November 2011 Archives

This weekend, I finished reading the first book in Harlequin's "Rogue Angel" book series, "Destiny."  Overall, I enjoyed it, as I love stories about strong women.  I'm looking forward to reading about more of Annja Creed's adventures.

About halfway through the book, I also came across Ana Mardoll's Slacktiverse contribution in which she discusses the Bechdel Test.  Out of curiosity, I decided to consider how "Destiny" would fare.[1]   Besides Annja, I can readily find only one other female character in the book: a server at the restaurant Annja and Roux eat at after their first adventure together.  As it turns out, the two women have a brief conversation in which Annja verifies that her dining companion -- a man -- has run out, leaving her to pay the bill.  That conversation fails the test at point three.  Fortunately, Maria, the head chef in a small Cuban restaurant in New York, shows up in Chapter 19 to have a conversation with Annja.  Even though the conversation eventually turns to the young male cop Annja is about to meet, I'm willing to accept the fact that they spend about half a page talking about Annja's time out of the country first as a sign of passing the test.  I will note, however, that it took nineteen chapters (roughly 137 pages and half the book) to not only pass the test, but to introduce the third female character.
 
Now, I can certainly understand why many of the other main characters are men.  It makes sense that Roux and Garin would both be men, given their backstories.  I can also understand why the monks in the story are men.  I'll even grant that having Lesauvage be a man makes sense, given his love for the myth The Wild Hunt.[2]

However, there were a number of characters -- shopkeepers, restaurant staff, security guards, and police, that were either clearly marked as men or whose gender was never indicated.  It would have been quite easy to add more characters.  For that matter, it would have been easy to have Annja have the conversation that occurs upon her return to the bed and breakfast with Camille Lambert instead of her husband, Francois.  Camille is one of the women who are mentioned in the story, but never actually get to see in action and whose voice we never hear.

Another woman who was mentioned was Bart's girlfriend, who is not even named.  Personally, I found the mention of this girlfriend somewhat troubling, as the main purpose for mentioning her seemed to in order for Annja to feel jealous, and a rather strange sort of jealousy at that:

Annja didn't like the little ember of jealousy inside her.  She knew she didn't want commitment at this point in her life, but she'd iced the idea of having Bart kind of waiting in the wings.  She didn't like how casually that had just been taken off the table.  Or how she'd made the wrong assumptions about his feelings for her.  She felt foolish.

I'm a bit disturbed by this whole depiction of Annja as someone who doesn't really want this guy, but wants him to want her.  I will be honest that I'm particularly disturbed as the book is written by a man.[3]  As such, I find myself wondering if this is some thinly veiled "look at the games women play" misogynistic nonsense.

Even more troubling than Bart's unnamed girlfriend and Annja's reaction to learning of her existence is the references to Kristie Chatham, who is introduced as another woman who does segments for the show, "Chasing History's Monsters."  We learn quickly that Kristie has a number of outtakes (which made it on air) where her bikini fell off.  The narrator lets us know quite clearly what Annja thinks of Kristie:

For her [Kristie], history never went past her last drink and her last lover.

There you have it.  Annja not-so-secretly thinks that the other woman is nothing more than an unintellectual slut and lush.  Those are pretty harsh thoughts.

Of course, it's not just Annja who seems to feel that way.  Whenever the show comes up, the other characters -- invariably[4] men -- immediately mention the "woman with the wardrobe problem," and reassure Annja that she's much more intelligent and sensible than that.  It seems as though Annja's impressive intelligence and strength cannot be appreciated unless it's compared to some other woman's alleged failings.  That strikes me as deeply troubling.

Like I said, I liked this book.  And overall, I like the fact that it features a strong woman who can fight like a great warrior and has great intelligence and no small education.  However, that does not mean that there are not troubling aspects about this book and its portrayal of women in general and even some of Annja's own characteristics (like her attitudes towards some other women).  I find myself concerned about the messages the book might send or reinforce.  I'd be interested to hear what my female readers think of the book (if any of you have read it) and/or my thoughts on it.

Notes:
[1]  I understand that traditionally, the test is applied to movies and television shows, but I see no reason why it shouldn't be applied to books as well.  After all, books have characters (in some cases, more of them than you're average movie) and dialogue.  So I say it's fair game until someone gives me a good reason why it shouldn't be.

[2]  This does not, however, explain why all of his cult members were men.  Some of them could have been women, unless Lesauvage was being intentionally portrayed as misogynistic.  However, the author made no attempt to establish that trait for that character, and I"m not inclined to just to give the author the benefit of the doubt.

[3]  A little research told me that the name that appears on the books is a house name used for the series and that this particular book was written by a man named Victor Milan.

[4]  Take that with a grain of salt.   I admit that I've had to revise many statements I originally made about the book as I continued to thumb through my copy to find the details I planned on using in this post.  Originally, I couldn't remember any female characters being in the book besides Annja, just other women being mentioned by male characters.

Rather than moving on to chapter six of Alisa Harris's book, "Raised Right:  How I Untangled my Faith from Politics," I've decided to remain in chapter five.  In last Monday's post, I mainly focused on Harris's attention on repentance (for others) and the need for Divine wrath to bring it about.  This week, I want to look at the underlying motivation for this desire for nation-wide repentance, which Harris also covers.

