• Biblical Families is not a dating website. It is a forum to discuss issues relating to marriage and the Bible, and to offer guidance and support, not to find a wife. Click here for more information.

Thoughts on pietism, gnostic tendencies, monogamy only, and despising that which is natural and normal

Bartato

Seasoned Member
Real Person*
Male
I've been thinking about how these issues are misguided, harmful, and how they fit together.

I'm not sure, but I think there are connections. Maybe you will be able to help me.

Pietistic tendencies: Jesus is Lord in my heart, perhaps in the church, and family, but not the rest of life. Godliness is internal, a matter of heart purity, prayer, devotion, church attendance, and avoiding lusts, but rarely involves the application of a Biblical worldview to all of life. Perhaps we pretend that Christ rules our hearts, while we also pretend that He doesn't rule the cosmos.

Gnostic tendencies: The "spiritual" is good and valuable, but the material, physical, and biological side of life is unimportant.

Despising the natural and normal:
Marriage is devalued. Family is devalued. Culture, tradition, people and nation are devalued. We are taught to despise our own ancestors, our families, our cultures.
 
Marriage, childbearing, and family are profoundly natural and normal. They are tangible things in the real world, existing outside my heart.

Our perverse culture works hard to discourage marriage in general. It also works hard to discourage the bearing and raising of children.

Polygyny seems to strengthen patriarchy, marriage, childbearing, and family.

Therefore, a pietistic, gnostic, nature hating culture must oppose it with all it's might.
 
Regarding pietistic tendencies, we tend to see the man who reads the Bible every evening and knows lots of memory verses as a "good Christian", and look down on the man who spends his evenings at the pub and can't recite verses by heart, even if the man at the pub is actually doing more for God in the lives of the people he is interacting with than the man who is hiding in his room studying.

A pastor who studies all week to deliver a good sermon will be valued far more than the pastor who is found at the pub all the time...
 
Regarding pietistic tendencies, we tend to see the man who reads the Bible every evening and knows lots of memory verses as a "good Christian", and look down on the man who spends his evenings at the pub and can't recite verses by heart, even if the man at the pub is actually doing more for God in the lives of the people he is interacting with than the man who is hiding in his room studying.

A pastor who studies all week to deliver a good sermon will be valued far more than the pastor who is found at the pub all the time...
So, do you see some connection between these tendencies and the error of monogamy only?

Scripture reading and memorization accord with godliness. The Bible instructs us about God, and His will for us. Bible reading and memorization itself is not godliness.
 
Globohomo trash world tells us.

1. Don't have children. If you have to have some, then only have one or two, wait as long as possible before you do, put them in daycare, feed them processed garbage food, fill them with medications, out them in front of computer screens, teach them to hate and be ashamed of themselves and their family, and send them to government schools.

2. Despise hard work and thrift. Love debt, and "free" crap from the government. Don't grow or even cook your own food. As far as possible avoid nature.

3. Destroy extended families by promoting divorce, the delay and avoidance of marriage, and through geographic separation. Nuclear families living on opposite sides of the country from their relatives are easy to control.

4. Since we now don't have enough people (see #1 above) and the people we do have are lazy slobs (see points 1 & 2), we now have to import millions of incompatible people from other countries to replace our citizens.

Homesteading
Homeschooling
Large families with lots of children

These are all radically opposed to trash world.

Polygyny seems to lead to each of the above on steroids. We can't have that.
 
Jesus would have been fine going to the pub.
Yes, and Jesus ate His meals and drank His wine in the 'worst' of company. He said, "For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ But wisdom is justified by her children” (Matt. 11:18-19).

Our role isn't to be isolated from sinners, but to be like Christ to them in order that they would see Christ is us.
 
So, do you see some connection between these tendencies and the error of monogamy only?

Scripture reading and memorization accord with godliness. The Bible instructs us about God, and His will for us. Bible reading and memorization itself is not godliness.
Yes, because monogamy-only is also the ideal expected behaviour of good little pious Christians, and does not always accord with the reality of the world. If the pastor does visit the pub, and meets a man who's sleeping with two women, what's he going to recommend? ALWAYS the same "be a goody-good and do the perfect thing" answer, or something more tailored to the man's actual circomstances? The answer depends on whether he values pious, "ideal" behaviour over the right thing to do in the messy real world.
 
Yes, because monogamy-only is also the ideal expected behaviour of good little pious Christians, and does not always accord with the reality of the world. If the pastor does visit the pub, and meets a man who's sleeping with two women, what's he going to recommend? ALWAYS the same "be a goody-good and do the perfect thing" answer, or something more tailored to the man's actual circomstances? The answer depends on whether he values pious, "ideal" behaviour over the right thing to do in the messy real world.
Even more important than doing the "ideal thing" seems to be "thinking the ideal thoughts" and "feeling the ideal pious emotions".

Pray, give, serve, and feel pious, but don't actually do much, or build anything.
 
Back
Top