Apparently, Josh Howerton must be getting jealous of JD Vance taking all the limelight for sacralized misogyny because he’s back in the news again with a new sermon series called “Fight For Your Family.”
Earlier this year, the pastor of Dallas megachurch Lakepointe made headlines when he told women to crown their abusive husbands as kings in order to get them to act respectably and told women to “stand where he tells you to stand, wear what he tells you to wear, and do what he tells you to do” on “his wedding night.” Then he doubled down by dismissing the feelings of women, centering his own authority, and using Jesus to defend sexually coercive joking from the pulpit.
And then we discovered his subsequent apology was plagiarized, while he was out at the Stronger Men’s Conference watching Mark Driscoll get kicked off the stage and listening to men preach about ascending the mountain of the strong king as they rode tanks, shot fake machine guns and dressed like superheroes smashing each other with chairs.
“What he appears to be building is the theological justification for a Mojo Dojo Casa Family.”
Now Howerton is planning to make stronger men out of the men at his church. His four-part sermon series will include sermons on men, women, parenting and honoring. He’s so confident in his theology that he claims this sermon series has an “irreducible complexity” to it that includes the roles of everyone along with the gospel. But based on the first sermon, what he appears to be building is the theological justification for a Mojo Dojo Casa Family.
Lakepointe is the sixth largest church in the Southern Baptist Convention and the 22nd largest church in America. It reports weekly attendance of 16,000 people.
‘Fight for your family’
The entire sermon series is based on Nehemiah 4:14, which says, “Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your families, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.”
Howerton never explains the context of why an ancient Near-eastern writer would use fighting and battle language as his nation attempted to rebuild their city walls after being exiled to the Babylonian empire. Instead, he simply uses the phrase “fight for your families” as a justification for building an entire war-like theology of the family.
“When you’re in a battle, the only thing you got to do is fight,” he says. “The moment calls for a fight. … You are right in the middle of a war. … It’s not like a battle. Just because it’s spiritual does not mean it’s not actual. It’s not like a battle. It actually is a battle with a real enemy who wants to steal, kill and destroy everything you hold dear, and he’s coming after your family.”
Howerton attempts to base much of his sermon on the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2 and 3. Immediately after God brings Adam and Eve together, Howerton notes, Satan appears. And thus, Howerton sets the stage: “First comes the wedding, then comes the war.”
The war-like language of fighting for family and protecting children is central to the Christian nationalist theology that has been sweeping the nation as evangelicals seek to shield their children from sexuality, racial diversity, immigrants and American history.
First sermon addresses the men?
At the beginning of his sermon, Howerton claims this first sermon will address men, while the next sermon will address women. He even jokes, “By the way, unfair ladies for you to be here this week and skip next week.” So one might expect that it would be rather difficult for men to sit through his sermon.
“While claiming to be addressing men, his words consistently mock women.”
But while claiming to be addressing men, his words consistently mock women. He tells the men their teenage daughter is “just a moody ally.” He describes their mother-in-law with “fire bolts from her eyes, lightning bolts from her.” He never once says anything similar about their sons or about their father-in-law.
“What we don’t need from our ladies in the next few minutes are a bunch of your high pitched ‘Amens.’ We don’t need that. This is not your moment,” he continues. “I’m going to speak in a very straightforward way at our dudes. What we don’t need is for the first time in your entire life for you to like start applauding during the middle of the ‘Amen. Amen.’ That ain’t what we need.”
Apparently he thinks the women in his church are for the first time in their entire lives resonating with a sermon? That’s pretty demeaning of their spiritual lives, and perhaps revealing of the quality of his sermons.
But he can’t stop there. He keeps going. “Ladies, what we also don’t need is if your man starts actually applying some things that we teach in the next few minutes later in the week on Tuesday, what he doesn’t need is you going, ‘Well, you’re just doing that because Pastor Josh said that on Sunday.’ He doesn’t need that. … If he takes even the tiniest step in a godward direction, here’s your response: ‘Hercules! Hercules!’”
It’s ironic, given how much supposedly depends on men, that he thinks men need cheers of “Hercules” for taking “even the tiniest step.” How weak does he think men are?
“So listen. We don’t need your death stares,” he keeps on going at the women. “He don’t need your razor elbows. He don’t need any of that. He’s got a Holy Spirit and you’re not it.”
Then he commands the church: “That’s where you applaud. You can applaud right there,” then noting how masculine the applause felt.
Later in the sermon, he blames moms for boys not growing up. “A lot of times because of family dynamics, families make it easier to leave father than mother because mommies love their little boys and they love taking care of their little boys, and sometimes, what can happen is that the little boy became a man, but mommy still wants to treat him like a little boy, and that doesn’t work out real good.”
“The first time (women) chose what to eat, they doomed all of humanity.”
And as if that weren’t enough, he also blames women for dates and hell. “Dudes, when you get in the car to take your bride on a date and you get in the car and you’re like, ‘Hey, where do you want to go?’ What do they say?’ ‘I don’t know.’ … There’s a reason for that. It’s the reason because the first time they chose what to eat, they doomed all of humanity.”