Ultimately, when 9/11 struck, the conservative Christians like Harris were hoping for a return to God by the whole nation.  The idea here is that they want to reclaim America's place as the great Christian nation it was intended to be.[1]  To them, they want to create the great Christian America, which they assume will be the apple of God's eye, much like Israel was the apple of God's eye throughout the New Testament.[2]  So pulling down the separation of Church and State and pushing the supremacy of their version of Christianity is essential to establishing their version of God's kingdom.

Years ago, I wrote on another (now defunct) blog that I felt that American evangelical's desires to remake America into a Christian Nation struck me as a modern day golden calf.  In their efforts to bring this about, they have ignored the teachings of Christ and the methods for Kingdom-building that he and his apostles promoted throughout the New Testament.  It seems that in this regard, I have found a kindred spirit in Alisa Harris.  Harris even notes that this particular idolatry isn't new:

Before American democracy became the form of government Christians favored, medieval Christians believed God favored the right of a king to rule over his people, protecting them in return for their allegiance and service.  The Puritan founder of Massachusetts, John Winthrop, didn't believe we were all equals but that "God Almighty" had made "some ... rich, some poor, some high and eminent in power and dignity, other mean and in subjection.  He and his fellow leaders thought a truly godly commonwealth should drive out Quakers, Catholics, Baptists, dissenters, questioners. ... Christians today say the Bible endorses capitalism; Christians two hundred years ago said it endorsed the divine right of kings.  Both missed the point, which is that the Bible is neither an eighteenth- nor a twenty-first-century policy textbook.  It endorses neither the fiefdom nor the global superpower.  America is not a "uniquely Christian" nation, and it never was.

That last statement touches upon the biggest condemnation of the Religious Right's idolization of America:  They forget that there are other Christians and Christian majorities in the world.  They forget that the Christians in India or Egypt trying to live godly lives deserve as much dignity and respect as their American counterparts.  In focusing on the Great Christian Nation, it seems to me that many American evangelicals have put themselves above their brothers and sisters in other parts of the world.

Notes:
[1]  Of course, this whole idea is based on the faulty claims of people like David Barton, who seek to prove that America was founded with the intention of making it a Christian nation at all, and particularly the brand of Christianity the Religious Right endorses.

[2]  This is one of the bizarre thing about the relationship between American evangelicals and Israel.  On the one hand, American evangelicals talk about Israel's status as "God's chosen people."  Yet, on the other hand, they see themselves as Israel's replacement in that official capacity.

Trigger Warnings:  Homophobia, suicidal thoughts, sexually violent dreams, frank sexual talk.  If you don't feel you can handle reading this post, I completely understand.  Please feel free to ask Personal Failure to share one of her otters with you instead.

Confessions of a Former Conservative is one of my favorite blogs, as he critiques, challenges, and denounces some of the more spiteful things said by fundamentalist and other ultra-conservative Christians online.  One of the blogs he regularly critiques is written by a woman named Gerie.  He recently posted a critique on her condemnation of Christians who are pro-gay and reaffirmed her own certainty that being gay is a sin.  As she quoted the Romans 1 "clobber passage," I offered the following commentary on Former Conservative's post:
 

You know what? That particular passage pisses me off. You know why? Because it suggests that the cause of homosexuality is idolatry. Well, guess what? I grew up a good little Christian. i said the sinner's prayer and meant it. I did everything I was supposed to. And I still turned out gay. I tried to convince myself it was a phase. I stayed gay. I prayed to God and begged with Him to turn me straight. I'm still gay.

So you know what? Fuck Romans 1 (or at least Gerie's interpretation of it.) Because I did everything I was supposed to and I still ended up fucking gay. So obviously, either Romans 1 is bullshit or Gerie's interpretation of it is.

And I'm not the only person who had that experience. There's at least one website dedicated to people who did everything right and even tried to overcome their gayness and yet remained gay.

I understand that Gerie's the type that will continue to believe her whacked-out interpretation over reality, but come on. She can at least acknowledge that she's a reality-denier. It'd be the honest thing to do, and given how important the truth (supposedly) is to her.....

Apparently, Gerie read my statement, because it's a fairly that her Monday post is a direct response to what I said.  As I read it, I was both amused and disgusted.  I was amused because I found many of the things Gerie said in response to my comment to be quite predictable.  I was disgusted for the same reasons.  Gerie's response is a non-response.  A response actually engages with what was said and seeks dialogue.  Gerie's lengthy missive makes no such attempt.  Instead, it is little more than a reiteration of her position and an attempt to make my own personal narrative fit into her preconceived ideas on the topic.

Gerie says the following of me and my comment in the introduction to her post:

But this heartfelt comment that I read, stood out from the others and I am sure, touched the heart of God. I know this because from the time I read it, the Lord had me on my knees, praying and interceding with many tears for this person. Who I don't know personally and have never met, but for a little while, as I prayed for him, I could feel the pain in his heart, and the inner conflict and turmoil that sin has caused in his life.

To be frank, I find the above statements patronizing and sanctimonious.  Gerie claims that my post had her in tears and she had this great emotional experience over me.  However, note that her response is simply to pray and "know what I'm feeling."  And yet she did not make any attempt to contact me.  She did not join the open conversation on Former Conservative's blog.  She did not try to find my email address[1] in order to contact me directly.  Instead, she decided to write a blog post about me (she couldn't even be bothered to address her comments to me) on a blog that doesn't allow comments.

