In Remembrance and Honor of John and Halcyon Botkin

John and Halcyon Botkin are no longer with us on this side of the veil. They raised three sons and a daughter to carry on in their absence. They were proud members of Tulsa Christian Fellowship for many decades, and they raised their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. They were dearly loved by many.

I am grateful to those who have written to me, heartbroken and offended about Geoffrey Botkin's claims that he was raised in a Marxist home as he publicly repudiates his Christian upbringing. I am also grateful to those who worked to shield Halcyon Botkin from distress, as she was quite advanced in age during the time that her son claimed that his family of origin was something other than a God-believing, God-fearing home.  I am moved by those who contacted me to attest to the Christian witness of John and Halcyon Botkin, for it speaks powerfully to their good character and their love for God and family.

For those who have questions as to why their son Geoffrey has made so many claims to have been raised as a Marxist and in a family that did not attend church, I would suggest that you contact him directly. He teaches a doctrine that was once called “multigenerational faithfulness,” and it is heartbreaking to think that he would have any desire to deprive his own parents of the honor that they are due, in both life and death. 

Geoff Botkin talked much about his 200 Year Plan for his own descendants, but he didn't seem to show much honor to his own family of origin and their own fine heritage.

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A Summary of the Posts About Multigenerational Faithfulness

When I decided that to examine the loaded language term of “multigenerational faithfulness,” describing how Vision Forum and her affiliates refer to the term, I anticipated covering the concepts in just a few blog posts. Really... The ambiguous and nebulous term itself actually lacks substance in and of itself, so I did not anticipate that the term was indeed as loaded as it proved to be when I looked at exactly what they taught. I realized that the term was misleading, but I did not fully realize just how they used it to encapsulate so much of their core doctrine. Upon reviewing the downloadable sermons and written material available, I was quite surprised to realize just how much the term “multigenerational faithfulness” represents for Vision Forum and their affiliate teachers and supporters.

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Thoughts on Fear-Based Obedience: It is Hollow and not Holy

I love these Sandlins... And as I wind up the discussion of multigenerational faithfulness, I wanted to bring attention to what Pastor Andrew Sandlin wrote to me about this discussion as well as a new entry that his father, Pastor Richard Sandlin, just posted on his blog today.


Regarding following the New Covenant by virtue of living under the legalism of the Old Covenant standards:

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RC Sproul, Jr’s Take on Multigenerational Faithfulness: “When You Rise Up”

Before closing this discussion of multigenerational faithfulness, I would like to comment on RC, Jr’s book -- what he calls his “covenantal approach to homeschooling.” When searching online for the term, this book figures high on the list.


From a book excerpt on Amazon.com:

"While almost all Christian parents would agree with that statement, when the chalk meets the chalkboard, they live as if they care more about their children chalking up achievements and getting into a good college than cultivating humble obedience to God and encouraging a long-term vision of multi-generational faithfulness in their future families."

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First Time Obedience and Unquestioned Submission as an Essential Component of Multigenerational Faithfulness Part IV: Theological Concerns

Examining a few of the theological concerns of First Time Obedience and unquestioned submission, a necessary and essential component of multigenerational faithfulness.




From Pages 110 - 111 of Voddie Baucham’s “Family Driven Faith”:

An even tougher lesson to learn is the principle of first-time obedience... [Baucham offers an example of counting to three for compliance, suspending punishment until the counting concludes at three as inappropriate permissiveness.]

This is a difficult principle to understand because we overlook the punishment our sins deserve and ultimately received in the cross of Christ (or will receive during an eternity separated from God in hell). However, whether God smites us immediately as He did Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5) or appears to let it slide, we can rest assured that every sin receives just recompense (Romans 3:21-26). Thus, in the economy of God every act of disobedience is ultimately punished whether we see it immediately or not. That is why it is important to teach our children that every instruction is to be obeyed right away. As they get older, they may be allowed to enter into discussion about our instructions, but that discussion should follow an act of obedience, not determine whether or not they are convinced of our position...

