness. This was indeed the tone taken in one of the posts by the page moderator, who appears from this behavior to have come out of a faith tradition where church leadership is deemed “infallible” and not to be challenged. Only, who’s there and qualified to disciple him in the virtual church? Who’s properly trained and willing to do so? Only somebody who can see (or has seen) where the man’s error is taking him!

Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good morals.”
– 1 Corinthians 15:33

There’s a key reason why SIFC opted for an open community page instead of a closed group – lack of time and biblical qualification to act as a de facto pastor. There are just over 600 self-elected followers to Unilateral Divorce is Unconstitutional, none of whom are very likely to mistake the page for a suitable church substitute.
(By contrast, a community page started four years earlier, similarly targeted as ours, but which doesn’t call non-covenant “marriages” adultery, doesn’t seek to reform the laws, and doesn’t write about things like hell, toxic Calvinism, and the corruption of our contemporary bibles, has eight times as many page fans.) Even so, ministry, prayer and referral (as appropriate) takes place behind the scenes upon request on UDIU, and there is a comfortable margin of time for this to occur with good handling while maintaining the page, and while assisting on a couple of other pages. People don’t (normally) get insulted, protest loudly and huff off on our page — which I’d say is good for public decorum. They simply “unlike” and “re-like” our page.

Were there 1300 group members to deal with, coming and going through a page-owned gatekeeping process, that’s equivalent to a fairly large church, and maintaining this administratively pretty much requires a staff, as indeed this page has appointed its moderators. The site owner told me he works the page himself an average of eight hours a day.

An overseer, then, must be…. and not a new convert, so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil.
– Timothy 3:7

Page owners in the marriage permanence arena must understand that their page is a pseudo-church (unless the following is very small or unless they regularly and sincerely urge participation in a real church or house church fellowship wherever possible), and they must understand that the shared leadership of that page are indeed pseudo-pastors, at least to a portion of their members. Is this page owner therefore willing to qualify these folks serving as his moderators according to Paul’s guidelines in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1? If not, what unction do they really have for criticizing the qualifications of a non-widowed remarried pastor? If they don’t consistently “police” the lunacies and heresies surfacing on their page, are they any better than Paul found the Corinthian church to be when he rebuked the leadership for tolerating similar lunacies and heresies in his first letter? If they have defectors who lapse into immorality, is this not a potential sign of pastoral deficiency?

And what is their strategy for discipling and counseling the women in their virtual congregation? There are one or two virtual marriage ministries that have addressed this issue thoughtfully and made effective provision for it. At least one of the leaders of this particular page, however, claim there’s something wrong with a female Christ-follower if, deprived of the covering God expects from her absentee husband, she therefore decides to be under the covering of a traditional pastor. Yet her critics on the page really don’t have anything superior to offer her in the alternative. What then happens in the vacuum is (unfortunately) that some can be preyed upon by insiders and outsiders alike.

Here’s a quick reminder of a few of the substantial benefits someone who can’t or won’t attend a flesh-and-blood fellowship miss out on:
– communion (the taking of which just might be felt by our absent one-flesh partner)
– anointing with oil when ill
– meals brought over when ill
– small helps in severe situations they are unable to do themselves
– opportunity for mission trips
– opportunity to mentor young people

Surely, the Lord would not have His sheep criticized in this fashion for being a part of a congregation that provides things which He clearly intended for us to have that the alternative gatherings, real or virtual, can’t necessarily provide? I think of an isolated late middle-aged woman who died alone in her house in our neighborhood several years ago who wasn’t even discovered until a part of her roof fell in due to heavy snow, and whose out-of-state children then had to be tracked down. How incredibly sad, and I’ve often wondered if she had been a stander.

Let’s face it: we standers tend to be a mess emotionally, and long years of standing don’t normally make it any better. These online groups tend to be a magnet additionally for wounded people who, for whatever reason, reject having spiritual authority over them, who bristle at the idea of tithing (one legalism they do agree not to tolerate), and at other disciplines they shouldn’t be finding excuses to avoid. Often this behavior and mindset is due to being raised in a church that was pompous in requiring the use of titles, and in declaring individual leaders “infallible” while promulgating the traditions of men that contradict the word of God. Standers’ groups should be safe havens for those who have been involuntarily rejected or persecuted by their brick-and-mortar church. But bad behavior that is harmful to the others on the group page should never have a safe haven. Response to this behavior should follow a Matthew 18:15-17 process with no favoritism shown. “Excommunications” should certainly follow this process, and should be done with correct motives which are soul-related. “Excommunication” should never result from other members pouting at being admonished.

For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot says, “Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,” it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. And if the ear says, “Because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body,” it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. – Corinthians 12:14-18

Another thing typically happens in large, virtual pseudo-churches. All of the usual functional and spiritual gifts have a tendency of showing up in the group’s members and manifesting in posts and comments on the page. One of the key pieces of leadership training my honey and I received “way back when” was instruction in what some of these gifts look like in their actual exercise in a group, including both the strengths and the weaknesses of each kind of person so gifted. However, many standers have always been taught some measure of cessationism, so this conversation could not even be had on this particular group page, according to the stated rules. One is perfectly free on this page, therefore, to hyper-apply Matthew 23:1-12, according to the YouTube video of some self-appointed “theologian”, but God help anyone who dares exercise the gift of, say, discerning of spirits in that group. That “passed away” with the Apostles, after all. Unfortunately, satan doesn’t spare the marriages of charismatics any more than he does the marriages of the “Reformed” or the Baptists. Pretending within a group of Christ-followers that the functional gifts don’t exist doesn’t make them “poof” go away. God certainly knows that a body can’t function without a nervous system, so chances are that an “excommunicated” nervous system just might grow back through another member. Successful groups, flesh-and-blood or virtual, learn how to benefit from the functional gifts in an orderly fashion.

I do not share my written perspective on this to get back at the group, for if so, I would name them. I also do not write this out of any desire to rejoin, based on what I so quickly learned about how its governance stacks up with my pre-contemplated desires for investment of time in such a group. At best, rejoining would fulfill only objectives (3) and (4) – not good enough to compensate for the much greater downside, as it currently stands. I will probably not repost this blog to Unilateral Divorce is Unconstitutional, because a portion of that diverse audience is best not exposed to petty squabbling and (actual) cultishness in the body of Christ. I blush that the poor man who was a new joiner seeking help for a horrible family crisis was exposed to it that day, and can only pray he wasn’t so turned off that he won’t follow up on the good referrals he was given. My main hope is that this post will trigger the marriage permanence community to reflect on what they hope to achieve from group membership, and for the many others administering marriage permanence pages to prayerfully gut-check their own priorities and objectives, responsibly considering some of the eternal implications for running their page.

