Love, Joy, Feminism
We’ve reached the end of the year, at which point I typically compile a top ten list of my most-read posts that year. Here you go!
10. Just Kidding, Sexual Purity Isn’t Important After All!
I wrote the above post during the Kavanaugh hearings, when evangelicals were responding to allegations against him by describing them as typical and uneventful teenage hijinks. After the efforts my evangelical parents and church went to to emphasize “purity” during my teenage years, this felt like a slap in the face.
9. The Problem of the Perfect Family Image
This post ponders on the aftermath of Toby Willis’ sentencing for sexual abuse of his daughters. Willis, his wife, and their twelve children had performed around the country as a music group, and been featured on TLC. To all outward appearances, they looked like the picture perfect family. That was a lie.
8. Why Are Millennials Leaving Christianity? Fox News Has No Idea.
This was a response to a Fox News article positing that Millennials were leaving Christianity for a lot of reasons that had nothing to do with, well, the actual reasons many Millennials are leaving Christianity.
7. Why You Should Not Choose Operation Christmas Child
As I explained in this piece, the problems with Operation Christmas Child go far beyond their use of consumerism to proselytize to children in other countries.
I’m not entirely sure why this 2015 post is still going around, but then, this issue never seems to go away.
5. Starvation, Chains, and the Picture Perfect Homeschool Family
I wrote this post in the aftermath of the Turpin case, when 13 emaciated, starved children and young adults were found in a home, some chained to furniture. I was struck by images of the children that had been posted previously on social media, which offered a very different image from their reality.
4. How I Lost Faith in the Pro-Life Movement
This 2012 post has been on my top ten most read posts list every year.
3. The Waffle House Shooter Was Homeschooled and So Was the Austin Bomber
This post focused on a spate of bombings or attempted bombings perpetrated by individuals who were homeschooled as children. As someone who was homeschooled, I wondered what was going on.
2. Kavanaugh and Gorsuch Went to the Same Prep School, but Their Yearbooks Couldn’t Look More Different
This post was also published during the Kavanaugh hearings. When I realized that Gorsuch went to the same prep school Kavanaugh did, I became curious if his yearbook resembled Kavanaugh’s with its references to heavy drinking and womanizing. As I write in this post, I looked it up, and it didn’t.
1. The Most Sobering Thing about the Racial Dot Map
Posted only last week, this piece drew a lot of attention quickly. In it I note that if you look at a blank map of the United States marked only with colored dots indicating where people live by race, and nothing else, you can identify the prisons. This post underlines the need for prison reform.
There’s one post that isn’t on this list, perhaps because it was so recently published, that I would like to see gain similar attention—my review of evangelical purity giant Josh Harris’ new documentary.
Explaining in the Guise of Listening: A Review of Josh Harris’ New Documentary
If you’ve yet to read the above post, it’s worth setting aside some time to do so. To tell a long story briefly, Harris never examines whether sex before marriage is sin, affirms the idea that teens who make out with their boyfriends are sluttly sluts who are damaged by sexual sin, and—astoundingly—never interviews counselors or relationship experts outside of the evangelical world. Also, it’s all about him.
I’ll have more to say about much of this in the coming weeks, because there is a lot going on here—and almost none of it is good.
See you in the new year!
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