Who here supports Debbie Maken?

[JadedGuy]

I'd like to get a sense of where the sentiments of this board lie. Do you men think feel guys are generally required by God to marry and bear children?

[logmas]

Who here supports Debbie Maken?

Ok Loggie will bite on this one.

Just WHO exactly is Debbie Maken?

Is it animal, vegetable or mineral?

Does it come in colors?

Is it bigger than a breadbox?

[Absalom]

Try this

The points she makes center on the relative validity of delaying marriage beyond youth.

Her complaints mirror those of WMHGTC, although she might not realize it. Church does not exist for the meeting of the needs of the saints. Male or female. WMHGTC says the church mistreats men. DM says it ain't doing that great for women either. Needs are not being met, unless they are the needs of the church. Instead, churches should exist to meet the needs of the saints.

One of those needs is for women to have children while they are still young enough to have the energy to keep up with them! Etc.

Multi-year dating relationships are not right. Both people are kept out of circulation and neither is about the business of discovering the joys of parenthood.

I am inclined to agree with DM at first blush.

[JadedGuy]

I am not a fan of Debbie Maken. Here's why:

1) She is bigoted towards men who are not married. She has this idea that most men have an OBLIGATION to marry and have children. Never mind the hardships that men are facing today when they try to follow that script.

2) She says the men are to blame for the fact that so many are single (conveniently ignoring how women and culture must share in the blame).

[Absalom]

When we look at the whole "the church is not working for people" mess, we are going to see it through our own lenses. From Debbie Maken's perspective, it looks like the men are to blame, and I can't fault her for that view.

Please make the effort to look past the misplaced blame and see the truth she is sharing: the system is badly broken and needs to be fixed.

The Local Church is the least regulated, least monitored, least accountable authority structure in our culture. The abuse of power is inevitable given the lack of accountability. The Church is supposed to be on an equipping mission, turning out men and women who are changing the world for Christ. It is failing utterly. That failure presents itself in different ways to different people, but lets get together on this: The Local Church Needs to Be Reformed.

Amen?

[logmas]

The "church" extant bears a huge responsibility for what it has created.

It appears that Debbie is one of the fortunate few who has the financial resources necessary to have the opinion she has. It also appears that the circumstances of life have worked out to her benefit.

Must be nice.

Lets see what happens to her marriage when the bottom falls out of her life.

Been there.

[Flsprtsgod]

Do you men feel that guys are generally required by God to marry and bear children?

Absolutely not. Paul speaks that he wished everyone could celibate as he was, so clearly that is a possibility for others as well.

[clownguy]

Do you men feel that guys are generally required by God to marry and bear children?

Absolutely not. Paul speaks that he wished everyone could celibate as he was, so clearly that is a possibility for others as well.

Perhaps marriage should be between God and those that He wants to be together. I know at first I rushed into my marriage and we had difficulties, almost got divoriced, got back to God and He has blessed our marriage. So for me I now have no choice.

We in the US make it too easy for people to marry. Don't educate on what it takes to married and stay committed. I feel that it is the fear that we will be alone all our lives if we aren't married. It all comes back, at least for me, to put it all in God's hands.

[Absalom]

My bottom line remains the local church. Most marriages in the US are performed in local churches. The "premarital counseling" winks at the pervasive premarital sexual contact; even counseling intendeds to get married soon to stop sinning!

As JadedGuy has aptly noted, the church is not so much hostile to men OR women. The church is hostile to JESUS CHRIST.

That is a pretty serious problem.

Reminds me of the jackass with the lion-skin on in the Narnia series. Jackasses in charge of churches. Hmmmm... Sounds somewhat accurate. But don't say so!!! Don't lay your hand on the Lord's anointed. Pahh! Spew you out of my mouth.

Amen.

[JadedGuy]

When we look at the whole "the church is not working for people" mess, we are going to see it through our own lenses. From Debbie Maken's perspective, it looks like the men are to blame, and I can't fault her for that view.

Please make the effort to look past the misplaced blame and see the truth she is sharing: the system is badly broken and needs to be fixed.

Crimson,

Honestly, I find it difficult at best to make that effort. Here's why: How is the system broken? Is the church supposed to supply/mandate marriages? I find that doctrine troubling.

Also, I note that singleness has become a "problem" just as Gen X women are hitting their forties with no marriage or babies in sight. Tell me, did anyone worry about the frustrated young single men back in the nineties? Where was the message affirming marriage for these guys? Or was it just PromiseKeepers telling guys to stop looking at porn and be "understanding" of women's "needs"? Wasn't the message for men this: Stop focusing so much on your sexual urges and get focused on Christ.

Now, that the shoe is on the other foot, now that churches are seeing their pews get empty, now that women are bellyaching because they frittered away their youth on Grrl Power, careerism, and who knows what else -- suddenly it's the men's fault. Suddenly unmarried men in their thirties and forties are "sinning" because they are resisting "God's mandate to be fruitful and mulitiply." Suddenly these men now have to change everything, drop the contentment they found in the single life, and minister to some woman's ticking biological clock.