Surely, making one’s own decision whether to be part of a traditional church or observe Valentines Day are both lawful, according to the Apostle Paul, and whether or not they are both profitable depends on the circumstances involved, which are not for a third party to judge in any event. Similarly, Jesus did not forbid a disciple from voluntarily addressing someone by their title. At least that was the interpretation of the Shepherd of Hermas (addressing an angel sent to him in a dream):

““And I said to him, ‘Sir, if any one has a wife who trusts in the Lord, and if he detect her in adultery, does the man sin if he continues to live with her?’ And he said to me, ‘As long as he remains ignorant of her sin, the husband commits no transgression in living with her. But if the husband knows that his wife has gone astray, and if the woman does not repent, but persists in her sin, and yet the husband continues to live with her, he also is guilty of her crime, and a sharer in her adultery.’ And I said to him, ‘What then, sir, is the husband to do, if his wife continues in her vicious practices?’ (The Shepherd, Second Book, Commandment 4:1)

Rather, Jesus taught that it was presuming upon the glory of God to insist that others address us by such a title. Someone of weaker faith might not see one of these issues as the scripture intended, and someone of the weakest possible faith will have issues of conscience over the shallowest reading of scripture or every suggestive, but ill-researched, teacher they encounter. I humbly suggest that such folk are not yet ready to teach others if they elevate such things to a heaven-or-hell gravity.

My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation. – James 3:1

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

Church Discipline, Discipleship, Lost culture, morality, Spiritual Warfare

Why Following “Remarriage” Apologist Robert Waters is Apostasy As Well As Heresy

September 11, 2017 standerinfamilycourt 3 Comments

by Standerinfamilycourt

On this 16th anniversary of 9/11, a well-known promoter of serial polygamy was earnestly hoping to fly his 747 into one of the marriage permanence twin towers – the clear teachings of Jesus, or the clear teachings of Paul. Here’s why he deserves to fail in that mission.

A RECENT EXCHANGE ON A RIVAL FACEBOOK PAGE

……….Robert Waters This is a reply the article linked that had the ridiculous title, “Excuse Me, was I addressing You? Stop abusing 1 Cor 7:26-27“

He [blogger, “standerinfamilycourt”] did not even put his name to it. Nevertheless, but God will hold him accountable for the error.

( SIFC: “Standerinfamilycourt” is often criticized for writing under a “nom-de-plume“, as though this somehow invalidates the message of the gospel, and as though what the reader reads in this blog cannot be directly compared with scripture online and with many helpful tools. In fact, the blog installment and series that Robert Waters is so busy criticizing teaches the readers how to do just that for themselves with the utmost integrity. That said, SIFC would like to remind readers that the reason for the pen name is because there is the precious and eternally irreplaceable soul of a one-flesh prodigal spouse at stake, and this fact constantly wars with the legitimate need to play an assigned, specific role in the marriage permanence movement. If the pen name was not used, the blogs would not be able to write about certain hard-hitting topics without jeopardizing that spouse’s repentance by publicly exposing their identity, and sometimes their deeds, while they remain emotionally ill and held captive to do satan’s will. SIFC will make no further apologies for doing so. Mr. Waters needs to remember that God will hold ALL of us accountable for deliberately mistreating His word — the sword cuts both ways. If some basic facts must be known about SIFC to hear the Spirit of God in these blogs, they are follows:

– married in the Lord for nearly 45 years
– experienced a prior knitting back together of covenant family in the 5th year following a 2 year separation, after which spouse came to saving faith and transformed life
– has been a believer for 44 years – Pentecostal background
– was trained in hermeneutics by a former pastor
– has some career-related and case-related legal training
– has a masters level education, but not formal bible training other than a 13-week Christian discipleship leader training for leadership couples
– is, however, in regular communication with seminarians and other qualified bible scholars
– has been standing, celibate in obedience to 1 Cor. 7:11 for a total of 11 years in this second instance of satan warring against our covenant union

Like Francesca Battistelli, “I don’t need my name in lights..”, and like the Apostle Paul — who considered his impressive resume “dung” but felt compelled to present it anyway to due the criticisms coming from the enemies of the kingdom of God, SIFC does so here in the same spirit.
The resume of Mr. Waters can be found here, and the MDR portion of his blog page can be found here. Waters says he’s been in a covenant marriage for many decades and says he was not previously married to another, but a restored stander asked him whether that was also true of his wife. He declined to answer that question.

The writer asked “Is Paul addressing the adulterously remarried and urging them to stay as they are?”

Answer: NO. He [Paul] addresses them in other places, like Galatians 5:19 (the works of the flesh). He [blogger SIFC] wrote: “
Paul starts to address the questions concerning the “unmarried” and widows in verse 8: But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them if they remain even as I. But if they do not have self-control, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

Answer: Before we note his [blogger SIFC] comment let us look at what the text says. Paul speaks of the “unmarried”. That word includes those divorced, because they are no longer married. The writer of the articles refuses to believe what the text says because he does not believe divorced (sic) does what God says it will do. He admits what the text INCLUDES, says you can’t believe it because it is not what I believe some other passages teach. He [blogger SIFC] wrote: “Here the term agamois (unmarried) is different from parthenos (virgin). It certainly includes virgins, but also includes those who have been put away, who may or may not have a living, estranged spouse. Based on Matthew 19:6, Romans 7:2 and 1 Cor. 7:39, it cannot mean that the marriage bond is dissolved if both original spouses are living.” He [blogger SIFC] wrote: “We established earlier Matthew 19:6 as the cornerstone scripture for comparison (Part 1 of our series) before accepting a particular interpretation of any other other scripture.”

SIFC: There will be a strong temptation to be resisted throughout this rebuttal, of using biting sarcasm due to the blatant lack on Mr. Waters’ part to delve very deeply into much of anything whereof he speaks. Jesus and Paul used sarcasm when ignorant men were seeking to corrupt God’s children in eternal matters. They did so out of righteous indignation. Does SIFC have that same privilege? We shall endeavor to keep it restrained. The readers can refer back to that linked blog – Part 1, and determine for themselves whether or not disciplined hermeneutics were applied, and whether or not Mr. Waters is countering with the same level of rigor, reflecting his formal bible education. The concept of one-flesh as Jesus described it in that passage, and of unconditional, indissoluble covenant are certainly among the most offensive of Jesus’ teachings.

Those two concepts didn’t even sit well with His disciples at first. As we see here, they continue to infuriate those “who would justify themselves in the sight of men”.