We do not want our children to do what we say with conditions attached. We want them to obey, period. Learning not to repeat ourselves, not to yell, not to call the offending child by all three of his or her names, but to speak in clear, level tones and follow through... No, our children are not perfect, but they understand what obedience is and fully expect a consequence if they fall short of doing what they are told when they are told to do it.

Voddie Baucham on Corporal Punishment and Shyness in a Young Child from Under Much Grace on Vimeo.

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First Time Obedience and Multigenerational Faithfulness Part III: Poor Development of Analytical Thought and Problem-Solving Skills

Continuing the discussion of problems inherent in unquestioned obedience and "First Time Obedience" as a component of multigenerational faithfulness. Please refer to previous blog posts on the topic if you've not already read them.


From Page 110 - 111 of Voddie Baucham’s “Family Driven Faith”:

An even tougher lesson to learn is the principle of first-time obedience... [Baucham offers an example of counting to three for compliance, suspending punishment until the counting concludes at three as inappropriate permissiveness.]

This is a difficult principle to understand because we overlook the punishment our sins deserve and ultimately received in the cross of Christ (or will receive during an eternity separated from God in hell). However, whether God smites us immediately as He did Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5) or appears to let it slide, we can rest assured that every sin receives just recompense (Romans 3:21-26). Thus, in the economy of God every act of disobedience is ultimately punished whether we see it immediately or not. That is why it is important to teach our children that every instruction is to be obeyed right away. As they get older, they may be allowed to enter into discussion about our instructions, but that discussion should follow an act of obedience, not determine whether or not they are convinced of our position...

We do not want our children to do what we say with conditions attached. We want them to obey, period. Learning not to repeat ourselves, not to yell, not to call the offending child by all three of his or her names, but to speak in clear, level tones and follow through... No, our children are not perfect, but they understand what obedience is and fully expect a consequence if they fall short of doing what they are told when they are told to do it.

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PART II Addendum: Spiritualizing All Activities, First Time Obedience, Multigenerational Faithfulness and Unquestioned Obedience

I am a little amused this week, as I did not even intend to post anything about First Time Obedience in reference to multigenerational faithfulness, the code word for conformity within patriocentricity. Then, a few people asked me questions about Voddie Baucham’s online audio teachings about this issue of expectations from small children, all along the lines of “the breaking” of children through discipline. When I went to listen to a new audio of Baucham that I hadn’t yet heard, I noted that the message in this discipline oriented presentation differed little in content from his multigenerational faithfulness messages, and all of these issues were also addressed in his book. And I intended to pull out and comment on sections that I had already marked in his book when I read it about two months ago or so. I figured one blog post would take care of this aspect of multigenerational faithfulness...

How can men make 200 year plans, when I cannot manage to plan a blog post and make it work out as I intend? ;-)

And though I have worked through so much of these emotions and made peace with these aspects of my past, I am still amazed at how deeply this material still pierces into my own personal experiences. In yesterday’s blog post, I noted many families that I observed and those I know well who treated personality traits in their children as faults of sin. One particular young lady who I once carted around on my hip in whose personality I delight represents only one of many of these homeschooled kids. My friend, a mother of 7, says that I get to claim 2 of her children as my own if anyone asks, and I proudly claim this one daughter who I dearly love, lip ring and all. And there is good reason for this – that being that I am also one of those whose bore certain character traits that were treated as sin and error. My dear friend's daughter is much like me (sans lip ring).

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First Time Obedience and Unquestioned Submission as an Essential Component of Multigenerational Faithfulness Part II: Spiritualizing All Activities

Continuing on the topic of First Time Obedience
as a component of Multigenerational Faithfulness,
please make sure to read these previous posts HERE and HERE.

From Pages 110 - 111 of Voddie Baucham’s "Family Driven Faith”:

An even tougher lesson to learn is the principle of first-time obedience... [Baucham offers an example of counting to three for compliance, suspending punishment until the counting concludes at three as inappropriate permissiveness.]

