This Is My Fireproof Thread

[mkgal1]

We, in a van were picking up men, this one was in the drive with his wife who had that little expectant smile, like she just knew he was gonna get better, like sending a male child off to some remediation camp, resolved it was for the best. That's how this gets past people, that's why folks cant see it, they think how can an effort by women to better the man, encouraging him etc be bad?

Because its too other focused and invites ongoing other focus. It begs a teacher student expectation.

(that women later ran off with her salsa instructor....just an aside)

Sounds to me as if she gave up being focused on that one.

 

[I Art Laughing]

Sounds to me as if she gave up being focused on that one.

Sounds to me like she gave up on following Jesus. Either I wrap my husband around my pinky or I get a new one.......he must have been, erm, adulterous I guess?

 

[I Art Laughing]

Using your logic, I could make the argument that the princes and happy endings in Disney movies are as dangerous to marriages as porn...but I wouldn't. There's silly and unrealistic and then there's adulterous. There's a difference.

After carefully considering this point, meditating and praying about it, I concede that my logic does in fact point in this direction. First, you don't get to define adultery, that has already been done. Lusting after another women is adultery, so is lusting after another man. Men tend to lust with their eyes while women tend to lust with their hearts, seeking some ideal unrealistic fictional man (such as Catherine did with the young doctor in Fireproof). Under that definition, Caleb had grounds for divorce...she was adulterous.

I would also point out that I would rather my spouse had a problem (such as pornography addiction, drug addiction or alcoholism) that they were actively attempting to overcome with God's grace then a spouse that was swilling the propaganda of the world and letting that sewage slosh about through her mind and heart unchecked.

We're all sinners, however, only those abiding in Him have the benefit of his peace and presence. I would rather be contrite, confessing my sins and working with Christ through my ongoing sanctification than following the worlds example and whitewashing my wrong. Holy vessels are sanctified (set apart), what gets whitewashed?

 

[McScribe]

Very good post. I would add that adultery in the Bible is about lack of good faith...the prophets quote God as saying that Israel is an adulterous nation when they do not keep faith with God. This is why Jesus says that lusting in your heart IS adultery. There is a lot of resistance to the idea that women do this in different ways from men, but men and women are equally sinful. Our righteousness is as filthy rags. It is just more common now to point at men's sins.

 

[Luther073082]

Some have made that opinion well known. I shouldn't let it bug me so much.

**It was sarcasim** FYI

 

[Conservativation]

I think he wasnt meaning your post

 

[I Art Laughing]

**It was sarcasim** FYI

I know, FYI. What you think is sarcasm, some people seem to take as fact.

 

[sdmsanjose]

Quote of I Art Laughing
When I was first entering the ministry I wanted to confess to the congregation that I had been sexually abused as a child, my senior pastor said "Absolutely NOT!". You can't let people know that you struggle. Keep it secret, God can't deal with that. There doesn't seem to be much that God can deal with when you keep everything a secret. Daub over it, pretend everything is okay, until you collapse in failure.

The Bible tells about the men of Sodom that wanted to have sex with the two men inside Lot’s house,

How Lot’s daughter’s got their father drunk, had sex with him and bore his children

Some men of Bethlehem wanted to have sex with an old man but the Levite pushed his concubine out the door and told them to have their way with her, they raped her all night until she was dead, then the Levite cut her up into 12 pieces and put the pieces in each of the 12 tribes territory.

David had a man killed to cover up his adultery with that man’s wife, David’s son raped his own sister, and on and on and on the Bible does not censor or hid or cover up any realities of life.

God lays all the atrocities out for everyone to see and discuss yet some Christian organizations do not follow God’s way and feel that they know better and censor, hide, and pretend those things do not exist. Reminds me of the Ostrich that hides his head in the sand when the lion is charging to eat him.

If God does not censor or keep things secret then why do some Christian organizations?

 

[JaneFW]

Also one of the chief plot points was how teh porn was the debil and a "parasite" and that their marriage wouldn't likely survive it's presence. Why is that? Because it's demeaning to women and causes the husband to have false expectations/desires of his wife, right? My argument is directly in the face of THAT point. If porn is a "parasite" then so is man-bashing garbage like this movie (and a whole slew of others).

I am puzzled by the suggestion I SEEM to see here that porn is only damaging and degrading to a wife/woman. Isn't porn damaging and degrading to anyone who uses it, regardless of gender? It does, after all, entail bringing a third (and fourth, fifth, sixth ..) person into the marriage bed. Anyone using porn is setting up unrealistic expectations that their spouse cannot possibly live up to, whether they are male or female. Porn use is not a man-only sin.

