Arrogant Alexanders

Ken writes another arrogant filled post defending his wife, Lori Alexander. I am sharing only part of it because it is long. To read the rest, go here.

Recently I spent some time engaged in discussions with various opponents who are against parts or all of Lori’s blog. For some, the angst is based on a false fear that what Lori teaches is dangerous to the unlearned and unwise Christian follower who blindly follows allowing herself to be abused by her husband. No matter how Lori tells her audience not to submit to abuse it will never be enough to assuage their fears. For others its that “Lori puts down women” by her regular focus on wifely submission and keepers at home. After all, women are capable of so much more than being subservient to a husband and a house maid with children. The list is many and varied with much of the angst over how Lori runs her blog, not allowing detractors to plant their weeds of comments on her pages. In today’s world of “no holds barred” social media, how can that be fair?

I was one who engaged in discussions with him, but now I see he wasn’t really there with a genuine intent to discuss. Many of what they call detractors are not there to plant weeds. Many have planted bible verses, but Lori deletes those too. They are bible verses that contradict her agenda, so yes how can that be fair?

On the surface, the complaints have some merit and if only Lori could run the blog as 20 other women want her to run it maybe she would be a more successful blogger. I, too, know a few people who are convinced that it they could just run my life I could be far more successful, too. The problem is that Lori’s blog only belongs to one person, the Lord God. He is the one who gave her the calling to be obedient to His Word in “teaching the younger women…” and He gave her exactly what He wants her to focus upon, “That they may love and obey their husbands and be keepers at home.” If someone has a problem with her repeating in many ways these essential aspects of Christian womanhood, they should take it up with God and His Word.

Woah, nope hold up–God does not own her blog. This is the biggest marker of arrogance. Koala at Freejinger did an excellent job summing this part up:

No, Ken. A deity doesn’t own your wife’s blog, she does. She’s been very clear about that.

See this post? It’s called “Welcome to My New Blog”.

Welcome to My New Blog

Unless you are claiming that God himself wrote that post, then it can only serve as further evidence that The Transformed Wife and Always Learning both belong to Lori.

If that’s not enough to convince you, take a look at this.

Lori Alexander:

Quote
… it’s my blog. Just as you wouldn’t like my dog pooping on your yard and leaving it there, I don’t allow others to poop all over my blog and Facebook page since it takes away and distracts from what I am trying to teach.

You see, these blogs very much belong to Lori, and what they contain (in Lori’s words) is HER interpretation of scripture. Interpretation is the key word here. She writes what she THINKS scripture means.

Lori Alexander:

Quote
I share my views and interpretations of God’s Word

Now that we’ve established who owns LORI ALEXANDER’S blog <—because it’s definitely hers, let’s move on.

Back to Ken:

God also is the one who gave Lori her personality, gifts, and strengths to carry out the ministry. He does not choose perfect people to ministry, but most often chooses those who are willingly placing their time, resources, and abilities into the Lord’s hands to do with them as He pleases.

If God gave Lori her personality, then it should follow that God also gave feminists or anyone who disagrees with Lori their personality too. Or is it just that Lori’s personality came from God and women who disagree with her came from Satan?

As the story goes, Lori had been mentoring women one-on-one for a number of years with great success, often on and off based on her health issues. It was always fun to have her whisper in my ear as we sat in church together, “Do you see that woman in the blue dress on the back row with that man? She’s one I mentored whose husband left her and they are over there holding hands! I have not heard from her in a year.” Then to meet them after church and as we are leaving the wife leans over to Lori and whispers to her, “You know, I can’t thank you enough. Things are so good at home and to think I would have left him if it was not for you.” Just a few simple yet powerful concepts from God’s Word delivered by an obedient older godly woman proves again that the Word is living, active, and healing.

This is nuts! A huge breach of trust. I don’t believe this story for a second. It sounds so incredibly contrived. Even if true, its arrogant as hell to boast and brag like this. But, Ken considers it “fun”.

Almost every day, Lori gets one or more thank you notes from women who have been positively impacted from her imperfect ministry. A ministry God is using powerfully to help marriages and families, and yet we and our opponents know she is far from polished or perfect. When she hit a period of a heavy bout of 5-6-7’s in pain on a scale of 10, and was basically housebound for a long period of time, it was then that she felt called to start an Internet mentoring ministry. Her goal was find women who would want her ministry in their lives, so she announced to me one day, “I am going to start a mentoring blog and see if I can get 30 followers!” My response returned her enthusiasm by saying, “I will bet that you get 100!”

