{"id":11646,"date":"2013-01-04T05:47:22","date_gmt":"2013-01-04T09:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=11646"},"modified":"2013-01-17T00:04:36","modified_gmt":"2013-01-17T04:04:36","slug":"ctbhhm-in-which-debi-poisons-the-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/01\/ctbhhm-in-which-debi-poisons-the-well.html","title":{"rendered":"CTBHHM: In Which Debi Poisons the Well"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Created To Be His Help Meet<\/a>, pp. 49-51<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Dear Debi,<\/p>\n

How can I have a merry heart when my husband treats me harshly? Do I just pretend he is a good man instead of a lazy, TV-watching, selfish jerk? Do I just let him walk on me? How can I have a merry heart when all I feel is pain?<\/p>\n

Linda<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Debi\u2019s response is typical of what we have seen so far:<\/p>\n

Dear Linda,<\/p>\n

You have two choices. You can doubt God and say, \u201cI know God does not expect me to honor this man.\u201d Or, you can say, \u201cGod, I know your Word teaches me to be a woman who is there to help meet all my husband\u2019s desires and dreams. Make me that woman.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Debi does not mince words. Women exist to meet their husband\u2019s \u201cdesires and dreams.\u201d End of story. One thing I will say for Debi: she doesn\u2019t spend a lot of time trying to dress up her teachings to make them more palatable.<\/p>\n

A woman\u2019s calling is not easy. To allow someone else to control your life is much harder than taking control of it yourself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Interestingly, it\u2019s not clear from context whether this sentence refers to a woman letting her husband<\/em> control her life or a woman letting God<\/em> control her life, and that very fact is revealing to how often God and husband get all intermingled and\u00a0coagulated\u00a0in Debi\u2019s writing and instructions.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t take a good man, or even a saved man, for a woman to have a heavenly marriage, but it does take a woman willing to honor God by being the kind of wife God intended. It takes one woman willing to be a help meet \u2014 a\u00a0suitable\u00a0helper. If you look at your husband and can\u2019t find any reason to want to help him \u2014 and I know some of you are married to men like that \u2014 then look to Christ and know that it is He who made you to be a help meet. You serve Christ by serving your husband, whether your husband deserves it or not.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The more I read of Debi the more clear it is that she really is suggesting that women can create perfect marriages by themselves<\/em>. Debi says that women can have a \u201cheavenly marriage\u201d even with a man who doesn\u2019t want to cooperate in creating such a marriage. And finally, she says once again that women obey God when they obey their husbands, and, too, that they must \u201cserve\u201d their husbands whether they feel their husbands deserve it, and even whether their husbands have any redeeming qualities at all.<\/p>\n

Women exist to serve men. Check. Women can make their marriages perfect on their own. Check. Obedience to your husband is obedience to God. Check. A wife must serve her husband whether he has any good in him or not. Check. Sadly, this is all typical Debi and really shouldn\u2019t come as a surprise if you\u2019ve been reading my reviews over the past couple of months.<\/p>\n

What I want to focus on here is something slightly different: Debi\u2019s use of a fallacy called\u00a0poisoning the well<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

POISONING THE WELL<\/h1>\n

Description<\/strong>:\u00a0To commit a pre-emptive\u00a0ad hominem<\/a>\u00a0attack against an opponent.\u00a0 That is, to prime the audience with adverse information about the opponent from the start, in an attempt to make your claim more acceptable, or discount the credibility of your opponent\u2019s claim.<\/p>\n<\/header>\n

Logical Form<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Adverse information (be it true or false) about person 1 is presented.<\/p>\n

Therefore, the claim(s) of person 1 will be false.<\/p>\n

Example #1<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Tim: Boss, you heard my side of the story why I think Bill should be fired and not me.\u00a0 Now, I am sure Bill is going to come to you with some pathetic attempt to weasel out of this lie that he has created.<\/p>\n

Explanation<\/strong>:\u00a0Tim is\u00a0poisoning the well\u00a0by priming his boss by attacking Bill\u2019s character, and setting up any defense Bill might present as \u201cpathetic\u201d.\u00a0 Tim is committing the fallacy here, but if the boss were to accept Tim\u2019s advice about Bill, she, too, would be committing the fallacy.<\/p>\n

Example #2<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

I hope I presented my argument clearly.\u00a0 Now, my opponent will attempt to refute my argument by his own fallacious, incoherent, illogical version of history.<\/p>\n

Explanation<\/strong>:\u00a0Not a very nice setup for the opponent.\u00a0 As an audience member, if you allow any of this \u201cpoison\u201d to affect how you evaluate the opponent\u2019s argument, you are guilty of fallacious reasoning.<\/p>\n

