Jonalyn Fincher's Blog, page 4

How to “Turn On”

If a dating couple has spent years denying physical pleasure in their relationship (due to the purity movement), once they are married and “allowed” to have conjugal relations, how does one lower that wall they have built?

If reading via email, click here to watch.

Click here for week one on being mismatched in lovemaking.

Click here for week two on abuse recovery.

Click here for week three on purity kids and sexual disfunction.

What’s this summer series all about?

This summer, I’ll be sharing short videos taken from my two hour Emerald City interview on “Shame, Intimacy and Sex Ed” with Christian sex therapist, Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers. You’ve already seen her at RubySlippers’ posts and interviews. See part one.

Because of Dr. Sellers practical concern that Christians understand that God created erotic desires, Tina is one of the best sources I’ve found in helping me navigate the pillow talk between me and my husband.

Dr. Sellers is a wife, mother, professor, founder of ThankGodForSex.org, certified sex therapist, and licensed family and marriage therapist. Those last two are a dynamic duo of credentials that are rarely seen together. And the lack of professionals who practice both family/marriage and sex therapies is a big problem for those of us who want thriving marriages and thriving sex lives. Thank God for Tina!  I particularly love the way she lives a sexual intimacy that she teaches (My Love List for My Husband . . . And Why Gratefulness is Good for the Heart). Follow her blog and thoughts @TinaSSellers.

I will share a new video every week this summer! Watch the 2-5 minute videos that seem helpful to you, leave the rest.

Editor’s Note: I just received word from Dr. Tina that a couple of openings in her September Passion for Life Couple’s Intimacy Retreat in Whistler British Columbia Sept 24-27, 2015 JUST became available. Openings are rare. If anyone is interested in joining her and other couples committed to learning  more about sexual intimacy, check out the retreat information here. 

How to Make Love Without Having Sex

“The bottom line is if love is not made, pleasure is not shared, and connection is not increased, we have missed the point of the gift of sexuality.”

Today’s interview with Dr. Sellers is one of the most useful suggestions for a passionate, whole sex life that I’ve ever found. And at barely three minutes long, it’s safe to say an excellent return for your time. Let me know in the comments what you’d add to Dr. Sellers’ list of ideas for increasing pleasure, connection, and love in your sex life (anonymity is allowed!)

If reading in email, click here to watch.

And don’t miss our earlier videos. If you find your own history, needs, and questions talked about in the below links and want to go further, set up an eMentoring appointment with Jonalyn today.

Click here for week one on being mismatched in lovemaking.

Click here for week two on abuse recovery.

Click here for week three on purity kids and sexual/spiritual abuse.

What’s this summer series all about?

This summer, I’ll be sharing short videos taken from my two hour Emerald City interview on “Shame, Intimacy and Sex Ed” with Christian sex therapist, Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers. You’ve already seen her at RubySlippers’ posts and interviews. See part one.

Because of Dr. Sellers practical concern that Christians understand that God created erotic desires, Tina is one of the best sources I’ve found in helping me navigate the pillow talk between me and my husband.

Dr. Sellers is a wife, mother, professor, founder of ThankGodForSex.org, certified sex therapist, and licensed family and marriage therapist. Those last two are a dynamic duo of credentials that are rarely seen together. And the lack of professionals who practice both family/marriage and sex therapies is a big problem for those of us who want thriving marriages and thriving sex lives. Thank God for Tina!  I particularly love the way she lives a sexual intimacy that she teaches (My Love List for My Husband . . . And Why Gratefulness is Good for the Heart). Follow her blog and thoughts @TinaSSellers.

I will share a new video every week this summer! Watch the 2-5 minute videos that seem helpful to you, leave the rest.

The Link Between Purity Kids and Sexual Dysfunction

Spiritual and sexual abuse symptoms run along parallel lines. These are the kids who signed the contracts.

Listen to Dr. Sellers’ story of realizing that teen years in purity culture lead to sexual dysfunction in marriage (and her hopeful ideas and recommended reading on how to overcome dysfunction).

In Freedom Builders, we often hear our friends recount their families or friends asking them to “pipe down” about spiritual abuse, or shame-based cultures like Dr. Sellers mentions. No blood was shed, no bruises on your arms, pipe down! Since there was no physical coercion (though, often, there was) you just need to forgive and move on.

Our video today explains why we need to treat shame-based cultures and sexual abuse with similar caution and focus on recovery. The symptoms are the same, and these two kinds of abuse often come twined together.

If reading in email, click here to watch.

Click here for week one on being mismatched in lovemaking. Click here for week two on abuse recovery.

What’s this summer series all about?