That’s great, but what they don’t get is with every “saved marriage” there is also a harmed marriage from her teachings. We never see those though because they don’t publish any comments or stories of course from those who don’t leave glowing reviews. Lori is a business first and foremost and like with any business there are going to be some negative reviews. Not everyone is going to benefit from her product or services. So they can boast about how many marriages they saved but if you have a marriage where you have tried all her suggestions and its still suffering her answer is usually something along the lines of you haven’t tried hard enough or  you don’t have enough faith. In selling the product of Lori and probably to help book sales, they can’t have comments that say “what she is selling doesn’t work”. If 10 people benefit from her services, but another 10 do not, what about the other 10? They get swept under the rug and forgotten.

Our basis for knowledge and belief is found in what God says in His inspired Word and that “no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:20-21). Many want to claim that God’s Word is hard to understand and that it is open to one’s interpretation or in other words “one’s opinions.” But that is not so. To determine what the Bible is teaching is not a difficult task if one is to accept what it states at face value without interjecting opinion or wishful thinking.

Except, as Koala pointed out Lori has said her blog is based on her interpretation.

 

Is there really any question as to what God’s Word teaches on this matter? No. The only argument against it can be that it is “cultural so no longer applies to today’s modern world.” And what is your basis for knowledge that you can wipe out God’s clear Word and the practice of the Church through the last two millenia? Your opinion? You can bolster as many arguments as you like as to why you have formed an opinion that is contrary to what God’s Word clearly teaches, but those arguments are only supporting an opinion that has no basis in knowledge. You cannot create any firm basis for truth by an argument, “I don’t think God wants wives to have to be submissive anymore. That may have been good for Peter and Paul’s cultures, but not for today.” This is not good epistemology.

So our circles cannot meet to find common ground so long as we try to stick to the inerrant eternal Word that we are told is our basis for all of life and godliness while our opponents and many in the modern church want to sweep it away with an opinion about how God must really think and what He really wants from the modern-day Christian woman. The crazy thing is we don’t really care how our opponents want to think as that is between them and their Lord. I am sure there are some good Christians who have bought into this series of opinions about the Bible. All we care about is trying to be as faithful to the Word as we can be in communicating what God’s desire is for those within the body of Christ. And Lori wants to keep our opponents’ opinionated comments from distracting what the Word and her wisdom teaches.

Except they do care! By doing this post it shows greatly they care what we think of them!

If you want to live within an Egalitarian marriage and work a forty hour work week away from your babies… then go for it. It’s your life, and only you will have to give an account for how you have lived it. But don’t fault Lori for championing the Biblical directive for a SAHM as God’s ideal. All that that is left to ask is how much time must a mom be home to be a keeper at home? 100%, 90% 80%, at what point is God’s desire fulfilled in your life and family? We are willing to see God’s grace having various levels of practice on such matters of marriage and family, but when seeing the Church walking almost lock-step with the world on working moms, we know something is broken. Please don’t fault Lori for sharing her opinion that being a keeper at home means full-time as much as a family can do so.

So, are opinions good or bad? I don’t get it. He says above that God’s word is not open to interpretations or opinions but yet we aren’t suppose to fault Lori for sharing her opinion.

Lori did a post on not pushing our opinions on others.

She admits she has strong opinions and that on topics like buying organic we shouldn’t force that on people. But yet all Lori does is post after post on instagram showing off her organic products and proclaiming this is the godly way to eat, this is eating the way God intended.  That is forcing your opinion on others because it suggest if you don’t eat that way you aren’t being godly. Its meant to shame those who can’t afford or for whatever reason choose not to eat organic. Not to mention, how many times have we seen her arguing over those other topics she lists? Public schooling vs. Homeschooling, spanking vs. Non spanking? Over and over again. Her blog is basically a revolving door of those topics and shaming anyone who doesn’t agree with her “opinions” or should I say “convictions”. Notice how she uses the two words interchangeably. I believe convictions is the godly women way to say opinion. Having convictions good. Having opinions bad. God’s word is not open to your opinions, but it is open to your convictions. It just sounds better. No one likes an opinionated woman, but a “woman of conviction” sounds very Christian like. One is presented as a loud feminist and the other as godly Christian. Its all word games.

Regarding the egalitarian marriage line, I refer back to Koala who quoted Ken once saying:

It might surprise you too that my marriage is very much egalitarian in the way it functions, and I like it that way.

That speaks for itself.

We will stick with God’s Word on the matter and our circles will never meet with those who are unwilling to accept the Bible and church history as our authority for knowledge and truth on these matters. What Lori is teaching is most often plainly taught be the Word and yes, as to how it applies becomes Lori’s well educated and experienced opinions as one older, godly woman doing what God has called all the older, godly women in the church to do: To zero in on a just a few things that the Word demands of younger women who desire to please their God by loving their husbands and family.

Again, but we aren’t suppose to follow opinions! I will restate what Ken said earlier.

Many want to claim that God’s Word is hard to understand and that it is open to one’s interpretation or in other words “one’s opinions.” But that is not so.

Likewise, God’s word is not open to Lori’s opinions.