 

[His Wife]

After carefully considering this point, meditating and praying about it, I concede that my logic does in fact point in this direction. First, you don't get to define adultery, that has already been done. Lusting after another women is adultery, so is lusting after another man. Men tend to lust with their eyes while women tend to lust with their hearts, seeking some ideal unrealistic fictional man (such as Catherine did with the young doctor in Fireproof). Under that definition, Caleb had grounds for divorce...she was adulterous.

I would also point out that I would rather my spouse had a problem (such as pornography addiction, drug addiction or alcoholism) that they were actively attempting to overcome with God's grace then a spouse that was swilling the propaganda of the world and letting that sewage slosh about through her mind and heart unchecked.

We're all sinners, however, only those abiding in Him have the benefit of his peace and presence. I would rather be contrite, confessing my sins and working with Christ through my ongoing sanctification than following the worlds example and whitewashing my wrong. Holy vessels are sanctified (set apart), what gets whitewashed?

ITA.

 

[JanniGirl]

I guess I'm kind of scratching my head in puzzlement ... are posters here actually advocating that masculinity is equated with porn use? It seems that way to me. If a guy is cheating on his wife through porn, its somehow bad to address that and for him to destroy that element of his life? Does it make him less masculine?

I honestly don't get it. The only real way that a person can object to a movie that depicts someone turning from sin and trying to make amends for their sin & the damage it has caused in their familie's life is if they don't believe that the sin the person was committing wasn't really all that bad. Excuse it as being "masculine" and then divert attention to the other wrong-doer in the relationship; who, by the way, no one had ever said was doing the right thing.

I honestly just don't get it. Is the position that porn use is masculine and to deprive someone of its use is to emasculate him? -- And because, with the growth of porn, a likewise focus of it in churches is feminizing churches?

Huh?

 

[I Art Laughing]

I am puzzled by the suggestion I SEEM to see here that porn is only damaging and degrading to a wife/woman. Isn't porn damaging and degrading to anyone who uses it, regardless of gender? It does, after all, entail bringing a third (and fourth, fifth, sixth ..) person into the marriage bed. Anyone using porn is setting up unrealistic expectations that their spouse cannot possibly live up to, whether they are male or female. Porn use is not a man-only sin.

This mildly amazes me. So you are saying that if a spouse watches porn that it is literally the equivalent of bringing an extra someone to bed with you? I don't think that there is even a remote chance that you can back that up scripturally.

How about the piles and piles of "Christian" pulp-fiction being cranked out that has dastardly stereotypical masculine male villains and completely emasculated feminized male paramours? When a wife sits down with a "good book" and dreams about a completely fictional man and longs for that in her life isn't she committing the same adultery in her heart as when a man fantasizes about some completely fictional women?

When women commit adultery in their hearts, such as pining over life with some windswept paperback cover model are they bringing someone extra to bed with them? Are they now subject to being summarily divorced? Should men start making sure that their wives don't have tempting "chick flicks" like "The Notebook", "Hope Floats", or "Sleepless in Seattle" lying about? I guess watching stuff like that should basically be grounds for divorce. I certainly don't want to have my wife bringing Jake Gosling or or James Garner into our marriage bed (how disgusting).

If you are weeping over some man in a chick flick I'm pretty sure your brushing up on adultery in your heart. Your affections are being stirred (which is what makes a chick flick a chick flick). Why isn't THAT degrading?

What I seem to be seeing here is that the man's problem is always worse, more worthy of divorce, more repulsive and disgusting. I have never seen anything approaching that in God's assessment of sin. And coyly pretending that their isn't a overwhelming tendency for people with porn addictions to be men is about as ridiculous as thinking throngs of men go out to watch the Twilight Saga with the guys.

If you want to thrash on porn, why not thrash on the things that women are prone to do that are just as disgusting to God? Is it because you feel you have a God directed mission to minister to those overcoming pornography? Is it because you have or are overcoming pornography yourself? Is your ministry to women who have husbands with that addiction? If so, do you recommend to all of them that it is adultery and therefore grounds for a divorce?

In short, how are you helping?

 

[I Art Laughing]

I guess I'm kind of scratching my head in puzzlement ... are posters here actually advocating that masculinity is equated with porn use? It seems that way to me. If a guy is cheating on his wife through porn, its somehow bad to address that and for him to destroy that element of his life? Does it make him less masculine?

