So, I have a theory about this whole idea that women want love, but men want respect.
In short: the people who promote this notion use the word ‘respect’ to mean something different to what I think it means.
If you’re new to this whole ‘love vs respect’ controversy, it’s easy to find in Christian circles, thanks to a popular marriage book by Emerson Eggerichs. The title? Love and Respect.
Continue reading Why Love & Respect’s CHAIRS acronym isn’t about genuine respect
This post was first published in tandem with the 2021 spring issue of CBE’s Mutuality magazine, “Making Peace With Paul.”
Did you know Paul had a prodigal daughter? I don’t mean ‘prodigal’ in its literal sense of ‘wasteful.’ Rather, her actions broached a level of hurt and family disgrace similar to the prodigal son in Jesus’s parable.
And, like the loving father who welcomed his son home, Paul longed for restoration and responded to his daughter with immense compassion.
You might wonder how I can say this, given that Paul never married or had his own children. But this daughter I’m referring to was not an individual person. She was the church in Corinth.
A few months ago, I realized Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians was essentially one of loving concern. Not only that, but its later chapters are like that of a father seeking to restore relationship with his prodigal daughter.
Again, how can I say this? Because in 2 Corinthians, I see allusions to one of the harshest laws in Deuteronomy concerning women, sex, and virginity.
Before I go on, I should warn that the laws I’m about to discuss are extremely violent. However, I believe reading Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians through this lens, thinking about what he says and—more to the point—what he doesn’t say, gives insight into his character as a man of compassion, humility and grace.
Because, despite the violence in Deuteronomy, there’s no violence in Paul’s letter.
Continue reading Paul’s letter to his prodigal daughter (and the paradigm shift hidden within 2 Corinthians 10–13)
I’m not sure who exactly out there might be looking for a theatre play about the book of Esther, but if you are and you’re reading this, please do get in touch in with me. Because I’ve written one and I’d love for it to be performed. It’s titled: I Will Hide My Name.
For people who don’t know the book of Esther: Haman, the highest official in Ancient Persia, interviews a Jewish prisoner, who appeals to him to spare her life and that of her people. But why is this prisoner wearing the robes of royalty? And does Haman even realise?
For people who already know the book of Esther: Before approaching the king, Esther appeals to Haman to revoke his decree to annihilate her people. He scorns her petitions for peace and only too late does he realise she’s the queen.
Continue reading I wrote a one act stage-play based on the biblical book of Esther – wanna read it?
I was recently listening to a compelling sermon by Austin Channing Brown, that was all about Rizpah. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, she’s a woman in the Old Testament who undertook a months-long one-woman silent protest. Her actions, recorded in 2 Samuel 21, eventually persuaded King David to bring an end to something which he had commanded. (If you want to hear the sermon, it’s on episode 2 of the Evolving Faith Podcast.)
Brown’s sermon focussed on speaking truth to power and she applied Rizpah’s story to racial justice today. But as I sat and thought through Rizpah’s actions, I realised they may have been even more far-reaching, even in her own time.
And while I’m yet to visit the library and validate my suspicions here, I’m now willing to bet that Rizpah’s protest changed the law.
Twice.
Allow me to explain.
And CONTENT WARNING this gets a bit gory.
Continue reading Wait, what if Rizpah’s protest against King David shaped the laws of Deuteronomy?
I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen some pretty horrific things passing through my social media feed the last few weeks. And I am not OK.
I’m not going to re-share the relevant images or specifics, but I want to pause for a moment and talk about what to make these stories. Because their haunting horror isn’t easing and I need to find a way to get through my grief and sense of helplessness.
Content warning: Non-specific mentions of martyrdom, suffering and ‘thoughts and prayers’.
So, I saw someone asking why white Christians were repenting of the sins their ancestors committed against people of colour.
And I want to write about this.
Caveats: I’m mainly going to talk to how I understand the Old Testament, because the Old Testament was being quoted and it’s something I’m familiar with as a Christian. But just because I’m taking this angle, that doesn’t mean it’s the most relevant or comprehensive angle; I just want to demonstrate how this particular argument doesn’t stack up.
In short, the argument was this: if we’re all responsible for what we do ourselves, not what other people do, then white people shouldn’t have to apologise for the racism of other white people. See, for example, the principle of individual responsibility promoted in Ezekiel 18:19-20.
However, I think this fails to appreciate the context of Ezekiel and the attitudes the book was responding to.
So let’s dive in.