This is a difficult principle to understand because we overlook the punishment our sins deserve and ultimately received in the cross of Christ (or will receive during an eternity separated from God in hell). However, whether God smites us immediately as He did Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5) or appears to let it slide, we can rest assured that every sin receives just recompense (Romans 3:21-26). Thus, in the economy of God every act of disobedience is ultimately punished whether we see it immediately or not. That is why it is important to teach our children that every instruction is to be obeyed right away. As they get older, they may be allowed to enter into discussion about our instructions, but that discussion should follow an act of obedience, not determine whether or not they are convinced of our position...

We do not want our children to do what we say with conditions attached. We want them to obey, period. Learning not to repeat ourselves, not to yell, not to call the offending child by all three of his or her names, but to speak in clear, level tones and follow through... No, our children are not perfect, but they understand what obedience is and fully expect a consequence if they fall short of doing what they are told when they are told to do it.

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First Time Obedience and Unquestioned Submission as an Essential Component of Multigenerational Faithfulness Part I: Parental Convenience

In this previous post, I alluded to Mark Driscoll’s quote in the New York Times which spoke of his “impatience for dissent” (as the article’s author noted), drawing particular attention to this comment: “They are sinning through questioning.” His comment marks a trend in the church, and one that has always been an element as long as men have been overseeing groups of people. I would like to blame it all on somewhat recent trends within the church as there have certainly been many where believers have focused on one aspect of the Gospel or another to a fault. Like stinking swamps that feed off of a river that flows with life and is teeming with life, there have always been pockets of the church that become isolated in unbalanced focus of irrelevance and stagnation. The leaders seek to preserve what was likely a singularly ideal moment in time in what God was doing in the past. These attempts to preserve what promises to be an utopian oasis of the past always seem to degrade into a system of sacerdotalism, the collectivistic manifestation of the works of the flesh.


Along with sarcedotalism, part of maintaining the utopian vision of the past involves submission as an act of humility which requires the suspension of credulity. If a required task involves doubt, all expression of that doubt must be sacrificed and yielded to God on the altar of humility, as any expression or indulgence of reasonable, rational incredulity becomes an expression of rebellious sin. One must follow the system of sacerdotalism, crucifying all rational doubts by putting unquestioned faith in one’s overseer or personal priest. On the Bill Gothard Discussion List (Yahoo Group), someone once described the test of devotion required by young men at what is known as Gothard’s “Northwoods Coumpound” that I believe is located in Wisconsin. The facility required young men to go outdoors in intense summer heat to sweep the paved roadway with brooms, all while wearing their regulation Gothard blue blazers and red ties. For one of these young men to suggest that their service might be better spent doing something more productive with a more pragmatic value (even weeding a garden, for example which would still subject them to the trial of the summer heat) would be seen as rebellion against God Himself which thwarts one’s efforts to accumulate grace. Effectively, based upon Gothard’s bizarre redefinition of grace, the game of life requires that Christians earn and accumulate grace (favor and a type of power to resist sin merited by good works), especially through acts of humility that require the suspension of reason as a leap of faith.

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The Selfish Sin of Shyness: A Deterrent to Multigenerational Faithfulness

Because of the Gothard influence of ecclesiocentricity within Vision Forum’s theology and practice (more in practice in participating churches than in documented theory), multigenerational faithfulness also revolves around submission to elders among adults of all ages, but it is also extended to children under their idolatry of family. Vision Forum essentially just takes Bill Gothard’s teachings to greater extremes, but very little of it offers something new. The only new aspects of these “new ideas” are the loaded language phrases and “wonder word” concepts that the masters of spin wrap around the same old concepts of the Shepherding/Discipleship Movement in order to sell it via a new packaging. The manipulators merely took multigenerational faithfulness and wrapped it around the old submission doctrine product like a clever new design on colorful paper packaging that boasts “new and improved” or “50% more.” The practice of old-fashioned submission doctrine is alive and well, even within the emergent church movement, evidenced in the error of “sinning through questioning.” This unquestioned submission to authority dulls critical thinking and is an highly desirable trait in followers of authoritarian and spiritually abusive groups (at least, according to the leaders of those groups).

