Complementarian
men symbolically urinate on women
Reprint of March 11, 2012 Examiner article By Jocelyn AndersenLast week men were
symbolically urinating on women at the complementarian “Men of God 2012”
conference held at Calvary Baptist Church in Bellefontaine, Ohio (complementarianism
assigns strict gender roles to women and men with women being subordinate to
men in all things).
Since there were no women
in attendance, the women’s restroom was opened for use by the men. In an
article describing his experience at the conference, ** Paul M. Dohse Sr., editor of
the blog “Paul’s Passing Thoughts” and advocate of non-hierarchical church leadership, posted on his blog that while using the women’s
restroom, he found the toilets and floor in every stall sprayed with urine.
He
wrote that this was the case with the women's restroom throughout the
conference. In an email interview with this writer, Dohse said the men's
restroom was never in such condition but would not go so far as to say he
believed men at the conference were demonstrating hatred and contempt for women
by symbolically urinating on them. He did say, “it's hard for me to believe
what I saw wasn't deliberate.”
He blamed the condition
of the women’s restroom [in part] on the anti-woman messages preached at the
conference by Dr. Voddie Baucham. Baucham, who will be coming to the Orlando
area this fall to speak at a conference with Dr. R. C. Sproul, is a prominent
leader within the complementarian movement. He presented three keynote messages
at the Bellefontaine conference, all of which were saturated with anti-feminist
rhetoric and an “us” against “them” attitude. In part two of his three part
“Culture War” presentation, he portrayed women as being just a notch above the
serpent on the “food chain,” of which males were at the top.
From the urine-sprayed
condition of the women’s restroom at Calvary Baptist, it seems clear that
Baucham was successful in whipping the men into an anti-feminist frenzy.
Successful leaders understand that movements with clearly defined opposition
are the most successful. In her book, Out of the Cults and into the Church,
Janis Hutchinson quoted Hoffer when she wrote, “Mass movements can rise and
succeed without a belief in God . . . but never without a belief in a devil.
This is because the strength of a mass movement is proportionate to the
vividness and tangibility of its devil. When Hitler was asked whether he
thought the Jew should be completely destroyed, he answered, ‘No . . . We have
then to reinvent him.’ Hitler further explained that ‘It is essential to have a
tangible enemy, not merely an abstract one.’”
The devil of the
complementarian movement is the feminist, and by complementarian standards, any
woman who does not accept a subordinate position to males is a feminist.
On his blog, Dohse asked,
“Will New Calvinism Become a Christian Woman’s Worst Nightmare?” In the email
interview, he added, “I would look hard at the fact that the patriarchy
movement is teaming up with New Calvinism. That's some seriously bad news for
women.”
One study found that a
belief in strict gender roles was “associated with less perceived seriousness
of scenarios depicting interpersonal aggression.” In plain English, that means
that those who held to the belief of female subordination did not feel that
violence against women was all that serious. This cannot be divorced from the
almost wholesale acceptance by evangelicals of complementarianism, which began
in 1987 with the issuance of the Danvers Statement. When equality is trashed,
as recently demonstrated in Bellefontaine, contemptuous attitudes and actions follow.
Domestic abuse and
violence occurs more frequently among professing Christians than is commonly
believed. Some family counselors, such as, Barrington H. Brennen, boldly assert
that complementarian teaching is directly responsible for accelerating abusive
and violent behavior in husbands.
In 2012, anonymous men at
the Bellefontaine conference expressed contempt for women by symbolically
urinating on them. Dohse said there was so much urine [in places] on the floor
of the women’s restroom that it was difficult to keep it from saturating the
hem of his pants. Statistics show what misogynistic men have been doing in the
privacy of their homes for decades. How many of the men who urinated all over
the women’s restroom at Calvary Baptist Church in Bellefontaine went home and
mistreated or beat their wives?
The outrageous behavior
of its followers should expose the unbiblical roots of complementarianism for
what it is. Jesus said, “you shall know them by their fruits.”
With the complementarian
position becoming more extreme, one can only hope adherents will recognize it
for the evil it is, withdraw their support, and allow it to implode upon itself
and self destruct.
Christians need to stop
supporting this garbage and expend our physical and financial resources on
worthy endeavors in the advancement of the gospel. Let us seek to set captives
free rather than supporting those who seek to enslave. Stand up and walk out on
them. Leave complementarian leaders to preach to empty pews and mop up the
stinking mess of their own shame.
*** After interviewing
Dohse, who first reported about this on his blog in 2011, Andersen
published this article on “The Examiner.” Dohse, who attended the Bellefontaine
conference, told Andersen [in an email interview] that he stood by his report
and analysis of the condition of the women's restroom (vastly different from
the men's restroom). Within 24 hours of this article being published on The
Examiner, it was reported that Dohse was visited by men who allegedly pressured him to remove his report of the conference
from his blog. Dohse, who to his credit remains a staunch advocate of non-hierarchical church
leadership, nevertheless caved to the pressure and removed the report from his blog.
Gender hierarchy teaching is [in and of itself] abusive to women. .
