Are you being persecuted?

Helpful graphic to explain what persecution really is. Wilson seems to be confused.

Doug Phillips’ real problem

Hey, the REAL biblical patriarchs had lots of women, right?

The church is a sermon-delivery system

Pastor Wilson’s latest shot at the other portion of the CREC.

This is accompanied by a new book that is addressing a problem that is felt by almost none of the rest of the american church – overuse of liturgy.

Why there aren’t any memes recently

I have decided to cease regular updates to this site.

Initially, this site started as a light-hearted attempt to illustrate personal frustrations I had with the CREC as well as ones that I had been exposed to in conversation with people with similar experiences.

I have seen many, many sites attacking Christ Church, Doug Wilson, and the CREC. Those sites have researched the facts surrounding the various abuses, and have generally presented them in a readable light. Creating memes allowed me to bind a stupid image to words or abuses that were not as immediately recognizable as ridiculous.

I did not make up anything in the “I shit you not” category on this site. It’s all true.

• There really is a church with elders who sit down and go over members’ finances to “help” them figure out their tithe.
• There are churches that very strongly encourage girls to marry obscenely young and start having children as soon as possible, as young as 15 years old. Girls who marry so young tend to be more submissive and unquestioning.
• There are churches that do not allow women to vote. Some churches do not even allow women to attend church meetings (though there are churches that make exception for women who are widows or lack male “headship” in some way).
• NSA really does give out bad grades or even failing grades based on attitude, not on academics.
• Many businesses and schools run by CREC men pay married men and single men more than single women for the exact same work, even if the women are more qualified or do more work. This is how they “support families.”
• There are families who only send their boys to the local classical church school. This is encouraged, because the girls are supposed to marry young, stay home, and have babies and it would be a waste of time and money to educate them. Of course, if the family can afford it, then sending the girls is totally OK.
• Yes, some elders do show up at your house if you liked something on Facebook they do not approve of. This really happens.
• There is a church that only counts yes votes and announces to the church that the election was unanimous. If anyone votes no, they show up at that person’s house to demand an explanation. If the person gets intimidated and backs down or does not put up a defense to their satisfaction, the no vote is not counted.

I found that I was deliberately reading things that made me angry, finding injustices or abuses that I couldn’t do anything about. Dwelling on the injustice becomes unhealthy after a while, in much the same way as ignoring it does. I do not advocate burying your head in the sand and maintaining that your lack of personal experience with abuse proves it non-existence. I also cannot advocate focusing your energy on fighting these abuses.

What I am saying is, “Do not be blind.”

The purpose of this site is not to destroy the CREC. There are many, many good people in the CREC. Some of those people are in positions of leadership. I am not even trying discourage people from joining the CREC.

Do not go in thinking that everything is OK, or worse yet, that there are some nebulous problems some people have that are not important. If you join, do it with your eyes open.

The CREC has some major problems, mostly in leadership.

On one side, you have the Wilsonian camp and most of the Greyfriars. They tend to focus on Biblical gender roles, prepackaged baptistic-style legalism, and church authority. These are the folks that will insist on head of household meetings, nepotism, classical christian education, and kicking hornets nests. They believe in power.

Wilson fans tend to believe in a God who shows His love by beating them, constantly reminding His people how absolute His power is. The abuses within the CREC are usually at the hands of Wilson or the Greyfriars he has trained with this attitude. Masculinity and “hard sermons” become the definition of the gospel of overwhelming free grace. The roles defined within this group are rigid and generally have little consideration for individuals. In this group, men tend to be authoritarian toward women, and church sessions tend to be secretive and authoritarian toward their churches.

This leads to all kinds of serious abuse, including sexual abuse and financial dishonesty. If you follow what happened, much can be traced to love of mammon. These roots run deep and I felt these situations were too serious to be illustrated by memes.

The other camp in the CREC tends to be more theologically complex, liturgically-minded, and passionate about things like paedo-faith, weekly communion, and being Catholic. They tend to be attracted to James Jordan and N.T. Wright, not Driscoll or Piper.

The second camp oftentimes perceives the abuses within the first camp, and to their credit, they do not follow the same path. Instead, they coexist with the jack-booted crowd or leave. I am not in any position to make any reforms in the CREC. There are many in this camp who are aware of the wrongs and simply ignore them because they want to preserve unity, because it is just too much trouble to stand up for what is right, because their livelihoods depend on perpetrating those very injustices, or because “so long as the gospel is preached, it doesn’t matter who is preaching.”

It does matter who is preaching. It does matter what they are doing behind the scenes. It does matter what happens to marriages and families as a result of these teachings. What they are preaching does have some gospel truth, but it is severely tainted. Dismissing and ignoring abuse by calling it gospel is a serious sin in itself.

And if you know what is happening, you have a responsibility to do something about it. I have known about the injustices going on in Moscow and its satellites for years and have felt powerless to do anything about it. This site was my way of exposing a few of the wrongs and trying to help people see what is really happening.

I know it is easier to look away. But problems will never be solved by looking away from them. However, for me personally, it is time for me to focus my energies elsewhere.

I will not be taking this site down. I am not removing any of the memes that I have published so far. You are free to comment on them, and certainly free to send your completed memes, concepts, or suggestions to crecmemes@gmail.com. I welcome your feedback, good or ill.As of now, there are 433 posts up and 485 comments. Since the site’s launch in June, it has received over 35,000 hits.