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Return of the Daughters, Multigenerational Faithfulness and Uncle Ned

I take for granted that those who have linked over to this website for the first time will be familiar with the Vision Forum teachings that support multigenerational faithfulness. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Vision Forum teachings regarding women and since I've referenced their importance in these most recent posts, I will offer this very brief overview of the teachings about following the family patriarch as well as the eldest male within one's extended family, a vital part of the multigenerational faithfulness concept. Please note that since criticism of the ideology, Vision Forum has re-written some of their history. They once prohibited voting for women, but apparently all of the advocates of this teaching have been voting all along. If you find that interesting, you can read more about it HERE and HERE. In the event that other documentation should disappear in the future, copy the links and go to the internet archive’s “Wayback Machine” to enter them in order to find them. Like the teachings on voting and engagements and courtships and such, things have a nasty habit of disappearing from the patriarchy websites.

Botkin’s Teachings
on Daughters and Wives

I have not discussed the Botkin gender material here in some time, so for the benefit of those who are not familiar with the book “So Much More,” (or the "Return of the Daughters" video) I will review some of the concepts taught in this book by the then teen daughters of Geoff Botkin. (Link HERE to read about Geoff Botkin’s history in a Bible-based cult just prior to his appearance at Vision Forum.) One can also glean a great deal of these teachings from the Botkin Daughters website, but in a nutshell, the belief system maintains that young women remain the “helpmeets” of their fathers until they are given in marriage. Until responsibility is handed off to the new husband, the young woman must serve the vision of the father. All of her endeavors must further the father’s vision in some way by aiding him in his life’s work. All members serve the family patriarch (the husband/father), and their life purposes revolve around the father like planets resolve around the sun in our solar system. If a young woman has her own endeavors, those activities must still accommodate the father’s needs and must somehow serve to help him fulfill his “kingdom mandate.” Any activity that seemingly does not meet an obvious need of the patriarch must be pre-approved by the father.

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Lack of New Testament Support for Multigenerational Faithfulness

In an earlier post, I listed all of the Scriptural “proof texts” that those from Vision Forum use to support their teachings on multigenerational faithfulness. As stated earlier, most of them pertain to the Abrahamic and Mosaic Covenants, detailing how the Israelites were instructed to relate to God under the Old Covenant. According to the writings of Paul and the Book of Hebrews, those under the New Covenant, whether Jew or Gentile, received a Better Covenant than the Israelites did. They lived under the law and were subject to all its penalties. Those who follow the New Covenant live under grace and are not subject to the condemnation and curses of the law, as Jesus paid all the penalties that sin demanded. The Old Covenant was the Gospel concealed, a foreshadowing of the Gospel, and the New Covenant was the Gospel revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ. Until we come to faith, the Law serves as our schoolmaster or teacher, but when we receive the Holy Spirit by faith and experience new birth in the Spirit through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, the Law becomes written on our hearts.

The Consequences of John's Sin....???

But if John gets it right, he had blessings for 1000 generations. Generational thinking is the KEY.
(Listen HERE.)

Again, I would like to draw attention to the idea that we can draw encouragement, instruction and wisdom from the Old Covenant, but it is only a foreshadowing. God showed grace and favor to the people of Israel. They rejected the Messiah because the minds of some of those in Israel’s hearts were hardened to the truth and their vision clouded. That produced an unexpected blessing for the Gentiles, for through the Jews’ rejection of the Messiah, grace was offered to the Gentiles. And Paul says in his Epistle to the Church at Rome that it is through the grace and mercy shown to the Gentiles that mercy might again be extended to the natural Israel. In the end, the grace and mercy is shown to all people, both Jew and Gentile. Each group who rejects the truth becomes God’s unexpected instrument of mercy to the other. God uses all things, working them together for good for the righteous and to bring Himself greater glory as all circumstances work perfection in us.

