Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

Source of book: Audiobook borrowed from my brother.

This book is the third Diskworld novel, and the first in the “Witches” series. We have previously experienced the first three in the “Rincewind” series, and the first four in the “Tiffany Aching” series. The less said about the abridged edition of Guards, Guards, the better. If you want to read my thoughts on the other Terry Pratchett books we have read, here is the list:

Rincewind:

The Colour of Magic

The Light Fantastic

Sourcery

Tiffany Aching:

The Wee Free Men

A Hat Full of Sky

Wintersmith

I Shall Wear Midnight

Watch:

Guards! Guards! (Stupid abridged edition, which is an abomination.)

Non-Discworld:

The Carpet People

Dodger

Dragons at Crumbling Castle

Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)

***

Equal Rites features a character, Eskarina Smith, who disappears from the series until reappearing as a rather unearthly character in I Shall Wear Midnight. I’m not sure quite why, but it is what it is. It does seem, however, that Tiffany Aching is in some ways what Eskarina might have become as she grew older.

Eskarina is an anomaly in the Diskworld: a female wizard. In the Diskworld universe, the number eight has magical properties. And, by the laws of magic, the eighth son of an eighth son will be a wizard. An elderly wizard named Drum Billet knows he is approaching death. (Like witches, most wizards know when they will die.) He finds what he believes to be the eighth son of an eight son, and passes his powers to the infant, leaving his staff behind. The only problem is, he forgot to check the sex of the baby, and the he turns out to be a she.

As she grows, Eskarina turns out to have wizard magic she cannot control, and this concerns the local witch, Granny Weatherwax (who would become a recurring character.) Granny decides to take Eskarina to Unseen University (where the wizards are trained), to learn how to use her powers. The journey takes up a good bit of the book - and it is obvious that an 8 year old girl with an attitude and unpredictable magical powers will be a tough assignment for Granny, who hasn’t left the village much before. Eventually, the story takes a turn to the Dungeon Dimensions, where Eskarina and a young wizard, Simon, have to figure out how to get back to the “real” world. I won’t spoil it more than that.

One of the things that struck me about this book is just how much Granny Weatherwax changes in the 20ish years between this book and The Wee Free Men. In this book, she is a rather ordinary village witch. She is wise, but illiterate and very provincial. She lacks the confidence and calm of the later books. Oddly, she also seems...older somehow. Clearly, she expands as a character as the series goes on, eventually becoming the unofficial head witch, with experience and knowledge extending far beyond her village. Perhaps this epic trip to Ankh-Morpork is the beginning of the expansion of her world and the start of her personal growth. It remains to be seen, I guess.

This audiobook was different from all the others we have listened to in that it has a female narrator: Celia Imrie. I had no idea who she is, but apparently she was a regular on British television and stage. Whatever the case, I thought she did a fine job. Considering the delightful Nigel Planer and Stephen Briggs are the gold standard for Pratchett, this was a tough gig. Particularly good, in my opinion, was the way she voiced the various wizards. They were different from each other, but shared a certain reedy stuffiness which was quite fine. She also gave Granny Weatherwax a more stereotypical witch voice than Briggs does in the later books - but the books themselves dictate a different tone. It was definitely an interesting set of choices that I thought was well done.

(On a not entirely unrelated note: Yes, this was the unabridged version of the book. I checked. Don’t settle for less.)

There are so many fabulous quotes in this book. I’ll share just a few.

‘If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly,’ said Granny, fleeing into aphorisms, the last refuge of an adult under siege.

That one made me laugh out loud. It is way too true, and my kids presumably know it.

‘They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it is not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.’

One of my all-time favorite Pratchett quotes. It has been discouraging to see knowledge and expertise so disrespected in our times.

As I noted, Granny Weatherwax is fairly inexperienced in things outside of her village in this book. Here is one exchange that shows the typical Pratchett turn of phrase.

‘You said there was some sort of teaching place?’ he hazarded.

‘The Unseen University, yes. It’s for training wizards.’

‘And you know where it is?’

‘Yes,’ lied Granny, whose grasp of geography was slightly worse than her knowledge of subatomic physics.

Likewise, while she can read and (sort of) write, she limits herself to the Almanac, rather than books. Until later in the story at least.

For the first time in her life Granny wondered whether there might be something important in all these books people were setting such store by these days, although she was opposed to books on strict moral grounds, since she had heard that many of them were written by dead people and therefore it stood to reason reading them would be as bad as necromancy.

And then, there is this scene where Esk wanders into a disreputable pub:

The landlord, whose name was Skiller, found himself looking directly down at a small child who seemed to be squinting.

‘What?’ he said.

‘Milk,’ said the child, still focusing furiously.  ‘You get it out of goats.  You know?’

Skiller sold only beer, which his customers claimed he got out of cats.

Or this gem, which is all too true, particularly here in California where people pay to get tans despite the fact that we have an abundance of sunshine.

He had the kind of real deep tan that rich people spend ages trying to achieve with expensive holidays and bits of tinfoil, when really all you need to do to obtain one is work your arse off in the open air every day.

Pratchett, even in his early work, is clearly a feminist. There are zingers throughout this book about the Patriarchy and those who support it.

If you were a boy I’d say are you going to seek your fortune?’

‘Can’t girls seek their fortune?’

‘I think they’re supposed to seek a boy with a fortune.’

Social commentary abounds, as in this depiction of the tribes which dominate the river trade, and have designated persons to do their negotiating.

Zoon tribes are very proud of their Liars. Other races get very annoyed about all this.  They feel that the Zoon ought to have adopted more suitable titles, like ‘diplomat’ or ‘public relations officer’.  They feel they are poking fun at the whole thing.

Religion doesn’t escape Pratchett’s teasing either, although he wasn’t completely hostile to it. Having had a bit too much experience with toxic and hateful religion myself, I think he is right about this one:

[G]ods were always demanding that their followers acted other than according to their true natures, and the human fallout this caused made plenty of work for witches.

And one final one, which I really wish I had thought of.

It is well known that stone can think, because the whole of electronics is based on that fact...

I am, of quartz, writing this on my computer, which is indeed a quite gneiss example...sorry. Couldn’t resist.

Equal Rites isn’t quite as funny as the Rincewind books, or as philosophically deep as Pratchett’s later books. However, still very enjoyable both as a story and as social commentary.

How to Create the Perfect Wife by Wendy Moore

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

It seems like every so often, I end up reading a group of books that all connect somehow. I’m not sure how much is coincidence, serendipity, or some subconscious part of me that picks stuff. In this case, this book has a direct connection to another book - Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope - and a musical - My Fair Lady - which I have reviewed recently. I experienced all three simultaneously to a degree, so the connections were obvious.

All of these center around the idea of creating the perfect woman. In other words, the Pygmalion and Galatea myth.

***

The Enlightenment was a pretty heady time. New discoveries, new ideas, grand theories, and scientific detail. A combination of a technical revolution and skepticism of authoritarian dogma turned the world on its head. As with every era, there was good and bad. Particularly pernicious was the use of science to fuel racism and eugenics. And the application of Enlightenment reasoning to religion gave us theonomic presuppositional fundamentalism. But much of what we take for granted in our own time - representative government, religious freedom, freedom of speech, science and technology, human rights, and separation of church and state - ALL derive from the Enlightenment.

In retrospect, one of the most influential figures turned out to be Jean-Jacque Rousseau. While many of his ideas seem a bit far out even today, even those who (like the fundies in the homeschool movement) claim to loathe Rousseau have actually adopted many of his assumptions. Our modern idea of education as the nurture of children rather than the beating of wickedness out of them comes from Rousseau. Self-directed learning. Hands on learning rather than rote memorization. Experience of nature as education. All Rousseau. One might even claim that the idea that children are a blank slate is an idea he popularized. Few truly attempt a fully “unschooled” learning plan as laid out in Emile, but the ideas permeate our educational institutions in more modest doses.