This summer, I’ll be sharing short videos taken from my two hour Emerald City interview on “Shame, Intimacy and Sex Ed” with Christian sex therapist, Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers. You’ve already seen her at RubySlippers’ posts and interviews. See part one.

Because of Dr. Sellers practical concern that Christians understand that God created erotic desires, Tina is one of the best sources I’ve found in helping me navigate the pillow talk between me and my husband.

Dr. Sellers is a wife, mother, professor, founder of ThankGodForSex.org, certified sex therapist, and licensed family and marriage therapist. Those last two are a dynamic duo of credentials that are rarely seen together. And the lack of professionals who practice both family/marriage and sex therapies is a big problem for those of us who want thriving marriages and thriving sex lives. Thank God for Tina!  I particularly love the way she lives a sexual intimacy that she teaches (My Love List for My Husband . . . And Why Gratefulness is Good for the Heart). Follow her blog and thoughts @TinaSSellers.

I will share a new video every week this summer! Watch the 2-5 minute videos that seem helpful to you, leave the rest.

I was abused. How can I feel safe and intimate in my sex life?

Welcome to week two in Summer of Sexuality. Click to watch week one.

“We try to find some way to have more control over what happened to us.”

I get so much hope knowing that sexual abuse survivors can experience free and dignified sex lives. Especially when I hear it from someone who personally had a hand in hundreds of real life success stories. If you haven’t been sexually abused, please tuck this video away for someone you know who might find hope in Dr. Tina’s practical, practiced wisdom.

This week, she shares:

Why healing from sexual abuse takes what sometimes seems like endless time and focus.
Potentially harmful ways survivors might try to mentally cope with abuse.
What kind of professional therapy will be most helpful.

If reading in email, click here to watch.

Next week, watch Dr. Tina tell the story of how her therapy students surprised her with their stories of a shame-based purity culture leading to their own sexual disfunction. (You won’t miss it if you enter your email to subscribe at the top right of this page.)

What’s this summer series all about?

This summer, I’ll be sharing short videos taken from my two hour Emerald City interview on “Shame, Intimacy and Sex Ed” with Christian sex therapist, Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers. You’ve already seen her at RubySlippers’ posts and interviews. See part one.

Because of Dr. Sellers practical concern that Christians understand that God created erotic desires, Tina is one of the best sources I’ve found in helping me navigate the pillow talk between me and my husband.

Dr. Sellers is a wife, mother, professor, founder of ThankGodForSex.org, certified sex therapist, and licensed family and marriage therapist. Those last two are a dynamic duo of credentials that are rarely seen together. And the lack of professionals who practice both family/marriage and sex therapies is a big problem for those of us who want thriving marriages and thriving sex lives. Thank God for Tina!  I particularly love the way she lives a sexual intimacy that she teaches (My Love List for My Husband . . . And Why Gratefulness is Good for the Heart). Follow her blog and thoughts @TinaSSellers.

I will share a new video every week this summer! Watch the 2-5 minute videos that seem helpful to you, leave the rest.

Summer of Sexuality with Dr. Tina Schermer Sellars

Perhaps you were raised to think God and sex were two subjects that should never mix. Perhaps you thought (still think?) that God is a little embarrassed by erotic things, by physical pleasure. Maybe you’ve started to rethink some of the *spiritually abusive ideas you were raised believing.

Maybe you’ve found yourself wanting to ask questions like:

Is “duty sex” ever healthy? Like, if the husband wants sex, then wife doesn’t, is it ever good to just “give in”?
Are men really more turned on by sight and women by touch? How would you counter this idea?
I was raised deprived of physical touch from the opposite sex. How do I set boundaries? How do I know what’s normal?
In a “men-are-initiators-women-are-submitters” Christian environment, the wife is expected to be ready and willing at any moment to fulfill her husband’s desire, eventually making sex a duty, a chore to mark off the check list. How can the wife have a voice in the bedroom?
If a dating couple has spent years denying physical pleasure in their relationship (due to the purity movement), once they are married and “allowed” to have conjugal relations, how does one lower that wall they have built?
When does a man’s desire for role-play border on objectification in the bed room or are there no rules in the bedroom?
How do you notice and call out shame (without shaming) in our marriage or dating life?
I think I was raised with sexual silence. How can I break the shame I feel about being silent about power and pleasure in my own body?
What would you suggest to parents who come from very sexually constricted or repressed backgrounds so they can help kids understand sexuality with freedom and boundaries
I am a survivor of sexual abuse. What can I do to experience safety and intimacy in my sexual expression?