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Do New Testament Believers Become the New, Physical Seed of Abraham, Propagating the New Israel Nation of Christians Through the Womb?

Part of an ongoing discussion of multigenerational faithfulness.


Echoing the FBFI Resolution from 2006, when reviewing information on the Vision Forum concept of multigenerational faithfulness, I find it terribly interesting that those who promote the concept draw such little support for the more extreme edges of the view from the New Testament.


"Hyper-Calvinist" Replacement Theology

I would like to look specifically at those NT Scriptures in an upcoming post, but for now, I would like to briefly examine the significance that Vision Forum places on their own natural physical offspring as Abraham’s physical seed (spiritual eugenics). I do not believe that one can truly appreciate the concept of multigenerational faithfulness without appreciating the extreme neo-tribal, pietistic and separatist views of Vision Form, a “Protestant Exclusivism” that which Raymond Moore likened to spirit of the pietistic Massachusetts Bay Colony of the 17th Century. I believe that here we see the rationale as to why the Family Integrated Churches spend virtually no effort evangelizing the lost and focus only on “spiritual purification” of those who are already Christian, much like a spiritual cleansing of the Church in the same type of spirit that fundamentalist Islamic groups carry out “ethnic cleansing.” This is not the Gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

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The Web of Multigenerational Faithfulness

(CLICK to enlarge graphic.)

In previous blog posts, I started to tackle this subject of multigenerational faithfulness. If you are interested in this topic and you have not read the prior posts, please go back and read them. I would have continued this, but I just didn’t want to have all of these things on my mind over the holidays. There are four previous posts:

• Multigenerational Faithfulness as Social Darwinism and Spiritual Eugenics

• The Multiple Layers of Multigenerational Faithfulness and the 200 Year Plan

• Doug Wilson’s Imprecatory Prayer as Multigenerational Faithfulness

• The Origins of the Ambiguous Term Itself

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Concerns About the Family Integrated Church Movement from the FBFI

From the
Fundamental Baptist Fellowship International
Deomination's website:

Resolution 06-03: Concerning the Integrated Church Movement

While recognizing that the family is under attack in our nation and in many churches today, and recognizing that choice to have (or not have) age-graded ministries is the prerogative of individual local churches as God directs them, the FBFI denounces the doctrinally errant and schismatic teaching characteristic of the Integrated Church movement for the following reasons:

• It encourages schisms in local church bodies by encouraging its adherents to change the theology and philosophy of the churches of which they are members.

• It does violence to local church authority, calling on local church members to leave their churches when the church does not bow the philosophical demands of the movement.

• It espouses an ecclesiology based upon the family that is not based upon the New Testament but rather is an adaptation of Old Testament patriarchy.

• It falsely lays the claim that the destruction of the family in the US is the solely the fault of age-graded ministries in local churches. We contend that this is a simplistic and therefore false accusation.

• It espouses a postmillennial theology that is contradictory to a dispensational understanding of Scripture.

• It is oddly inclusive, basing fellowship on a particular philosophy of ministry rather than the great fundamentals of the faith.


This movement is most prominently represented by Doug Phillips (Vision Forum) and R.C. Sproul Jr., among others.

See related article

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Is Wilson Pro-Abortion or Just Following Multi-Generational Faithfulness?

Part of an ongoing discussion of multigenerational faithfulness...


I would like to explain a bit more about the mentality behind what I understand to be Douglas Wilson of the CREC’s position on reaching out to women who are pregnant and are considering abortion. As I believe that I fueled some of this debate by alluding to Doug Wilson’s statement in “Mother Kirk," I’d like to again address what he’s actually said. I believe that his reasoning represents the mindset of the patriocentrists, and this reasoning no only concerns how those who are not Christian should be treated, the reasoning also determines how this group of Christians views reproduction in general. This mindset is neo-tribal and exclusive, aspects of which I’ve discussed recently on this blog.