But what if one actually tried to follow Rousseau exactly? Well, a few did indeed try back in the 1700s.

***

And what of Pygmalion and Galatea? The story has been around since ancient Greece, and was retold countless times over the intervening thousands of years. Pygmalion creates a statue of the world’s most beautiful woman. He falls in love with the statue...and then it comes to life. The living woman, Galatea, though, turns out to be problematic. She has a mind of her own, and isn’t interested in dedicating her life to making Pygmalion’s dreams come true.

***

 Sir Thomas Day lived during this era. Born into a reasonably big fortune, he nevertheless grew up uncultured and unusual. He dressed like a slob, didn’t powder his hair, and proclaimed radical and astounding ideas at exhausting length. He ran with an interesting group of intellectuals which included Erasmus Darwin, Josiah Wedgwood, Robert Lowell Edgeworth, and Anna Seward. They talked of philosophy and science and invention and discovery. And also about education.

Edgeworth actually tried to raise his oldest son according to the Rousseau method - it didn’t turn out well. But Day took it one step further. He decided that Rousseau’s method might work for a girl as well. (That wasn’t the way Rousseau saw it - he believed in educating women to be docile and servile - and Mary Wollstonecraft took him to task for it.) Day’s motives weren’t exactly purely scientific either. After a series of rejections, he decided he would try to raise and educate a perfect wife for himself.

This was no easy task. Day had a rather specific set of requirements. His ideal woman would have to be pure and virginal, of course. She would need to be highly intelligent and educated. But she would also need to be willing to live in a spartan cottage in the middle of nowhere with him. And to be subservient to him in every way. Day concluded that such a woman didn’t exist in Georgian society, so he would have to create her.

To that end, he adopted two adolescent girls from a local orphanage, with the intention of choosing one to train and create to be his future wife.

Day quickly discarded one of the girls, Lucretia, as too ornery - and apprenticed her to learn a trade. (This actually worked out for her - she married reasonably well, and when she last appears in any traceable record, appeared to have made a good life.) The other, he would go on to train using some bizarre and often abusive (as we would understand it) methods. He got her to withstand pain by dripping hot wax on her arms, and shot guns off near her to teach her to resist becoming startled, to name just two. Eventually, he gave up on the project and sent her to a series of finishing academies and apprenticeships - exactly the opposite of his original plan. But even so, she never really developed into his ideal mate. She married, was quickly widowed with two infants, but was looked after by Charles Burney, one of Day’s friends. Like the other, Sabrina (as she was renamed by Day) ended up living a long and good life, accumulating a modest fortune despite her humble station.

The story is the heart of this book, which follows Day and Sabrina and a few of the other characters over the course of nearly a century. The tale is both fascinating and horrifying. To a degree, that is a good way to describe Day, who was a complex man who defies easy categorization.

On the one hand, he was a noble guy: he opposed slavery (writing “The Dying Negro,” a poem about an escaped and recaptured slave), was generous to the poor - he died having given away much of his fortune, and sought positive reform in many areas of society. On the other hand, he was deeply sexist, and didn’t seem to be willing to extend human rights and dignity to women. In this, he was of his time, to be sure. But he was also pretty cruel and callous to Sabrina and Lucretia. He could be a great friend - and a total boor. Perhaps we can say that he, like most of us, was a mix of good and bad - and that the bad hasn’t aged well as the world has changed.

There is some evidence that he may have been on the autism spectrum, based on his difficulties in picking up on social cues and the feelings of others. One example of this is his beliefs about love. He didn’t believe romantic love was real. There are a number of quotes to that effect in his letters and diaries, but this one will suffice:

“Love I am firmly convinc’d is the Effect of Prejudice & Imagination; a rational Mind is incapable of it, at least in any great Degree.”

His tendency to say things like this while courting may have been a factor in his rejection by a number of women. But it might also have been his expectations. When courting Honoria Sneyd, he drew up a long and detailed summary of his expectations and requirements in a wife, along with his play to live off the grid.

Honoria rejected Day, with a polite but badass explanation. She said she “would not admit the unqualified control of a husband over all her actions” and she did not feel that “seclusion from society was indispensably necessary to preserve female virtue, or to secure domestic happiness.” Finally, she refused to believe that marital happiness could ever exist without “terms of reasonable equality.” I thoroughly agree with all of the above.

It is interesting that Day finally did find a woman who would marry him. Esther Milnes saw something in him, and did her best to be the subservient wife he expected. During the decade of their marriage (which produced no children), they had a tempestuous relationship - nobody could possibly live up to Day’s standards - but after he died, she was heartbroken, and died soon thereafter.

Another interesting fact about the marriage was this: Esther came with a fortune of her own. At the time, when a woman married, her property went straight to her husband. She essentially ceased to exist as a separate person. Day, whatever his personal beliefs about women may have been, did not agree with this idea. He proposed a prenup that allowed Esther to retain control and possession of her property. This was both unusual, and generous on his part, given the law at the time.

As I noted, this book is about a lot more than just the story of Day and Sabrina. Wendy Moore extensively researched the various people in Day’s orbit - she even tracked down Lucretia and Sabrina’s history at the orphanage - including their original names. The back stories on many of the characters make it into the story as well. Moore presents an entire world, not just a narrow view of one particular incident.

One of the interesting things about reading this book was hearing mention of the only famous people in my ancestry. I have German Mennonites on both sides of my family, while my last name comes from Sweden. Those branches are all poor but respectable farmers who immigrated to the US in the 1880s. But, on the other branch, I am related to Josiah Wedgwood, the famous potter who appears in this story. My mom actually got a few hundred bucks as an inheritance when some later scion of the Wedgwood family died without issue. Wedgwood was also related to the Darwins, and there was later intermarriage. Thus, I can claim to be a relation (although not a direct descendent) of both Erasmus and Charles Darwin.

Another thing that stood out was Rousseau’s response when he found out that people were taking Emile literally as an instruction book. He never intended it to be a practical manual for child rearing. “I cannot believe that you took the book which bears this name for a real treatise on education. You are quite right to say it is impossible to create an Emile.” I can’t help but think that far too many works - particularly the bible - have been misunderstood and misused in the same way - with similarly harmful results.

I have to mention one incident from Day’s college days. Apparently, Voltaire’s Dictionnaire Philosphique was one book that Day read - and defended. “I cannot say I think it calculated to do so much Harm, as to deserve a public Execution.” He overheard a fellow student applauding the rumor that it would be banned. Day challenged him, and discovered that the student hadn’t even read the book. Which is pretty much how would-be censors tend to be, isn’t it?

Perhaps the most troubling part of the book, though, deals with the orphanage. The Foundling Hospital was founded by Thomas Coram, a retired sea captain who was appalled at the poverty he found in 18th Century London. The worst was the sight of dozens of abandoned babies, dead and alive, on rubbish heaps beside the road. Coram didn’t have much of his own money, but tirelessly raised both public funds and private charity. The idea was that orphans and unwanted babies could be dropped off, no questions asked.

The first night it was open, thirty babies were accepted, with more turned away. In a four year period, nearly fifteen thousand were processed. The cost, as you might expect, was pretty substantial, even though the children were apprenticed out at ages ten through twelve.

Moore briefly explores the factors at work. The Georgian era - the whole century actually - was dubbed “the century of illegitimacy,” but this isn’t quite accurate. It wasn’t that morals somehow went missing. Rather, economic and political conditions caused an upsurge. In common practice - even among the Puritans - couples would become intimate, marrying formally if and when a child was conceived. Many of these intended marriages, however, stopped taking place. Contributing factors were military conscription (dad gets drafted, so no marriage), rising cost of living, a change in the law making weddings more expensive, and rising adult mortality. It wasn’t just illegitimacy, though. Plenty of families simply couldn’t support another child. A new baby literally meant someone starved.