These are not the actions of someone who wants dialogue.  I will go so far as to say that this is not someone who even cares, despite her claims to the contrary.  A person who cares about someone seeks to engage in conversation with that other person.  Gerie is simply having another self-aggrandizing moment of (faux) piety.

 I also find it curious that based on a single, 225-word (not counting the quoted passage) comment , Gerie is sure that she knows exactly what I am feeling[2] and why.  If Gerie thinks that such a short message can give her a complete insight into my numerous and complex feelings on the topic of my sexual, romantic, and emotional feelings and the fact that I was brought up to think those things made me evil (a position I have since long rejected both with good reason and for the better), she is sorely mistaken.  And there's certainly no inner conflict.  I've long made peace with my feelings and the Divine.  So any "inner conflict" Gerie is sensing is an invention of her own imagination.

Gerie takes a pause in her discussion to offer the following aside to parents, which I find very telling:

Parents, take the time to talk to your children and pay attention to what's going on inside of their hearts. I am learning that Satan attacks our children mercilessly simply because he can get away with it and he is never suspected.

I bolded the part that I find most interesting in a most disturbing way.  Reread that and let it sink in.  According to Gerie, Satan is allowed to attack children.  By whom?  Well, by Gerie's god, of course!  Again, take a moment for that to really sink in.  Gerie's god allows Satan to attack children.  He does nothing to stop it.  What's worse, if Satan's attacks on children works, Gerie's god sends those children to eternal torment as a punishment for not standing up to those attacks.

Am I the only one that thinks that makes Gerie's god a complete fucking bastard?

I'll also note that ex-gay ministries and reparative therapy "experts" have spewed all this "parents be careful or your children could go stray" stuff before.  Some of the family members of former ex-gays will gladly tell you that it places an unbearable sense of guilt on them.  Mom and Dad don't need any more shaming over my sexual, romantic, and emotional feelings than I do.

Gerie continues:

For instance whether a child accepts the belief that they are gay or not, and believing they were made that way or were born that way, because the feelings were there as far back as they can remember.

People don't believe they're gay.  People believe that there's a god who hears their prayers.  People believe that humans are basically good.  People believe that buying lotto tickets from the middle of the row increases their chances of winning.  These are all intellectual ideas with a great deal of doubt, uncertainty, and unverifiability.

Romantic and sexual attractions are too concrete and too visceral to be considered mere belief.  The boy who is left feeling cold at the thought of kissing Judy or Lilly,[3] but whose heart flutters at the thought of kissing Ken or Roger has more than a "belief" that he is guy.  The young girl who wakes up from her fifth dream about making out with a girl all sweaty and aroused has more than a "belief" that she is gay.

Sexual orientation is about feelings and attractions.  These things are inherently involuntary.  People don't plan to feel a certain way, and emotions tend to happen on their own.  If those feelings tend to be towards members of the same sex and of a romantic and sexual nature, that person is gay.  There's no "belief" involved.

The belief that a person is born gay is correctly identified as a belief.  However, it is a belief that is based in a great deal of evidence and common sense.  There has been a great deal of research that has demonstrated a high level of certainty that sexual orientation is biologically determined and most likely a matter of genetics combined with pre-natal conditions.  Of course, this brings me to the next statement made by Gerie:

Common sense tells us that if God will judge homosexuality as sin that He would never intentionally plant those desires in our hearts, but that the source of those feeling had to originate from somewhere else.

Gerie is correct about what common sense tells us.  However, I will argue that her conclusion is counter-intuitive and completely works the reasoning in the wrong direction.

You see, all the research and the experiences of actual gay people suggests very strongly -- to those who value empirical data above blindly following dogma -- that all those feelings and desires are inborn.  As such, the reasonable conclusion is that no loving god would "make" us gay and then condemn us, so no loving god would be condemn those who are gay.

Instead, Gerie chooses to assume -- based on nothing other than a dogmatic acceptance of a "literal interpretation" of certain clobber passages that theologians have challenged repeatedly -- that God hates homosexuality.  So instead of relying on scientific research and the experiences of countless gay people, she decides there must be another explanation for gayness.  As I said in my original comment, Gerie is engaging in reality-denial here.

Of course, Gerie's explanation is still problematic.  Her solution is to say that Satan gave people those feelings, even at a very young age.  But as I noted earlier, Gerie's god still had to allow Satan to do this.  I do not accept that a loving god would condemn people to eternal damnation for choosing to cope with the feelings He allowed Satan to give them the best way they know how any more than he'd condemn them if He had given those same people those same feelings Himself.

Gerie's god simply makes no sense to me unless that I accept that He stands for some things I consider morally abhorrent.  If I accept that, then I have no desire to have anything to do with such a god.

After going on about Satan's evil ways of getting people to believe various things and God's abusive ways of sending people to eternal torment for falling for Satan's tricks, Gerie hits upon a rather ironic statement about the hard questions:

Never go to your Pastor or any man with the hard questions that he couldn't possibly know the answer to, go to God.

I find this ironic because Gerie has effectively condemned herself.  If you read through the post I'm critiquing and the rest of your blog, you will find that Gerie makes a regular practice of "answering the hard questions" herself.  Does this mean that secretly, Gerie believes that she is God?  It would certainly explain a number of things.