I left the following comment on a blog in response to a comment that stated that Doug Wilson is pro-abortion. In some sense, this person was absolutely accurate. The reasoning stems from a mentality of superiority and what I believe are logical conclusions of what many promote as Christian hierarchy which reflects God’s sovereignty. I made a few corrections in what I originally posted as a comment on the True Womanhood blog. I offer it here as part of this ongoing investigation of “multigenerational faithfulness” and "covenantal succession." Some of this will be redundant, but I would like to post it anyway, for the sake of clarification.

About Wilson “supporting abortion.” I would not say that this is exactly his position.

Federal Vision and the teachings that resulted in Steve Schissel (I don’t understand any of that with him) and Doug Wilson losing their ordination involved their view of the importance of the “covenant community,” or for those of you who don’t speak Covenant Theology-speak, this means church. “Federal” in Latin means “Covenant,” so Federal Vision is a vision for the church in real English. But if you are Wilson, you have to demonstrate that you are clever and smarter than everybody else, so you have to make things a little more obscure.

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The Layers of Extra-biblical Belief Underneath Multigenerational Faithfulness and the 200 Year Plan

Part of an ongoing discussion on multigenerational faithfulness...



The “200 Year Plan” promoted by Vision Forum derives from some goal setting that Geoff Botkin did with his children to help them have a “vision” and plan for their lives and his long tenure with one of the most well documented Shepherding Discipleship Bible-based cults, the Great Commission Ministries group.

This process of goal setting and planning is not new, as many people and many disciplines practice a very goal oriented and objective planning process, complete with measurable goals. (Most don't extend the planning to 200 years, however.) I cannot speak highly enough about this, having been trained in objective planning like this in my own profession as a nurse. For a hospitalized surgical patient, for example, my long-term goal for them will be to ambulate unassisted for 100 feet without assistance upon discharge, but while in my care, I must set specific, measurable goals for each day. For post-op day one, my goal may be to get out of bed six hours after returning from the OR. On post-op day three, my goal will be “Patient will ambulate three times around the clinical area four times per day.” I can’t wait until 10PM to encourage that patient to make all twelve 12 laps by midnight! You eat an elephant by disciplining yourself to eat one bite at a time, and I know well the many benefits and wisdom of this type of planning process.

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The Spiritual Eugenics of Multigenerational Faithfulness: More Social Darwinism

On this blog and elsewhere in many venues, I’ve mentioned what I call the “Spiritual Eugenics” of patriocentricity, using this term to describe those who view the Calvinistic concepts of grace and limited atonement as a means to justify cruel behavior toward those whom they esteem to be error, assuming that those persons are non-elect and therefore hated by God. For example, men like Doug Wilson find this understanding to be cause for imprecatory prayer which calls for the demise and destruction of those whom he deems his enemies, though other groups treat both professing Christians and unbelievers in the same manner for the sin of rejecting their teachings.

 In his book, “Mother Kirk,” Wilson says that the pro-life movement should face facts and realize that they should not strive to save every unborn life. Christians should rather choose to pray to God to ask Him to grant that the unborn children of the heathen, the non-elect, die in utero because God hates them.

 When I applied “spiritual eugenics” to this area of patriocentricity, I recognized that those who call for militant fecundity also promote an aspect of this same idea in some respect. They assume that all of those who are born into their churches qualify as God’s guaranteed elect, so they rationalize that as the nation of Israel expanded their kingdom by growth in the nation’s population from their father Abraham, the church also advances God’s kingdom by means of church members having large numbers of children. Some of these groups also formally state that church membership in their covenant community serves as a more significant factor in salvation than an individual’s personal faith and confession in Christ as Savior.

Multigenerational Faithfulness

Earlier this week, I listened to both parts of a sermon on multigenerational faithfulness by Bill Einwechter in July of 2005, a pastor in Pennsylvania who also speaks regularly at Vision Forum sponsored meetings and conferences. (Find the download HERE on Sermon Audio.)  Also on the Internet Archive:  Part I and Part II.

