S/O- Michael Farris article- Voddie Baucham

[*lifeoftheparty*]

I saw Voddie Baucham mentioned in the article about Michael Farris denouncing patriarchy....

 

I know a few people who just *love* Voddie, and I have agreed with/liked the (very) few snippets of his sermons/talks I have heard (second hand). But I realize that I can't base whether he is good or bad based on second hand snippets....

 

But I haven't really had the time to do any research on him and what he believes/espouses.

 

So, what is the general consensus about him? What does he stand for and promote?

 

I don't even know if he is controversial or not- so if he is, please keep things nice, lol- I'll be out all day tomorrow and would love to come home and read all about him and what you all think :)

 

Thanks in advance!

[staceyobu]

He promotes quiverfull stuff.  His daughter used to have a blog that talked about how godly women would stay in their father's home until they were married.  She was taking online courses, iirc, and helping with younger siblings.  He also says Christians should homeschool.  If you are a Christian, you should not work in the public school system nor put your children there.  No matter what the circumstances.  I think he has some good stuff to say, but he also adds a lot of requirements to how a Christian must live.

[abba12]

I believe in christian patriarchy and gender roles, and I will not associate with the label of quiverful but I share some of their beliefs. So take my opinion with that in mind.

 

The problem with a lot of these people, in my opinion, like doug phillips and gothard etc etc, is that they are taking a biblical doctrine, one which IS sadly missing from our society, and then they twist it, morph it, and manipulate it into something it never was, claim it is the biblical truth, and gain a lot of power through it. I never liked doug phillips and I refuse to have anything to do with anything related to gothard or IBLP, I was not in any way a follower of these people because what they taught was so extreme, and took the bible so far out of context for their own gain.

 

Voddie Baucham was not as extreme as them. His big thing was family intergrated churches. But, he also believed homeschooling and stay at home daughterhood were requirments, not just 'good options'. His daughter did study, and do worthwhile things with her time at home, she was not the housemaid pining for a husband like some of the other SAHDs, but he did still believe in that.

 

I don't agree with everything that he says, not by a long shot, but I do like a lot of what he and his daughter write, and I would recommend him, with a warning or disclaimer, to some of my equally conservative friends. They both seem to have a fairly down to earth, practical view of homeschooling/family/patriarchy/stay at home daughterhood, not lost in ideals but actually using the time at home well, using patriarchy as part of a healthy family instead of a tool of absolute domination, and generally living fairly normal, non-extreme lives within their beliefs. His daughter had some really good points about 'waiting for God to bring a husband' not being the same as 'lock yourself in solitude and expect a man to magically materialize', which was a nice change to the normal SAHD drivel. Having said that, I believe she is still unmarried, just like almost all the original stay at home daughters from the videos and movement 10ish years ago, so I think that says something about them and their beliefs.

 

So, he's ok, with caution and discretion, if you have conservative beliefs to begin with.

[FaithManor]

At the " teaching them diligently" conference in Spartansburg, SC in spring 2012, Voddie B made the following comment ( you can look it up on patheos...I still have not figured out how to make my tablet copy and paste links):

 

"A lot of men are leaving their wives because they yearn for attention from younger women. And God gave them a daughter who can give them that."

 

The quote went viral because well, it smacks of incest at the worst and VERY unhealthy emotional boundaries between the parent child relationship at best. When pressured to clarify, his comments didn't make it any better because the stay at home daughters movement, of which he is apart, places a very creepy, unhealthy power of the father over the daughter and she is to be unquestioningly submissive and subservient to her father. Combined with his support of the purity movement, in particular the balls where girls wear weddingish gowns, walk an aisle to meet their father who is actually referred to as her groom, and pledges her sexuality to her father, and the other activities are advertised to help fathers woo ( yup, that's the terminology) their daughters, I personally think he is just one more prominent male from this movement who is no different than Doug Phillips, Doug Wilson, Bill Gothard, and many others. That is my opinion, maybe Voddie isn't so icky, but between his own teachings on women, the above quote which is just damning and a window into his psyche about his abnormal view of father/daughter relationships, and his big association with the purity movement, SAHD crowd, Vision Forum, Geoff Botkin, and Doug Wilson, I run very far away!