I'm sure that Gerie would defend herself by saying that she's going to the Bible and giving not her own answers, but God's answers.  The problem with this claim, however, is that this is the same claim that just about every pastor I know would make (except that many pastors I know would honestly add that it's their understanding of God's answers "as it stands now" and that it may be inaccurate).  There's nothing that actually demonstrates that Gerie has any more authority to make that claim than they do.

At any rate, Gerie suggests that the correct thing to do is to ultimately go to God with the hard questions:

So we should always try to understand things from Gods perspective. Get on your knees and go to God and ask for wisdom and understanding. Be persistent and never give up. We want everything to happen overnight and can I tell you that it just doesn't work that way. Not with the things that matter.

This is sound advice, except that it assumes that people like me -- or people who disagree with Gerie's understanding of a wrathful god hell-bent on doing horrible things to people He disapproves of for reasons he has a hand in -- haven't done this already.  If Gerie doesn't think I and tohers sought god earnestly and painfully, then her understanding of me is fatally flawed.  To be blunt, she has no understanding of me.  As I mentioned before, she is merely making assumptions about me and those like me to make our narratives fit her preconceived notions.  Gerie is engaging in more reality-denial.

As for the comment that God doesn't answer questions over night, I will simply comment that I waited on God for eight years for an answer and only came to the answer I did when it nearly destroyed me.  Between accepting that I'm gay and slitting my wrists -- something I seriously considered for over thirty minutes and in such detail that I can still picture the curve of the blade, the grain of the wood, and the exact color of the brass rivets of the knife I was going to use -- I decided that any truly Divine being would rather see me accept my feelings.

If Gerie and her god doesn't understand that...well I'd say my opinion of them would go down, but I'm not sure that's possible at this point.

Next, Gerie moves into one of her favorite subjects: how it's important to fear her god.  Now quite frankly, considering all the horrible things Gerie's god allegedly does, I'd be apt to fear him if I believed in him at all, too.  That's a god who should be feared, not loved.

To support her position, Gerie quotes Luke 12:5:

But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!

So there you have it.  Even Jesus says we should fear god.  But maybe we should see what Jesus had to say in the verses that bracket that one.

4 "And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. 5 But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!  6 "Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins?[a] And not one of them is forgotten before God. 7 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

So basically, Jesus isn't saying "fear God" so much as he's saying "if you're going to fear anyone, it should be God, but you shouldn't even fear him."  This actually goes along with what the apostle John said about love casting out fear.

I'm going to jump over the section where Gerie goes on at length about how for heaven to work, God has to have perfect obedience in order.  That in itself would make a great blog post.  However, for now, I'm simply going to suggest that reading this part of Gerie's post about how God needs to be a tyrant for everybody's own good with Bob Altemyer's book "The Authoritarians" in mind.

The thing I will note, however, is that Gerie makes a switch in her argument about morality at this point.  Up to this point, she has been calling for blind obedience to God's commands (or Gerie's interpretation of them) simply because He's God and if you don't, He'll torment you forever and ever.  Now she's trying to claim that God only does this because it's the only way to keep things going smoothly, as if suddenly keeping things going smoothly is now the real reason for morality rather than avoiding God's wrath.  Of course, she offers no proof that (her interpretation of) God's commands will actually make things go smoothly, so this comes off more like an abusive father who is claiming that beating his child until limbs break or a lung gets punctured is "for their own good."  Both arguments are just as unsubstantiated.

Of course, it also implies a real flaw with Gerie's god.  If the only way that God can make things to work is to give commands from on high and torment those who disobey, he's a terrible God.  Hell, he's worse than some of the worst human leaders to have ever walked.  If Gerie's god has no way of motivating people to follow him,[4] then he needs to go back to god/management school.

Gerie eventually gets back to me and my comment, offering this rather condescending analysis:

The comment that I read, said that he did everything right, and he is still gay. He said the sinners prayer and begged God to take away his gay tendencies. What we have to understand is that saying the "sinners prayer" won't save anybody, despite what we have been taught by church people. And understand that all of your sinful desires don't go away automatically once you are saved.

You know, I'm always amused by the number of conservative Christians who claim to know my heart.  In this case, Gerie doubts the sincerity of my prayer of repentance.  Other people simply think I didn't pray hard enough, have enough faith in God, or didn't give God enough time.  I'd like to know what Divine Power these people think they possess to know what I did, where my heart was, or what I was really thinking for my childhood, teenage years, and even my early twenties.

I could give a lengthy story about my life, my choices, and my pains.  I could talk about the horror the first time I woke up from a wet dream, horrified that the dream had involved not a girl, but a male classmate[5].  I can talk about the nights I laid in bed for several minutes to an hour praying for forgiveness over every little perceived sin -- and things I wasn't sure really was a sin but asked for forgiveness for "just in case."  I could talk about the time I spent in church praying, worshiping, and leading others in the same.  I could talk about the time I spent in high school and college being just as obnoxiously "righteous" as Gerie.

But I won't, because I don't have to explain myself to Gerie.  I don't have to explain myself to anyone.  And i certainly won't bother trying to explain myself to someone who doesn't have the decency to ask me rather than just go off making whatever assumptions about me will prop up her preconceived notions.  I deserve more respect than that and I have more respect for myself than that.

Gerie goes on to say the following:

What saves us is that after we turn to Jesus with a sorrow for the condition we have allowed ourselves to get into, that we firmly determine in our heart that we will never commit another sin.