Even several Calvinist theologians of late agree with the Koine Greek linguists that although there was a Greek word for “widow” (female) http://biblehub.com/greek/5503.htm there was no corresponding word for “male widow”, so Paul used “agamois”, to match the intended symmetry in each of these sections, of first addressing the men in the category, and then the women. Not to have done this (much like today) would have offended the Gentile women who were relatively new converts, and who were accustomed to a much greater sense of equality than in the Jewish culture. Either way, Paul was here addressing only those who did not have an estranged living spouse, or he would have been contradicting himself and creating confusion in the passages that follow next.

ANSWER: First, that passages (sic) does not say what he [blogger SIFC] insists it says. It says, “LET not man put asunder.” It does not say man cannot do it or that DIVORCE, as God defined it, does not do it. And so, he refuses to believe what clear text say because he is BENT on holding to a false idea of his “cornerstone” text. He further said, “(1) from the point God joins husband and wife, they cannot be unjoined as long as both live.”

Really? Matthew 19:6, was teaching that took place during the Mosaic dispensation. The Law of Moses, which was the law of God. Clearly Deut. 24:1,2 spoke of divorce and it allowed the woman to “go and be another man’s wife”. The man didn’t need divorce to marry another because he could have multiple wives. Also, God confirmed that the divorce law was from him by using it himself (Jer. 3:8). And the icing on the cake is the clear teaching that Jesus married God ‘s divorced wife (Romans 7:1, 4).

SIFC: Let’s address Mr. Waters’ last assertion first…. “Jesus married God’s divorced wife (Romans 7:1, 4).” Did Mr. Waters REALLY just accuse Jesus of doing what the man in 1 Cor. 5 was doing? Committing both adultery and incest ? That most certainly would be “the icing on the cake“, wouldn’t it? It should be noted that we covered the Most High’s alleged “marital history” in Part 6 of our “Stop Abusing Scripture” series. As far as we know, there has been some attempt to claim that His Son had a marital history, but it was later proven to be a forgery of evidence. As far as anyone has been able to conclusively prove, Jesus remained celibate throughout His life — as represented.

Next, let’s examine this assertion from Mr. Waters: “Matthew 19:6, was teaching that took place during the Mosaic dispensation.” The very first thing to note is that Mr. Waters does not offer any biblical evidence of when one covenant age ceased and the other commenced. He simply states his bias for universal consumption, as if he were stating “the sky is blue”. Based on prophecy and biblical history, SIFC contends that the Mosaic covenant ceased and the Messianic covenant began when Jesus emerged, baptized, from the Jordan River. John the Baptizer was the “Elijah” prophesied in Malachi 4:5-6, the closing verses of the Old Testament. John the Baptizer was surely passing the torch when he immersed Jesus, and the dove of Lord descended on Him. The onset of the Messianic covenant age is why Jesus was able to gather food and heal on the Sabbath long before He went to the cross. From there He proceeded to His sermon on the mount, where He abrogated quite a bit of Mosaic regulation, and proclaimed (in effect), “from now on, this is a new day morally.”

The other thing to note is that Jesus never endorsed Moses’ “permission”, but in fact He corrected it in Matthew 19:8, making the very important point that hard-heartedness is not an acceptable attribute of a Christ-follower. In fact, this is echoed as a soul-imperiling attribute throughout the book of Hebrews. By contrast, Mr. Waters would have us believe that an “allowance” was made by God for hard-heartedness, and that would “prove” that He instituted man’s divorce. Completely ignored are the actual words of Jesus: “from the beginning, it was NOT SO.” Hard-heartedness, as we learn in Hebrews is the beginning of total apostasy.

Dear reader, the writer of the article with the silly title claims to use good hermeneutics, but he [blogger SIFC] does not. He wrote: “Scripture must always be interpreted in light of all other scripture on the same topic, and accomplished in such a way that there is no contradiction. “
RW: This is true. It is an important aspect of hermeneutics. But we have seen that the write (sic) has settled on a false foundation that Jesus said MAN CANNOT DIVORCE. That cannot be true because it is not what he [apparently Jesus] said and it would have resulted in sin, had he said it, sin that would have got him immediately stoned. And did he not promise that nothing would change before all is fulfilled” (Matt. 5:17-19).

SIFC: As noted in a couple of earlier blogs, distorters of the sermon on the mount (who often are the purveyors of serial polygamy snake oil) often choose to read it as if Matt. 5:17-19 were the only verses therein. In doing so, they miss the whole central message, including the new requirement for all men to obey Jesus from the heart. Mr. Waters is flat-out ignoring an enormous amount of context in reducing Matthew 5 down to three cherry-picked verses.

Thus, the man [blogger SIFC] has Jesus doing something he said he would not do right before talking about the “putting away” issue, which is NOT divorce at all.

SIFC: Apparently, like the Pharisees were, Mr. Waters is upset that the Son of the Most High, would deign to “change the rules”, as it were. (“But He promised!”) We’ve already demonstrated Mr. Waters’ distorted understanding of the message of the sermon on the mount. The accurate way to view this assertion of his is that GOD set the rules from the beginning, and it was carnal men, not Jesus, who attempted to change the rules. Jesus came to re-establish the rules, even the ones Mr. Waters isn’t fond of, and that, dear readers, is the correct context of Matt. 5:17-19. The very fact that Jesus repeatedly raised the bar on a whole range of moral issues by saying, “It is written / You have heard it said… BUT I SAY UNTO YOU”, should lay to rest any and all attempts to wish Moses was still the sheriff in these here parts, instead of Jesus. In the very next verse after this over-emphasized passage, we read,

For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

The truth I’m trying to get across (sic) you many of you does not (sic) have contradictions, which is why I gave up trying to defend the error that benefits only the devil as it breaks up marriages, imposes celibacy on people who need marriage, splits churches and results in precious time being wasted arguing the matter.

SIFC: “Standerinfamilycourt” never ceases to be amazed at the terror in the voices of the enemies of God’s kingdom, as they ascribe to us these amazing super-powers we never realized we had.

“Breaks up marriages?” How? By quoting scripture? Oh, that we could convict consciences that readily, why, it would be a scene straight out of the book of Ezra! However, we point out that Jesus’ definition of “marriage” is as follows:

And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ˜For this reason a man shall leave his FATHER AND MOTHER and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh? – Matt. 19:4-5

He did not say “… leave his God-joined one-flesh wife and be joined to another woman.” On FIVE different occasions, He distinctly called such an arrangement ongoing adultery and not once did He ever call it “marriage” without also calling it ongoing adultery.