I honestly don't get it. The only real way that a person can object to a movie that depicts someone turning from sin and trying to make amends for their sin & the damage it has caused in their familie's life is if they don't believe that the sin the person was committing wasn't really all that bad. Excuse it as being "masculine" and then divert attention to the other wrong-doer in the relationship; who, by the way, no one had ever said was doing the right thing.

I honestly just don't get it. Is the position that porn use is masculine and to deprive someone of its use is to emasculate him? -- And because, with the growth of porn, a likewise focus of it in churches is feminizing churches?

Huh?

I'm sorry, your post is chock full of strawmen.

As a movie for men, it was on the low end of mediocre if I were showing it to a mens group. It doesn't provide a realistic approach to actually overcoming pornography. Its characterization of the main character, Caleb, is ridiculously oversimplified. It so oversimplifies him that it is unintentionally funny. The writers hit on almost every male chauvinist stereotype inside of the first 10 minutes. The guy is 100% jerk and 5 minutes after he finds Jesus he is transformed to 100% Christ-hunk 24/7. As a man I realize that the transformation alone is completely ridiculous, nobody gets sanctified inside of the 5 seconds allotted to Caleb in "Fireproof". At a mens retreat I would be hard pressed to come up with a valid substantial teaching point.

As a movie for couples, it's garbage. Nobodies conversion ever works like this. I've seen 100's of men come to Christ, so far exactly zero of them were converted in this manner. Everyone suffers temptation (even Jesus) and everyone will also struggle with failure for the rest of their lives. While they might not fail they will always be struggling, even Paul did. This conversion does nothing but dangle a carrot and a stick for women to express unrealistic expectations of their husbands. It's worthless in this regard.

As a movie for women to watch alone or with other women it is chick porn. Dreaming that your husband is going to be transformed in this manner is the worst sort of "pie-in-the-sky" tripe imaginable. Unless they run out and grab a copy of "The Love Dare" so that they can start selflessly submitting to their husband at God's direction, it is simply flirting with adultery. In this frame it is destructive.

Men need to overcome their addictions (as do women), I've seen God miraculously move and deliver people from seemingly impossible addictions overnight, which shows just how awesome He is. What I have never seen is for God to pave the path in front of us with gold brinks wrapped in silk, clearing every temptation (and thus potential for failure) out of our paths. Our walk with Him IS a path. It's a journey and we need to totally depend on Him.....He is the only way we get there, not some magical transformation into "Wondersaint". Anyone who expects their spouse to be magically transformed into "Wondersaint" is in for a major life setback/letdown. Please guard your hearts ladies.

 

[JaneFW]

This mildly amazes me. So you are saying that if a spouse watches porn that it is literally the equivalent of bringing an extra someone to bed with you? I don't think that there is even a remote chance that you can back that up scripturally.

How about the piles and piles of "Christian" pulp-fiction being cranked out that has dastardly stereotypical masculine male villains and completely emasculated feminized male paramours? When a wife sits down with a "good book" and dreams about a completely fictional man and longs for that in her life isn't she committing the same adultery in her heart as when a man fantasizes about some completely fictional women?

When women commit adultery in their hearts, such as pining over life with some windswept paperback cover model are they bringing someone extra to bed with them? Are they now subject to being summarily divorced? Should men start making sure that their wives don't have tempting "chick flicks" like "The Notebook", "Hope Floats", or "Sleepless in Seattle" lying about? I guess watching stuff like that should basically be grounds for divorce. I certainly don't want to have my wife bringing Jake Gosling or or James Garner into our marriage bed (how disgusting).

If you are weeping over some man in a chick flick I'm pretty sure your brushing up on adultery in your heart. Your affections are being stirred (which is what makes a chick flick a chick flick). Why isn't THAT degrading?

What I seem to be seeing here is that the man's problem is always worse, more worthy of divorce, more repulsive and disgusting. I have never seen anything approaching that in God's assessment of sin. And coyly pretending that their isn't a overwhelming tendency for people with porn addictions to be men is about as ridiculous as thinking throngs of men go out to watch the Twilight Saga with the guys.

If you want to thrash on porn, why not thrash on the things that women are prone to do that are just as disgusting to God? Is it because you feel you have a God directed mission to minister to those overcoming pornography? Is it because you have or are overcoming pornography yourself? Is your ministry to women who have husbands with that addiction? If so, do you recommend to all of them that it is adultery and therefore grounds for a divorce?

In short, how are you helping?

How ridiculous. I just clearly stated that porn is not a man only sin. This quite obviously indicates that women also sin in this manner. As you are obviously intent on piling scorn on everything I post, I won't waste energy on further responses.