In a discussion of how we should follow Abraham’s example in our efforts to take dominion in our lives and on the earth so as to realize the Kingdom of God, Einwechter teaches that Christians under the New Covenant are also subject and bound to the full ramifications of certain aspects of Old Testament Law as found in Deuteronomy Chapter Six. The system of blessings and cursings he presents still applies to families today, and to avoid bringing the consequences of sin down on the heads of one’s progeny to the 3rd and 4th generations that follow (as cited in the sermon), one must protect these generations by faithfully and scrupulously observing the Law, presumably, in the same manner that Abraham did.

Within a section concerning the diligence to birth faithful, godly seed in the same manner that Abraham and the patriarchs of old did, Einwechter points out that “we need children . . . and wealth” to carry out multigenerational faithfulness and that a family without children “has no heritage.” Children are needful to carry our names and our work into the future. The seed of the righteous is not merely limited to sharing the Gospel through evangelism or through dutifully training up our children in the way that they should go, nurturing them in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

The group believes that the church today actually originates with the nation of Israel in some physical sense as well as the spiritual, so multigenerational faithfulness must include a sowing of our physical seed with the same zealous effort of evangelists who preach salvation to the lost. Because of this strong identification with the nation of Israel as found in the Old Covenant, this group believes that the Church remains subject to the Old Covenant in at least respect to expanding the church in order to take dominion. If believers in Christ today transgress these Old Covenant laws, they believe that the New Testament Church will pay the same consequences that Israel did before Christ presented Himself as the sufficient propitiation atoning for all sin and liberating us from the Old Covenant.

Daughters and Multigenerational Faithfulness

Sons and daughters differ according to Einwechter and the "continuity of history" of name and family extends only through sons. Einwechter states that multigenerational faithfulness works differently for daughters because a daughter no longer carries on her own family’s heritage or work within her new marriage. She serves her new husband’s family name and “his covenant,” so their marriage allows the husband to “extend his influence into other families.” 

Daughters are the “dynamic means” whereby men extend their name and heritage “into other covenantal family units,” or more specifically as Einwechter implies, into her own family of origin. The man “extends the covenant” of his own fathers through marriage. “Daughters are not dead ends . . . Faithful families must work together to give their sons and daughters to one another in marriage.” He also explains that multigenerational faithfulness cannot be limited to simply training our children but should include “the goal of giving them in marriage to other well-trained children from godly homes.”

When men and women marry, Paul teaches that women should submit to their husbands as unto the Lord. The husband leaves his parents and cleaves unto his new bride, and the two become one flesh. But I find it distressing that any Christian would ever find any need to utter that “Daughters are not dead ends.” In this sermon, we see the patriocentric belief that daughters must be given in marriage (a social and societal construct) and that both sets of parents bear responsibility for matchmaking under their version of courtship. These details and information present nothing new and highlights that which has already been stated in the writings and other media of the patriocentrists. But I find that the context and other aspects of this description of daughters as related to multigenerational faithfulness quite revealing.

Einwechter describes marriage as though it is some type of sub-process of taking over the world, and I suppose that for those who find dominion to be the strongest motivator in their Christian service, marriage becomes a type of taking over of their little corner of it. I agree that husbands extend their name and heritage through marriage, though I would add that the wife also extends her own heritage as well and does not serve only as a lesser creature or tool as this teaching subtly implies through it’s “dead end” disclaimer. (The traditional understanding concerning “Jewishness” maintains that Jewish heritage passes down from mother to child, not through the father, for example.)

 But what is meant by a man “extending his covenant?” Aren’t we all partakers in the same covenant in Christ Jesus as believers? Is not the covenant of marriage a new covenant that exists between husband, wife, and the Lord, something that is not an extension of any other, pre-existing covenant and not contingent upon another covenant belonging to the husband alone? A man does start his own unique chapter in this history and in his name when he weds. But what is meant by this reference to a “covenant” that is “extended?”