This summer, I’ll be sharing short videos taken from my two hour Emerald City interview on “Shame, Intimacy and Sex Ed” with Christian sex therapist, Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers. You’ve already seen her at RubySlippers’ posts and interviews. Dr. Sellers is a wife, mother, professor, founder of ThankGodForSex.org, certified sex therapist, and licensed family and marriage therapist. Those last two are a dynamic duo of credentials that are rarely seen together. And the lack of professionals who practice both family/marriage and sex therapies is a big problem for those of us who want thriving marriages and thriving sex lives. Thank God for Tina!  I particularly love the way she lives a sexual intimacy that she teaches (My Love List for My Husband . . . And Why Gratefulness is Good for the Heart).

Because of Dr. Sellers practical concern that Christians understand that God created erotic desires, Tina is one of the best sources I’ve found in helping me navigate the pillow talk between me and my husband. Follow her blog and thoughts @TinaSSellers.

This summer you can look forward to a new video every week at RubySlippers.org! Watch the 2-5 minute videos that seem helpful to you, leave the rest.

While I work closely with the growing group that’s signing up for my “God, the Bible, and the Gay Christian” eCourse, those of you who are hoping for a summer series here at RubySlippers won’t be left hanging.  I’ll be available for direction questions in the comments, otherwise, I’ll look forward to reconnecting with you all in September.

It’s not too late to sign up for “God, the Bible, and the Gay Christian”. Learn more. Register here.

A sneak peak at what the Summer of Sexuality will be like. In three minutes, watch Dr. Sellars answer my question, “What about Role Play or Being MisMatched in Lovemaking?” It’s the old question of different sexual drives. Watch out for the warning of what is unfair in the bedroom.

If reading in email view here.

*Spiritual abusers employ emotional, physical or sexual abuse but justify their behavior with God or the Bible. For example, “The Bible says the marriage bed is undefiled so that means we can have sex any way I want.” Spiritual abuse can be intentional or unintentional. A spiritually abusive community (church, family, working environment) is a religious community running on the high octane of shame. Learn more and recover your soul here.

Bra Snapping and Violence

When I was in middle school some boys liked to snapped girls’ bras. I

In those pre-adolescent years, bra straps were new, clear lines, literally, on our shoulders and backs broadcasting that something unseen, something sensual, something sexual was growing within us.  And the boys thought grabbing and snapping those straps was a lot of fun.

Bra snapping reminds me of an initiation rite. The snap stung, but it also proved recognition that a boy was noticing something different about you. Could I call it a faint whiff of flattery? If so, the stronger scent of dominance, objectification, male strength over a girl’s unprotected back lingered longer.

Once, among my friends, the bra strapping went further to itching powder. The boys were pouring it down girl’s backs as we sat unsuspectingly in front of them. I was one of their victims. And the dominance felt stronger than any flattery. My red, raw back compounded the insult.

It might seem foolish to blame a girl instead of blaming the boy who snaps the bra, but in a recent story, the girl stands up for herself, punches the boy and lands in the principle’s office.  We might side with the administrator and her teacher and move to fault her. Excessive violence. Disproportionate response.

But is it?

American society has bought into the notion that violence is always evil.  I hear more and more people suggest that war, capital punishment, the 2nd amendment right to defend ourselves, police force are mostly wrong, usually evil, often carnal or just selfish. It’s more than a movement of non-violence, it seems to me to be a belief that peace means no blood was shed. But peace, in Scripture, means much more than outlawing violence. Peace means putting things to right, at least the Biblical peace, the shalom people love to talk about.

Now, being raised Quaker, there is a persuasive and biblical power to passive resistance and even to pacifism.  But, as Christians, there must always be the resistance part. Our Scriptures require us to resist all the work that the Evil One is doing, including violence to ourselves (if you think the turn the other cheek passage disagrees, check this out “Jesus’ Third Way“). And we even have Biblical passages where God seems to bless violence as the only solution to a system or person of evil. The same Jesus who said “All who take up the sword shall perish by the sword” (Matt 26:52) also said “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. ” In other words, sometimes violence is the appropriate response to evil, sometimes it is not.

As you will see in the story below, the administrator focused on the girl’s responsive of violence rather than on the boy’s initial violence. Who is to blame here? Who is the victim? Something to think about further, “Can you be violent and also just?” I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments

The short story hails from Stuff Happens. Read it to get an idea of the pervasive problem of assuming children don’t need sexual privacy and protection and what this clever mother did in response.

A Boy at School Snapped Her Bra. What She Did Next is Gold.

The enduring question for me is “How many times should she have let him touch her?”

I want to thank S, a Freedom Builder, for sharing this example of powerful parenting, advocacy for victims, and serious concern for the subtle forms of violence that take place every day at school, the work place, the church, and our homes.

