Let’s Light Some Fires!
Dear Dominion Daters,
Our little project made all the right people BIG mad. Our bootleg home video maybe had a thousand views since it debuted in January. It was hard to tell whether we were languishing under a shadow-ban, or if the video was just no good. This week, we realized it must have been the shadow ban, as once our promo was discovered it really took off!
Our new Twitter friend, “SaintedSinner” shared our video, and within a few days it was viewed nearly 80k times! He’s truly helped us start a fire! You’d think the outrage mob would learn, after firing up Trump’s voter base in 2016. But here we are, playing with fire, again.
We made the NY Post and got roasted by Veggie Tales! Now someone from the Huffington post wants to interview us & Relevant magazine wrote a fantastic article about us entitled, “Dominion Dating Wants to Be the Christian Dating Site for Men Who Think a Woman’s Place Is at Home.” That’s not entirely true. We’d like to clarify one relevant point; we also want to be the Christian dating site for Women who think a woman’s place is at home.
The feminists, of course, went into full-blown meltdown over our calling this “normative.” To quote Aimee Byrd, “It’s pretty terrifying that this isn’t a joke.” Another lady mentioned she needed to “light her eyes on fire.” And several fine folks mentioned they’d lost their will to live. Protestia.com pretty well summed it up with their dynamite piece, ‘Dominion Dating’ Site Launches to the Sound of Egalitarians Wailing and Gnashing Their Teeth.
After we’re done laughing at all the hysteria from this past week, we’ll eventually get around to some Q&A. There were plenty of strawmen arguments & smear campaigns, to unravel. Jacob Denhollendar was quick to insinuate something sinister when he wrote, “Dominion Dating is more than a reference to the creation mandate, that’s for sure.” Whatever does he mean? Griffin Gulledge assured his thousands of followers that we see women “as property.” We decided NOT to treat Mr. Gulledge in kind, by misrepresenting Him, as he also said, “The Dominion Dating thing is encouraging to me really.” That could look like an endorsement, but only when wrested from context. As Aaron O’Kelly noted, “So far I have been able to discern that the biblical word “dominion” is icky to many people, and the rest is strawman arguments.” You might be onto something, Dr. O’Kelly.
We do need to address one VERY serious concern raised on the matter of using “blackface” in our video. We’d like to issue an apology! As it turns out, the clown (free stock video) is actually a black man wearing white face paint! We’re grieved that SO MANY professing Christians took umbrage with us having a black man in our film. To black people everywhere, we apologize for all the racists out there who aren’t more accepting of black people in film. Clearly racism is still a big problem among the CRT crowd. Lord, help us! You’re ALWAYS WELCOME to show your smiling faces on our dating platform! (provided you’re on board with our member requirements & have a verified pastoral reference.)
Our film garnered “Most Attention” at this week’s Twitter Festival. We’ve been asked by many to give an interpretation of our film: The creepy clown, in white face paint, represents the modern evangelical feminist subversion of Gen 1:28 (“be fruitful, multiply, exercise dominion…") which, for decades, has pushed "singleness is a gift,” and ruined countless lives in a generation now sunken into barren bitterness & porn-addicted decay. Hence the menacing clown smashing the slack-jaw lady who bought into the lie, which most of us did, to one degree or another.
Don’t get us wrong. We believe celibacy (not singleness) is a legitimate option for select few, as is “pressing pause” on marriage plans, under certain exceptional circumstances, like first century persecution. But it’s NOT normative to delay, cast off, or diminish marriage like our modern secular age does, to its own detriment. We must define “normative” according to the standard of God’s Word. The competing standard of the sexual revolt, which pushes delaying marriage & pursuing sexual license, has ravaged our age with porn addiction, abortion genocide, & a gay priest-o-phile epidemic only eclipsed by the sex abuse in Hollywood & public schools. The #metoo movement is a tragic consequence of abandoning God’s law. It’s understandable these same folks are looking for a scapegoat, like Dominion Dating, to pin all that on. Nobody likes to stay and clean up after the party.
And that brings us back to where we started. Our “misogyny,” (as it’s affectionately called), is, clear as day, deeply rooted in a biblical paradigm. For example, Titus 2:4–5: “(Older godly women) can then urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home…” And again, in Proverbs 31:27–29, “She watches over the ways of her household, And does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; Her husband also, and he praises her: ‘Many daughters have done well, But you excel them all.’” And don’t forget, Ephesians 5:22–24, “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” There’s plenty more!
The feminist pathology, putrefying in our day, is nothing new. More than 100 years ago, G.K. Chesterton noted of feminism that, “It is mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers but slaves when they help their husbands.”
Biblical marriage is a sacred covenant between a man and woman who join together in the mission of building a godly family legacy which will potentially span generations & touch thousands of lives. Modern feminist theological reductionism has divorced our generation from our original telos (purpose); to be fruitful & multiply, fill the earth, and take dominion…” (Gen. 1:28) One reason feminists, in our day, foment rebellion & spew vitriol is because no one has ever shown them a fully-orbed vision of feminine glory. They’ve been taught to see the “home” & “biblical womanhood” as a prison, instead of an expanding domain ready to be nurtured, cultivated & filled to overflowing with life.
Men, too, are under attack. We’ve allowed our strength to be sheared like Samson. The slightest hint of real, masculine virtue is now considered toxic & dangerous. Our generation of men, from the top down, are in need of repenting from effeminacy.
Folks have had a grand laugh over the fact that “Dominion Dating” appears to be a glaring “hyper-masculine” marketing faux pas. The truth is, in a day and age overwhelmingly conditioned by gynocentric sensibilities, our messaging, very intentionally, is aimed at reaching Adam (men), first. We believe that men lead the way, so we want to attract the best single men our generation has. And we believe the best women will follow. It’s early in the dance, but so far, so good. Our vision is to reach godly men who aren’t ashamed to embody “biblical patriarchy” (means “father rule.” Get used to it.), and to, then, reach godly women full of vision for bringing to life an astonishing feminine glory in our day.
If you’ve been jaded by past experience, (and who hasn’t, in this fallen world), then we challenge you to seek healing & move past the emotional reasoning. Yes, there are bad men, and bad women, and bad dogs, & bad pecan pies,… And sinners, as we all are, have often times failed to embody, consistently, the Christian life, yet St. Augustine said, “Never judge a philosophy by its abuse.” We believe in the goodness of God’s design for manhood, womanhood, marriage & sexuality, as revealed in Scripture. We’re not ashamed of it. With the Lord’s help, we’ll stand rock solid through the smear campaigns.
Our name, DOMINION, is pulling double-duty for us. It’s a reference to Christ, our Lord, putting all his enemies under his feet by conquering & triumphing through the gospel. And it’s an allusion to our participation in this exciting story by living out the Dominion Mandate found in Genesis 1:26–28
The gospel truth is that, apart from faith in Christ, every last one of us stands condemned as enemies of God, for riotous trespassing in his dominion. For those who persist in unbelief and hardness of heart, there’s hell to pay. But the good news is that whoever believes in the Lord Jesus, can, and WILL be forgiven and welcomed, as sons and daughters, into God’s eternal kingdom. The gospel of Jesus Christ saves us FROM sin, but it also saves us TO purpose! God has invited our generation to participate through joyful obedience in our dual mission; ie: the Dominion Mandate & The Great Commission. The mission of God is unstoppable. In Christ’s own words, “the gates of hell shall not prevail!”
Are you a bold, biblical single ready to embrace a fully-orbed vision of life; to build a family, shape culture & take dominion???
Back us today, and let’s light some fires!
Brandon Durham, founder