” imposes celibacy on people who need marriage”? We can assure that we have no present plans or budget to go around locking people up in chastity belts any time soon, so we think this particular superpower is also a bit overstated. (Chill, Robert!) Our understanding according to scripture is that these are people who already have marriage (however inconvenient that is to them), and it is Divine Law that imposes the chastity. We don’t make the laws, we just deliver the message about them. We also remind that others have “needs”, too. Our children need to learn godly morality, forgiveness, faith and endurance from the example we set. They need to unlearn “eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth”. The estranged covenant partner of the married-for-life person we are lusting after needs to have no impediment to the full repentance of their one-flesh spouse nor to the rebuilding of their covenant family. At the end of the day, the only biblical way divorcees are going to obtain “marriage” is to obey the Lord and be open to reconciliation with their own actual spouse. Our nation needs to turn back the much-advanced hand of God’s judgment on the land these past 50 years.

“splits churches”? Again, we are not aware of any signs of this attributed super-power of ours. What “standerinfamilycourt” has personally observed following an unlawful wedding being performed in the house of the Lord, is that a church split did occur when an adulterously remarried couple rose up against the pastor’s authority on an unrelated matter shortly thereafter. God always disciplines His children as legitimate children, we’re told in Hebrews 12.

Do not err, my brethren. Those that corrupt families shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And if those that corrupt mere human families are condemned to death, how much more shall those suffer everlasting punishment who endeavor to corrupt the Church of Christ, for which the Lord Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God, endured the cross, and submitted to death! Whosoever, ‘being waxen fat,’ and ‘become gross,’ sets at nought His doctrine, shall go into Hell. In like manner, every one that has received from God the power of distinguishing, and yet follows an unskillful shepherd, and receives a false opinion for the truth, shall be punished.”
– St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, “Epistle To The Ephesians,” c. 105 A.D.
SIFC leaves the readers with a link to some important and highly-relevant listening, courtesy of Pastor Stephen Wilcox of Canada. Mr. Waters accuses this blog of misrepresenting the teachings of Christ and Paul concerning the validity of remarriage after divorce. If that were so, then it stands to reason that the men who led the church in the 1st through 4th centuries after Jesus went to the cross would agree with Mr. Waters and not with us. We are talking about some men here who were directly discipled by the likes of the Apostle John, for example. We are also talking about an historical record that has only become available through excavations and technology in the last couple of decades, at least some 20 years after the enactment of unilateral divorce (and revised church doctrine to match) in most of the U.S., Canada and other western countries. The last several minutes deal with particular eloquence with Mr. Waters’ emotional plea about the “need” of the already-married to “remarry” another while their covenant spouse is alive and estranged.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhhGSHJAef4

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Discipleship, marriage, morality

Revisiting The Call To Public Witness On Marriage

July 7, 2015 standerinfamilycourt 1 Comment

by Standerinfamilycourt

It seems that in its hyperfocus on homosexual marriage, the Southern Baptist Convention has missed at least 4 opportunities in its 2015 “Call to Witness” to shore up the requisite moral authority to speak to the Supreme Court and others about the biblical definition of marriage by reaffirming its permanence. That’s like trying to run the marathon on one leg: lots of effort, little effect and looking very silly in the attempt.

2015 COLUMBUS, OHIO

WHEREAS, God in His divine wisdom created marriage as the covenanted, conjugal union of one man and one woman (Genesis 2:18–24; Matthew 19:4–6; Hebrews 13:4); and

WHEREAS, The Baptist Faith & Message (2000) recognizes the biblical definition of marriage as “the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime,” stating further, “It is God’s unique gift to reveal the union between Christ and His church and to provide for the man and the woman in marriage the framework for intimate companionship, the channel of sexual expression according to biblical standards, and the means for procreation of the human race”; and

WHEREAS, God ordains government to promote and honor the public good and recognize what is praiseworthy (Romans 13:3–4); and

WHEREAS, The public good requires defining and defending marriage as the covenanted, conjugal union of one man and one woman; and

SIFC note: Missed 2015 opportunity to reinforce SBC’s The Baptist Faith & Message (2000) by reiterating that they will defend marriage as the covenanted, conjugal union of one man and one woman for life.

WHEREAS, Marriage is by nature a public institution that unites man and woman in the common task of bringing forth children; and

WHEREAS, The Supreme Court of the United States will rule in 2015 on whether states shall be required to grant legal recognition as “marriages” to same-sex partnerships; and

WHEREAS, The redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples will continue to weaken the institution of the natural family unit and erode the religious liberty and rights of conscience of all who remain faithful to the idea of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife; and

SIFC note: Missed 2015 opportunity to reinforce SBC’s The Baptist Faith & Message (2000) by reiterating that eroding religious liberty and rights of conscience of all who remain faithful to the idea of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife for life is just as undesirable as intolerance for those who oppose homosexual unions.

WHEREAS, The Bible calls us to love our neighbors, including those who disagree with us about the definition of marriage and the public good; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Columbus, Ohio, June 16–17, 2015, prayerfully call on the Supreme Court of the United States to uphold the right of the citizens to define marriage as exclusively the union of one man and one woman; and be it further

RESOLVED, That Southern Baptists recognize that no governing institution has the authority to negate or usurp God’s definition of marriage;

SIFC note: Nor does any church have authority to do the same by disregarding either its complementary, or its indissolubility and permanence.

and be it further

RESOLVED, No matter how the Supreme Court rules, the Southern Baptist Convention reaffirms its unwavering commitment to its doctrinal and public beliefs concerning marriage; and be it further

RESOLVED, That the religious liberty of individual citizens or institutions should not be infringed as a result of believing or living according to the biblical definition of marriage; and be it further

SIFC note: Living according to the biblical definition of marriage includes religious liberty to assert the permanence of man-woman first marriage, especially in the family court system of each state.

RESOLVED, That the Southern Baptist Convention calls on Southern Baptists and all Christians to stand firm on the Bible’s witness on the purposes of marriage, among which are to unite man and woman as one flesh and to secure the basis for the flourishing of human civilization; and be it finally

SIFC note: Missed 2015 opportunity to reinforce SBC’s The Baptist Faith & Message (2000) by reiterating that among the purposes of marriage are to unite man and woman as one flesh for life in order to secure the basis for the flourishing of human civilization.

If standing firm on the Bible’s witness is important, why not:

RESOLVED, members of the Southern Baptist Convention hereby pledge to honor the permanence of holy matrimony by ceasing to perform all wedding ceremonies where either the prospective bride or groom has a living prior spouse, and to remove from ministry any pastor who knowingly performs such a ceremony?