The Religious Right likes to pretend that somehow, before Roe v. Wade that everything was nice and rosy, and it was just the evil liberals that created a holocaust. Historically, that wasn’t even close to true. Leaving aside the fact that abortion has existed as long as recorded history, unwanted or unaffordable children have always perished - and infanticide was shockingly common throughout the Georgian and Victorian eras. On a related note, the Religious Right is delusional if it thinks that abortion will magically go away once criminalized. Doubly so since they are hostile toward contraception and efforts to alleviate poverty. What is more likely is that we will get some combination of increased mass incarceration - this time of low income and minority women - and widespread abandonment of babies. (And also, like other countries which have criminalized abortion, high abortion rates - higher than those countries in which it is legal…)

Also disturbing about this story was the ease with which Day (and Edgeworth, who as a married man was the official guardian of the girls) was able to essentially purchase a couple of children. He concealed his intent - lied - to get them, and then changed their names to cover his tracks. As the author puts it:

“At a time when women were commodities, to be exchanged in marriage for vast fortunes and land or bought in a dark alley for sixpence, Day had purchased two girls as easily as he might buy two shoe buckles.”

This was all fairly well known to many in Day’s acquaintance. And yet, because he was male, wealthy, and eccentric, people just looked the other way.

The idea of the expendability of women is also seen in the number of women in this story who give birth to a child a year (or more!) for a decade, then expire of exhaustion in their early 30s. It’s not an era I would prefer to return to, and I am a man. I cannot imagine many women would be so eager to go back to those days - even as an aristocrat - if they really understood what it was like.

After Day’s death, his story was told. Chief among those responsible was Maria Edgeworth, Richard’s eldest daughter. A novelist famous in her time, she grew up around Sabrina, and incorporated the story into one of her bestselling novels. While she didn’t specifically reveal identities, and changed a few things, people knew who she was talking about. For Sabrina, the revelation of her history was a bit embarrassing. After all, she was a respectable woman by then, and her likely illegitimacy did lower her social standing. But worse was Sabrina’s elder son John, who had no idea of his mother’s history, and was furious at Maria for exposing it.

The story was also told in various forms in other books, and entered into the popular consciousness. A century after Sabrina’s adoption, Anthony Trollope used it in Orley Farm, which I recently read. A young man more or less adopts a young ward with the understanding that he would marry her eventually. Unique to this story is that there is a father - a drunken, belligerent father.

Not too long after that, Trollope’s version was mined by George Bernard Shaw, who retained the problematic father for his play Pygmalion, which eventually became the musical My Fair Lady. And thus, the three are connected. Two of them imaginative stories - and the other a shockingly true event.

In all of them, as in the original myth, it turns out that you really can’t create your perfect wife. Humans have a way of being uncooperative in matters of the heart. Even Day, the quintessential utopian thinker, failed at his task, only to find that his soulmate was someone he wasn’t expecting. As Trollope puts it, “On the whole I think that the ordinary plan is the better, and even the safer.”

The Purity Myth by Jessica Valenti

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

Just some thoughts on this. I started this book a few years ago when my wife read it, but it was requested by another library patron, and thus had to go back before I could finish. A couple of online friends (cool people I met through my blog) expressed interest in reading and discussing it. 

Just at the outset, let me say a bit about the style and content, before getting into specifics. Jessica Valenti co-founded the Feministing website, and wrote for it for a number of years. The site is essentially a blog, and as the writer of one myself, I understand the significant differences in writing style that go along with it. These stylistic differences are apparent in the book, which more resembles a blog than a typical non-fiction book. This is not to say that it lacks citations: it is well researched as to the sources for quotations. But it isn’t intended to be a scholarly look at the subject so much as a cultural look. I think, therefore, that many who disagree with Valenti’s opinions will also be put off by the style. Valenti uses a breezy blog style, not formal English, so expect contractions, paragraphs not modeled on the MLA format, and overuse of parentheses. (Hey, a bit like my blog too!) So you may not find it to be what you expect. On the other hand, if you go in with different expectations, there is a lot of thought provoking stuff in the book.

Valenti’s premise is that in our culture here in America, women are assigned value based on their virginity and adherence to patriarchal gender roles. This allows women to be divided in the the “Madonna” sorts - the good girls - and the “sluts” - the bad girls. Step outside of expectations, and you are placed in the “slut” category.

Longtime readers of this blog will be familiar with my exploration of that theme in my Modesty Culture series. Since I wrote it, I have had a number of interesting conversations about it, and realized that Modesty Culture is just one facet of Purity Culture, which is about sex - and a lot more than just sex. The Purity Myth really explains a lot about how it fits together.

My wife and I have personally had plenty of unpleasant experiences with both Modesty and Purity Cultures, starting with my wife’s thoroughly unpleasant time in Jonathan Lindvall’s cultic home group. It has been obvious from the beginning that there were three interconnected - indeed inseparable - facets to this issue. Namely, the division of women based on their sexuality and adherence to gender roles, an obsession with controlling females, and a rigid view of gender roles and gender hierarchy. They are all connected, and you really don’t find one without the others. Thus, you find an obsession with female virginity, a need to control how women dress, and the belief that women shouldn’t work outside the home. All of these stem back to viewing women as sub-human, perpetual children who cannot be trusted to make their own decisions, and this in need of male control.

This is the uncomfortable truth about religious teachings on sexuality. You cannot separate beliefs about sex from beliefs about gender - because the teachings on sexuality are based on the views about gender. To give but one example, I was shocked when, in my law school days, I re-read the Old Testament in light of what I had learned about the history of the English Common Law, and realized that the OT says precious little to restrict what MEN do. As long as they didn’t mess with another man’s property, or have sex with an equal, I mean other male, most other behavior is acceptable or at least tolerated with little comment: prostitutes, plural wives, concubines, rape, sexual enslavement, you name it. In contrast, just like the culture in which it was written, female sexuality was brutally punished. (Honestly, the NT is only marginally better. It too draws heavily from misogynist cultural beliefs in many ways, even as it occasionally pushes back against them. In both cases, a lot of what I was taught about what the bible says turned out to not actually be in there…) This is why the religious discussion about sex - see more below - makes little sense in our time. Once you remove the sexual double standard - and the open misogyny - from the discussion, you are missing the key point: the rules derive from the misogyny.

On to some specifics. These are roughly in the order in which they appear in the book, and are taken largely from our discussion.

One thing that struck me when I first started this book years ago, and I thoroughly agree with now, is that in our culture (particularly religious culture), morality for women is defined in terms of sexuality. That is, a woman is considered to be “moral” if she is a virgin on her wedding night. Otherwise, she is considered immoral. As Valenti puts it:

I was the...burgeoning feminist who knew that something was wrong with a world that could peg me as a bad person for sleeping with a high school boyfriend while ignoring my good heart, sense of humor, and intelligence. Didn’t the intricacies of my character count for anything? The answer, unfortunately, was no, they didn’t.

…

When young women are taught about morality, there’s not often talk of compassion, kindness, courage, or integrity. There is, however, a lot of talk about hymens: if we have them, when we’ll lose them, and under what circumstances we’ll be rid of them.

While boys are taught that the things that make them men - good men - are universally accepted ethical ideal, women are led to believe that our moral compass lies somewhere between our legs.

This is otherwise known as the double standard. Men are judged on more universal character traits (unless they are Republican politicians, apparently…), while women are judged on their sexual status. This is far too true. I have seen it at work in two different arenas.

