‘PIB’ — the flailing desperation of the but-what-about polygamy, incest & bestiality slippery-slope claim

The pattern of PIB will be familiar if you’ve ever discussed marriage equality with relatives, co-workers or fellow parishioners who oppose it, but can’t quite explain why. It’s not so much an argument as a defense of not having one: “Oh yeah? Well just because I can’t give a good reason why something should be prohibited doesn’t mean it should be allowed! After all, I can’t explain why polygamy, incest and bestiality should be prohibited either — so does that mean those should all be made legal too?”

‘Stop it, punish it, corral people, shame people’

That does seem like a rather harsh accusation. But in my defense, there’s one good reason I keep accusing the leaders of the pro-life movement of really wanting to punish women who have sex: The leaders of the pro-life movement keep saying that they really want to punish women who have sex.

What does this chart tell us about Christian sexual ethics?

Is this evidence of Christian hypocrisy or evidence of Christian honesty? Or is it just further evidence that Christians lack a coherent sexual ethic?

Polygamy is biblical, is it therefore moral?

Polygamy is not an obscure feature in the Bible. It starts early, with Lamech, and continues throughout most of what we Christians call the Old Testament, shaping the stories of the most prominent characters — Abraham, Moses, David.

The problem with evangelical sexual ethics is that we haven’t got any

Do we need a “new” Christian sexual ethic? Well, yes. But not because the old one needs replacing. We need a new Christian sexual ethic because we haven’t got an old one to replace.

The revolution will be blogged: Evangelical women challenging purity culture

I don’t have any special insight or commentary to add to the posts listed below, other than to say Amen. Here I just want to catalog, to highlight, to bear witness, and to amplify what these women are saying. It’s important.

Money is necessary, but not sufficient

They think they’re disagreeing when all along they’re actually both saying parts of the same thing: Money is necessary, but not sufficient. Put it that way, and both someone and singer can agree and move forward from there. But if we fail to see that this is what’s really being said, there can’t be any agreement or even any disagreement — just a lot of confused talking past one another.