RESOLVED, members of the Southern Baptist Convention hereby pledge to honor the permanence of holy matrimony by expending political resources and moral influence to end unilateral divorce in every state in the United States?

RESOLVED, That Southern Baptists love our neighbors and extend respect in Christ’s name to all people, including those who may disagree with us about the definition of marriage and the public good.

SIFC Concluding Thoughts: It must be terrifying for Christian organizations to go up on a shoestring budget against the corporate-backed, well funded LGBT political machine. But was Israel not in the same place, in the natural against her adversaries? It appears the SBC is willing to play down some of its core biblical principles because it fears the loss of financial support, forgetting the God who pared down one army to only 300 so that His power would be manifest. He urges the battle is His, only fear Him alone and do not mock Him by violating His commandments.

Now I know that the Lord saves His anointed;
He will answer him from His holy heaven
With the saving strength of His right hand.
Some boast in chariots and some in horses,
But we will boast in the name of the Lord, our God.
They have bowed down and fallen,
But we have risen and stood upright.
Save, O Lord;
May the King answer us in the day we call.
– Psalm 20

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

citizenship, Connection of Unilateral Divorce to SSM, Discipleship, Fundamental Rights, Religious freedom

Courts and Religious Freedom Dichotomy: Coincidence or “God-incidence”?

July 5, 2015 standerinfamilycourt Leave a comment

by Standerinfamilycourt

“The alien who is among you shall rise above you higher and higher, but you will go down lower and lower…. he shall be the head, and you will be the tail.

“So all these curses shall come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the Lord your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you….The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as the eagle swoops down, a nation whose language you shall not understand, a nation of fierce countenance who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young.” – Deuteronomy 28:43-45, 49

“Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things. But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? ….You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God? For “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” just as it is written.
– Romans 1:28-32

[UPDATE: On July 14, 2015 the 10th Federal Circuit ruled against an injunction protecting the non-profit Little Sisters of the Poor from the HHS mandate to provide abortifacients and birth control to employees against their 1st Amendment right to free religious exercise, while on July 17, 2015 a judge in Federal district court, in he 7th Circuit reached the opposite result and granted a permanent injunction to for-profit Tyndale House Publishers.]

One week after the cataclysmic 5-4 pronouncement of the U.S. Supreme Court in Obergefell v Hodges, a poignant reminder of a very different sort of religious freedom pronouncement came up in SIFC’s i-phone, as decided by all the same SCOTUS justices only a year ago, June, 2014. Obergefell held that a newly-minted 14th Amendment fundamental right to redefine civil marriage, and to state-enforced “dignity” (which nevertheless remains a perception of the heart, mind and will as reflected against the backdrop of God’s law) shall supercede the very first fundamental right enumerated in the Bill of Rights, our irreplaceable freedom of religious exercise and of acting on our right of conscience. Unlike Obergefell, that 5-4 majority based their finding on sound constitutional analysis, with appropriate respect for precedent. That 2014 case was Burwell v Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.

The Becket Fund, a public interest religious freedom law firm that successfully represented Hobby Lobby before the Supreme Court last year has also enjoyed a long list of judicial successes affirming Christian-owned profit and non-profit entities who object to the requirements in the Obamacare mandate to provide birth control and abortifacient drugs to their employees. In so doing, they are upholding a “non-negotiable” in the kingdom of God that dates back to the days immediately following the days of Noah’s flood. God promised with a rainbow reminder to never again wipe out all life on the earth in a single event, no matter how vile and wicked man became again. He laid down one expectation, however: honor life.

Of the dozens of HHS mandate cases filed by religious non-profit organizations and Christian-owned for-profit firms, there have been 28 successful injunction requests to bar enforcement versus only 6 cases denied, and 6 favorable Supreme Court orders resulting directly from the Hobby Lobby ruling. In the case of a similar number of for-profit firms, there have been 8 temporary injunctions and 39 permanent injunctions granted, versus only one denial.

By contrast, the same pro-family, religious freedom Christian law firms, such as Liberty Counsel and the Alliance Defending Freedom, who were so successfully defending their clients’ honor of life issues in court, were at the same time losing virtually every case in every state and Federal Circuit where they attempted to uphold only half of God’s definition of marriage – complementarity, but not permanence. Sanctity-of-marriage is God’s second “non-negotiable“, one that He expects to be defended from far more than only the gender-confused.

Some of the judges in those cases bluntly pointed out the brazen hypocrisy of attempted sanctity-of-marriage arguments which centered around the welfare of the children, but in the face of those states’ unilateral divorce laws which ruthlessly subjugate the rights of the children of covenant marriages to the (apparently) “compelling” state interest of sexual autonomy for the petitioning parent. For example, Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the 9th U.S. Circuit, in Latta v Otter eloquently opined:

“If defendants really wished to ensure that as many children as possible had married parents, they would do well to rescind the right to no-fault divorce, or to divorce altogether. Neither has done so. Such reforms might face constitutional difficulties of their own, but they would at least further the states’ asserted interest in solidifying marriage.”

In fact, several of these public interest legal firms who have in their mission statements expressed sanctity-of-marriage and religious freedom-of-conscience aspirations told SIFC in May, 2013 that the punitive confiscation of retirement funds from a non-offending Christian spouse to award to the offending petitioner as a result of an unwanted marriage dissolution was only an “incidental” religious freedom burden. The severe curtailment on technical grounds of the right to bring evidence in a dissipation of marital assets claim (that would otherwise defend against such confiscation) solely because of refusing to file one’s own petition based on biblical conviction was not an unconstitutional violation of freedom of conscience. Constitutional attorneys from a firm which regularly works for these legal ministries, once they were retained with SIFC’s personal funds, resoundingly disagreed with their assessment, and have filed her appeal accordingly.

What is even more uncanny as the marriage redefinition cases unfolded, is the unsoundness of the legal reasoning on which those cases were decided, especially the Obergefell decision. The favorable hand of God in the HHS cases was nowhere to be seen in the cases that would further desecrate marriage and bring fines and penalties to hundreds of Christian businesses in wedding-related goods, services and facilities. If marriage is a sacred symbol for the relationship between Christ and His church, where was the protective hand of God in those cases? Why was the situation so out of hand that two Justices who were performing these sodomy ceremonies and making biased personal statements before the oral arguments were even heard, were not strongly compelled to recuse themselves for the sake of retaining confidence in the integrity of the Court?