The problem with this is that Gerie is now trying to blame the person for being gay.  However, Gerie has already conceded that someone else -- she believes it's Satan -- has planted these feelings in gay people.  So basically, Gerie's trying to say that it's both not gay people's fault for being gay and is their fault.  Gerie has just contradicted herself at this point, and it becomes apparent to me that Gerie will say whatever she has to in order to defend her position, even if it means contradicting herself.  Logic, consistency, and reality be damned.

Gerie goes on to tell me (oh, it appears she does address me in the second person after all -- after a huge wall of text) that while my feelings may really, they are a lie.  You know, while I understand that feelings are not always an accurate depiction of reality -- like I how I occasionally feel that no one loves me despite the fact that there are dozens of people who love me -- this idea of "feelings as a lie" as Gerie presents it makes no sense.

Being gay is all about feelings.  If you have certain feelings towards members of the same sex and only members of the same sex, you are gay.  That's the very definition of the word gay.  So to acknowledge that I really have those exist and yet deny that I'm gay is a contradictions -- or an attempt to redefine what it means to be gay.  I'm afraid Gerie will lose that battle every time.

Next, Gerie goes on to demonstrate her complete lack of comprehension of homosexuality:

Stop right now, believing in your heart that you are gay, its a lie! You are caught in a trap by believing the lie. As a man thinketh in his heart so is he. Look at yourself. You are a MAN!  You are not a woman. God Himself created you and He made you a man!

In my thirty-seven years of life, I have never doubted I am a man.  I have never thought of myself as a woman.[6]  Gerie seems to be conflating being trans* with being gay or bi.  They are not the same thing.  It is perfectly possible to see oneself as a man[7] and still prefer the romantic and sexual companionship of another man.

Again, Gerie's inability to understand what it actually means to be gay and her willingness to uphold her incorrect assumptions about what it means to be gay rather than learning from the narratives of actual gay people shows a callousness and lack of caring in her that is inexcusable.  Someone who will not even listen to what I have to say and consider my narrative as it is rather than what they want it to be is not someone who deserves my ear or my respect.

I'm going to end my commentary here, as I believe I've said everything that needs to be said.  The rest of Gerie's post is a combination of exhortations to fight (displaying assumptions about what I have and haven't done and why I changed my point of view), making faulty analogies between other (alleged) sins that fail for reasons I can't be bothered to go into right now (hey, I'm allowed to get tired, and I've been working on this post for over two hours now), and threatening me with hell if I don't.  That last makes her closing comment about hoping that she'll meet me some day (but making no real effort to enter into real dialogue or relationship with me at the present) all the more ludicrous.

Notes:
[1]  If you click my linked name next to the note on FC's blog, it takes you to my main site.  On that page is a link to send me an email address.  Apparently, clicking through two links to find my email address is too much effort for Gerie.

[2]  I suspect she'd claim that God let her feel my pain, as I get the impression that Gerie is a Pentecostal/charismatic Christian as well.  However, as I'll demonstrate as I continue through her post, she's either wrong or God sent her a "distorted picture."

[3]  I cannot say whether this is universal or even common, but personally, I was almost more disturbed by my lack of attraction to girls as I was the presence of feelings for boys.  I vividly remember laying in bed realizing that the thought of kissing a particular girl (one I had convinced myself I had feelings for) left me feeling cold and uncomfortable, and wondering, "What the hell is wrong with me????"

[4] And now we're back to one of my points in Monday's post.

[5]  What's really messed up is that I was more disturbed that the sexual activity (non-penetrative, by the way) in the dream was with another man rather than the fact that it was non-consensual on my part.

[6]  Granted, I have occasionally wondered what it would be like to be a woman.  However, that is not the same as thinking that I am a woman or want to be one.

[7]  Though I grant you that my understanding of what it means to be a man is far more fluid and far less riddled with stereotypes than Gerie's.

On Wednesday, I tackled how morality can be influenced both by the advice of deities and the individual's application of reasoning and consideration.  Today, I'd like to consider how society fits into the development of one's morals - in this case, my own.

Understanding how society influences morality is primarily understanding the very nature of morality as a matter of relationships.  To put it simply, morality comes into play when my actions affect my relationships to friends, family, my gods, the world in general, and even myself.  If my actions do not affect anyone,[1] then there is no question about morality.

The importance of morality rests on the importance of those relationships.  To put it simply, people need relationships to survive, both individually and collectively.  The Randian notion that a person can be completely self reliant is a quaint fantasy with no basis in reality, as mmy beautifully demonstrated not so long ago.  We all need the support and help of other people from time to time.

At it's heart, I think morality is a way of developing and strengthening relationships with mutual trust and respect, relationships that ensure that when we - both collectively and individually - need aid and support, we are certain to have some place to turn.  This support might be extreme, such as the case mmy describes in the blog post linked in the previous paragraph.  However, it may just be the knowledge of knowing that other people "have your back," knowing that you don't have to spend all your time and energy protecting yourself and what you value.  This social support enables you to take risks, seek new adventures which may lead to new benefits and gains, both for yourself and those around you.

As a devotee of a Norse goddess, I am deeply inspired by the Icelandic sagas, whose heroes often find themselves doing a careful balancing act between the deep-felt call to being a rugged individual of great accomplishment and meeting their obligations to their families and the greater society they find themselves in.  I personally consider learning to find this balance the greatest endeavor and purpose of morality.  For me, it has led to a finely nuanced and carefully considered framework on which to determine what my best and most moral next action in a given situation will be.