Maken says the system is broken? It is -- and she is part of it. Her book was published by a well-known religious publisher and can be found in bookstores. It was given accolades by men such as Albert Mohler. She is NOT the voice of one crying in the wilderness. She has connections and has a market for her message. It is simply a variation of the same old thing -- men are made to serve at the behest of the system. Right now, the system wants men to get married and sire babies. Tomorrow, the system may ask some else of men. In short, Maken is symbol of yet another reason "Why Men Hate Going to Church."

[Absalom]

OK, JadedGuy,

I get what you are saying. Fundamentally, she believes the church is blameless and it is these GD men who are the problem. If that is her belief, she is certainly no voice crying in the wilderness as you aptly note (you are quite apt, by the way).

Seems when there is responsibility to assign (or blame, if you will), the local church gets a pass every time. Maybe because the system acts as a gatekeeper for information that reaches their congregations, and publishers and pastors are part of the same corrupt system.

So, Maken points out a valid problem (which I think is great), but pins the tail on the wrong donkey. Got it. I can agree that the solution part of her message is erroneous if she thinks men (as a group) have the ability to implement it. Or should receive blame for the sorry state of affairs.

But nonetheless, she is pointing out the surface problem. She is just not going deep enough to find the underlying problem.

So, we probably agree.

[KS Crusader]

I have never heard of this woman, but NO I dont think men are required to get married and start having children.

1 Corinthians 7:1-7 Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry.2) But since there is so much immorality, wach man should have is own wife, and each woman her own husband.3) The husband should fulfill his marrital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.4) The wifes body does not belong to her alone but to her husband. In the same way, in the same way, the husbands body does not belong to him alone, but also to his wife. 5)Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self control. 6)i say this as a concession, not as a command. 7)I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that. NIV

[Absalom]

Sure, it is good not to marry. But in our culture that is not the problem, nor is it what Maken is necessarily talking about.

The problem is really delaying marriage. To decide to remain single on a lifelong basis is gloriously reflected in the passage cited in 1 Cor. That is not the same AT ALL as saying, "I am going to wait to get married until I have accomplished my goals. Maybe I'll be ready when I am 40." That is not the kind of thinking referred to by Paul. You have to agree: "good for a man not to marry" is a very different statement than "good for a man to delay marriage for a few decades." Please don't contort the scripture to suggest both mean the same thing.

The problem is a backlash against the feminization of reproductive control. Before contraception and abortion, men determined when conception would take place. Now, women control this decision almost exclusively. Men, feeling powerless in this area "strike back" by being unavailable for procreation. Tit for tat.

The real problem is that both women and men operate in selfishness in both of these scenarios. To father children is tremendously taxing, in terms of time, money, commitment, pain. To avoid it is entirely reasonable, unless one is a Christian. Then, as Maken says, it is sin.

Fundamentally, she is right. But it is still up to women to relinquish control of the reproduction decision (repentance from selfishness) and to men to relinquish control of the delay-of-marriage decision (repentance from selfishness). Nobody is going to force an individual man or woman to repent, but encouraging them to do so is really a very good idea.

Blaming "men" for such a "problem" though, really misses the mark.

We need churches that turn out disciples. That is the only cure for what ails the world.

Any book like Maken's that opens people's eyes to the problem is OK in my book.

[MainlineProtestant]

Debbie, please spare me your selfish views of single men.

Certainly for humankind to not die out, people need to marry and have kids. Maybe 95% of the people in the world do. And let's assume that people are happier when married. I did a quick Internet search for Debbie's background and she is married, and she apparently really, really wanted to be married when she was single; she apparently even used some kind of marriage service to find a husband.

But not all people should marry and have kids. When Debbie complains that single people are depriving others of spouses, for example, in some cases that's a good thing; some people are just not cut out for being paired up for life as they are better off single and leave others better off by not marrying them. Some people are not cut out for being parents and should not have kids.

I have two relatives I can think of who should not have gotten married and had children. Perhaps Debbie should have married one of them or been raised by one of them and she would have different views.

I am single and have plenty of guy friends in their 30s who are single; we all want (1) emotionally stable, (2) gainfully employed (with white-collar jobs, like we have), (3) non-needy and (4) committed Christian women. Debbie, provide us with those types of women and we'll get married!

[Flsprtsgod]

To father children is tremendously taxing, in terms of time, money, commitment, pain. To avoid it is entirely reasonable, unless one is a Christian. Then, as Maken says, it is sin.

This is so wrong I don't even know where to start. Not having kids is not a sin. The whole problem with this line of reasoning is the idea that God's blueprint for happiness is identical for every person. For some people an early marriage and kids is a good thing, for others it isn't. I think that this type of teaching is the sinful meddling by busy-bodies that the Apostles told people to avoid.