Like the harlot of the Book of Proverbs who eats and wipes her mouth, declaring she has done nothing wrong, the aftermath of the SCOTUS announcement shows a defiant, rather than a reflective and repentant mood among the nation’s most influential Christian evangelical leaders. Some even got into unseemly skirmishes with each other on the battlefield of their respective blogs and facebook pages. There is much talk of civil disobedience, of church leaders going to jail rather than follow a Federally / judicially-imposed national marriage law. There are state efforts to cease issuing marriage licenses to anyone. Nobody seems to even miss the conspicuous absence of the Most High so soon after His stunning presence in defeating the HHS mandate over the same 12 month period. Only a few are speaking publicly about the connection with unilateral divorce, and none are doing so with a view toward reforming or repealing these laws in order to fundamentally, rather than superficially, rebuild a culture of marriage.

Instead of any sign of contrition on the part of evangelical leaders in the week that has followed the Court’s announcement, in the form of a pledge to stop performing weddings where there is an estranged living spouse, or to work toward reform or repeal of unilateral divorce laws, all the talk was about circling the wagons around all marriages (whether covenant, or adulterous remarriages) to discourage future divorces, and to “educate young people to choose their spouses with more discernment”. (SIFC suggests they start with the most basic counsel: don’t marry somebody else’s spouse!)

Any suggestion is ignored or rebuffed that a real dilemma looms wherein pastors will find themselves counseling “married” homosexuals differently than those suffering the corruption reaped from their own flesh due to being in civil marriages whose roots were adulterous. Meanwhile, churches are bracing for a likely loss of tax exemptions and liability insurance, while perhaps not even understanding that a future of vandalism and harassment also awaits their events. Such was carried out in the past in various states by activists against congregations that continue to teach that homosexuality is immoral. In the UK, Canada, and several other countries, it has become illegal “hate speech” to read certain scriptures from a standard bible behind the pulpit. How will a church or denomination that couldn’t even withstand the “persecution” of people going down the street in order to defend the sanctity of biblical, covenant heterosexual marriage stand when unprecedented TRUE persecution ramps up?

Where was the Lord in 2013 when SCOTUS was formulating their decisions in the cases of Hollingsworth v Perry and United States v Windsor? Many fasted and prayed fervently for His intervention that would have prevented trampling of our Constitution that followed, and also prevented so much suffering for His servants running wedding industry businesses. Why didn’t that sway the Most High? Why did He instead choose to show Himself mighty in the Hobby Lobby case? Could it be that He was having a very hard time getting the attention of His shepherds, and was determined to keep trying?

SIFC is personally thankful for some of the precedents that came out of the various marriage redefinition rulings in the lower courts. Even when the Lord sent Judah and Israel, the apple of His eye, into captivity, He continued to prosper His people until they repented. He used the resources of her enemies and even urged the people to pray for the prosperity of Babylon while they were exiles in that land. The Lord shows Himself mightiest when He even goes so far as to turn the enemy’s own weapons back on the enemy. May it be so here, in Jesus’ name.

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

citizenship, Discipleship, family law, Fundamental Rights, Spiritual Warfare

One “Stander’s” Vote

November 4, 2014 standerinfamilycourt Leave a comment

by Standerinfamilycourt

“Like a roaring lion and a rushing bear
Is a wicked ruler over a poor people.
A leader who is a great oppressor lacks understanding,
But he who hates unjust gain will prolong his days.” – Prov. 28:15

“But the vine was plucked up in fury,
    cast down to the ground;
the east wind dried up its fruit;
    they were stripped off and withered.
As for its strong stem,
    fire consumed it.” – Ezekiel 9:12

“I overthrew you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,
And you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze;
Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the Lord.” – Amos 4:11

“If you will return, O [ United States, the nation I, the Most High established], says the Lord, if you will return to Me, and if you will put away your abominable false gods out of My sight and not stray or waver, And if you swear, As the Lord lives, in truth, in judgment and justice, and in righteousness (uprightness in every area and relation), then the nations will bless themselves in Him and in Him will they glory.” – Jeremiah 4: 1-3

“Whoever is faithful in very little is also faithful in much, and whoever is unrighteous in very little is also unrighteous in much.” (Jesus) – Luke 16:10

Not that there’s any special recognition due me, but in between election days this stander/citizen, like so many others across the country, I fasted and prayed extensively for godly leadership to be restored to our nation through the 2014 mid-term election. I’ve been personally serious about this since at least 2008, when my only practical choice for President of the United States was between a rabidly pro-abortion (and, as it turned out, pro-faux marriage) ultra-liberal and a conservative serial adulterer who had abandoned two prior wives, including a disabled one, because his god is his appetite. Neither candidate seemed likely to serve our nation unselfishly, nor honor God in doing so.

2008 would not be the last time I had to hold my nose from the moral stench while casting my ballot. It is simply the escalating curse our nation has been under at God’s hand since the 1970’s when the twin abominations of abortion on demand, and unilateral divorce were imposed across our land – the worship of Baal and the worship of Asherah (the absolute right to immoral remarriage), respectively. I believe God was especially provoked to bring progressive discipline on our nation when His bride the Church was not only silent about the latter, but chose to widely embrace it.

It was an amazing week, the week of November 4, 2014 across our nation. I once again complained about the lack of acceptable candidates on the ballot, this time for governor of our state. One of the candidates had signed the marriage redefinition bill in 2013, flouting God’s (Matthew 19:4-6) timeless definition of marriage. The other is yet another serial adulterer who also supports abortion-on-demand. The U.S. Senate race was just as bad: a choice between the liberal incumbent with the near-100% voting record against the sanctity of marriage, life and traditional family versus yet another adulterer who had recently made a public statement that he now favored marriage redefinition despite his 2013 state legislature vote against it. The state family policy counsel published a link to an interesting viewpoint on how to handle that situation while staying true to my godly responsibility to cast my ballot for the upbuilding of the kingdom of God. Early on election morning, I was personally messaged by its leader, which the Holy Spirit quickened in me as confirmation that this was how God wanted me to vote in resolution of my moral dilemma. I was grateful not to have had to abstain in those two races, or write-in a throwaway name.

Aside from these legislative and executive candidates, several judgeships were on the ballot. How many times in my roughly 40 years of adult citizenship had I gone into the voting booth with not a clue who these individuals are who hold such sway that with a mere stroke of a pen they can override what GOD has permanently joined as one person (Matt. 19:5-6), and change the course of a family for GENERATIONS to come? I spent a year, approximately 10 court sessions, finding out precisely who these black-robed marriage executioners are! Once again our state family policy council has greatly improved my citizenship by reporting on who is endorsing and financially supporting those candidacies. (It also helps to have an increased acquaintance with seasoned attorneys!)