A dating pond of heads and helpers
Howerton appears to share vice presidential candidate Vance’s take on being single because he sets up a vision of reality that requires getting married.
“The Bible simply says you are, whether you like it or not, whether you are a good one or not, the Bible says that the husband is the head of the family, is the head of the wife. That is an indicative. It is not an imperative. It’s not a command. It’s a statement of fact.”
He tells the single people in the church they should be thankful for this sermon series because their church is a “dating pond” and if you “fish in junk ponds, you’re going to catch junk fish.”
Then he tells the men of the church they have a calling on their lives, but they can’t fulfill it alone and need a helper. The women, on the other hand, exist as helpers for the callings of the men.
Later in the sermon, he makes fun of single men: “When I was doing student ministry, college ministry, doing camps, all this stuff, it would be like a bunch of young dudes working really hard not to work. They got no job. They’re not taking showers. They live in mom’s basement playing 30 hours of Xbox and they’re like, ‘When’s God going to give me a wife?’ I’m like, ‘Bro, if you were God, would you give you a wife?’”
Note how he assumes women can be given and taken. A woman’s consent is nowhere to be found.
Men are wild, women are pretty, especially naked
As Howerton continues contrasting “gender differences or role distinctions in marriage,” he bases his differences on where Adam and Eve were created in the Garden of Eden.
“Adam’s a dude. Like, he’s a blue-collared, get-his-hands-dirty … Adam is not created in sort of the curated, safe, everything’s pretty garden. Adam’s created in the wilderness. By the way, that’s why I like to be at bass ponds and in the mountains. Because you men were created in the wilderness, your first father, Adam, was created there, and so that’s where you’re inclined.”
If Adam was made for the wilderness, then why was his punishment to be sent to the wilderness? If Adam feels out of place in a “curated, safe, everything’s pretty garden” because he’s a manly man with a bass pond, then why would he care about being exiled to the wilderness?
But women, on the other hand, supposedly aren’t wild. Instead, Howerton says, “Eve gets created in the garden.”
“Mapping the land onto gender roles, men supposedly are wild and dirty, while women are curated, safe and pretty.”
So mapping the land onto gender roles, men supposedly are wild and dirty, while women are curated, safe and pretty.
And as Howerton likes to point out, they’re especially pretty when they’re naked.
“The second he sees a naked wife, he becomes Pavarotti,” Howerton declares. And then he demonstrates exactly what he means. He sings with full vibrato as if he were singing in an opera: “This is now bone of my bones!”
Then he giggles.
“And flesh of my flesh!”
A few more giggles.
“She shall be called woman! For she was taken out of man!”
Later, when he tells nonmarried couples it’s a sin to have sex before marriage, he says, “All the dudes with daughters are like, ‘Yep, it was real clear.’” He mentions no concern of mothers for their sons, thus further cementing the idea that men are wild and sexual and women are not.
The only place where he kind of mentions a woman having sexual desire is when he makes a joke about a woman saying her boyfriend is hot, and then he comes back with, “So is hell.”
Screencap from Josh Howerton’s Aug. 11 serrmon.
Sexualizing children
But perhaps more disturbing than his sexual scripts about men and women are the ways he sexualized kids.
“If you go out of one of our campuses, get to your car and the literal physical devil — horns, tail and fangs — standing right there. You need to stand up and bow up and the Bible’s going, ‘Hey fight!’ But if you go out there and it’s like some shady little girl in a miniskirt, ‘Run, Forrest! Run! You are no match for this enemy!”
“Why would grown men have to run from a ‘shady little girl’?”
Why would grown men have to run from a “shady little girl”? That’s not how people tend to talk about grown women. “Little girl” is how we talk about underage children.
This is exactly the line of reasoning Texas megachurch pastor Robert Morris used when he blamed his sexual assault of a 12-year-old girl on the girl being “flirtatious.” It’s also reminiscent of when Paige Patterson, former president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, described a teenage girl as “fine” and “built” and said from the pulpit, “About that time, a very attractive young co-ed walked by. She wasn’t more than about 16, but let me just say that she was nice.”
In another odd moment of his sermon, Howerton puts up an image of his toddler son in a diaper with no shirt on. Then reaching out his arms to cover his son’s chest, Howerton jokes, “Let me censor this real quick here.”
But after sexualizing his son’s body to the chuckles of his congregation, he removes his arms to show his son’s chest and kept making his point.
Are we lunatics? Are we ‘the world?’
Again and again, people come to Howerton’s defense, claiming it’s just a joke. When I first wrote about his sexually coercive sermon jokes earlier this year, Megan Basham called me a “lunatic” who “cannot handle normal human interaction like a mildly off color joke without experiencing trauma and meltdowns.”
To Howerton, those who have a problem with his teaching are “the world.” He says, “Am I going to take what the world says and let the world stand in authority over the word? Or am I going to let the word of God stand in authority over the world and judge what the world says?”
He even goes as far as to say a good idea would be to find out what the world finds to be offensive, and then do whatever that is.
“It’s not worldly for us to object to pastors sexualizing underage children and sacralizing misogyny from the pulpit.”