Notes:
[1]  Admittedly, if any such actions exist, they are truly few in number.

Note about page numbers:  I'm using an iBook copy of this book.  With iBook (and I believe most electronic books work this way), the book repaginates based on your font settings.  As such, I'm not sure how useful it will be to give page numbers.  For anyone who wants to know, I'm reading my iPad in portrait mode using the smallest font size, with a font setting of Palatino.  That's how I come by the page numbers I list in the post titles.

Peretti starts "The Visitation" with a very short prologue.[1]  This prologue starts out describing what one might first think of as the crucifixion of Jesus himself.  Peretti describes the ringing of hammer against nail and the crunching of bone beneath said nail.  He then describes the young man as he hangs there beneath the scorching sun.

He cried out, but God did not listen.  It could have been God who drove the nails, then put his hammer down and turned away, smiling in victory.  It could have been God who left him to bake and bleed in the sun, unable to stand, unable to fall, as the sun marked the passing hours across the cloudless sky.

We can glean from this passage that the young man is likely from a religious background.  Contrary to what the "non-Christians hate Jesus crowd" might thing, the nonreligious - especially those who were nonreligious from the day they were born - do not face adversity and think that God has abandoned them, let alone that God is the likely cause of their adversity.

No, a young man has to believe in God - or at least be brought up to believe in God - to believe that it was God Himself who crucified him.

This is confirmed as the young man reflects on the accusations of his tormentors:

"You're a child of the devil," they said.  A child of the devil who needed to be contained.

So the people who crucified this young man are devoutly religious and believe they are authorized - presumably by God Himself - to determine who is God's own chosen and who is a child of the devil.  Not only that, they feel duly authorized to do what must be done to "contain" those who fall into the latter category, even if it means crucifying that person and leaving zir for dead in the scorching heat.

When I volunteered at a summer day camp for Child Evangelism Fellowship, the leaders always cautioned us to choose our words carefully when disciplining the children in our care.  They warned us that we should refrain from telling a child that zie is "bad."  The leaders explained that this often created a self-reinforcing message to the child, which would just as likely result in more bad behavior than encouraging good behavior.  We were encouraged to point out that the child was precious and valuable, and even good, but was engaging in bad behavior.  Bad behavior by good children was correctable after all.  What's more, it made it worth correcting the good behavior.

If I had ever told a child that they were the spawn of Satan himself, I suspect that the CEF leadership would have asked me to leave and never come back.  Had I ever told a child such a thing while driving nails into their wrist so they could hang their in agony while dying, I should hope they would have called the police on me.

What has happened to this young man is monstrous beyond measure.  Not only has he been involved in a religious group that feels justified in declaring him irredeemably evil, but they have placed final judgment on him on God's behalf, leaving him to die in misery.  This young man, whoever he is deserves our sympathy.  He deserves our compassion.  He deserves mercy and relief from his torment.

I find that interesting that as the prologue continues, the young man finds relief from his torment, but without any mention of mercy:

He cried out once again, and this time, a voice, a mind, answered and a power coursed through him.  Suddenly, he could bear the pain and make it fuel for his will.  With burning will, he determined he would live.

Power.  He does not find mercy, but power.  Power to survive according to his own will.  Power provided by some unknown source.

Of course, he has already had one brush with power.  Those who hung him by nails that tore through his flesh and bone and left him to die had power to.  They used their power to abuse and hurt him.  To them, power was something to torment and "contain" those they deemed unfit for life.

So one might wonder, how one who has been abused by the powerful might react when he finds not saving mercy from others, but power to save himself.  Power that he now can wield.  One might wonder what he might do with that power, power that still knows nothing of mercy.

Whether this young man becomes a just protagonist or a monster modeled after his own tormentors and the brutal lessons they taught him, this moment makes him a rather sympathetic character in my eyes.

Notes:
[1]  Actually, there is an introduction before the prologue.  However, given that the introduction is a brief discussion of his own thoughts, I chose to skip over them and move right into the fictional narrative.

The Former Conservative recently offered a critique of the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry's homophobic "Questions for Homosexuals" a while back, to which CARM leader Matthew Slick replied.  The Former Conservative offered a second response, and I encourage anyone who has not followed the exchange to go read it in its entirety.

One of the things that came up in the protracted discussion was CARM's strange beliefs about morality.  It seems that CARM understands that there can only be three sources for morality (and only the first one is valid in CARM's mind):

1. A Supreme Being offering inviolable declarations of what is right and what is wrong.
2. A societal system that offers near-inviolable declarations of what is right and what is wrong.
3. Individuals who decide for themselves what is right or wrong based on what feels right.

This list demonstrates that the folks at CARM might want to invest a bit more into the "Research" part of their organization's name.  There are a multitude of diverse bases for developing a moral framework, as evidenced by the number of philosophers, both ancient and modern, who have explored the topic of morality and offered many different methods for determining morality.

As a devotee o the Norse gods, I would actually suggest that my morality is loosely based on more nuanced versions of all three above points.  For example, my gods have a lot of advice to offer as to what actions and what virtues and actions are considered noble and moral.  However, these are offered as advice rather than inviolable commandments.[1]  Instead, they offer advice, suggestions, and reasons why certain courses of action are preferable and more worthy of praise.

