Southern Baptist megachurch pastor returns to misogyny as a text

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on August 18, 2024.

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 respectable 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 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.”

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