Marital Gnosticism?

Christianity has always had a problem with heresies and bad teachings, and as I have pointed out in my different Bad Teaching posts (listed here), many of these deal with marriage and sexuality. One early Christian heresy that has continued to plague the church was Gnosticism. Despite Paul condemning an early version of Gnosticism in his letters to the Galatians and Colossians, versions of the heresy were brought into the church, sanctified by teachers and continue in some form or other to this day. And for some of my readers, a version of Gnosticism may be affecting your marriage.

Adultery/Abandonment: Two Sides, One Coin

When I set about creating the CSL blog, I had help from a couple of experienced bloggers, who were giving me all kinds of advice about the ins and outs of using the WordPress hosting platform. These two ladies deserve much credit (or blame, depending on how you view this blog) for creating this space.

One of the bits of advice that they recommended was creating a Twitter account, as it would be a useful tool in communicating with readers and the world at large. Prior to this, I saw Twitter users as evidence of mankind’s devolution, but I have found it to be useful, and have even started to use it to keep up with the #christianmarriage blogging community.

Recently, a ‘tweet’ came across my feed from a Christian website entitled Affair Care that helps Christians who are dealing with the aftermath of infidelity in their marriages. As I read the linked article, it hit me that the information that they were presenting completely applies to those who are dealing with Refusal/Gatekeeping in their marriages. I realized that…..

Lost Toys, Lost Joys

Dropping another veil, here, folks. Here in the CSL household, resides a tribe of Anglophiles. We purely love British programs, etc. Our collection of Dickensian dramas is second to none. So you can imagine the joy with which Wife and I, as Downton Abbey fans, greeted the issuing of the show’s last season on DVD. Since we have Netflix, we are getting the DVDs and going through all the old seasons, to watch them as one whole story.

This week, in going back to the beginning, I was surprised by a scene that I remembered only after viewing it again. In the scene, Lord Grantham makes a comment about his oldest daughter, Lady Mary, who, just to spite her sister Edith, ignored the one man who cares for her in order to flirt with a man who showed interest in Edith. When her would-be suitor observes Mary’s conduct, he leaves, keenly feeling her slight. Mary only realizes what she has done after his departure and it is then that Lord Grantham comments about his daughter’s conduct:

“Mary can be such a child. She thinks that when she puts a toy down, it will still be there when she wants to play with it.”

Explanation of Today’s Tweet

One of the items in the sidebar of this page is my Curmudgeonly Librarian twitter feed, and I feel I need to explain why the picture of Donald Trump appeared there, today.

Last year, in addition to my regular posts on marriage and sexuality, I indulged myself by writing about some of my other interests. However, I decided around the first of the year to create a second blog for those interests, which include theology and today’s political scene, so that this space could be completely devoted to Christian marriage and sexuality.

That new blog is entitled CSL On The Bible, and today, I did a post about creedalist Christians vs. notionalist Christians, and this year’s election. Since I only have one Twitter feed at this time, I pushed today’s post out on my feed. For the time being, those of you who are subscribed to my Twitter feed will receive tweets when I do a post on my other blog. I hope this is not burdensome to you, as I find that I am not writing as much over there, at this time. Maybe by the time I start doing more, I will have solved my dilemma.

One can only hope. 🙂

CSL

Another Nothing Box?

A couple of years ago, I read a comment by a husband whose wife had been a refuser, but who got the message. In his comment, he told of an incident that was part of her receiving the message, and it’s a theme that I’m coming across more and more. In previous posts, I’ve described how a couple of husbands “let slip” to their wives that their supposed great marriages were only great for one person.

This third incident was occasioned by one of those “marital assessment” tests. The wife took the test and because of the answers she gave (based on her perception of the marriage), got back a score of 8 out of 10. Of course, she was feeling pretty good about her marriage. She was stunned, however, when her husband took the same test and the result, based on his answers, came back a woeful 2. This man is given to great introspection and navel-gazing, and he came to this conclusion. For his wife, sex was just one part of a marriage, and while that area was “less than perfect” (in her way of thinking, anyway), the awful state of their sex life colored his perception of the entire marriage. He explained to her that the pain of refusal spilled over into every aspect of the marriage and he “hated it all.”

Last year, I wrote one of my Hard To Hear articles for wives, Lady, It’s Not About You, in which I retooled a graphic that Chris (Forgiven Wife) created, that was of a his-and-hers report card (see below) that illustrated this dichotomy; this guy’s story falls in line everything I was saying in that post.