[G5052]

Yes, some of the things I've read from him are enough for me to stay clear.  I don't consider my disagreements there minor enough to look any further.

 

The lack of flexibility is disturbing to me.  Certainly not everyone can homeschool, not everyone has access to the kind of church he likes or can move closer to one, and not every family can afford to keep their grown daughters at home indefinitely.  And it goes from there...

 

Of course he probably wouldn't like me either!

[mom@shiloh]

Yuck.  Just yuck.

 

I haven't heard Voddie Baucham speak.  Some friends of ours really enjoyed him, so I do think he has some good things to say, although that was several years ago and sometimes the messages start out normal and begin to get more extreme.  

 

 

[SorrelZG]

My huge problem with that quoted statement is that it is ... oh help me out here, I can't find the words ... assuming/setting up the idea of a man yearning for the attention of younger women as something that *isn't* in the category of something needing correction/rebuke/repentance/whatever.

[StaceyinLA]

My biggest problem with listening to any of the positives these people may have to offer, is the fine line where the negatives and control start to step in. I am not easily swayed, and have always been leery of these types of leaders, but different types of personalities sometimes make drawing those lines difficult.

 

Also, on a lighter and totally unrelated note, why is half my avatar pic blurred out?

[Brilliant]

I read his book.  It really turned me off because when talking about the importance of a dad helping his daughter stay pure, he brought up (TWICE) an old testament command to stone your impure daughter.  Both times he said he wasn't bringing it up to imply that we should stone our daughters, just to stress how seriously we should take it.  So if I'm reading it right - we should take it super-seriously, but not to the point of stoning?  OK... 

 

I really wish he had focused on Jesus with the woman at the well instead.

[maize]

I heard him speak at a homeschool conference once, I had never heard of him before and couldn't figure out why he was the keynote speaker--his talk didn't impress me, though it wasn't particularly alarming either. I have only vague memories but I think it was mostly about how Christians are supposed to homeschool. I knew I was coming from a different theological background from most of those at the conference so I just attributed differences in viewpoint to that.

[FaithManor]

My huge problem with that quoted statement is that it is ... oh help me out here, I can't find the words ... assuming/setting up the idea of a man yearning for the attention of younger women as something that *isn't* in the category of something needing correction/rebuke/repentance/whatever.

And bingo, that occurred to me as well. SERIOUSLY, a married man is yearning for attention from a younger woman and that's NOT a problem????

 

However, in this paradigm, women are always at fault always for all male sin, and many times it's not labeled as sin...it's justified action because she's not being perfect enough.

 

Listen to the Botkin sisters. UGH....they did an article on why so many quivering daughters aren't married and the entire article was NOT that their daddies are control freaks whom decent chaps don't want to approach to be put through the ringer in order to get five minutes with the girls, or that the boys don't want to get married so young, or that boys are leaving the "faith", or that they have difficulty meeting eligible young men, or that maybe God is not intending for them to marry, or....the entire article was that quivering daughters need to stop whining and suck it up and be better females because the boys in the movement find them WANTING. They aren't pure enough, educated enough, or educated too much, or aren't ready to come along side their husbands and make their business a success, or aren't submissive enough, or ....you get the picture.

Just female bashing top to bottom. Clearly, these girls would assume, if their husbands started scumming around a preying upon younger women, that they were at fault, not that he's a $@#%$#^ scuz ball with a problem.

 

I'm finally on a regular computer so I can copy and paste a link.

 

http://visionarydaughters.com/2010/07/why-am-i-not-married

 

That's the kind of indoctrination. Boys are raised to not have any accountability for their heart problems, and girls are raised to be at fault for the ills of men. This means they home grow immature, narcissistic men in the movement to prey on co-dependent females with profoundly low self-esteem and no options for getting out easily.

 

Guys like Voddie, when these kinds of statements, really show their true colors in terms of relationship to female kind and it isn't pretty, and very mentally unhealthy.

[LucyStoner]

Faith, your link just made me throw up a little in my mouth. But it's not like you didn't warn me so I only have myself to blame.

