The Grover and Scut Patriarchs

The Grover Dill

 and Scut Farkus

of Patriarchy

Grover and Scut

The Bayly Boys, Tim and David, are pastors and patriarchs who blog at the BaylyBlog. They are great believers in and practitioners of patriarchy which they define as "father rule" and its corollary fertility. Both were at one time involved with the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, Tim as the Executive Director and David as a volunteer. Both left because they found the Council not sufficiently committed to patriarchy and came to believe that "complementarianism" is a weasel word. Tim wrote that during the years he served as the Executive Director he "became increasingly disillusioned by CBMW's pathological desire to be liked by God's enemies." Tim objected to limiting male headship to the home and the church:

My years working with the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood drew to an end over the cheerful and carefully-cultivated silence of the Council over the meaning and purpose of sexuality outside the church and the home.

With just a few quiet exceptions, the council consistently opposed saying or writing or teaching anything about the meaning and purpose of sexuality outside the church and home. When I'd point out that bit about Adam being created first, then Eve, in the Garden prior to the Fall--that this is God's Creation Order, bearing with it all God's explicitly declared meaning, and not some ceremonial law given to the Children of Israel--invariably their response would be, "The Bible is silent about the meaning of sexuality outside the church and the home."

They don't think much of parents who are proud of their daughters' achievements:

Honestly. If I read one more Christmas letter by Christian parents bragging about the glorious achievements of their daughters who are out to change the world by pursuing excellence in every last one of their stupendous gifts; who are getting their doctorate in neuroscience ("Can you believe how smart she is?!?"); who presented a paper on snakes, donkeys, whales and other oppressed species of the Bible in the Green track of the Evangelical Theological Society's annual meeting; who are over in South Africa's bantus doing AIDS education (teaching women how to get their lovers to use condoms); who are carrying out groundbreaking research on the connection between autism and improperly tied umbilical cords; who just gave birth to their parents first grandchild while on two week leave from setting up President Obama's historic Office on Ya Ya Sisterhood.

The bragging never ends. And because evangelicals hate discernment, it never occurs to these preening parents that their letters are being read by other parents whose National Merit scholar daughters have chosen the road less traveled and are nursing and bathing and changing and feeding the children who one day will provide for the old age of their awesome Amazon.

They believe that evangelicals in general and Bible translators in particular are girly-men. Consider:

For several decades, now, Evangelical Bible scholars translating Scripture have proven themselves women lacking the male capacity to stand the heat of battle and fight...

Or these quotes:

Give an Evangelical a choice between cultural accommodation and Biblical clarity and he'll choose accommodation every time. Then he'll have the audacity to tell you he's chosen accommodation, and you should too.

...the default position of the Evangelical is to minimize authority, and therefore to minimize sexuality.

Thus complementarians have no theology of the Fatherhood of God and man, and thus they have no theology of sexuality.

There are three men, yea four, they hate.

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that three men have been standouts in the volume of Baylyblog posts warning against them: Tom (N. T.) Wright, Darryl Hart, and Tim Keller. Each of these men has shown himself adept at drawing away disciples after him who will join in his rebellion against crucial parts of Biblical faith. Tom Wright denies God’s Creation Order, Darryl Hart denies the Church’s calling to proclaim the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all creation, and Tim Keller denies the Biblical doctrines of sexuality, Creation, and Hell...

... we suck in their error because the best and brightest are quoting them all the time; and when we read them, we realize we’ve been elevated into a rarefied atmosphere occupied by men and ideas much, much more important than our own petty lives. They themselves tell us how great they are. Every last paragraph and sentence tells us how great they are. Being stupid, we move on from congratulating ourselves over having the sophistication to appreciate such sophistication to congratulating ourselves that he sees things just as we see them.

Recently I’ve been hard at work adding a fourth man to this list. His name is Peter Leithart and he stakes his claim to being the master of rhetorical sophistication as loudly as any of his three predecessors. Keep your eye on him and don’t be so foolish as to think you can befriend him. It’s for good reason that I’ve been assiduous in my efforts to attach a chain to his collar.

He (Leithart) is sitting alone with a Bible, fomenting rebellion against the Apostle Paul and the Holy Spirit Who inspired him...

As you can see the Bayly Boys like to mix it up with others. But they don't like it much when others mix it up with them.

On January 14 Tim published Reformed dithering and Roman Catholic resolve.... Tim wrote: 

The thing about Roman Catholicism is that secularists' vicious hatred has stiffened her leaders' resolve at the gaps in the wall. Not so much Reformed pastors and teachers: our hearts palpitate as we note the contrast between the world's hatred for Roman Catholicism and the universal adulation of Tim Keller. Hoping to escape the former by embracing the latter, we name our churches "Redeemer this-and-that" and weave Kellerisms like "human flourishing" into our sermons and conversations. Fondly we hope we may escape the hatred and persecution Jesus guaranteed His faithful witnesses. 

And thus faithful witnessing is left to Roman Catholic sacramentalists such as Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke...

What Tim likes about

Tim Bayly

Cardinal Burke is that the cardinal's view of manhood is similar to that of Tim and David.