With our constitutional appeal awaiting trial next spring, I realized I could also be voting on retention of two of the judges who may potentially be on the panel who will hear our case. Of all the previous constitutional challenges to the unilateral divorce laws which I researched in other states, 2 or 3 pivotal decisions that could have spared our nation (particularly the budgets of local governments) some 40 years of evil fallout from this unconstitutional unilateral divorce law turned on the opinion of only 1 judge out of 3, while the dissenting judge’s opinion was actually far more creditable. You can bet I burned up Google the night before, trying to find out all I possibly could!

And the outcome? The nation was abundantly blessed that the Lord established a meaningful check on the despotic power of the current Chief Executive. The cause itself of socially conservative godly government was also blessed when diverse candidates by age, race and gender in an overwhelming number of states replaced liberals who were poised to continue and to step up their attacks on the traditional family. Our own state didn’t fare so well in comparison, but largely because the fruit had already been “cast from the vine” (Ezekiel 9:12) long before the ballots were even compiled. Nevertheless, God seems to be hearing the prayers of the saints for the leadership of our nation as a whole.

I’d urge that before we get too smug about drubbing the liberals, we keep seeking the Lord for our further repentance as a nation. I believe He’s watching to see how we steward the graciousness He’s extended to us. Will we return to Him? Most of the national legal ministries do not consider unilateral divorce – which tramples on the very image of God’s covenant with ALL of us, to be a fundamental rights or religious freedom problem, and they fail to grasp (or admit) the very real connection between marriage redefinition 2014 and marriage redefinition 1969. This is despite the various organizational mission statements on which they raise donor funds:

Organization A – “Restoring the culture by advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the family.”

Organization B – ” …free legal assistance to Bible-believing churches and Christians who are experiencing difficulty in practicing their religious faith.”

Organization C – “the spread of the Gospel by transforming the legal system and advocating for religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family..”

And so forth. One admirable exception of “walking the talk” is the Family Research Council who in 2006 materially supported a serious legislative challenge to Michigan’s unilateral divorce law. Cynically, it seems there are far more numerous powerful individuals whose adultery or commercial interests have benefited from state unilateral divorce laws (some of whom are most likely large donors to these ministries) than there are homosexuals who have benefited from the current wave of state marriage redefinition. (Always best to gore someone else’s ox if you are a 501(c)3.)

Did God directly reward righteous political courage around the (heterosexual) sanctity of marriage issue last Tuesday? I’ll let the reader ask Him and judge. The following states have either enacted covenant marriage laws or mounted recent legislative challenge attempts to their longstanding unilateral divorce laws:

Arkansas, Louisiana, Arizona, Kansas, Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and Georgia

The following states defeated a liberal incumbent to fill a Senate seat with a conservative, family-values replacement, checking the President’s amoral social agenda by the resulting gained majority of seats:

Iowa, Arkansas, South Carolina, West Virginia, Colorado, and South Dakota. (Louisiana’s Senate race was forced into a run-off election for early December, and Kansas held on to its conservative senator.)

Two days later, it got even more exciting as state traditional marriage referenda and traditional marriage definition legislation were upheld by the 6th Federal Circuit in their ruling on the case DeBoer vs. Snyder for 4 states:

Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Michigan.

Our state, on the other hand, failed to benefit from the strong citizen showing in 2013 in the state capitol which miraculously held off marriage redefinition for several months after it seemed sure to pass quickly, stunning the whole nation and chagrining the media. Meanwhile, the unwillingness of that family policy council to publicly oppose and EXPOSE the truly catastrophic pending “family” law bill that would shorten the unilateral divorce waiting period to 6 months from 2 years, would remove any option for fault-based grounds, as well as remove legal sanctions against deliberate spouse-poachers and firms (such as employers) who knowingly allow spouse-poaching to occur, the near-universal silence ultimately allowed this repugnant legislation to pass 90-17 in one legislative chamber without the public’s knowledge or meaningful media publicity. The real enemy of true marriage is Satan, and you don’t beat him with the resources of mere men, you beat him with the unmerited favor of God in response to obeying Him completely and trusting Him with any consequences of putting His kingdom first. Tough to walk out before a very human ministry board, but no less what it takes.

As a result of policy leadership mis-steps, one of the two states with heretofore the lowest divorce rates may gain the unsavory distinction of being the only state resisting the national trend of rethinking no-consequences unilateral divorce in the face of very well-documented societal damage resulting from it. Citizens should keep in mind from past occurrence that a doubling of the divorce rates has in the past led to a proportional ramp-up in government fiscal woes, something our state could not recover from in its current financial condition. As a Divinely-orchestrated result of all the foregoing, we now have a Republican governor who’s on record as not concerning himself with “social issues” other than the unfettered access to abortuaries, and who is poised to retool his state party accordingly. We have a state senator who failed to unseat an ultra-liberal U.S. senator because the Lord saw no reason to swap one LGBT partisan out for another. And He had already delivered the U.S. Senate to the faithful without any help from our state.

I think He truly does care very deeply about this unilateral divorce issue, and He let us all know it.

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

Discipleship, Marriage Restoration, Spiritual Warfare

IN DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE

October 4, 2014 standerinfamilycourt Leave a comment

by Dennis Wingfield of Rejoice Marriage Ministries

This past week, I was chided for only sharing 90% of my marriage restoration story. I was really taken aback by the comment. My marriage difficulties have been an open book. I have shared from my heart for 15 years, often reliving the pain of our divorce. The very first Standing Firm devotional came out on October 2, 1999. This was the very day that my wife and I together, after our marriage was restored, witnessed the marriage of our only daughter. I have been challenged to share the last 10% of my story. I pray that God will use all that I say for His glory and for your benefit so that you may believe all that God has to say to you.

Blessed are those whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the Lord. Blessed are those who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart—they do no wrong but follow his ways. You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed. Psalm 119:1-4

You see, dear Stander, Satan is not pleased with those who stand for the truth, beauty and goodness of God’s plan for marriage. If he cannot destroy us, he will go after our children. Satan was not pleased with my stand for the healing of my marriage. Satan was not pleased with the miracle that God performed in raising my marriage from the dead. Truth be told, neither is he is pleased with your stand. He will attack you with everything he has. Marriage is good in the eyes of the God and Satan wants to destroy it. Standing is hard. There is no easy road to marriage restoration. It is not for the faint of heart. But Jesus is Lord and He is bigger than any of these problems. He brings victory from defeat. When you stand firm on the commands and promises in God’s Word, miracles happen, today, here and now.