Exception<\/strong>:\u00a0Remember that if a person states facts relevant to the argument, it is not an\u00a0ad hominem<\/a>\u00a0attack.\u00a0 In the first example, if the other \u201cpoison\u201d were left out, no fallacy would be committed.<\/p>\n

Tim: Boss, you heard my side of the story why I think Bill should be fired and not me.\u00a0 Now, I am sure Bill is going to come to you with his side of the story, but please keep in mind that we have two witnesses to the event who both agree that Bill was the one who told the client that she had ugly children.<\/p>\n

Now that you have a basic understanding of the \u201cpoisoning the well\u201d fallacy, let\u2019s return to Debi. Remember that Debi has just finished telling reader Linda that it is her duty to obediently serve her husband whether she likes him or not.<\/p>\n

Women who have difficulties in their marriages usually follow their feelings and just react. But you must stop trusting your hurt responses or the advice you\u00a0receive\u00a0from\u00a0the\u00a0world, for today\u2019s media communicates a worldview that is skewed at best.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here Debi tells women that they can\u2019t trust their feelings and they shouldn\u2019t trust the advice they\u00a0receive\u00a0from the world. Your friend tells you your husband is abusive? You can\u2019t trust that! A counselor tells you you\u2019re codependent? That\u2019s just the world talking! Ignore it! Sadly, this sort of thing is all too common in fundamentalism and conservative evangelicalism, and it allows pastors and people like Debi to keep their followers from looking beyond their insular world for information by creating and fostering inherent distrust of any other information.<\/p>\n

And on the next page, Debi does it again:<\/p>\n

Now, before we go any further, we must first consider a pertinent matter. You must come to terms with the fact that the biblical well from which I would have you drink this living water has already been put off limits in your mind by timid Bible teachers who have themselves never tasted the gift of a heavenly marriage.<\/p>\n

There are many books written by men, \u201cscholars,\u201d that undermine the beauty of a woman\u2019s help meet position. They do so by casting doubt on the Bible itself. They talk in elaborate and \u201clearned\u201d terms about \u201cthe original languages\u201d and the \u201ccultural settings\u201d in which the words of scripture were written. \u2026 [They would] block [the] way to the well of water that produces heavenly marriages.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Debi is warning her readers that there are Christians out there, including Biblical scholars who use big fancy words, who will argue that the Bible says something different about women\u2019s roles. Debi is\u00a0preemptively\u00a0informing her readers that those scholars are wrong<\/em>, and that they are out to mislead women and keep them from obtaining \u201cheavenly marriages.\u201d<\/p>\n

And once again, this is something common in fundamentalist and conservative evangelical circles. As an evangelical child, for example, I was taught that \u201cliberal Christians\u201d were clueless dupes at best and cunning\u00a0villains\u00a0out to destroy God\u2019s truth at worst. In this way, fundamentalist and conservative evangelical pastors work to make sure their followers view the words and arguments of progressive Christians and Bible scholars as\u00a0treacherous songs of a siren<\/a>\u00a0to be avoided at all costs. In other words, they work to ensure that their followers will not even listen to,\u00a0<\/em>much less\u00a0consider,the arguments of progressive Christians and Bible scholars.<\/p>\n