If marriage is between one man and one woman, bringing in other sex partners - lusting in the heart - is indeed bringing those people into the marriage bed. If I were to have sex with my husband while fantasizing about an/other man/men, then I would be guilty of adultery of the heart and I would be bringing them into the sexual act, which would be wrong. It seems logical to me, but then who am I? Just a woman, right?



Someone shoot me if I waste any further time here.

 

[Conservativation]

Not sure people are getting one big point IAL is making. Where are the similar efforts to women, where are discussions between men and women ABOUT these types of sins in women. Why must it be women ministering to men, about men.....pretty much all the time, or women to women a la Beth Moore type stuff.

He is correct, the movie is divorce porn, relational porn, whatever. Its not enough to toss down that hey women use porn too....then go back to the same old narrative. I personally have little interest in ME sitting and talking at women about women.....but somebody needs to do it, and please do not try and conflate the submission and sex threads with the point I am making. We are talking about unilateral sins.....sins of ones own doing against self and God, these affect others, but they are functionally different. Those other topic are not analogous to what i asking where is this type of female self condemnation and redemption thread.

On and again Ive said that people, men and women are hard pressed to even imagine women as sinners in the way men are imagined to be. To correct that is gonna hurt a little, and anger lots of women. Movies like this one aint cuttin it. They are making it grow, with the lustful expectations of having an experience like that one in the firehouse at the end. Now comes the lady saying "Ive NEVER had an expectation of a firehouse romance spark".....which is the norm, take it microscopic about 1 soecific thing about 1 specific person, again, missing the point utterly. "Ive never sat and lusted or thought about a protagonist in a book"....same thing....no one has indicated you have. But whats odd is, without eeven being male, you are bloody well convinced that any man who has ever seen porn walks around with some kind of file in mind and is ever flipping pics and movies in his mind.....why? Just makes sense doesnt it? I mean its quite reasonable isn't it?

 

[hijklmnop]

I'm sorry, your post is chock full of strawmen.

As a movie for men, it was on the low end of mediocre if I were showing it to a mens group. It doesn't provide a realistic approach to actually overcoming pornography. Its characterization of the main character, Caleb, is ridiculously oversimplified. It so oversimplifies him that it is unintentionally funny. The writers hit on almost every male chauvinist stereotype inside of the first 10 minutes. The guy is 100% jerk and 5 minutes after he finds Jesus he is transformed to 100% Christ-hunk 24/7. As a man I realize that the transformation alone is completely ridiculous, nobody gets sanctified inside of the 5 seconds allotted to Caleb in "Fireproof". At a mens retreat I would be hard pressed to come up with a valid substantial teaching point.

As a movie for couples, it's garbage. Nobodies conversion ever works like this. I've seen 100's of men come to Christ, so far exactly zero of them were converted in this manner. Everyone suffers temptation (even Jesus) and everyone will also struggle with failure for the rest of their lives. While they might not fail they will always be struggling, even Paul did. This conversion does nothing but dangle a carrot and a stick for women to express unrealistic expectations of their husbands. It's worthless in this regard.

As a movie for women to watch alone or with other women it is chick porn. Dreaming that your husband is going to be transformed in this manner is the worst sort of "pie-in-the-sky" tripe imaginable. Unless they run out and grab a copy of "The Love Dare" so that they can start selflessly submitting to their husband at God's direction, it is simply flirting with adultery. In this frame it is destructive.

Men need to overcome their addictions (as do women), I've seen God miraculously move and deliver people from seemingly impossible addictions overnight, which shows just how awesome He is. What I have never seen is for God to pave the path in front of us with gold brinks wrapped in silk, clearing every temptation (and thus potential for failure) out of our paths. Our walk with Him IS a path. It's a journey and we need to totally depend on Him.....He is the only way we get there, not some magical transformation into "Wondersaint". Anyone who expects their spouse to be magically transformed into "Wondersaint" is in for a major life setback/letdown. Please guard your hearts ladies.

LOL...oh wait...so it's unrealistic and "flirting with adultery" to hope for a big, dramatic change in your h when He comes to Christ, but if a woman picks up a copy of the Love Dare and follows it...? Too funny.

 

[hijklmnop]

Not sure people are getting one big point IAL is making. Where are the similar efforts to women, where are discussions between men and women ABOUT these types of sins in women. Why must it be women ministering to men, about men.....pretty much all the time, or women to women a la Beth Moore type stuff.