One final thought for you. S’s pre-teen daughter asked this poignant question after reading the story.

“How many times is too many times for the boy to snap her bra?” What a question to ask ourselves, to ask our teens. What would you say to your daughter or son?

S, a woman of practical wisdom, replied,

“ONE TIME is way, way too many. Tell him to stop, stand up, tell the teacher, and refuse to sit back down if the boy isn’t sent straight to the principal’s office.”

Would you take a moment to share this story with your teens or preteens. Perhaps it will help you begin a conversation with your daughters . . . and sons.

A Safe Place to Talk About Gay Marriage

The gay question has been on my mind for years. I have friends who are lesbian, gay, bi, intersexed and transgender. I grew up with some of them. Others have found me through Soulation. I will meet some them at the book table after speaking. They often wait until everyone else has left. And no wonder.

Exploring what the Bible says about gay Christians is one of the most volatile places in Christianity today. I’ve seen dangerous tactics and mud slinging on both sides. Not just from those we like to call “close-minded”, but even from those who claim to be open-minded and tolerant. No matter you current view, we don’t know how to talk about controversy, even the leaders among us, and so we have become afraid of bringing up the gay Christian question. Or we only discuss it with our tribe.

I’ve personally wondered where I can ask my questions without being judged by either side. Where can I hammer out my position on gay marriage with love, empathy, and integrity?

Christian fear has often won over Christian courage.

Five years ago, Dale and I wrote about the importance of talking with gay Christians in Coffee Shop Conversations (Zondervan, 2010). Because of these six pages, one famous evangelical speaker (whose names you’d recognized) refused to endorse our book. He told us, “I agree with you, I’d just lose too many donors if I endorsed you.”

Two years ago, we suggested Christians have conversations without rushing to point out sin with lesbian and gay neighbors on Moody’s Bible Radio program, Midday Connection. Two lesbians called in. We enjoyed a coffee shop style conversation with them. But, it was too much for several major radio stations who promptly dropped Midday Connection from their scheduling, the inevitable consequences for even touching on the gay Christian topic. Moody defended us, but also deleted the conversation from their archives. You can still hear it in our library here.

For the last two years, I’ve been asking key thinkers to weigh in on being gay and Christian, people who trust the Bible as the ultimate authority in their lives, people like Wesley Hill, a celibate gay evangelical professor and theologian, Candice Czubernat, a lesbian married, mother and Christian therapist. I was interested in hearing opposite sides of the spectrum. The interviews, many on video recording, are now cut and condensed and ready to share.

I’d like to invite you to join me for the premier eCourse “God, the Bible, and the Gay Christian” to learn the best sides of the arguments and develop your own position. You will hear from Bible believing pastors who disagree and still co-pastor together, like Kathy Escobar and Karl Wheeler of The Refuge in Denver, Colorado. You will hear from a mother and pastor who is raising a son in the south who doesn’t fit gender norms. You will hear from seasoned evangelicals who have watched the church shift in how it responds to and loves gay Christians. You will hear from a same-sex attracted woman who is now in a straight marriage. Here’s a 55 second video to give you a taste.

If reading in email, watch video here.

In teaching this eCourse, I will not be telling you what to think or how to vote, but I will be sharing my position, for the first time in years. If you’re curious but also concerned that perhaps Soulation is going liberal (or too conservative) on this issue, I invite you to email us so I might personally put your concerns to rest (mail at soulation dot org). Together, we’ll grow our own empathy and biblical faithfulness. We’ll raise questions. We’ll hear the best each argument has to offer and notice it’s weaknesses as well. We will emerge with better tools to navigate the conversation and debate no matter what position you end up holding.

Who can join? Mothers, Fathers, Pastors, Teachers, Small Group and Youth Leaders. Single, Married, Celibate, Gay, Straight. Anyone who follows Jesus and wants to find a safe place to talk about what it means to follow Jesus faithfully and be a gay Christians. Those on Side A (God blesses same sex marriage) and Side B (God reserves sexual intimacy for male/female marriage) are welcome (more on Side A and Side B). Those in the LGBT community welcome. Those who have no clue about how to even talk about the gay issue are welcome.  Our classroom will discuss in a private, confidential Facebook group.

What’s the time commitment? You decide how much you want to invest. I will lead each week’s discussion. If you only have five to ten minutes a week, you will be able to watch our weekly videos. If you have fifteen-twenty minutes a week, you will be able to read the discussion prompt and if you choose, comment. The videos for each week will be made available from June 1 – August 31 on a private website.

