James Eldridge, the newest face at Boundless, admits the obvious:
Being the newbie on the Boundless team, I have a lot of things to learn before I will feel confident of my handle on things.
In honor of the “old baseball” approach of Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels, I hope to shorten your learning curve with a few inside fastballs.
One of the commenters, in an email exchange with our good friend Martha Krienke, opined (not without merit):
Too much consumption [of Boundless] will reveal a ‘men you’re bad, man up; women you’re hurt, we sympathize and help’ attitude.
That would be an understatement, especially given what other Boundless writers–like Glenn Stanton–have had the audacity to print:
…women left to themselves will develop into good women, more responsible women, just naturally, for various reasons and we could talk about that. But men have to be taught how to lead. They have to be encouraged how to lead. They have to be welcomed into leadership. And I don’t think we’re doing that today. We’re not taking young boys and saying, “OK, we need to make men out of you.” And I think that’s the large reason for the man problem today, is that we have to be very intentional about man-making, man-creating. And I can hear all the women saying, “Absolutely!” It doesn’t just naturally happen. It happens more naturally with women than it does with men.
Eldridge’s response to “Jeff”, shows a little bit of reality, tainted with Headship Theology. First, he starts out well:
I wish I could sit down and have a conversation with Jeff. “Jeff”, I’d say, “I completely understand where you are coming from.” I grew up in a church culture where the mindset seemed to be that men were the animals with the problems and all women had to do was not feed the beast inside the man. The women were the innocent victims of man’s inability to “live right.”
Then he proceeds to step in six feet of fresh manure:
I, however, don’t want to deny the truth that God created men to lead and take responsibility of their families. Therefore, changing men’s hearts and lives is the most effective way to shot block our culture’s high divorce rate.
Given that women are filing over two-thirds of the divorces, piling on the men here is very counterproductive.
Don’t tell me, “Well, it’s because the men are abusive, and aren’t leading well.” Fact is, there are abusive wives just as there are abusive husbands. Calling men to be better leaders–while valid–is only half the Biblical equation. In fact, Paul–in Ephesians 5–addressed BOTH husbands AND wives in the same passage, and even called on the wives to submit first.
Yes, men need to do a better job leading. That said, better leadership on the part of the husbands will barely put a dent in the divorce rate. This is because perfect love by the husband does not assure perfect submission by the wife.
This doesn’t even happen with respect to Christ and the Church, so how can one reasonably assume that it will happen between a husband and wife?