The first is my professional experience. I can tell you that there is nobody as self-righteous and full of entitlement as a woman who was a virgin on her wedding night, who has faithfully adhered to gender roles ever since. Nobody. These are the women who feel that their chastity and submissiveness has entitled them to a certain level of financial support from a man, and who are furious when that man lets them down. (Even if he lost his job through no fault of his own…) They did their part, why can’t he do his? These are, undoubtedly, the second ugliest divorces I have done. (The worst was the pastor who was raping and abusing his wife. Horrible case, in which a divorce was a happy ending in every possible way for her.) The problem here, naturally, is that the woman judges her own morality by virginity and meeting gender expectations. She is the counterpart to the man who judges his morality by his wealth and income - aka meeting male gender expectations.

The second is more personal. Within my extended family, there are a few women who base their morality on these things. Their virginal status in the past, their adherence to gender roles (stay at home mom, particularly), and their conservative clothing choices. This, while behaving abominably to others, in some cases including their own children. The problem isn’t just them, but the fact that others give them a pass on abusive behavior because, well, they must be good because of how they do sex and gender roles. As long as they dressed modestly, didn't work outside the home, manipulated rather than said what they meant, they could get away with mean, abusive behavior and still be considered "good girls."

Particularly good in this section of the book is the acknowledgement that raunch culture and purity culture are actually the same thing, just with slightly different manifestations. I myself noted in the aftermath of our cult experiences that it turns out that many of the men involved were outright creeps. Obsession with female sexuality and a need to control can be expressed as sexual repression of others - or in rapey porn fantasies. Often both.

One amusing bit in that chapter involves how one counts sexual partners. After all, what “counts”? Is one still a virgin after _____ [insert act here] is apparently a question often asked. The author mentions a female friend, who didn't count it as sex unless she had an orgasm. Valenti notes that this way of counting isn’t likely to be popular with certain men - they won’t end up counting for many of their partners.

I also found Valenti to be spot on about the role of race in purity culture. Here in the US, sex is all about race. Protecting white girls from brown men has been a justification for everything from Jim Crow to lynchings. But of course, it was actually the white slave owners raping the brown women. Thus, the myth that non-whites (particularly African Americans) are hypersexual and out of control. So race plays a definite role in purity culture - which idealizes young white women.

I cannot say how much I love the acknowledgement that the "ideal woman" of the Purity Movement is a little girl. Not an actual woman, but an undeveloped, subhuman. Someone who is passive and unassertive and, well, little girly. Valenti mentions a lot about American culture, but, as a father with daughters who love Anime, it isn't just an American problem. The juvenilization of femininity is pretty disturbing. I myself preferred a grown up woman (even if she was barely 21 when I married her...) I have read and continue to read a lot of Victorian literature. The idea of the "innocent" girlish female is all to common. I think my experience in reading has made it easier to detect where Victorian sexism is endemic to modern discussions of "purity." In my Modesty Culture series, I pointed out that sexualization of children and young women was central to both our culture and Modesty Culture, and it is nice to see someone else noticed too.

I agree with Valenti that the cure for both the oversexualization of girls and the obsession with female virginity  is the training of girls to find their identity in non-sexual things: intelligence, compassion, making the world a better place. Things males are expected to do.

The chapter on Purity Balls and the like, while something I was already familiar with from my experience, was creepy to read about again. You want to take a shower afterward. And, the whole idea of my daughters making a promise to ME about their sexuality is so beyond creepy I don't even want to think about it. Yuck, yuck, yuck!

The chapter on porn is interesting. This isn't my area of expertise, although I have professionally run across plenty of men with unrealistic ideas of women. I am not qualified to speak about whether this is due to internet porn, or if it is a longstanding problem not particularly connected to that. What I can say is that Valenti nails how Fundies talk about porn. They seem to either go for some ludicrous non-mainstream thing, or go ape-shit over...really mild stuff. This whole conflation of anything realistically sexual with porn is (in my view) self defeating. I recall from my own childhood people freaking out over classical art...nudes, yo. This ruins credibility over legitimate issues, such as misogyny that Valenti says is rampant in most mainstream porn.

I too hate the false dichotomy of either phallocentric smut or denying female sexuality.

I concur that Fundies really get their panties in a wad whenever female-controlled pleasure comes into view. Some Fundies do not appear to believe that "normal" females masturbate - which is denialism for sure. I think there is a general suspicion of the idea that women are actually sexual (at least good women - and white women too...right?) I see this too in the opposition to female-controlled birth control.

If I were to mention one significant paradigm change I experienced after I started dating my wife, it was that the Fundie teaching about female sexuality was bullshit on a stick, and that many (most?) women were highly sexual, and the canard of "women trade sex for love" was a male fantasy, not representative or reality.

Moving on to the next topic, I ran across something that was VERY typical of the Fundie teachings I know: the idea that girls won't want sex if they are getting affection from their fathers. I have heard this so many times, and it just feels so gross. I have three daughters (two of whom are decidedly post-puberty), and whatever else they need from me - and I have a good relationship with them! - they are most certainly NOT looking for a quasi-sexual something or another. A substitute for sex? Holy shit that is creepy as hell! And yet, I grew up in this mindset!

In the chapter on “Abstinence Education,” I was reminded of some research I did a few years back. I ran across actual curriculum - used in public schools! - and it was retrograde in a way that would have embarrassed my own parents. Good lord. A bunch of Victorian gender essentialism (“most women want to get married, have children, and let their husbands work”???) and heavy pushing of 1950s gender roles.

At this point, I do want to say really good things about my parents, who gave me generally accurate sex ed, and were always available for questions. I disagree with some of what they said, but I was not lied to like many fellow Fundies. There were a few things that I found out later didn’t apply as universally to all women as much as they did to my mom. Which, fair enough, her experience and feelings. Also, I was never given the "men can't help themselves" thing AT ALL. I always felt responsibility was on me as much as on women.

The chapter on abortion and birth control was interesting. Full disclosure. I am not a fan of abortion. But. But I really soured on the “pro-life” movement when big names filed amicus briefs in the Hobby Lobby case (Gothardites!) essentially opposing ALL female-controlled birth control. At that point, it became clear to me that this had nothing to do with actually ending abortion, and everything to do with punishing women for failing to attain “purity.” Which meant quiverfull and staying at home rather than working.

While I find this chapter to be a bit much in some ways - as I said, I am uncomfortable with abortion - it has turned out to be less alarmist than I would have thought before the last few years. She was ahead of the curve on this one. It is pretty scary. Particularly the bits about that proposed law criminalizing women who don’t promptly report miscarriages to the police. Imagine how that would work.

The chapter on rape was really good. One of the side effects of working in family law - and that means domestic violence cases too - is seeing the really ugly side of marital rape. (I mentioned that above. One quibble I have with Valenti on this issue is her tendency to see an increase in sexual assault. The better explanation is that in the last half century, sexual assaults have been prosecuted, which has led to more being reported. I am unaware of any reputable researcher who believes sexual assaults are on the rise. Rather, the consensus is that most were never reported - for the reasons Valenti outlines. Particularly non-white victims of white rapists. Just as one example, when my mom was an LVN before I was born, nurses tried to keep one hand free to swat away the groping from doctors. My wife would never put up with that - because she has other options my mom didn’t. On a related note, #metoo doesn’t reflect an increase in assaults. It reflects a change in culture, where nobody should have to fuck Harvey Weinstein to get a job.

Very interesting in this context for me personally is my law school experience. We had to study rape in our first year as part of Criminal Law. And got to read all the old cases arguing about how pure a woman had to be before it was “real” rape, and just how much “penetration” was necessary to be rape rather than assault. Sigh. It was pretty bad.

One more thing in this context. I have copied the thread of a conversation on a (now private) Facebook page devoted to Theonomic Reconstructionism that is both fascinating and horrifying. The discussion was on the OT laws regarding rape, and a few of the die hards (one of whom appeared to be a woman) were arguing that it wasn’t rape if you forced sex on a widow or divorcee. After all, the crime was not one of violence, but a property violation. Rape destroyed her economic value, and once that was gone, well, no crime… I’ll probably use it as a blog post someday.