What books or whose positions will this class cover? Here’s a picture of some of what I’ve been reading the last few years in preparation for teaching this e-course. The rest are on my eReader. These books are NOT required reading, rather they are the background that will inform all our discussions as I interact with each of you. Any questions about these books, or the people writing them will be welcome. Other scholarly sources and positions will also be welcome in our discussions.

How do I sign up? Register here. The cost is $69. If you register before May 20th we’ll knock off $10. Please share the video above with any friends or family. Freedom Builders graduate members and Soulation Platinum Members may join at no cost and Gold Members may choose “God, the Bible, and the Gay Christian” as their free eCourse for the year. I’d love for you to sign up as a Member as your way to support our larger work while enjoying a free course. Member sign up here.

Class begins June 1. Last day to sign up will be June 12.

I hope you’ll take time to support a place where safety and spiritual growth are as highly held values as digging for truth. I look forward to what we will discover together.

I Don’t Want to Scare the Girls

In one of the nastier scenes between Edmund and Peter in C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Edmund lingers behind his sisters to whisper his doubts to his older brother, Peter, “I don’t want to scare the girls, but . . . ” And he explains why this talking Beaver they’re following may be an enemy.  It doesn’t seem so nasty perhaps at first, but Edmund captures something enduringly wrong between the sexes.

Edmund is pretending at chivalry to wedge the boys against the girls. He takes shelter in protecting the girls, pretending to have their welfare in mind.  Girls might be scared if they knew the truth, so we’ll drop back and form a guys group (small group anyone?) back here to talk about how we know more. I’m not against small groups or gendered groups, but I’ve witnessed the same thing, Betty Friedan explained in 1963 in The Feminine Mystique,

Protectiveness has often muffled the sound of doors closing against women.

That’s why some women refused to step through doors men opened for them.

While, I’m happy to walk through doors that a man may open for me, I see why women’s fear remains intact. Are you really protecting me? Or are you trying to get the upper hand in this situation?And it’s not just men who need to think about this one. Protectiveness is an equal opportunity game. Women are just as guilty as pretending to protect when we really just want the upper hand.

Protectiveness says “You need me to help you out of this jam because you can’t do it on your own.” Now, where is that appropriate? Sometimes it is, sure thing. But, as my therapist says, “Only in cases of life and death do we over function. Then you can get your name in the paper.” Other than time of life and death, we operate within our sphere of responsibility. We don’t protect another adult simply because we want to help. Psychologists call that “over functioning.”

Interesting idea for a dentist in Iowa to consider.

You Can Be Too Sexy For Your Job

Remember the dental hygienist, Melissa Nelson, who was fired for being too attractive for her employer, Dr. James Knight? After Knight’s statements like “If you see a bulge in my pants, you’ll know you’re clothes are too revealing”, his wife, Jeanne Knight caught wind of his attraction to Nelson (who is married with two children) and with the Knight’s minister’s support put an end to Nelson’s 10 years of employment. While Mrs. Knight expressed fear that Nelson’s employment would ruin their marriage, Knight put it more pointedly. He felt certain he would have an affair with Nelson if she continued working with him.

At first you could read this as good protectiveness, a wife wanting to keep her marriage and her poor vulnerable husband intact.

Perhaps Knight’s forgotten that affairs must be mutual. According to Nelson, she felt no attraction to Knight.  She never wanted to be sexual with him. His sexual harassment was not wanted or invited. Knight confirmed that in his testimony. Regardless, Nelson was terminated with one month’s severance.  Knight continues to have a flourishing dental career where he writes he is “Thankful to have the career he always wanted“.You can see his site and his replacements for Nelson here. Nelson now waits tables at a sports bar. Watch 20/20’s coverage of Nelson’s story. According to public opinion many praised Knight for acting like a man and standing up for his marriage, but you can imagine the outrage as well that Nelsons’ attractiveness was viewed sufficient reason to terminate her as an employee.

I want to focus on the protectiveness of Knight’s wife and his minister. Edmund’s words all over again, “I don’t want to scare my husband, but . . . he might have an affair with his assistant.”

As far as I can tell, Mrs. Knight is not treating her husband as an adult.

Why not consider professional psychological treatment for Knight’s inappropriate fantasy life with Nelson? Since their minister also met with Knight and Nelson during the sacking, it seems Jesus’ words are more appropriate at this time. The things he said about lust and what it can do to destroy a man’s soul, verses which are followed by the suggestion to pluck your eye out, not to pluck the offending women out of your office. Surely, Jesus’ hyperbolic suggestion could have at least been enough to push Knight to professional counseling for his lechery. Charlotte Perkins Gilman once wrote, “Woman should stand besides man as the comrade of his soul, not the servant of his body.”  And your action, Mrs. Knight, is only serving your husband’s body. You are removing the opportunity for him to see that he counts it a right to objectify attractive women. And this must stop. Not by removing the attractive object, though. That’s as useful as removing food from a glutton and claiming he’s cured from his addiction.