Content warning, this gets political and I mention an Old Testament clobber passage. Also, I don’t have space here to get into why bad things happen and people suffer; Ezekiel clearly had a concept of divine retribution and I’m going to roll with that worldview for now, because it was also implicit in the Tweet I read. Continue reading White Christians: don’t quote Ezekiel to duck responsibility for past and present racism
I want to talk about something that’s been on my mind, particularly since the #metoo hashtag started trending back in 2017.
The sharing of stories is undoubtedly one of the most important things in breaking open and exposing systemic abuse. Grooming frequently brings survivors to believe that they’re the only one it’s happened to, or that what happened was their fault. When stories are shared, that lie is shown for what it is.
And yet, telling one’s story doesn’t guarantee that a person will be heard and supported in the way that they need; nor does it guarantee that justice will happen as a result of them speaking up. Meanwhile, testifying can turn a witness into a harassment target, as happened with Christine Blasey Ford when she spoke about Brett Kavanaugh.
So we have this dilemma: sharing our stories can be powerful and important, yet it can also come with huge risk, especially when trying to shine a light on systemic abuse.
I have no doubt that survivors are aware of this risk. For many, it’s why they don’t disclose or only do so after a long delay. And yet, what does a survivor do when they witness the great outpouring of story-sharing that took place in 2017? What do they make of the high profiles of women like Christine Blasey Ford, Miriam Haley and Jessica Mann? Is it now possible to hope to be believed if a survivor does share their story?
I grant you, the odds of being believed are probably far better than they’ve ever been historically; but high profile cases, even those considered to be successes, don’t guarantee comfort or closure for any survivor in the event that they share their story. Now some survivors have already written about why they didn’t share their metoo stories, but it still troubles me that survivors might underestimate the risk and the cost of disclosure. Continue reading Currency for closure? On vulnerability and storycraft in a #metoo world
CONTENT NOTE: This post discusses the dynamics of domestic abuse and victim-blaming.
A few years ago I was volunteering for a charity that helped women facing domestic abuse. I remember my team leader explaining how survivors sometimes defend themselves with violence – but that this creates its own problems.
She wasn’t finding fault with survivors; she was explaining how if a survivor acts aggressively towards her abuser (or attempts to), then that one incident may be held over her as leverage, regardless of how serious the woman’s actions actually were. Such decontextualisation and blaming is, of course, an abuse tactic, aiming to reverse the victim and perpetrator in the eyes of onlookers (e.g. police). It’s also an example of what the acronym ‘DARVO’ is getting at: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.
I was reminded of this conversation more recently as I read about an instance of spousal domestic violence that seemed to fit this pattern. It was in James Dobson’s 1983 book Love Must Be Tough.
And I have many, many issues with how he used this example. Continue reading On Dobson, domestic violence and DARVO dynamics
A few weeks ago I had a long sit down and pondered what I blog about and how I categorise it.
One of the difficulties my readers face is that one week I’ll be posting something light and reflective, and the next I’ll be delving deep into toxic teachings and abusive practices. With such variety (volatility?) in subject matter and tone, I realised I wasn’t making it easy for people to make decisions on what to read.
So last year I introduced four categories: sunlight, firelight, moonlight and starlight. Sunlight was the uncontroversial, positively-oriented stuff that would generally be easy to read. Firelight was more stretching; it was more likely to challenge long-standing assumptions and it discussed how/why bad things are bad. Then there was the moonlight category. I reserved this for posts about the wildly unorthodox, the not-safe-for-work topics, and serious violence. After all, this blog started as a take-down of Fifty Shades of Grey.
The last category, starlight, was a wildcard, collating posts about my life and reflections — often as a blogger. This post, in case you were wondering, is starlight.
The framework helped me focus how I blogged. For example, if I wrote about hope, I might have a sunlight post discussing how God created us to have our own agency, a firelight post on how penal substitutionary atonement is problematic, and then a moonlight post carefully examining teachings about hell.
And to begin with, I thought that I’d be able to do the same with purity. But now I don’t think I can. Or at least, not when it comes to virginity. Continue reading I’ve learnt that I can’t blog about virginity, without discussing violence
There are a fair few strange laws concerning sex and marriage in the Old Testament books of law.
Problem is, whilst some Christians see much of the Old Testament as not relevant at all, there are others who tend to look for modern application. And if you’re in this second camp, there are all manner of questions to be answered about which laws describe the past and which prescribe principles for ethical living — and how exactly these translate to the modern day.
My personal belief is that none of the Old Testament laws are either wholly prescriptive or wholly descriptive; I think they all reflect their time (descriptive) and they all have something to teach us (prescriptive). Well, to varying degrees, obviously, but I’m not prepared to write off any of them as wholly irrelevant relics. And maybe you agree or maybe you don’t. Either way, it’s fair to say that some Christians are inclined to interpret prescriptively and when they do, they’re influenced by what each law is actually talking about.