The chapter on toxic masculinity was also good. The definition of masculinity as "not female" is seriously pernicious and widespread. It permeates the culture.

One of the most laughable things in this book is the seemingly ubiquitous quote from the various "purity" pushers: "Who will want me now that I've had sex?" Since the WWII generation, north of 80% - including females - have had sex before marriage. And I believe that it was pretty common during the 1920s too. (Or if you want to look back further to the Puritan era, a LOT of pregnant brides...) Seriously, last I checked, non-virgins have been getting married right and left for...well...since we ended arranged marriages. (And that's women. I strongly suspect male virgins have been as rare as unicorns since the dawn of the concept of marriage.) One has to wonder if the purity people get out much these days. For those under, say, age 80, most guys DON'T CARE. (And, in my professional experience, the ones who do tend to be controlling creeps.)

[Interesting case in point here: Josh Harris. As in, the author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye. As in, the demigod of the “courtship” movement. His wife had a sexual history. (I wouldn’t mention it if he hadn’t already gone public - in a freaking book - with the information.) And you know what? I bet that is the least important thing about her. To Josh’s credit, of all the Patriarchist figures, he is the only one I know who has actually admitted he was wrong, and is working to apologise to those he hurt.]

I laugh when I hear "Your virginity is the greatest gift you can give your husband." Really? Because if that is the best you have, I want a refund! But of course, my wife's virginity wasn't anywhere near the best of what she gave me. And gives me, every day. The whole idea only makes sense if you think of women as property. Buy new, not used.

Pretty hilarious too that there is all this moral panic. Millennials have first intercourse several years later, and will have fewer average partners than the Baby Boomers. And less teen pregnancy. Fewer STIs. So....this really is more about women not "knowing their place," isn't it? Things weren’t “better” in the good old days - but women sure are stepping outside their gender-role cages these days.

I really love the idea of female sexual self determination. And the idea that female pleasure matters. So many are terrified about a world where women have the same sexual self determination as men. Ha. I have lived that world for 17 years, and it is actually fantastic. At least with the right partner.

Lots more to say. This is one of the biggest flash points of our generation, as much of the world is transitioning to a view of women as equal - and equally entitled to decide what they do with their genitals (something men have had since the dawn of human history…) To a large degree, our Culture Wars™ are very much about whether we preserve the toxic injustices toward women from the past - or not.

One final quote here comes at the end of the book. It kind of sums up the message. For those of us who are feminists, and believe that women should indeed have political, economic, and social equality with men, it really rings true. Valenti gives brief stories of several younger women who are doing amazing things in the world, and finishes with this.

These are the kinds of women who make up America - diverse, engaged, smart, interesting, moral agents of change. Take a look at the work these young women and others are doing. Now tell me it matters whether they’re virgins or not (it doesn’t), or that their contributions to society have anything to do with their sexuality (they don’t). So let’s use these examples of amazing young women to remind ourselves why we’re fighting to end the purity myth - a myth that denies our value as whole human beings - and move forward with their work in mind. And let’s spread this message about all young women across the country: that we’re more than the sum of our sexual parts, that our ability to be moral and good people has to do with our kindness, compassion, and social engagement - not our bodies - and that we won’t accept any less for any longer.

***

This is not an argument for promiscuity. And certainly not an argument for using sex selfishly. Rather, Valenti argues - and I agree - that whether one has had sex, and with how many people is far less relevant than how one acts sexually. Is our sexual expression loving? Or does it express dominance over others, violence, or dehumanization? (Hello, Doug Wilson…) But if your sexual teachings are based on misogyny, you end up saying stuff like a woman seeking consensual sex is the same as a male rapist. (Hello, John Piper…) If a woman has had consensual sex with a few partners before she marries, that sure seems to be a low level fault at worst. In contrast, “grab ‘em by the pussy” is a serious indication of bad character. Not to mention a crime. Some of us are having a really hard time taking seriously the pearl clutching of a religious tradition that obsesses about the former, while giving a total pass to the latter. Just saying. Or a tradition that seems just fine with voting the Ku Klux Klan into office, while waging jihad against LGBTQ people. Remember that when you clutch your pearls over why young people reject church teachings on sexuality…

Our Children ARE a Significant Reason We Haven't Returned to Church

This is kind of a continuation of a few conversations I have had since we left the church over a year ago. Generally, it is along these sorts of lines: “Not all Christians are like that.” “Stop dissing the Bride of Christ™.” “My church is great!” And, my all time [least] favorite: “Why are you depriving your kids of the experience.”

And my response is this:

Our children are a significant reason we are reluctant to go back.

***

Let me clarify a few things. I remain a committed Christian. I still believe. The problem is that I really don’t see Christ in the American church right now. And, although it pains me to say it, I find that, rather than helping my walk with God, church was hindering it and making me miserable in the process. Rather than giving encouragement in following Christ, I was finding that the church was pressuring me to abandon my beliefs in favor a political culture war.

I also am not saying that I will never go back to a church. Never is a long time. But I am not eager to do so, and I feel that in our current climate, doing so would require unacceptable compromises in the name of getting along. If I do go back in the future, though, I don’t think it can ever be to an Evangelical church. The trust is broken, and it isn’t coming back.

Also, since every time I speak out against the increasing toxicity of American religion, those who remain in the church feel defensive, let me say it again: no, not everyone in church is like this. There are good people there too. But a lot of people are devoted to a political faith, and the poison is in the water, so to speak. Also: lots and lots of good people in Mormon tabernacles - and in mosques and Hindu temples. Just saying.

***

My wife and I have been watching the ongoing suicide of Evangelicalism (and the American church in general) for a long time. Because we grew up in nutty, cultic subcultures, we saw the crazy before most ordinary churchgoers did. And we have watched, as she put it, the crazy become mainstream. From openly anti-Civil Rights (and sexual predator) Roy Moore to White Supremacist Steve Bannon. From viciously anti-gay Tony Perkins to deeply racist Bryan Fischer. Ideas too, from abusive child rearing practices (see the Pearls and the Ezzos) to Modesty Culture. From the endless obsession with female virginity to a delusional persecution complex. From outright rejection of science to conspiracy theories. From the economic policies of Ayn Rand to the racial policies of Milo Yiannapolous. (Oh yes, that’s real. I know several people from our former church - including leaders - who are big fans.) From the Cult of Domesticity to toxic masculinity. From gender essentialism, gender roles, and gender hierarchy to survivalism.  From virginity pledges and rings to macho man activities. Maybe I was unaware when I was a kid, but I don’t remember any of this being mainstream back then. Heck, even in the 1990s, when our respective families got involved in cult groups, we were the fringe people. Now, much of what we experienced in those far out groups is just another day in the pew.

***

Even before we left our longtime church (which had for a while been a haven from the craziness), we had some significant warning signs. And since we left, a number of additional things have happened that make us reluctant to go back. Some of these were specific to our situation, but others are more universal. Here are just a few that stand out:

● A sermon in which misogyny and feminism were presented as opposite evils. (The political, social, and economic equality of women is an evil?)

● The Christmas Wars™ becoming a focal point of our kids’ Sunday school every December.

● Frequent historical revisionism from the pulpit. This was generally of the hagiography of the past variety, but also the “everything good was done by our theological tradition” sort.

● Frequent references to “persecution is coming” from the pulpit.

● A seeming obsession with preaching against homosexuality - and at a time when open white supremacy was evident from people within the church - including leaders.

● A friend’s daughter being pressured (at a large local church) to make a virginity pledge - and this is very, very common. (Personally, I don’t think young teens - let alone tweens - have the capacity to enter into contracts. This is actually the law too. I think it is inappropriate to pressure children into making pledges they are too young to understand. Also, why virginity but not, say, greed?)