Grover Dill

Tim quoted from the interview with the cardinal and provided a direct link to it. I clicked on the link and read the whole interview. I was particularly interested in the cardinal's view of the solutions to the manhood crisis. I copied and pasted a number of them in the comments section of Tim's blog. These showed that the cardinal endorsed such things as devotion to St. Joseph, families praying the Rosary daily, the Knights of the Altar, the appeal to men of Christ's coming down on the altar, using only boys as altar servers, catechizing men about the mystery of the Mass, going to confession...You get the drift.

Tim responded:

The interview was not commended for its practical counsel concerning the formation of manhood. Rather I commended it for its forthright recognition of the abandonment of sexuality and manhood these past few decades. I'm confident Baylyblog readers are skilled at differentiating between wheat and chaff.

I replied:

Patriarchy puts one into bed with strange fellows. Cardinal Burke, the Roman Catholic who commends to us traditional Roman Catholicism, is an ally who is willing to go outside the camp of human approval, to be hated by the world, and to fill up the sufferings of Christ with us. On the other hand Tim Keller, the evangelical who preaches the Gospel of Christ, though not the gospel of patrimony, is rejected and warned against. It get curiouser and curiouser.

At this point, Tim the patriarch entered the exchange:

Bill, you are a mere scoffer. Please move on. 

Firmly,

I pointed out:

Tim, I am not the one who commended Cardinal Burke and linked to the interview with him in which he recommends traditional Roman Catholic doctrine and practice as the path to the recovery of manhood. I am not the one who attacks and warns against Tim Keller. I am not one who turns patriarchy into gospel and scoffs at those who do not see it and practice it as I understand it. In these cases that would be you.

Honestly,

Bill

The patriarch spoke again to the rebellious child:

Thanks, Bill; now again, please move on.

More firmly,

There was no further exchange between Tim and me, but at this point several followers of the Baylys entered the discussion and directed comments and questions to me by name. I thought it was a matter of fairness that I should have the right of reply when I was addressed.

The most important exchange had to do with what the Gospel is and if patriarchy is a part of it, to which I replied:

I can answer your question to me regarding the Gospel of Jesus Christ rather briefly. The saving acts of God are the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, God acting in him for the salvation of sinners. The saving significance of those acts is that sinners are justified in Christ, reconciled in Christ, sanctified and preserved in Christ, and will be glorified in Christ. The means by which salvation is received is faith. The focus of the Gospel is that sinners are forgiven their sins and declared righteous in God's sight by the work of the grace of God apart from human cooperation, on the basis of the work of Christ alone apart from human contribution, and received by faith alone apart from human merit. 

Do I think patriarchy as understood and practiced by Tim is the Gospel? No, I do not. Of course, it is worth pointing out that most Christians who believe in male headship do not believe or practice it in the Bayly way. But, even rightly and Biblically understood, male headship is one aspect of living the Christian life, or living life under the Gospel, but it is not the Gospel. One is neither saved nor damned on the basis of belief in or practice of patriarchy or male headship.

Tim did not like it that I responded to the comments directed to me and said:

Tired of his mockery and churlishness across many posts on this blog, twice above I asked... Rev. William H. Smith, to stop commenting. Sadly, my requests were useless and only caused Mr. Smith to double down. Now we have a running discussion with Mr. Smith in which other brothers have contributed sincere and quite helpful comments and removing Mr. Smith's double-downs would leave other good comments hanging in the air without a context.
What to do?

Seems like the only choice is to rescind the previous ruling...

In a transparent attempt to discredit me with readers of his blog, Tim called attention to my transfer to the Reformed Episcopal Church and quoted three sentences from a blog I wrote explaining my decision to become an Anglican. He did not provide a direct link to my blog, but did provide a footnote that did not link to but cited the reprint of my blog at Virtueonline. After pointing out the lack of a link, which denied to readers the opportunity to see the comments in context, I provided the link in the comments section. This was eliminated.

Then I got this email:

Dear Bill, 

Now that you’ve had a good bit of time to respond to (name deleted by me) and others, I’ve followed through and removed your commenting privileges.
Cordially,

Annoyed I churlishly responded:

Wow a father-censor. Autocratic. Insecure. Often joined.

Then brother David jumped in:

Dear Bill,

Do you have a superior I could talk to about your conduct? Lay? Ecclesiastical?

In Christ, 

David Bayly

I was in the Men's Room at the movie theater when I received this and humorously responded with "Darryl Hart."

David Bayly

I received back from David the question, "Which of these men?" followed by 
 the names of two

Scut Farkus

Bishops of the REC. I wrote back to David that his concerns were personal not ecclesial, that it seemed to me that Tim's ban ought to be sufficient, and that I was not intimidated by his latest communication and thought we ought to act like men who have a disagreement.

David believed that he had succeeded in intimidating me but felt a further threat was also needed.

Dear Bill,

If I thought we could deal with you in a reasonable manner I’d not have asked who your superior is.

That you’re intimidated is clear by your response.

So be it. At least you’ve stopped commenting. If you go on, I will run that list until I find someone you’re accountable to.

In Christ,David

My response included:

You seem to be something of a bully who hits other kids on the playground and then, when someone stands up to him, wants to find the teacher to tattle and ask her to do something about that mean kid who stood up to you. As has been observed many times, the only way to deal with a bully is to stand up to him.

I also gave him the name and contact information for my Bishop.

The day came when Ralphie had enough of Scut Farkus. (Watch the video by clicking, if you wish, but please note this warning: It's not pretty.)