Maybe that seems so obvious it shouldn’t need to be said — of course laws about the priesthood, warfare or slavery are going to be taken less literally than laws about putting up safety rails on a roof or not cursing the deaf. Why? For the simple reason that modern Western societies are structured very differently to ancient Israel.
But here’s the issue: what if there are laws designed for ancient societal structures, but which mainly use timeless language? Laws like that risk being interpreted and applied more literally by modern Christians, when they shouldn’t be.
This is what I think happens with Deuteronomy 22:13-30.
CONTENT NOTE: this post includes discussion of sexual abuse, ‘honour’ violence and rape myths. Continue reading Honour, not sex. Why applying Deuteronomy 22 is more complex than you thought. And why this matters.
Deuteronomy 22:13-21 is one of the scarier passages for impressionable young Christian women, as it seems to hold up pre-marital sex as a crime punishable by death. Even for married women, such as myself, the passage can be puzzling: hymeneal blood following intercourse is a notoriously unreliable proof of virginity.
Well, having just published 2,600 words explaining this law (and that doesn’t count the footnotes), I thought I’d give the short version. Here it is in fewer than 500 words:
Continue reading How I used to interpret Deuteronomy 22:13-21, and how I explain it now (in fewer than 500 words)
There was some justifiable outrage recently when rapper T.I. said that he had a gynaecologist annually test that his daughter’s hymen was still intact.
Leaving aside the brutal, if not fatal, penalties that women may suffer even today if they lose their virginity in a socially unacceptable manner, T.I.’s attitude is reminiscent of Old Testament times.
Or is it?
CONTENT WARNING for discussion of murder and toxic purity culture.
Deuteronomy 22:13-21 is one of the scarier passages for impressionable young Christian women, as it SEEMS to hold up pre-marital sex as a crime punishable by death. Even for married women, such as myself, the passage can be puzzling: hymeneal blood following intercourse is a notoriously unreliable proof of virginity.
So, do we:
In case you hadn’t guessed, this post is all about option 3 and it focuses strongly on the ‘evidence’ of the bedsheets. (If you want a summary of this post in fewer than 500 words, click here. Also, for discussion of the wider themes of this passage, I strongly recommend checking out Five things I’d explain to a teenage girl if she asked about Deuteronomy 22:13-21 (assuming she has the courage to).)
Continue reading About that virginity test in Deuteronomy 22: it’s not what you think
A video of this post is also available on Facebook.
The middle of the night is not usually a good time to do things other than sleep. Lack of sleep makes us tired and most of us don’t get to snooze during the day. That said, sometimes our sense of nocturnal fun means we make exceptions.
Something you’ll hear me say is that marriage doesn’t give spouses a right to sex, but rather a right to approach each other for sex. So, in theory, sex in the middle of the night is on the cards.
Problem is — if your spouse is asleep, how do you know if it’s OK to have sex with them?
Well, for starters it is never ok to have penetrative sex with someone whilst that person is asleep!
Not even if that person is your spouse.
Continue reading On consent for sex in the middle of the night
When it comes to sex, “consensual” isn’t the same as “no mistakes.”
Sure, consensual means no big, life-changing mistakes. It means no clearly and easily avoidable mistakes. It means avoiding all the nasty stuff like:
People talk about “active, informed and enthusiastic” consent because it goes a long way to prevent the above. Those kinds of things aren’t mistakes, they’re down too bad consent.
But even when you stay well clear of all that, even when your partner is a decent human being who would never want to violate or harm you — that doesn’t mean everything always goes to plan. Maybe an unwelcome memory rears its ugly head. Maybe your body starts feeling wildly uncomfortable when you didn’t think it would. Maybe you didn’t shut the door and the cat walks in.
Mistakes will happen; the question is, what do you when you realise it’s not working? And do you learn from your mistakes?
Continue reading Consent means communicating if something’s not going to plan (in a context of mutual trust)
So, Sheila Gregoire came to the UK on holiday and WE MET UP!
We had a great chat over ice cream and it was wonderful hearing her vision for her platform and her take on recent events in the marriage/sex blogging world.
So, if you’ve not heard of her, she runs To Love, Honour & Vacuum.
Her topic is sex (for married, Christian, heterosexual couples) and she finds that a lot of people come to her blog for sex and begin to deconstruct a number of their (false) complementarian beliefs. Which is an absolutely fabulous work.
Continue reading I met Sheila Gregoire! And we talked about sex, consent and blogging over ice cream.