He is correct, the movie is divorce porn, relational porn, whatever. Its not enough to toss down that hey women use porn too....then go back to the same old narrative. I personally have little interest in ME sitting and talking at women about women.....but somebody needs to do it, and please do not try and conflate the submission and sex threads with the point I am making. We are talking about unilateral sins.....sins of ones own doing against self and God, these affect others, but they are functionally different. Those other topic are not analogous to what i asking where is this type of female self condemnation and redemption thread.

On and again Ive said that people, men and women are hard pressed to even imagine women as sinners in the way men are imagined to be. To correct that is gonna hurt a little, and anger lots of women. Movies like this one aint cuttin it. They are making it grow, with the lustful expectations of having an experience like that one in the firehouse at the end. Now comes the lady saying "Ive NEVER had an expectation of a firehouse romance spark".....which is the norm, take it microscopic about 1 soecific thing about 1 specific person, again, missing the point utterly. "Ive never sat and lusted or thought about a protagonist in a book"....same thing....no one has indicated you have. But whats odd is, without eeven being male, you are bloody well convinced that any man who has ever seen porn walks around with some kind of file in mind and is ever flipping pics and movies in his mind.....why? Just makes sense doesnt it? I mean its quite reasonable isn't it?

I can't believe this thread has gone so far that a few men are actually equating sexual porn and lust to romance and hope for a spouse's positive change. RIDICULOUS. So if I watch the Notebook and feel all mushy inside about the cuteness of the romance I'm JUST AS GUILTY OF ADULTERY as if I would have watched XXX porn and masturbated to it, or closed my eyes during sex and pictured another man instead of my h? I honestly can't believe the twisting of morality going on in this thread. And if I hope for my h to change dramatically as a husband and father through Christ....that's FLIRTING WITH ADULTERY? What in the world? Unreal. Basically, any woman that hopes for better from her HUSBAND is just as much of an adulterer as her husband who's watching and masturbating to porn on a regular basis? I've never seen such crazy leaps of logic and justifications...oh wait...yes I have. Unfortunately. Luckily I don't have to hear them from anyone IRL anymore.

 

[Conservativation]

dissemble, obfuscate, repeat, keep men on heels

 

[JaneFW]

Cons .. just for you, I will risk being shot.

Why are women ministering to men? Maybe there is a gap where men are not. I don't know. Wives should certainly minister to their husbands as husbands should minister to their wives.

Why do men have to sit and talk at women about women? What point does it serve? How well do you know women per se? I don't know about men per se, but I know about my h, and about his porn use very, very well indeed.

I have written reams about my addiction to alcohol Cons, in case you missed it. I have condemned my own behavior about multiple sins - my promiscuity as a teen, my abortion at age 17, my misbehavior on several levels, my pride and drunkenness, etc. I have never pretended to be better than.

So, I do know that women are sinners. I see it in myself daily.

Also, women have talked about lusting about fictional characters. There were at least two threads about it.

When it comes to men having images from porn in their minds - they have TALKED about it for goodness sake. My OWN husband talked about it. Other former porn users have talked about it. There are reams written about it. I don't make this stuff up. It's no different to a woman reading a romantic novel or soft porn (or hard porn) and having those images in her head during sex with her h. I mean, it has been discussed here where women said they had done that. Why does that get forgotten? It doesn't make sense that women have admitted multiple sins, and yet keep getting told that they think they don't sin. Hello? Simple logic here.

I will gladly start a thread about female self condemnation and redemption when I'm a bit less jet lagged.

 

[Romanseight2005]

I guess I'm kind of scratching my head in puzzlement ... are posters here actually advocating that masculinity is equated with porn use? It seems that way to me. If a guy is cheating on his wife through porn, its somehow bad to address that and for him to destroy that element of his life? Does it make him less masculine?







I honestly don't get it. The only real way that a person can object to a movie that depicts someone turning from sin and trying to make amends for their sin & the damage it has caused in their family's life is if they don't believe that the sin the person was committing wasn't really all that bad. Excuse it as being "masculine" and then divert attention to the other wrong-doer in the relationship; who, by the way, no one had ever said was doing the right thing.

Yep! As a matter of fact, it was pointed out to her that she was doing the wrong thing by the lady who had lunch with her at the hospital.


I honestly just don't get it. Is the position that porn use is masculine and to deprive someone of its use is to emasculate him? -- And because, with the growth of porn, a likewise focus of it in churches is feminizing churches?

It sounds like deceptive rationalization to me.



Huh?

I also want to remind everyone that in this movie, the Love Dare was first done by Caleb's mother to his father. In no way was it saying that it's only, or always the man's job to love sacrificially first.

Oh, and to answer someone's question awhile back who ask if we went out and got the Love Dar. Yes, I did go out and get it.