Now, to borrow American radio icon Paul Harvey’s line, here is “the rest of the story”…

When Therese and my daughter came home in May 1998, Therese was still civilly married to another man. We sold our family home and purchased a bigger house near where our daughter was attending high school. Therese and I lived in separate bedrooms, like brother and sister, since her second union was not legally dissolved. During the next two years, our reunited family shared the marriage of our only daughter and the birth of our first grandchild. My daughter, son-in-law and grandson lived with us so they could save money for their first house. It was awesome having a newborn in our home again. Therese and I only had one child and I wanted more. Being able to share so closely in the life of our new grandchild was a very special time for us.

Two years after Therese came home, she was experiencing difficulty negotiating the stairs to the upper level of our home. Therese taught aerobics for 20 years and having shortness of breath was unusual. Tests revealed that scar tissue from cancer radiation she received as a teenager was constricting the function of her heart and one lung. On May 8, 2000, Therese went into the hospital for surgery to remove the scar tissue. The operation was unsuccessful and Therese spent the last four months of her life in the hospital.

Two days after Therese entered the hospital, the divorce to the other man was finalized. On the same day, the daughter of this man lay dying in the same ICU, just a few doors down from my wife. She had been struck by a tree that was being cut down after a severe thunderstorm. God gave me the opportunity to pray with this man that night. His first wife had died from brain cancer. Life is hard, dear Stander. The other person in your wife’s life is also a broken human being trying to fill the gaping hole in his heart with worldly pursuits that will never satisfy. Only God can fill the God-sized hole in every human heart. Pray for the other man who is also in need of God’s mercy.

After my wife’s death, I received no support from family or friends in grieving the loss. I was told countless times “She wasn’t your wife, so why don’t you just get over it?” I could accept Therese’s death. But I could not accept the worldly view of our marriage, that I was somehow deranged for believing in the sanctity and permanence of marriage. Therese and I never had a chance to remarry in the eyes of the world. However, in God’s view, we were still married. Just because Therese ignored our covenantal marriage for a season does not mean that it ceased to exist. A civil divorce had no effect on our marriage in the eyes of God.

God created marriage; man created divorce. I did not have the opportunity to “remarry” Therese. In the end, it didn’t matter except to those who do not understand God’s view of the marriage covenant. God knew I was married and His opinion is the only one that matters.

Then Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” Mark 12:17

Being a visual person (engineer by training), I made the following graphic to show our marriage in the eyes of God and society. Also shown are what God has to say about marriage and divorce from Holy Scripture. God said it; I believe it. I stand for God’s truth about marriage.

God alone is the Creator of marriage and the laws that govern it. Since the dawn of creation, God designed marriage to be permanent, exclusive and fruitful (Gen 1:28, 2:24; Mt 19:5; Mk 10:9). Moses permitted divorce and remarriage as a concession to the sinfulness of Israel under the Old Covenant (Deut 24:1-4). It is clear: divorce is contrary to God’s will and plan for marriage: “I hate divorce, says the Lord” (Mal 2:16). Since it is forged by God Himself, it cannot be broken by any authority, civil or religious.

Divorce and remarriage are prohibited in the New Covenant instituted by Jesus by His very death on the cross. Why is Jesus’ teaching on marriage, divorce and remarriage such a source of controversy among Christians? To divorce and remarry is to commit adultery. Jesus says, “Whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery” (cf. Mt 5:32). What? You say that your Bible says, “except for adultery.” The Greek word used in the Septuagint porneia, means “unlawful marriage” or incest. This word is used two other times in the New Testament, both referring to incest. (To understand biblical text, all of Scripture must be taken in account when analyzing the meaning the original author intended.) To divorce in this situation does not break a true marriage because a valid marriage never existed in the first place. Do you doubt what God has said about marriage, divorce and remarriage in His Word? Who is man to deny or change what God has clearly laid out in Sacred Scripture? Jesus says, “Why do you doubt?” (Mt 14:31). Yes indeed, why do so many doubt God’s Word on marriage?

So this is the other 10% of my story, dear Stander. I have laid it all out for you. Undoubtedly, some will take offense at what I have written. So be it. God said it; I believed and obeyed it. Who am I to go against God’s Word? In the end, God blessed me with a restored marriage. And I am forever thankful for that. In closing, I offer one more scripture passage to encourage you:

Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the Lord’s renown, for an everlasting sign, that will endure forever.” Isaiah 55:6-13

May God’s will be done in your life and your marriage.

citizenship, family law, marriage

“Shout-Out” to Family-Friendly Legislators – Thanks!

September 29, 2014 standerinfamilycourt Leave a comment

by standerinfamilycourt 9/29/2014

Last week I posted about HB1452, which would considerably harshen Illinois’ unilateral (“No-Fault”) divorce law, going against the recent trend of some states to start reigning in unilateral divorce due to the generally poor outcome for families. (Much touted, quite the opposite delivered).

Shamefully, HB1452 passed 90-17 in the Illinois House of Representatives on April 10, 2014, and will be taken up in the Senate during the veto session which commences tomorrow. I previously detailed the harmful aspects of this bill. Today, I’d like to extend gratitude to the brave minority of representatives who put families first and voted NO. Although belated, I am also mailing each of them a personal note of thanks along with a copy of the letter I’m currently writing to my state senator.

A hearty round of applause, and muchas gracias to:

John E. Bradley (D), Marion, IL

Adam Brown (R), Champaign, IL

John M. Cabello (R), Loves Park, IL

John D. Cavaletto (R), Salem, IL

Katherine Cloonen (D), Kankakee, IL

Jerry F. Costello (D), Red Bud, IL

C. D. Davidsmeyer (R), Jacksonville, IL

Brad E. Hallbrook (R), Charleston, IL

Josh Harms (R), Watseka, IL

Jeanne M. Ives (R), Wheaton, IL

Dwight Kay (R), Edwardsville, IL

David R. Leitch (R), Peoria, IL

Frank J. Mautino (D), Spring Valley, IL

Bill Mitchell (R), Decatur, IL

Thomas Morrison (R), Palatine, IL

David Reis (R), Olney, IL

Keith Sommer (R), Morton, IL

The results clearly show that standing in the gap for families is a bi-partisan issue. (With marriage redefinition occurring in 2013 in Illinois and taking effect six weeks after this family law vote, it’s also fascinating to note that two of the three openly homosexual legislators in the Illinois House chose to vote “Present” instead of “Yes”. Since a significant portion of the bill is about child welfare arrangements, and so much is said about the challenges of gay parenting, this is even more interesting.)

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall

– by standerinfamilycourt.com

by Dennis Wingfield of Rejoice Marriage Ministries

Let's Repeal No-Fault Divorce!