Due to Knight’s protective wife, will Knight ever face his lasciviousness? Old fashioned words that give me great satisfaction to re-introduce. Lechery, the vice too many male leaders in the church keep nurturing (excusing as red-blooded maleness) unbeknownst to any but the porno sites they frequent.

Lascivious –  Given to or expressing lust; lecherous.

Lechery –  Excessive interest in or indulgence in sexual activity.

Medieval words that describe what some call “dirty, old men.” Of course, they don’t have to be old, and they don’t have to be male. Women can be lecherous, too.

I would like to talk with Knight and his wife, as well as any who would defend him. Removing the log from your own eye doesn’t mean removing the occasion of temptation. It means you remove the twisted ways you see the world. You refuse to fault those who trigger your sin (Modesty: Covering Up is Not the Answer), and you refuse to let your wife shield your cowardice under the phrase “protecting our marriage.” Can you imagine us doing that for other vices? “Oh, I don’t hire black people because I’m afraid I’ll not listen to them as much as whites. So to avoid the tempation I just don’t hire any minorities?” Why do we allow lust a blank check?

I want to ask pastors who subscribe to this over protective kabash on male-female interaction to stop preaching a false gospel. The very Jesus we claim to follow spent time with attractive, sensual, intelligent, wealthy women. Ask me for a few Biblical examples.

Just this last weekend, a pastor preached on why sexual immorality is the most grievous sin and these ways to protect a “Moral Margin” in your life. Now I’m all about chastity, but some things the pastor said (using James 1:13-15, 1 Cor 6:18-20 and Prov 4:23-26 as his justification) prove to me that he is ignorant that you can flee temptation without fleeing male/female friendship.

He gave this example (reminded me of Billy Graham’s elevator rule) of never having coffee alone with a women. What if you get to the coffee shop and you were supposed to meet a couple and the wife arrives and says, “Oh my husband couldn’t make it?”

You call your wife right away and say, “John couldn’t make it. If you don’t hear from me in an hour come find me.”

Come find me?? Like in that one hour they’ll both be so overcome by temptation that they’ll find a hotel and be making sweet love?

His points

Don’t spend time alone with members of the opposite sex. (Unless it’s your spouse or parent. Parents were mentioned a lot as being safe.)
Keep work relationships professional. (As an aside, he said not to hire attractive people to work with. The unattractive ones are ok.)
Don’t confide in members of the opposite sex. (Don’t share your emotions, hopes, dreams, aspirations, or anything personal/intimate. But do join a life group so you can do this in a safe environment.)
When you feel your heart drifting tell someone.
Let your spouse know what your margins are.

Besides the fact that Jesus broke ALL of these, my immediate red flag is in point #1.  Parents are not automatically safe, sexually or otherwise.  For a more detailed discussion of these faulty points see my Facebook wall here. Point #2 is precisely where people like Dr. and Mrs. Knight get their gospel fueled self- justification. It seems that Knight’s pastor and this pastor get their information from the same source. Who do you suppose that might be?

Evangelical Christians are damning the good news by preaching a gospel fearful of beauty, suspicious of attractiveness, and filled with dismay when men and women love one another. We have a perfect set up for loneliness (thanks, Jo for this observation). It’s no wonder single men and women, women married to unbelievers, divorced, widowed, service men and women’s spouses, gay Christians who’ve chosen the celibate life find no home in this midst.

Should you be one of the naysayers about male-female friendship, I invite you to begin opening your mind here “Harry and Sally Are Wrong: Two Years Later”

Proper Protection

There is a good kind of protection between the sexes. Proper protection comes from knowing our spouse’s limits, and realizing what a virtuous adult can do, what a disciple of Jesus must do. Finally, you cannot protect someone properly without mutual self-knowledge and self-awareness, a strangely rare virtue these days. It’s easy to notice when it’s missing. You’ll see it by the lack of hospitality in someone’s eyes. They don’t want to be seen.

Last summer, I watched my husband pummeled by insults and false accusations. In that moment, I knew that despite my husband’s stellar memory, his engine was stalling. For when Dale is verbally attacked, his mind goes blank and he freezes.

I’m different, when I’m pummeled my mind grows sharper, quicker. I knew the accusations were inaccurate. That was a moment I could have properly protected him. But, sadly enough, the man in charge of the showdown had effectively muzzled me from speaking. To speak now, he said, “Is proving you don’t think your husband is strong enough to handle this.”  In retrospect, I see how wrong he was. How he was using an accusation of over-protectiveness to keep me from honoring my marriage vows and partnering with Dale.