[Jerico]

I was sent a link to a talk he gave. I resisted because I knew he is quiverful and I refuse to waste time getting pissed off about that anymore. However, I trust the person who sent it so I listened. It was good. It was on homeschooling. There were a few things I disagreed with but overall agreed.

 

In the end, I do not treat any one person (outside of my local church, and even then with discretion) as a leader. There are some I avoid as the plague. There are other I glean from (maybe read their book, listen to a sermon or follow them on facebook.) but like paul says, i follow Christ, not ________ (insert Christian leader of your choice.)

[SemiSweet]

 

 

I'm finally on a regular computer so I can copy and paste a link.

 

http://visionarydaughters.com/2010/07/why-am-i-not-married

 

This is truly horrifying. I'm so sad for these girls.

[Jane in NC]

I have attended precisely one homeschool convention. Mr. Baucham was a speaker and I was strongly encouraged to attend his session which apparently had nothing to do with homeschooling according to the blurb.  I found myself leaving the convention center for the nearby Starbucks where a group of us misfits (first timers all!) had sought refuge. We attended for advice on homechooling and were rather mystified by some of the sessions.  I guess I was naive...

[FaithManor]

 

I have attended precisely one homeschool convention. Mr. Baucham was a speaker and I was strongly encouraged to attend his session which apparently had nothing to do with homeschooling according to the blurb.  I found myself leaving the convention center for the nearby Starbucks where a group of us misfits (first timers all!) had sought refuge. We attended for advice on homechooling and were rather mystified by some of the sessions.  I guess I was naive...

Jane, I understand. I went to one. Exactly one. I saw Jay Wile speak and he actually talked about HOW to teach science, ways to engage your kids in science, what science looks like at the college level for freshman, etc. SWB spoke on college admissions and high school college prep guidelines. I enjoyed these workshops but again, this was probably six years ago. The other speakers, well, my friend and I were very puzzled...there was a woman there promoting some phonics curriculum who claimed there is no such thing as dyslexia or any other reading/learning disability...claimed these are totally fabricated. Even claimed that no child ever had vision problems...it's all just the fault of poor phonics curriculum and if you buy her program, your kid can read no matter what! It was the whackiest thing.

 

 

Ken Ham was there NOT speaking about homeschooling. There were all kinds of workshops not related to education, but there were still some other good ones and in particular, if one had younger children. If you had middle schoolers and high schoolers, then Jay and SWB were the only people worth listening to. The vendor hall was okay, though not much for secular options in there at all. Rainbow Resource had a big booth, Peace Hill had a nice one and since Susan's History of the Ancient World had just come out, we stalked the booth and waited for her to show up so we could get autographs! :D But what really got us was WHY there was a vendor promoting bee pollen for health, a t-shirt screening business, Young Living Essential Oils, and a bunch of other lifestyle vendors taking up a huge amount of space. We filled out some sort of survey in which we noted that it sure would have been nice to have more curriculum vendors including Pearson, Addison Wellsley, maybe a representative from the Great Courses, etc. No reply and the next year the vendor hall looked even more bizarre with more "live this one specific way" speakers than the previous year. So we never went again (Cincinnati).

 

I would much rather hang out at Starbucks with all of the "misfits" than subject myself to that. Way more fun, and probably more educational too! That's what we need, the Starbucks Homeschool Convention. :lol:

[dirty ethel rackham]

Faithmanor,  Your experience is the reason why I don't attend the big homeschooling conferences.  I had participated in a local non-sectarian conference for many years.  It had speakers and workshops all over the mat, but most of them did pertain to homeschooling in one way, shape or form. But that conference began to shift toward more "healthy living" and still did not have many options for people desiring to homeschool high school with an academic focus.  One year, my friend and I co-led a couple of workshops aimed at parents of high schoolers and those were the only workshops aimed at that demographic. 

[SorrelZG]

If you go to his blog, which I really don't want linked, and look through the archives for Nov. 19, '09, you can read his response regarding the above quote. My own problems with it remain. I just can't agree with his take on this.

 

 

[edited to remove a link]