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No, Titus 2 Should NOT Be Used to Keep Women in the Kitchen

January 4, 2019 By Matthew Distefano

“Tell the older women to be reverent in behavior, not to be slanderers or slaves to drink; they are to teach what is good, so that that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be self-controlled, chaste, good managers of the household, kind, being submissive to their husbands, so that the word of God may not be discredited.” ~ Titus 2:3–5 On the surface, this passage from Titus seems to suggest that… Read more

No, 1 Timothy 2 Should NOT Be Used To Silence Women

December 19, 2018 By Matthew Distefano

9 Comments

“Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.” ~ 1 Timothy 2:11–12 Like the text from Ephesians 5, 1 Timothy 2:11–12 is a go-to passage complementarians use to shut down all conversation regarding women having authority in the home and the church. But again, we must keep two crucial things in mind: 1) that the context of the passage is crucial… Read more

No, Ephesians 5 Doesn’t Argue in Favor of Complementarianism

December 18, 2018 By Matthew Distefano

6 Comments

“Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.” ~ Ephesians 5:22–23 To be crystal clear, the English version of this short passage from Ephesians 5 seems to be an open and… Read more

What Not to Say When Tragedy Strikes

December 6, 2018 By Matthew Distefano

3 Comments

Nearly one month ago, the Camp Fire tore through the town I grew up in, leaving it in utter ruin. All told, the fire scorched over 150,000 acres, destroyed more than 18,000 structures, and killed 85 people to date, with 11 still missing. Indeed, it is the most devastating fire in California’s history. Inevitably when something like this happens, people come out of the woodwork to offer their thoughts as to why it occurred and what measures we can take… Read more

True Masculinity Embraces the Feminine

December 3, 2018 By Matthew Distefano

5 Comments

I am not what most would define as a “typical, masculine man.” Sure, I have some traditionally masculine traits—strength, courage, virility, and so on—but, to one degree or another, all of us, men, women, and those don’t fit neatly into these binary categories, possess these same traits. As Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung taught, within each man exists a feminine principle (the “anima”) and within each woman exists a masculine one (the “animus”).[1] In other words, men are not simply “masculine,”… Read more

#Campfire Update

November 17, 2018 By Matthew Distefano

1 Comment

Hey everyone. This past week has been the most difficult of my life. If you haven’t heard, the town I grew up in, Paradise, Ca, burned to the ground in the so-called #campfire, leaving thousands displaced and possibly hundreds (even thousands) dead. It is truly a tragic time. My wife, daughter, and I live in nearby Chico, Ca, and although had an evacuation scare, are safe and are housing some of the evacuees. To that end, what I am asking… Read more

You Can’t Love Others If You Don’t Love Yourself

November 6, 2018 By Matthew Distefano

4 Comments

We’ve all come across Christians who believe they, like everyone else, are nothing but filthy worms, wretches who are as repulsive to God as spiders are to most children. Like infamous Calvinist theologian Jonathan Edwards, many folks think of themselves and others as deserving nothing but to be dangled over the fires of hell. Some, like Augustine’s predecessor Tertullian and reformer Martin Luther, even go so far as to suggest such a notion gives God great pleasure, that he, like… Read more

God Can’t Look Upon Sin? Who Says?

October 11, 2018 By Matthew Distefano

15 Comments

There is this idea floating around Christianity that says God is too holy to look upon sin. It is typically espoused by Calvinists, but it goes well beyond that system of thought: indeed, it has infected nearly every corner of Protestantism, and in the process has done great harm, both psychologically and theologically. First off, to say that God the Father is too holy to look upon sin is, to my mind, to say that Jesus Christ is not God…. Read more

No, Allegations Of Abuse Are Never Irrelevant

October 2, 2018 By Matthew Distefano

14 Comments

No matter where you stand on the Kavanaugh/Ford debate, one thing is clear: the response from some Christians is appalling. From so-called faith leaders like Franklin Graham who have implied that even if Kavanaugh attempted to sexually assault Dr. Ford, it’s not relevant as to whether he gets confirmed to the Supreme Court or not, to run-off-the-mill Christians who have suggested that all teenage boys behave like drunken, sexual deviants—thus justifying assault, I guess?—the nonchalance of our “Christian” response to Kavanaugh’s… Read more

My 7 Favorite Depictions of Hell

September 24, 2018 By Matthew Distefano

21 Comments

The doctrine of eternal hell used to scare the living daylights out of me. Although I have pretty much always been a Christian and have probably “given my heart to the Lord” several times—I can’t recall how many, exactly, but it’s been more than once—I was still tormented by eternal torment. Perhaps I just wasn’t going to stack up, perhaps I committed the “unpardonable sin,” or, perhaps I was going to die on a day when God was in a… Read more

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