Proper protectiveness knows what our spouse can do as a virtuous disciple of Jesus. I know, no matter the therapy and personal soul care, my husband will not sprout the ability to think on his feet like I can. That is quite different from believing and expecting my husband, as Mrs. Knight should have expected from her husband, to notice when lechery forms a safe nest in his groins.  Refusing to lust is something men (and women) must face as disciples of Jesus. But getting better at shooting from the hip or thinking on your feet is not. There is no place Jesus faults a man for forgetting his facts in the heat of battle.

But Jesus severely faults those who objectify those who are attractive to them. It is our eyes, Jesus hyperbolically suggests, we pluck out. Not the woman (or man’s) presence. More on my battle with lust here.

A Cultural Problem

Americans, on the right and the left, enjoy the national past time of overprotecting our neighbors.

Sometime, try to make a list of all the things our culture (church and secular) do under the guise of protecting or helping, that often prevent those we claim to be helping from ever growing up to think, from every being adults that feel, desire, steward their bodies and souls, their humanity, as Jesus would.

Drive-by acts of charity
Enforced dress codes for adults
Welfare dependency
Forbidding spouses from spending time with the opposite sex
Gun laws that remove personally responsibility even if just to sound safer
Forbidding all rated “R” movies to adults
Forbidding alcohol consumption

Can you think of others?

How an Atheist Defines Love

 Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7.

For this final excerpt of my interview with atheist and activist Vyckie Garrison, we discuss what love means to her. She shares how the Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do to you) doesn’t work for her anymore, and why relativism is a better way to love your children.  You’ll find out what “relativism” actually means to an atheist. It’s not what you might think.

If viewing in email, click here.

In these final moments of our time together, I asked Vyckie how she practiced self care. Notice how similar her daily life sounds to a Christians’ daily life. I found Vyckie’s passion around her work helping women recover from spiritual abuse contagious and encouraging. To see more of her work visit No Longer Quivering.

Watch “The Man Behind the Curtain” here http://www.soulation.org/content/the-...

If viewing in email, click here.

