Worthwhile Reads: Marriage, the Bible, Sex, and Modesty

Spiritual Tyranny offers an excellent satire, Modesty Check for Men, pointing out what would happen if the purity culture dropped its double standard regarding modesty teachings and pointed itself at men as well as at women: Am I wearing a sleeveless shirt that shows my underarm hair? Some women are turned on by the smell [...]

Jon Stewart on Gay Marriage: The Measure of Progress

In the wake of President Obama’s announcement last week, in which he came out in support of gay marriage, I found this Jon Stewart clip to be incredibly enlightening. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Raised Quiverfull: Marriage

marriage fighting

In many ways, every Christian Patriarchy/Quiverfull couple has a different dynamic. What sort of a dynamic did your parents have? Was one more sold on the Christian Patriarchy/Quiverfull ideology than the other? Or, if you grew up in a broken family, how did this affect your experience? Joe: When Mama discovered patriarchy, my parents were [...]

The Purity Culture and Sexual Incompatibility

I was raised in what I call “the purity culture.” I knew that some people argued that premarital sex was important in order to see if two people were sexually compatible. I’d heard the idea that you should “try a shoe on before you buy it.” However, I was taught that those ideas were dead [...]

Marriage, Divorce, and the ROOT of a problem

It bugs me how often people address symptoms rather than getting to the root of the issue. For instance, the anti-abortion crowd tries to ban abortion even though the root cause is unplanned pregnancies and abortion is only a symptom. In reading through the comments on a post called Divorce and Custody on an evangelical Christian [...]

On Raising Progressive Children

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The other day my daughter asked me why I wear a ring. I told her it’s because I’m married, and I called my husband over and showed her his ring, too. I told her that when two people get married they wear rings. But of course this meant I had to explain what “getting married” [...]

The “Homosexual Agenda”

I was (probably unwisely) perusing the conservative Catholic blogosphere, and it has started to get to me. I’ve read numerous blogs talking about the “homosexual agenda” that is taking over the country and oppressing everyone else. I remember being taught this growing up, to the exact minutia. Reading about it now, though, it makes me [...]

Abortion and Premarital Sex: On Keeping Your Legs Shut

You may be wondering what in the world is going on with this whole contraception debate. While Republican leaders are trying desparately to make the issue be about religious freedom, their words and actions are betraying them. Their sudden concern about birth control also makes social conservatives’ anti-abortion rhetoric seem extremely hollow, given that widespread birth control [...]

Marrying Before Thinking

The Quiverfull system pushes daughters into marriage before ever giving them a chance to figure out who they are. Given the admonition against having “teenagers” and the interpretation of any difference in thought or practice as “rebellion,” Quiverfull daughters have no chance to grow up or mature. Then they marry. Then what happens? A growing [...]

Me? Obey Him? Wifely Submission Laid on Strong

I grew up in the era before Debi Pearl’s Created to be His Helpmeet came out. This means that even though my mother now keeps her copy of Created by her Bible, this wasn’t a book she read while I was growing up. Instead, the book on wifely submission that I saw her reading most [...]

A Complementarian Responds

A few days ago I received the following comment in response to my Men and Women in Christian Patriarchy post, and I thought it illustrated an excellent point. Growing up, I was taught that men and women are equal but have different roles. My point in my Men and Women post was that “different but [...]

Why would women buy into that?

My post about training “dominion-oriented” daughters was discussed on Butterflies and Wheels yesterday and a question came up: Why would women buy into that? It’s a very good question: why would women choose to buy into a system where men are to lead and women are to submit, where men and women have completely different [...]