This offers something for individual reason and reflection to work with.  This does make morality somewhat individualistic.  This is appropriate as morality is itself individualistic.  I am responsible to make sure that I act in a manner that is moral.  I am not responsible for anyone else's morality or lack thereof.  So I need to reason through what right action is based on the understanding of my situations, the virtues that I and my gods deem noble and valuable.

This sort of individual consideration of morality is not the narcissistic "do what I want" attitude that the folks at CARM or like-minded people consider it to be.  It is possible to use one's own reason and thought processes, yet start with some sort of basis that leads you to a rugged moral framework from which to act in an appropriate manner.

In reality, CARM's knee-jerk rejection of the application of personal reason and reflection on matters of reality suggests an anti-reason bias in their approach to the world.  Of the three above versions of morality that they perceive, I suspect the last is the one they trust least, as it affirms the individual's need for an external absolute authority to dictate right and wrong to them.  They simply believe that human beings are incapable of such moral reasoning on their own.

That suggestion is almost as insulting as it is frightening.

Notes:
[1]  To put it bluntly, a bumper sticker that said "Freyja said it, I believe it, that settles it," would not be a highly marketable product.

In chapter five of "Raised Right:  How I Untangled my Faith from Politics," Alisa Harris shares her memories and thoughts from 9/11.  She speaks of it as a time of revived patriotism as well as a time when she hoped for a nation-wide revival and repentance.  Her link between patriotism and repentance struck me in this chapter.

While Harris might not have directly blamed 9/11 or any other disaster on QUILTBAG people, feminists, liberals, or any other perceived "enemies of God," you can see the same mentality here.  While not (explicitly) pinpointing a particular group, she still thought of the national tragedy as god's divine wrath and a warning call to repentance.

Harris explains that during the time immediately after 9/11, her mind began to compare America's tragedy to the Old Testament description of the Israelites:

The world had shifted in a way I'd only read abut in the oldest of the Bible's sacred books.  Although ancient Israel backslid, worshipped false gods, sacrificed its children, and neglected the tabernacle where God resided, God never abandoned His beloved.  Judgment came, the Israelites in their misery repented, and God always welcomed them back with a heart that forgave again and again.  I believed America, the new Israel, was stuck in the same relentless cycle: we backslid, sacrificed to the false gods of Hollywood and big government, murdered our children, and forsook the sacrifice of obedience;; but surely repentance and redemption and revival would come before it was too late.

What's interesting to me -- and something that she alludes to in other places -- is that her list of America's sins (or Israel's for that matter) does not mention the neglect of the widow or orphan, taking advantage of those already impoverished and downtrodden.

At the time, Harris's dream was of this leading to a revival.  She describes how she envisioned it:

I pictured revival beginning with a twenty-first century Jonathan Edwards in a small church in a tiny town waking up one day and being moved by God to preach an unusual message.  He would approach his pulpit that Sunday, look out at the soft sinners sitting in the pews, and then launch into a modern version of "Sinners of an Angry God" - a tale of woe, of damnation, of sinners being dangle over the mouth of hell by an outraged deity.  That same hand would clutch the hearts of the people who sat rapt in the pews.

I remember reading (or at least skimming) "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" in high school.   It's the model "fire and brimstone" sermon, and for good reason.  The fact that Harris and her former colleagues and co-religionists consider this sermon as the model for renewal and revival tells us a great deal about fundamentalist thought and the god they worship.

Understand that Harris is making it clear that in her early life, she soundly believed (and I suspect this is common amongst fundamentalists and other staunchly conservative Christians) is that revival and a return to God must be sparked by a fear of that same god and his almighty wrath.  Not can.  Not might.  Must.

This strikes me as an admission that the god of such people has nothing sufficiently positive or attractive with which to woo the wayward nonbeliever.[1]  Blessing will not woo the nonbeliever.[2]  Instead, they must be frightened into the grace of God by his wrathful judgment and doom.

Is it any wonder most of their evangelistic efforts fail?  There are reasons you don't see more commercials that amount to "buy our product or we'll beat you senseless."

Of course, it's important to note that Harris and those she worshipped with did not see 9/11 as a call for them to repent.  In their minds, that call was directed at others, which left those who were sending out that call on God's behalf quite comfortable.

And that was her picture of patriotism at the time:  Telling others to shape up and get back in line.  I suspect that she might use a different term to describe that mentality now.  I certainly do.

Notes:
[1]  Remind me some day to do a post on why I despise the word nonbeliever.

[2]  Not surprising, since Jesus himself admits that God causes the sun to shine and the rain to shine on the righteous and the wicked alike.  Of course, I doubt most fundamentalists read that verse, and certainly not in context.  It's a continuation of verse 44, which is the start of Jesus's exhortation to love one's enemies.  In context, verse 45 suggests that even God loves His enemies, which might conflict with all that wrath some of His followers is waiting for him to pour out.

After some thought, I've decided that I'm going to do a deconstruction -- if you can still call it a deconstruction if you find more about the book that you like than you dislike -- of another book by Frank Peretti.

I've read a total of five Peretti books.  Each one of them is slightly different in some way.  This Present Darkness is about the war between angels and demons as it plays out in a small town.  Piercing the Darkness, its sequel, is also about angels battling demons, but this time the main focus is the battle over a particular soul (though it did have a swipe at the public education system, which was a popular topic at the time I was reading it due tot he emergence of outcomes based education).