● Swag from a political lobby group (and recognized hate group) being distributed at church

● A leader at church pushing “be a real man” theology

● A guest preacher saying “When God comes to your door, he will ask to speak to the man of the house” from the pulpit, with no blowback from leadership.

● Our food pantry, which partnered with the local dialysis center was for all intents and purposes eliminated by leadership without input from those involved. It was deemed not to be a priority.

● At the same time, the establishment of a quasi-security-force group, which changed the vibe to one less welcoming. I cannot help but wonder if this was connected to the fact that some African American young men had started to attend.

● Some church leaders - including ones who taught our kids - posted stuff from openly White Supremacist jerk Milo Yiannopolous. And also openly social darwinist stuff like “we don’t feed the poor for the same reason we don’t feed squirrels in the national forests.”

● At a winter camp, a speaker pushing grossly sexist beliefs about men and women, making creepy remarks about how attractive his kids were (with them present), pushing sexist views of the marriage relationship, and more. My kids had to be deprogrammed by a friend (who was a chaperone) afterward, lest they think these were truly Christian beliefs.

● After said camp, the child of a friend deciding (s)he couldn’t be a Christian anymore because (s)he couldn’t live up to the demands the speaker said needed to be met.

● Open talk at church (not from the pulpit, but in the hallways) in favor of building a border wall and sending the Mexicans back.

● A sermon in which the line from Numbers, “Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.” was claimed to have been written by Moses. Say what? Even a kid can see that was added at some point by a scribe. Likewise, St. Jerome (who did most of the work translating the Vulgate, back in the 4th Century CE) understood that the Torah wasn’t written by Moses. It was just one example of the Bible-dolatry that tried to make scripture what it isn’t.

● My wife being ignored and marginalized when she filled a job viewed as “male” (sound tech.)

● A candidate for leader of children’s ministry spending an interview with my wife making it clear that she didn’t care what parents wanted, she was going to do what she wanted, particularly culture war stuff. And lied about it afterward. Oh, and also bragging about the intact condition of her daughter’s hymen (medically verified!) and saying it was her greatest accomplishment as a parent. And dissing Harry Potter. And saying she didn’t see the point in having missionaries talk to the kids. She wasn’t hired, but it was close. (We would have left then if she had.) Oh, and she was in the same position previously at a much larger church before that.

● A men’s retreat that feature the use of military-style weapons as an exercise in manliness. I’m a gun owner, but that still just feels wrong to me that weapons would be part of a spiritual retreat.But, manliness, yo.

● After we left, a leader at our former church was talking with a friend about the local women’s march, which my wife participated in. He said, and I am not making this up, “Some women just need to be smacked.”

● Another friend’s teens were taken aside by another church leader, and the girl informed that she shouldn’t be leading, but should defer to her brother, because God intended women to be submissive and take that role.

● A friend dyed her hair a lovely shade of blue, and a bunch of people at church stopped talking to her.

● A local megachurch held a big rally in support of a local business owner who violated California law by refusing to serve LGBTQ people. A friend who counterprotested this was insulted, threatened, and physically assaulted by the church members. Gaining the right to refuse to do business with LGBTQ people seems to be an obsession of the American church right now.

● My dad teaches a church history class at a local largish church. He has mentioned how much effort he puts into pushing back against the idea that Christianity is synonymous with (white) America. And trying to convince people that “love your neighbor” applies to immigrants and refugees and poor people and black people and so on. While I greatly admire his efforts as a missionary to the unregenerate, the fact that he has to spend effort fighting against ethno-nationalism in the church is a huge problem to me. That isn’t a place I want my kids.

● A local church held an official “service of mourning” after Obama was elected.

● In response to protests over police killings of unarmed African Americans, several local churches have held services with “Blue lives matter” type themes.

● A local pastor finally left the local high school board after years of pushing toxic stuff like creationism in science class, armed teachers, and - of course - no transgender people in the “wrong” bathrooms. (This is in violation of state law here in California - he was advocating open defiance of the law, just like Roy Moore.)

● A fellow professional musician was disinvited from the nursing home ministry she had served in for years (with her former church) because she was “caught” playing a professional Easter gig at another church. (Our former church - to their credit - was much better about this sort of thing. It’s too bad it went off the rails in other ways…)

● And that’s just the local stuff. I could also mention Steve Bannon speaking at the Values Voter Conference. (Yeah, the guy who recently said “They call you racists. Wear it as a badge of honor.” That guy.)

● I could mention 80% of white evangelicals voting for Roy Moore, despite credible accusations of child molestation against him.

● I could cite the poll showing that a solid majority white Evangelicals believe they are more persecuted than Muslims in our country. And more than racial minorities too.

● I could mention Jerry Falwell Jr.’s assertion that Trump is a “dream president for Evangelicals” and that one big reason was that he was building a border wall and evicting immigrants.

● I could mention that Russell Moore was nearly ousted from the SBC because he called out Trump’s racism.

● Or that the SBC was going to let a resolution condemning the “Alt-right” (a new euphemism for old fashioned White Supremacy) die in committee, until the most prominent African American member threatened to walk - and leave Evangelicalism altogether. Faced with likely becoming a whites-only denomination, they finally voted for the resolution. (Under duress, basically.)

● I could list the building of a multi-million dollar, high-tech gun range at one of the largest Christian universities - so that students will be prepared to fight of the inevitable Muslim invasion.

● Furthermore, in the midst of a push by the Trump administration to follow through on his campaign promise to ethnically cleanse America, a prominent and influential Evangelical organization decided that was the right time to come out with a document denying the existence of intersexuals and transgender persons, and asserting that you cannot be a “real” Christian if you don’t uncategorically condemn departures from “traditional” gender or sexuality. Basically a litmus test for the faith that would exclude me and many others from being accepted.

● The current political cause of much of the American church is over so-called “religious liberty,” meaning the rights of Christians to punish and control those who do not observe their sexual purity rules. That means denying employees birth control, refusing to serve LGBTQ people and single mothers, and refusing to obey the law as government employees.

● A trend (of which “9 Marks” is the best known example) toward the use of “church discipline” to enforce doctrinal purity and loyalty to leadership. And, along with this, the inclusion of beliefs about human sexuality, young earth creationism, abortion, and other issues that are at best non-essential (and really are mostly political issues) as core beliefs from which there can be no dissent.

● A never-ending series of sex scandals where church leaders who molest children or commit clergy sexual abuse are protected from prosecution, and the victims blamed.

● Ditto for domestic violence.

● 68% of white Evangelicals say we have no obligation to take in refugees. Worse, the polling on this has gotten worse over the last couple decades. Religion in America is becoming more, not less racist and xenophobic over time - in measurable ways. The trend is in the wrong direction.

● The Trump administration decides to start separating immigrant children from their parents indefinitely in an attempt to discourage them from seeking asylum, and this is met with deafening silence from most Evangelicals.

● Instead, they promote Franklin Graham’s political rally tour of our state - he’s literally working to get out the vote for Republicans, saying that “progressivism is another word for godlessness.”

●After a year of watching Trump consistently deport, harass, defame, and antagonize immigrants; after seeing the GOP come within a couple votes of ending healthcare for the poor and disabled; after it came out Trump paid off a porn star -- after ALL of the crap we have seen -- white Evangelicals approve of Trump with a 75% rating. They are by far his most loyal fans. It is safe to say that Trump is the truest expression of the moral values of Evangelicalism.

Basically, both before and after, there has been ample evidence that church culture is becoming ever more political, reactionary, and toxic. It isn’t just one church. It’s the whole system. What was once fringe right-wing lunacy is now mainstream.

It isn’t that everyone believes these things. And there are lots of good people in American Christianity. (Just like there are lots of great people in Mormon tabernacles. And in mosques.) But the increasingly toxic culture taints the experience, and makes it particularly difficult when you have kids and don’t want them to think this kind of evil is okay.

