It’s not quite breaking news, but I just came across this article in NY Times Sunday Review and thought it was worth sharing. It’s a great reminder of the snapshot view we get of our close acquaintances and how we can never quit predict who will have a change of heart about their deepest prejudices: Sunday Review: A Catholic Classmate Rethinks His Religion Read more
As I wrote in my previous post, the stress on the importance of homemaking in evangelical-fundamentalist culture can produce a really grounded, comforting and peaceful life. But at what cost does that comfort come? One of the main problems with the evangelical-fundamentalist value of homemaking is that it’s inextricably tied to femininity. To be a homemaker is to be a godly woman. To be a godly woman is to be a homemaker. They’re inseparable. This is a problem for a... Read more
A famous tagline from the film Paradise Recovered, uttered by skeptical hippie Gabriel, goes like this: The point on the ideological spectrum at which far-left bohemians and right-wing fundamentalists meet is a health food store. There’s really something to that. Homesteading, home birth, homeschooling, home-grown food, and homemaking are all crossover cultural practices that appeal to anyone disillusioned with the predictable rotation of urban or suburban life. There’s something really appealing about living close to nature, eating whole foods, saving... Read more
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to address several aspects of evangelical-fundamentalist life that have good, bad and ugly sides. I’m getting ready to do a longer series on the aesthetics of evangelical-fundamentalist culture, and this is a warm up for the big issues like modesty, patriarchy and homophobia. When I say aesthetics, I mean the actual pictures that evangelical-fundamentalists have in mind when they distinguish good from evil. Although I’m sure they would vigorously deny the superficiality of... Read more
I love doing yard work. Well, not so much yard work as forest-work. I’ve been clearing out the woods behind my house for several weeks now, and am seeing some promising results. I’m so excited to have a little space to myself by the stream. Clearing out a forest is hard work, especially since this one has been neglected for at least a decade. I’ve been hauling around fallen logs, snapping sticks and burning them, pulling out ancient weeds and garbage... Read more
Melissa at Permission to Live has just completed a phenomenal series about her journey with her partner out of the neat boxes of fundamentalist gender roles. (This is all I can say while avoiding spoilers!) Read it yourself here: Unwrapping the Onion: Introduction The story was also picked up and summarized on Jezebel. Libby Anne of Love, Joy, Feminism begins her Raised Quiverfull project today. I am one of nine contributors to the detailed Q&A she compiled. All of our... Read more
This video was too good not to share for anybody with experience in Christian purity culture. My church actually did ban hand-holding and hugs between the sexes, and was suspicious of too much eye contact! The Colbert Report (The Word): Gateway Hug Kissing and hugging are the last stop before reaching Groin Central Station, so it is important to ban all the things that lead to the things that lead to sex. Read more
Like most fundamentalist churches, mine taught that wives were commanded by God to give their husbands all the sex they wanted. Technically, husbands had to do the same for wives, but it would have been a strange, transgressive woman who wanted more sex than her husband. (Jonalyn Fincher of Her.meneutics and I disagree.) The rationale behind this command comes from 1 Corinthians 7:4: The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath... Read more
My last two posts, and indeed all my thinking on the subject has led me to some conclusions about the ways that Christian Patriarchy and purity culture enable and even celebrate emotional incest. The following are the cliff notes: Christian patriarchy turns marriage from a relationship to an institution, effectively reversing the historical trend from business partnerships and heir insurance to bonds between two free agents based on love. Evangelical culture says that marriage takes three: you, your spouse, and God.... Read more
I have already written about the ways that growing up in fundamentalist-evangelical culture made me especially vulnerable to covert incest from my father. There is a flip side to the father-daughter craze in Christian patriarchy, though. I am here to bring you two stories: and one of them isn’t about me! In what would have been my high school years, a miracle happened. Sven, my best friend from my early childhood, came back to my church. We were fourteen. We... Read more
The Phoenix and Olive Branch
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