One question I’d like to ask Vyckie is how often or how open she is to helping the women she meets in her work to reconstructing their Christianity around non-abusive ideas. For instance, since Vyckie was open to compliment my practice of Christianity (see right), would she be open to sharing my ministry at Soulation with a woman who wanted to reclaim her Christian faith? Perhaps she already does. That would also encourage me, deeply.

~~~

I didn’t realize this until after our interview, but a family emergency was looming in Vyckie’s life while we talked. Knowing how she was holding her own anxiety at bay while we discussed, I want to thank Vyckie for the gift of her time, focusing for the hour and a half on these theological and philosophical ideas while family concerns were calling her.

As always, all respectful comments (from any faith or non-faith background) are welcome. 

What Would Change An Atheist’s Mind?

 Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.

This is my favorite video with atheist and activist Vyckie Garrison. In this 8 minute clip, Vyckie shares what would change her mind about God’s existence or God’s love. Notice how important the issue of the authoritarianism of the Christian God is for her. I think this video, more than any other, shows the link between fundamentalism and atheism.  It seems from her story that it would be fair to think that abusive authority can destroy our capacity to even imagine the existence of a good hierarchy. For many of us, Christians or not, authority makes us think of Dwight Schrute from The Officee, authority makes us immediately think of power trips and discipline and control. I believe this is because we’ve confused authority with authoritarianism. But more on that in a moment.

If reading in email, click here.

When I asked Vyckie if it’s possible to imagine hierarchy without abuse, she says virtually “No.” Notice how God has been used in Vyckie’s life as the “heavy”, even the bully to demand obedience when children get out of line. This is something to keep in mind when we try to motivate our children to obey. There are better motivators than fear. That’s what Scripture says, too.

Perfect love casts out all fear. 1 John 4:18

For clarity, I want to share my view on authority. First, the idea of obedience to any authority is a terribly scary idea to support for anyone who has been abused by the powerful. Both Vyckie and I have experienced that. The words of Henri J. M. Nouwen gleaned from his seven month stay with the Trappist monks in Genesee monastery speak well to the link between obedience and trust.

You need a lot of trust to give yourself fully to someone else, certainly to someone to whom you owe obedience.  Many people adapt very quickly but are not really obedient.  They simply don’t want to make waves and instead go along with the trend. . . If I were able to trust more, to open myself more easily, to be more vulnerable, then obedience would not be so hard.  I would be able to disagree without fear of rejection, to protest without resentment, to express different viewpoints without self-righteousness.” (The Genesee Diary, p 119).

I believe that trust is impossible for most atheists to give to God because they have developed a long list of reasons to distrust any deity, in Vyckie’s case, she believed that God would rather her sacrifice her health, her life, her reason, her intuition and even her peace if she would claim to follow him. No wonder she thought of God as a bully.  But for those of us to have seen God to be trustworthy, what does that call out of us?

Second, I believe Vyckie may be conflating authoritarianism with authority or hierarchy. Authoritarianism, as I understand it, says “Trust me, period, no matter what” which involves a mindless, resigned acquiescence or what some falsely teach as biblical submission. Authoritarianism creates what psychologists call “emotional fusion” a requirement that you ape me or else I’m threatened.  In contrast, authority says, “Trust me because I have given you sound, cogent, reliable, time-tested, intuitive reasons, through my relationship with you, to trust me.” Authority wants us to be distinct, with our own ideas and threshold of belief. Authority never effaces the individual. As Esther Meek points out in her epistemological tome Loving to Know, “The best authorities will appeal to us across the whole spectrum of human experience and knowing. They will rely on rational, testable, and practical reasons.”  I believe this is what Scripture gives us, testable reasons for knowing God is good.

I said to Vyckie, “If God is good, he has to have interdependence.” I want to unpack this a little bit with you. I’m talking about the historical doctrine of the Trinity (God is one “what” or substance, but three “who’s” or persons). The Trinity is an easily overlooked or mystifying concept, but we see the Trinity as an answer to the problem of the one and the many working in Scripture. The Trinity is the answer to what we read about, the mutuality at work in God’s web of dependence on his three persons. Now I realize Vyckie was speaking more of a web of connection between a god and his creatures, but before I speak to that, I want to give some Scriptural reasons to believe God is interdependent within his divinity.

Reason 1 – Jesus says he does nothing unless the Father tells him.

Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. John 5:19

Jesus’ submission to the Father is rather well-known, and since it was also used to manipulate women like Vyckie to be in eternal submission to their husbands I want to point out the Father’s dependence also, on the Son.  Without the Son’s willingness to die on the cross, the Father’s plan of salvation was sunk. The Father depended on the Son to save the world. Jesus said about his decision to give up his life.

No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. John 10:18

And later we see Jesus being given authority.

All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Matthew 28:18

Likewise, Jesus and the Father depend on the Spirit to comfort and guide all followers of Jesus now that Jesus has ascended into heaven.

I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth. John 14:16-17

Jesus initiated an idea, the Father made it happen and the Spirit became the delivery.  A sort of heavenly FedEx system of mutuality.

Now, to turn to Vyckie’s concern that an all-powerful God existing in a hierarchy over and above humans is just impossible without abuse, I want to point out one of my favorite moments in Jesus life, a passage that birthed the first Christian sect to honor the equality of all humans, the Friends, or Quakers, the denomination in which I was raised (My Quaker Roots). In this passage in John, Jesus shows us the dignity he confers on those who love him.

No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. John 15:15

This passage shows me that God, who is a being more enduring, stronger, more beautiful, and more wise than I, chose to call me his friend, a relationship that I understand as an equal eye-to-eye engagement. Philippians 2 explains how God made himself accessible so we would not be overwhelmed by his power. Perhaps the best picture of Jesus’ humility is that of him washing his disciples feet.  While I’m afraid the picture has become slightly overused, even sentimentalized,  it still speaks to tremendous equalizing. Today it would be like the guy in first class washing the feet of the guy in the last seat in coach, then inviting him to share in the mimosa and multi-course meal up front.

The servant life of Jesus and his final sacrifice seems to me what a good God of superior power would do if he claims to love his creation with an everlasting love. Jesus’ requirement than all his followers (men and women, husbands to wives, wives to husbands) emulate him and serve one another, wash each other’s feet (John 13:14), is why the authority of God isn’t a hurdle for me in my faith. The idea that God is above all and yet within us is an idea that some poets and Christian mystics do a better to job explaining than some theologians. Take Hildebert of Lavardin, the 11th century Christian poet explaining . . .

God is over all things,

under all things,

outside all,

within, but not enclosed,

without, but not excluded,

above, but not raised up,

below, but not depressed,

wholly above, presiding,

wholly without, embracing,

wholly within, filling.

Finally, a word on the idea that Christians believe children are inherently evil. For a philosophically sound, psychologically tenable, and theologically accurate view of original sin please see: Do You Believe in Original Sin? It’s an excellent place to start understanding how Christians can believe children are innocent and still culpable.

One last note, the book Vyckie was reading on the web of connection is The Skeptical Feminist.

As always, all respectful comments (from any faith or non-faith background) welcome.