This is an installment of the Religious Fundamentalism and Sexuality Project. You can read the full list of questions here and the posting plan here. The first six participants whose stories I’ll be posting are Melissa and Haley, Lina and V, Latebloomer and Katy-Anne. Life Outside the Bubble 3. Where have you found support? (New friends online, at school, at work, etc.?) (more…) Read more
Breaking: Whether or not the ripples of the Doug Wilson drama have truly subsided yet, Jared C. Wilson has made a declarative apology for the Gospel Coalition blog post that set it off. Let’s acknowledge that before there’s any more news on the subject. I believe his apology is sincere. Doug Wilson, not so much. Rachel Held Evans, for her part, has responded graciously to the apology by saying on facebook, “Thank you, Jared Wilson and The Gospel Coalition for this... Read more
Fred Clark recently posted one of the most powerful endorsements of anger at injustice I have ever seen. It’s especially relevant to ex-fundamentalist bloggers, since we are regularly accused of anger and bitterness, as though having emotions invalidates everything we say. Imagine a big muscle-bound biker walks up, knocks you over and steps on your head with his giant steel-toed boot. You respond, “Hey, get off! What do you think you’re doing?!” He laughs down at you and says, “Why... Read more
Femina has been lighting up like a Christmas tree since The Gospel Coalition blog post that threw Doug Wilson into the spotlight for arguing that egalitarian sexual relationships were unnatural and that if “authority and submission” aren’t honored in sex, men turn to rape to fulfill their animal urges. Now Wilson’s wife, Nancy Ann, has joined the fray: 10 Reasons to be Glad When Your Husband is Slandered It’s mostly fluff: reasons like “It makes you grateful” aren’t exactly “reasons.” Nonetheless,... Read more
Hang tight, everybody! We’re going to Patheos! (The new URL will be http://www.patheos.com/blogs/phoenixandolivebranch, but you’ll be redirected anyway.) The Phoenix and Olive Branch is about to join its sister sites No Longer Quivering and Love, Joy, Feminism on Patheos. I’m very excited to be part of Patheos’ ever-expanding conversation. Here’s a preview of some of the topics you’ll see me address: More of the Religious Fundamentalism and Sexuality Project (which, by the way, has been reopened for additional participants!) Adventures in... Read more
Anybody remember these? A couple of people apparently found my blog using the following google searches today: train my wife to submit william branham listen to over and over again (Seriously, guys, just say no.) So, I present you with a special Good Idea, Bad Idea episode inspired by these delightful searches: Good Idea Train your dog to sit. Bad Idea Train your wife to submit. Good Idea Listen to Jon Stewart over and over again. Bad Idea Listen to... Read more
Them’s Fightin’ Words and Daddy Issues are the responses of Bekah and Rachel (Lizzie), daughters of Doug Wilson, the Christian patriarchy leader whose words were quoted in Jared C. Wilson’s ill-fated blog post. Bekah followed up hers with Splashing into it again! Let’s start with Bekah’s first post. Here are the excerpts I want to talk about: A woman by the name of (1) Rachel Held Evans has been scampering about on the great wide interwebs, working herself up into a fever of feminist... Read more
Trigger warning for rape and sexual abuse. Jared Wilson unwittingly set off a flare in the spiritual abuse survivor network on July 13, 2012, when he posted the following quotation from Doug Wilson in a blog post on the Gospel Coalition website: Because we have forgotten the biblical concepts of true authority and submission, or more accurately, have rebelled against them, we have created a climate in which caricatures of authority and submission intrude upon our lives with violence. When... Read more
A little while ago, Libby Anne at Love, Joy, Feminism posted a link to an article by Valerie Tarico on abortion: What the Right Gets Right about Abortion and the Left Doesn’t Get Abortion opponents may be driven by Iron Age sexual scripts, but they are advancing their cause primarily by appealing to universal, secular and –ironically, progressive– ethical principles. If history has a moral arc, the curve has to do with one simple question: Who counts as a person? Who... Read more
My mother is stubborn. My father jokes that it’s the Polish in her (and me) that makes us clutch ideas so hard they fuse with our fingers and become permanent fists of stony resolve. This tenacity kept my mother with my father, kept her in church despite the disapproval of other women, kept her homeschooling me against everyone’s wishes and kept her focused with faith on the promise of the future. My mother is the kind of woman who will... Read more
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