Here are my concerns:

1. Incompatible moral values. I have discovered that to a rather significant degree, I do not share the same values as a solid majority of American Evangelicals. Not the same political values. Not the same moral values. That’s a problem, because that means that putting my kids in church means that they will surrounded by people who will be undermining the values I wish to teach them. Not everyone, obviously. But an awful lot of them...and usually the people with power. 

2. Deprogramming. One of the most exhausting things about being part of a church the last couple of years before we left was the continual need to monitor and deprogram. Over and over. No matter what we said to leaders. And it was getting increasingly worse. In retrospect, we probably should have left sooner. But for a while, the good outweighed the bad...until it didn’t. And honestly, it would be the same pretty much anywhere else, because the political and cultural beliefs are widespread. We are so tired of fighting this fight, and realize we are never going to win it.

3. Recruitment into the culture wars. This is related to the above concern. We have, over, and over, and over, objected strenuously to the culture wars and to their being brought into Sunday school. We have mostly gotten a pat on the head, followed by our wishes being completely ignored. And this is the same pretty much throughout American Christianity. As social justice causes became passe (due to the need to justify slavery and Jim Crow), and with the founding of the Religious Right (on a pro-segregation platform - I am going to keep saying this until people start listening…), the political culture wars are pretty much the only way that white middle class Christians in this country interact with those outside the tribe. Certainly, within Evangelicalism, there will be NO escape from this. (And that means most protestant churches in our town.)

4. Historical Revisionism. This was also becoming an increasing concern as the kids got older. Particularly since church leadership types tend to live in their own intellectual bubble, getting news from Fox (or, gag, Breitbart), and seemingly everything else from approved “christian” sources. Groupthink is a problem with any group, but there doesn’t seem to be any openness to facts that threaten the theological or political beliefs. In particular, the revisionism was a problem when it came to the places that race and religion intersect. It was more important to maintain the image of Christianity as a force for good at all times (and the Republican party as righteous - unlike those godless commie Democrats - too) than to admit and wrestle with the dark things in our history. And our present. The thing is, my kids aren’t stupid. They read, they listen, and they notice lies.

5. Alternative facts and reality. On a related note, there is a growing problem of acceptance of “alternative facts.” As Peter Enns puts it:

Theological needs – better, perceived theological needs – do not determine historical truth. Evangelicals do not tolerate such self-referential logic from defenders of other faiths, and they should not tolerate it in themselves.

And this goes for so many things. The perceived needs of theology - and politics - bulldoze any possible consideration that might challenge those beliefs. So if theology says we are persecuted, well then we are! And if we have to make stuff up to prove it, we will. If we have to persecute others and claim we are persecuted when those outside the bubble call us on it, then do it, right? I’ve written before about the poison of Presuppositionalism and how it creates an alternative version of reality where everyone else is by definition wrong. BTW, I wrote the following before we left the church, and it is spookily prescient:

“Right now, I have my doubts that unless some fundamental changes occur, it will not remain possible for a person to be part of Evangelicalism and still be intellectually honest or morally and ethically decent. Such people will be increasingly purged in the name of doctrinal purity.”

We are part of that group purged in the name of doctrinal (and political) purity. We were forced out. There is no longer a place for people like me in Evangelicalism. On a related note, I find that anymore, I don’t share a common experience of reality anymore. Since I can’t believe Fox News’ fabricated (and xenophobic) reality, I can’t really have a discussion. We cannot agree on the basic facts of existence or how to find them.

6. Hostility toward science. This isn’t just about evolution - although it is about that. It is about human sexuality. It is about environmental conservation (proof positive that American Evangelicals largely get their ethics from Fox News, not from a consistent Christian ethic or the historical teachings of the church.) It is about social science. It is about the very existence of absolute truth that can be discovered. (Sorry. Evangelicals do NOT believe in absolute truth. They believe in absolute authority, which is a very different thing. A belief in absolute truth means that you change your opinions as you get better information. A belief in absolute authority means that you believe what your accepted authorities - and that includes leadership's preferred interpretation of scripture - say, in the very teeth of the evidence.) It is the same problem with perceived theological (and political) needs - they trump (pun intended) reality. Every time. I have real concerns about this when it comes to my kids. I am working to give them a solid grounding in science and math. I loved science as a kid, and I can say that one of my major struggles with faith as a young adult was due to finding out just how much the church lied to me about science. It was a tough pill to swallow. I don’t want my kids to grow up with the same problem.

7. Marginalization of women. Even within progressive denominations, church is a male-dominated affair. (Yeah, not all, but the overwhelming majority.) And within Evangelicalism, keeping women out of leadership is now a core doctrine, and has become an increasing obsession. Before we left, I did what I could to give women a platform within our worship teams. But, as the church culture changed, it seemed that there was a push to relegate women to the “pink collar” positions. I already mentioned one of my wife’s experiences. I grew increasingly concerned that church was the one place my daughters (and my wife) would be systematically excluded from the leadership positions that actually had decision-making power. Church was the one place they were viewed as “less than” men. This is rather a contradiction to the witness of the early church, where women were a majority, and respected as leaders. I know there are exceptions, but they are rather few.

8. Worrisomely bad response to sexual predators. It is bad enough that American Christians overwhelmingly voted for a serial sexual predator (Trump) and credibly accused child molester (Roy Moore.) But they continue to defend those two predatory men. Likewise, in my own experience and as demonstrated by a number of high-profile cases, if a sexual predator is a male church leader, he will be protected, the victims slandered and marginalized, and justice will not be done. As fellow OBCL alumnus Rachael Denhollander said, “Church is one of the least safe places to acknowledge abuse because the way it is counseled is, more often than not, damaging to the victim. There is an abhorrent lack of knowledge for the damage and devastation that sexual assault brings.” She is absolutely right, and, unsurprisingly, SGM (who engaged in a serious coverup of abuse), is now trying to destroy her reputation. One advantage we had at our former church in this area is that they did have a good policy - and also, we knew the people who would be leaders of our kids for years before our kids got to that age. With a new church, we would be placing them with strangers, essentially, and given what we have been through, I am not really comfortable with that.  

9. A pathological lack of empathy. This was the most horrifying part about the last couple of years. If you can’t find common ground on logic and reason, can’t agree on the basic facts of reality, how do you have a discussion? Once upon a time, like when I was a kid, you could at least start with empathy. But now, empathy for those outside the tribe has pretty much disappeared from American Christianity, replaced by social darwinism and tribalism. I don’t want my kids in that kind of environment. One the one hand, I don’t want them to become heartless and ruthless. On the other, I know that because they are compassionate and empathetic people, they will suffer. And as soon as they fail to conform, they will be torn to pieces in the name of God. (Just ask Russell Moore. Or Rachel Held Evans. Or Jen Hatmaker. Or John Pavlovitz. Or...the list goes on and on and on. You are useful to American Christianity only as long as you further the party line. Fail to do so, and you will be ruthlessly destroyed and disowned.)

10. It’s just politics. It has become more and more apparent that Christianity in America is mostly a thin veneer of religion over what is essentially a political movement. (Or movements.) Theology may trump reality - but politics always trumps theology. Party comes before the teachings of Christ - or even basic human decency. I can predict what at least 80% of Evangelicals believe about pretty much any political issue. Not by consulting scripture, Christ’s words, or the historical teachings of the church. Nope. All I need to do is check with Fox News. And it’s not just Evangelicals. I can likewise predict the beliefs of most “progressive” Christians by doing the reverse. (It’s not as uniform with progressives as for conservative Christians, but it’s still pretty striking.) And it isn’t so much the beliefs themselves as the fact that the beliefs seem to change in lock step with the change in the platforms of the parties - not with any meaningful change in the official theology. The last thing I want for my children is for them to have politics and religion inseparable in their minds. As it is, I am suffering loss of my church connection because I was unable and unwilling to change my morality to fit better with the racist/xenophobic/social darwinist direction the Republican party has chosen. I don’t want my children to see me sell my soul. (Heck, I don’t want to watch myself do it either.) Right now, I feel that political loyalty is the price of admission to the church club. It’s not one I am willing to pay.