See, Debi knows that the ideas that she is putting forward compete with other ideas, and that her voice is only one among many, both in society at large and also within Christianity. In order to make sure that her readers listen to her and not to these other voices, she poisons the well<\/em>. Her goal is to make sure that when her readers hear other ideas and opinions they will say \u201cwe were warned against you, and taught to see you as the false prophet you are.\u201d In other words, Debi is not simply stating that she knows there are other arguments and she thinks they are wrong. Rather, she is laying the groundwork to ensure that her readers will not even be willing to listen to<\/em> those other arguments. And in this way, she is seeking to create a captive audience, an audience willing to listen only to her, an audience that will immediately reject any counter-arguments without even offering them a hearing.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Debi knows that the ideas that she is putting forward compete with other ideas, and that her voice is only one among many, both in society at large and also within Christianity. In order to make sure that her readers listen to her and not to these other voices, she has to poison the well. Her goal is to make sure that when her readers hear other ideas and opinions they will say “we were warned against you, and taught to see you as the false prophet you are.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[259],"class_list":["post-11646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-created-to-be-his-help-meet"],"yoast_head":"\nCTBHHM: In Which Debi Poisons the Well<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Debi knows that the ideas that she is putting forward compete with other ideas, and that her voice is only one among many, both in society at large and also within Christianity. In order to make sure that her readers listen to her and not to these other voices, she has to poison the well. Her goal is to make sure that when her readers hear other ideas and opinions they will say "we were warned against you, and taught to see you as the false prophet you are."\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/01\/ctbhhm-in-which-debi-poisons-the-well.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"CTBHHM: In Which Debi Poisons the Well\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Debi knows that the ideas that she is putting forward compete with other ideas, and that her voice is only one among many, both in society at large and also within Christianity. In order to make sure that her readers listen to her and not to these other voices, she has to poison the well. Her goal is to make sure that when her readers hear other ideas and opinions they will say "we were warned against you, and taught to see you as the false prophet you are."\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/01\/ctbhhm-in-which-debi-poisons-the-well.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Love, Joy, Feminism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-01-04T09:47:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-01-17T04:04:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/01\/ctbhhm-in-which-debi-poisons-the-well.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/01\/ctbhhm-in-which-debi-poisons-the-well.html\",\"name\":\"CTBHHM: In Which Debi Poisons the Well\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-01-04T09:47:22+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-01-17T04:04:36+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\"},\"description\":\"Debi knows that the ideas that she is putting forward compete with other ideas, and that her voice is only one among many, both in society at large and also within Christianity. In order to make sure that her readers listen to her and not to these other voices, she has to poison the well. Her goal is to make sure that when her readers hear other ideas and opinions they will say \\\"we were warned against you, and taught to see you as the false prophet you are.\\\"\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/01\/ctbhhm-in-which-debi-poisons-the-well.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/01\/ctbhhm-in-which-debi-poisons-the-well.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/01\/ctbhhm-in-which-debi-poisons-the-well.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"CTBHHM: In Which Debi Poisons the Well\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/\",\"name\":\"Love, Joy, Feminism\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\",\"name\":\"Libby Anne\",\"description\":\"Libby Anne grew up in a large evangelical homeschool family highly involved in the Christian Right. College turned her world upside down, and she is today an atheist, a feminist, and a progressive. She blogs about leaving religion, her experience with the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements, the detrimental effects of the \\\"purity culture,\\\" the contradictions of conservative politics, and the importance of feminism.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/author\/libby\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"CTBHHM: In Which Debi Poisons the Well","description":"Debi knows that the ideas that she is putting forward compete with other ideas, and that her voice is only one among many, both in society at large and also within Christianity. In order to make sure that her readers listen to her and not to these other voices, she has to poison the well. Her goal is to make sure that when her readers hear other ideas and opinions they will say \"we were warned against you, and taught to see you as the false prophet you are.\"","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/01\/ctbhhm-in-which-debi-poisons-the-well.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"CTBHHM: In Which Debi Poisons the Well","og_description":"Debi knows that the ideas that she is putting forward compete with other ideas, and that her voice is only one among many, both in society at large and also within Christianity. In order to make sure that her readers listen to her and not to these other voices, she has to poison the well. Her goal is to make sure that when her readers hear other ideas and opinions they will say \"we were warned against you, and taught to see you as the false prophet you are.\"","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/01\/ctbhhm-in-which-debi-poisons-the-well.html","og_site_name":"Love, Joy, Feminism","article_published_time":"2013-01-04T09:47:22+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-01-17T04:04:36+00:00","author":"Libby Anne","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Libby Anne","Est. reading time":"7 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/01\/ctbhhm-in-which-debi-poisons-the-well.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/01\/ctbhhm-in-which-debi-poisons-the-well.html","name":"CTBHHM: In Which Debi Poisons the Well","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-01-04T09:47:22+00:00","dateModified":"2013-01-17T04:04:36+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2"},"description":"Debi knows that the ideas that she is putting forward compete with other ideas, and that her voice is only one among many, both in society at large and also within Christianity. In order to make sure that her readers listen to her and not to these other voices, she has to poison the well. Her goal is to make sure that when her readers hear other ideas and opinions they will say \"we were warned against you, and taught to see you as the false prophet you are.\"","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/01\/ctbhhm-in-which-debi-poisons-the-well.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/01\/ctbhhm-in-which-debi-poisons-the-well.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/01\/ctbhhm-in-which-debi-poisons-the-well.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"CTBHHM: In Which Debi Poisons the Well"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/","name":"Love, Joy, Feminism","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2","name":"Libby Anne","description":"Libby Anne grew up in a large evangelical homeschool family highly involved in the Christian Right. College turned her world upside down, and she is today an atheist, a feminist, and a progressive. She blogs about leaving religion, her experience with the Christian Patriarchy and Quiverfull movements, the detrimental effects of the \"purity culture,\" the contradictions of conservative politics, and the importance of feminism.","sameAs":["http:\/\/patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/author\/libby"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/845"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}