Daughters are the means to a man’s end of conquering “other covenantal family units”? When my husband married me, he overtook part of my father’s family? Our marriage was part of his taking over his own little corner of the world, his having dominion over my parents in some way? What?! Some critics observe that the practices in these rigid and demanding Christian churches bear striking similarities to the practices found in the FLDS and extreme forms of Islam – groups who are also obsessed with assimilating families and birthing large families. These similarities seem especially disturbing to critics when considered in light the ambiguous and fluid moratorium on Old Covenant Law observed by those who embrace this version of multigenerational faithfulness.

Social Darwinism

Darwinism describes Charles Darwin’s theory accounting for the evolution of one species into another through a process of gradual inherent changes passed on generationally, resulting in new orders, families, genuses and species of organic life. His theory defines this process that he called “natural selection,” describing a drive to emerge from the competition of organisms’ survival to emerge as predominant. Individual traits, systems, and species, etc. survive adversity, and those traits, systems, and species that are not resilient enough to persevere through the adversities of mutation and environment do not survive.

Herbert Spencer then coined the term “survival of the fittest” to describe natural selection in social dynamics, and Darwin’s own cousin, Sir Francis Galton, applied the concept to frame out the philosophy of eugenics. Under the guise of seeking the greater good for all mankind, those who desire power and wealth and employ this thinking fall into corruption, usually accomplishing their ends by collectivistic, authoritarian, totalitarian, and hegemonic means. Please also note that, ironically, eugenics advances that which is “normative” by seeking to eradicate the “bungled, botched” and defective on its quest to improve the human gene pool for the greater good through a process of guided or directed evolution.


I’ve already described a certain sector of the church that seeks to take dominion over the earth in the Name of Jesus Christ while berating, cursing and condemning others who do not share their belief system (targeting unbeliever and confessing evangelical Christian alike). They approach other Christians who agree on the essentials of Christianity but differ in nonessential beliefs as their adversaries, as if engaged in some type of competition for limited resources. They define their beliefs and practices as superior to all others, and they define themselves as God’s intellectual and elect elite.

Though a misinterpretation of the principles of theonomy that pushes them to achieve dominion in all areas of life on earth and in every “social sphere,” they often withdraw from the culture to preserve the pious nature, achieved through obedience to formulas of the Law of the Old Covenant in order to preserve their posterity and protect it from harm. In this sermon by Einwechter, these sentiments are quite noted to be not limited to practical matters in life and in spiritual matters, but they attach their dominion to the propagation of their own “spiritual species” through birthing large families in the natural in order to accomplish their ends.

Thus the covenant family of God and His nation of Israel that is realized in their faithful remnant will be propagated as their sons expand their dominions through the spiritual species of their godly seed. They pick spouses for their adult children from a pool of like-minded faithful followers of their ideology, and even some parents will not consent to the selection of mates that have not been homeschooled. Daughters, the less normative gender, serve as the precious instruments by which these men extend their names, heritages and covenants into the daughter’s families, expanding into the daughter’s “covenantal family units.”

Now, folks, if Sunday School is Social Darwinism as Vision Forum and its following teaches, what, pray tell, is multigenerational faithfulness?

It sounds like projection to me, or something more akin to “the pot calling the kettle black.”
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Pulling Apart the Ambiguous Terminology of the FIC: “Multigenerational Faithfulness” (The First of Many Posts on the Topic)

I’ve read much about this term “multigenerational faithfulness,” a loaded language phrase created by those affiliated with the Family Integrated Church (FIC) and used extensively by those affiliated with Vision Forum including James McDonald, Voddie Baucham and RC Sproul, Jr. Though I cannot find the use of this specific phrase on any websites related directly to Doug Wilson or the CREC, they do promote and practice the same core concepts using the term “covenantal succession" or some variation of that instead.

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