11. I will never be accepted. Not really. If there has been one theme in my life experiences with church, it is that here in America, everyone is a resource. A source of money or labor or credibility. We don’t love people for who they are. In the church context, that means that you are only valuable for what you give. And only valuable as long as you further the agenda. Increasingly, certain beliefs - particularly in the areas of human sexuality and gender roles - have become a litmus test for full acceptance. Many churches say “all are welcome,” but this is mostly bullshit. You are welcome as long as you agree to change. You are welcome as long as you shut up when you disagree. You are welcome as long as you don’t rock the boat. Shut up, write that check, and give us your free labor. And when you are no longer lock-step with us, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Right now, for a variety of reasons (which I may blog about in the future), I cannot in good conscience subscribe to the doctrinal statements of most churches. Particularly in this town. Because of this, I know I will never be truly welcome.

12. You will know a tree by its fruit. This to me is the ultimate deal-breaker. When I look at the Church, I see an institution which is decades behind the larger culture in recognizing the basic human rights of non-white, non-male persons. I see an institution which makes people less compassionate. The fruit I see is most certainly not what I want to see in my own life, or in the lives of my children. And let me be blunt: in 2016, white Evangelicals voted in a larger percentage for Donald Trump (running openly on a KKK platform) than for any presidential candidate in history. Actions speak louder than words. Actions indicate values more than theological statements. I have come to believe, like Chris Ladd, that the election of Trump was no anomaly. Trump is the truest expression of the moral character of the Evangelical Church in America.

I refuse to identify myself with that kind of “moral character.” I won’t place my children in that moral environment. Period.

***

Hey, want to change my mind? What I am looking for is kind of an old-fashioned Christian concept:

Repentance.

There are several components to this, as any good Evangelical kid can tell you.

1. A realization that one has sinned. I am still waiting for the vast majority of Evangelicals to wake up and say, “Oh my god! What have we done?”

2. A change in behavior. This would mean doing the opposite of what they have been doing. No more voting for racists. No more Ayn Rand economics. No more pathological lack of empathy.

3. Making amends. Without this one, it is just words. You all have caused tremendous damage to vulnerable people. (The poor, refugees, immigrants, minorities, LGBTQ people, women, children.) Time to attempt to repair that damage. Until I see that, it will be obvious that there is no repentance.

Until there is repentance, I’m done.

***

One of the facets of organized religion that can be great is the community. This is one thing I really do miss. But the thing is, I missed it before we left. Things changed. I have been thinking about it over the last year or so, and I think that the core issue is that fellowship requires being able to be real and open. If you have to hide who you are in order to maintain relationships, it isn’t fellowship at all.

I understand disagreement. And I understand avoiding politics, like we often do at family gatherings to preserve the peace. The problem comes when politics becomes so inseparable from religion that you can’t even talk about religion anymore. At church. If you can’t talk about religion at church, well, what the heck is it even about anymore?

For all intents and purposes, I could not talk about religion at church, because to talk about how the teachings of Christ compel us to love our neighbor was, by definition, political. It would, after all, indict the embrace of the politics of hatred and viciousness toward those outside the tribe which is now a core belief of Evangelicalism.

So, it isn’t really realistic to expect community and fellowship at church right now. The trust is gone, the illusion of common values is gone. Rather than being a source of connection, our (allegedly) common religion is a source of alienation.

***

Why not join a progressive church?

That may eventually be in the future. Or maybe not. I don’t know at this point. I’m not ready to date again after a bad breakup. But never is a very long time. Ten years ago, I would not have predicted I would be where I am either. So the future is, as Tom Petty sang, “wide open.”

I am to a degree hampered by geography. Bakersfield is a schizophrenic town. We have a good legal community, vibrant arts and music, and a growing educated class. But we also have poverty, high teen pregnancy rates, low average education, and a lot of people who love Truck Nutz and Confederate Battle Flags and AR-15s. And we have a VERY conservative and highly political church scene. A local pastor who was on the High School board of trustees stirred up controversy for over a decade with things such as trying to get “In God We Trust” in every classroom, eventually resigning in protest over the board agreeing to follow state law on transgender bathroom use. I already mentioned the LGBTQ discrimination issue. It’s a tough town for Christians who aren't Republicans - which means Trump now.

After we left, I spent some time with another former member of our church, who left after a rather passionate anti-gay sermon. (They have a gay son.) They too haven’t found a home. It’s not hard to see why. In a metropolitan area with half a million people, and a few hundred churches, I could count on one hand easily the number of Protestant churches that aren’t fundie, political, or both. And one of those is the Unitarian church. The rest are all pretty small. And no offense meant to the likely lovely people who go there, but they are overwhelmingly old and white. I realize this is a problem facing churches all over (and Evangelicalism is most definitely NOT immune to this trend.) But the idea that we can magically find some fellowship for our kids isn’t really true. There’s no great option here.

Related to that is that progressive churches also tend to be filled with people a lot like me: white, educated, professional class - just older and long time Democrats. You know, I like people like me. But religion should cut across demographic lines. Right now, it doesn’t, and I am very much feeling like religion in America is just politics by another name. I suspect that once it becomes clear I don’t toe the Democrat platform, I will be viewed with suspicion.

Another concern for me too is that progressive churches (at least in this town) have taken kind of a non-confrontational stance, which means they have been largely absent from public discourse. The counterweight to the hate and bigotry has come, not from religious, but from secular sources. It feels kind of like the churches that were quietly uncomfortable with slavery, but too fearful to actually risk pushing back.

A more personal issue for me (and other Evangelical ex-pats) is that a big denominational switch means learning an entirely new religious language and ritual. I don’t want to sound whiny here, but ritual is important to us humans, religious or not. And part of what holds us together in the hard times is the muscle memory of our observances. It isn’t that I can’t worship God in a new way, or that the form itself is that terribly important. It’s that part of the sense of belonging that comes with being part of a community is sharing a common - and familiar - ritual. To make a complete switch after 40 years is hard enough for anyone. For someone like me, who spent 30 of those years actively creating a part of those rituals (particularly music, but more than that - I was an active, participatory church member all my life), it is particularly disorienting. It is hard to feel so much of an outsider, and everything reminds me of the loss of something that was very important to me - a vital part of me, really. I was pretty decent at both CCM and traditional hymns, and I’m proud of the work and passion I brought to it. Alas, I doubt that will ever be part of my life again. After being stabbed in the back on the way out, I am extremely reluctant to take a visible role in a church again, even if I go back. It is like losing a limb. And then watching others run and play and not being able to be one of them. Not really. So I grieve. I didn’t choose this. I didn’t want this. But I am no longer welcome where I was, and I am unable and unwilling to sell my soul to fit in again.

***

Please read my comment policy. For this post, if you quote your favorite proof-text, or just want to lecture me, I will delete your comment. And no, not really interested in hearing how great your church is. I’m glad you found a place you fit.

***

Update June 5, 2018: I can't believe I forgot to link this song. In Southern culture (so Michael Stipe says), the phrase "Losing my religion" isn't a crisis of faith. It's when you are at the end of your rope and can't be polite anymore. This is actually a great description of where I am at and have been for the last two years or so. Maybe three. I'm still a Christian, and I am more inspired by the teachings and example of Jesus Christ than ever before. It is THAT which has led to my break with the organized church. And I'm tired of being polite and pretending that American Evangelicalism in particular is anything less than the polar opposite of Christ. It is, so to speak, anti-christ in pretty nearly every measurable way.

Take it away, R.E.M.