But it’s not worldly for us to object to pastors sexualizing underage children and sacralizing misogyny from the pulpit. Worldliness, in the ancient context of empire, was about exercising power over your neighbors.
‘God does not bless people; he blesses a place’
One of the ways Howerton justifies his positioning men over women is by saying: “God does not bless people. He blesses a place. The place that God blesses is under the authority of his word. So when you place yourself under the authority of the word of God, you put yourself and your family in the place of blessing. And the second you step out of that place, you take yourself out of the place of blessing.”
It’s interesting how conservative evangelicals talk about having a “personal relationship with God,” but Howerton wants to say God doesn’t bless people. The effect of his theology is that it depersonalizes your relationship with God and your marriage partner. Perhaps this is why it makes total sense to him to tell women they need to “stand where he tells you to stand, wear what he tells you to wear, and do what he tells you to do” on “his wedding night.”
He doesn’t value these women as people. He values their placement and their position of submission to men.
What’s especially sickening about this is that he’s talking to men, framing men’s rule over women as men’s submission to God. That way, it feels like humility to position yourself on top.
Screencap from Josh Howerton’s Aug. 11 sermon.
It all depends on men’s submissive headship
After asking all the men in the room to raise their hands, Howerton says, “The future of the people with their hands down (is) dependent upon the futures of the people with their hands up.”
He spreads the myth that family members become Christians only 18% of the time following the wife and 94% of the time following the husband, acting like women have very little influence on their kids and lacking awareness of the fact that maybe we were scared of our dads. Also, this statistic has been proved to be false.
Then he reminds them, “We’re using military terms. So No. 1 is you’ve got to man your station as head of the family. No. 2, you’ve got to obey your order now.”
He says men should not give their 14 year-old-boys cell phones because it’s like putting a stack of porn magazines in his closet. Again, he offers no concern about 14-year-old girls with cell phones.
He also tells the men, “You choose your kids’ friends.”
In this scenario, kids have no agency. And Howerton wants to make sure the kids of his church know that. He says he tells his own kids, “Let me just clarify something real quick for you guys: You don’t have any stuff. … You don’t have any money. You’ve never had any money. … You don’t have a room.”
As the head, everything is his and he’s sharing with them.
That also applies to their wives. Howerton says, “Some of your wives, they’re choosing catty and godless women as their closest friends and you need to help them.”
But of course, this isn’t controlling your family. It’s submitting to Jesus. As he says, “Men, entire lineages depend on your surrender to the lordship of Jesus.”
Adultery — trading respect and generational legacy
So what happens if these men, who are so wildly sexual and helpless in the face of little girls in miniskirts, decide to commit adultery?
In a world of hierarchy that values positions over people, what ultimately matters is the honor and glory of those at the top. And that shows up in Howerton’s definition of adultery as well.
He warns: “You’re about to trade your children and grandchildren respecting you. And you’re about to trade your kids wanting to come and play at your house at Christmas 30 years from now for a five-month fling. … You’re about to trade generational legacy for a five-month fling.”
He never mentions how it might affect the wives in the room. Again, they’re invisible. Instead, he appeals to the men’s respect and desire for generational legacy.
Male power and politics
Howerton’s view of men isn’t merely about their power in the home but in all of society.
“Our society is breaking down men, then trying to replace husbands and fathers with the government.”
“What we’re doing in our culture right now is we’re committing cultural suicide,” he declares. “Our society is breaking down men, then trying to replace husbands and fathers with the government so the government is stepping in and going: ‘Hey, we’ll do what fathers usually do for families. We’ll protect you. We’ll provide for you. We’ll tell you what to believe. We’ll indoctrinate your kids.’ … What the world needs is less government and more godly men.”
He adds: “Boys let other people work to take care of them. Men work to take care of other people and build families, the local church, and society and businesses. This is what they do.”
Where are women in this scenario? He doesn’t say. But they’re apparently not leaders of society or business.
It’s all reflecting his gospel
Remember he said his entire system has an “irreducible complexity.” So because he roots his theory of male headship over female helpers in his gospel, we can’t finish without seeing these power dynamics reflected in his gospel.
He says, “Jesus went to the Cross and fought for his family.” In the fight, Howerton says Jesus “stomped” on the serpent’s head. Of course, these are images in Scripture. But there are plenty of images in the Bible about what happened at the Cross. So it’s interesting that Howerton chooses to draw out images of Jesus submitting to the Father by acting violently over someone beneath him.
Thus, to the men, Howerton promises: “Your God will come to you when you bend your knee to the lordship of Jesus. The innocent lamb has been sacrificed. He will cover you with the righteousness of Jesus Christ and all the years the locusts have eaten God can restore if you will bend your knee to the lordship of Jesus Christ so that you can stand up and begin to act like a man.”
Rick Pidcock is a 2004 graduate of Bob Jones University, with a bachelor of arts degree in Bible. He’s a freelance writer based in South Carolina and a former Clemons Fellow with BNG. He completed a master of arts degree in worship from Northern Seminary. He is a stay-at-home father of five children and produces music under the artist name Provoke Wonder. Follow his blog at www.rickpidcock.com.
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