The third book that I read was Prophet, which was not about angels and demons but about a journalist who found himself living a "prophetic" (in the terms of warning others of the consequences of their misdeeds) vocation.  The book mostly focused on the evils of the (liberal, of course) media and abortion.

The fourth book that I read was The Oath.  It was a strange book in that it was far more a Horror book than the others.  While it got preachy about the nature of sin, there was also no clear connections to actual spiritual movements (at least not that I'm aware of) like the first three were.  I often joked that The Oath seemed more like Peretti contracted Stephen King to write a book for him in comparison to the others I had read.

I should note that I read these four books when I was in high school, when I still considered myself a fundamentalist Christian.  As such, I read them as a member of Peretti's target audience.

I didn't read my fifth book, The Visitation until I was in my late twenties or early thirties, long after I became a witch and devotee of Freyja.  In many ways, I suppose that's why i liked the book.  In this book, Peretti turned his critical eye away from "outsiders" and turned it upon his own religious subculture.  As a former member of that same subculture, I appreciated his look.

I've decided that I want to do an in-depth analysis of The Visitation.  As I said, I'm not sure I can call it a deconstruction, as many of the parts that I will be exploring are places where I actually identify and agree with Peretti's thoughts.  However, given the nature of the main plot, which I wasn't as impressed with, I don't expect my comments to be entirely glowing, either.

I'm also hoping that it might be interesting to compare this book with This Present Darkness.  Who knows, maybe it'll even spark up some sort of discussion between Yamikuronue and myself as we compare our experiences of our respective Peretti books.

Continuing the theme of my previous post, I think that there is another important reason why fundamentalist Christians are anti-psychology and particularly anti-psychotherapy (by which I mean any form of mental health counseling).  This other reason is touched upon by Total Life Ministries's vignette, "The Seduction of Psychology."  The author explains:

It's practitioners believe that the word of God by itself is inadequate. So they presume to integrate God's Word with humanistic, atheistic psychology. What results is supposedly Christianized therapies. But these therapies diminish the Lord Jesus Christ while exalting man. Many Christians are being led astray by these seductive therapies--which amount to a new gospel that heals their brokenness superficially (Jeremiah 8:11).

While those behind TLM choose to focus on the idea that psychology is extra-Biblical, thereby suggesting a tendency towards what many have come to refer to as bibliolatry, I think the idea can be spread to a belief that psychology is extra-theological (as evidenced by TLM's constant reminder that many leading psychologists have been and are atheists).  To put it short, they see psychology as not only suggesting that the Bible is insufficient for mental health, but that Jesus and God aren't sufficient.

While not all fundamentalists are proponents of the prosperity gospel to the same degree as people like Oral Roberts and Ken Hagin, there's a certain kernel of that mentality in most fundamentalists, most notably when it comes to people's emotional well-being.  There is this strong sense in most fundamentalist communities that a faith in Jesus should lead to peace of mind, happiness, contentment,[1] and joy.  Indeed, if you express concerns for your state of mind in fundamentalist circles, you are most likely to be told to "have more faith," "pray more," or "hand it over to Jesus."

So ultimately, seeking out the help of a mental health professional for a problem is saying that "faith in Jesus" isn't enough.  It's saying that you can't "pray away" your problems, be it depression, marital troubles, an addiction or compulsion, or something else. It's suggestion that "His grace is not sufficient for you" after all.

Psychology's suggestion that it might have something to offer that might help in ways that "praying harder" and "having more faith" cannot is a direct attack to fundamentalist theology.

Notes:
[1]  Of course, this idea is further strengthened by the cherry-picking of verses like Philippians 4:11.

One of the interesting things about fundamentalist Christianity is that it often looks upon modern psychology with suspicion and mistrust.  At the extreme, you have many people in the "spiritual warfare" movement that believe psychology is downright demonic, as demonstrated by a scene in "This Present Darkness," where the demons are found gathered in the building that houses Whitmore College's psychology department.  I myself underscored this during a comments discussion at Confessions of a Former Conservative:

But bear in mind,t hose "experts" rely on psychology, which is considered highly suspect as "secularist philosophy" in spiritual warfare crowds. In many of these people's minds, psychologists are opening them up to demons as much as a group of teens with a ouija board.

Even those fundamentalists who don't go looking for demons behind every bush are highly skeptical of psychology, considering it "pointless mumbo jumbo" at best.[1]  So why is this?  Is it simply a matter of fundamentalists' suspicion of science in general?  I think that contributes to it, but I think there are a couple of other factors worthy of note.

For this blog post, I want to focus on fundamentalist Christianity's extreme focus on self-denial and a common perception of psychology -- especially psychological counseling -- as being a selfish pursuit.

Growing up in a fundamentalist church, I learned the key to J-O-Y:  Jesus, others, and you.  Sometime in elementary school -- perhaps even preschool -- I learned this little formula of the order of importance of everything in the universe and was told that following it would bring me joy.  If I just put Jesus first, then everyone else around me, and only thought of myself at the very end, I would be a good little Christian and would be blessed by this.

In many ways, psychology -- especially those areas of psychology and psychiatry that focus on helping people overcome their problems -- turns this whole meme on its head.  Psychology is the exploration of one's own thoughts, and very psyche.  In terms of counseling, one sits with a therapist and looks over one's life and ones problems,[2] trying to make sense of it and figure out how to change things to either overcome a problem, learn to better cope with it, or just heal from past hurts so one can move on with ones life.  A session of therapy is quite self-centered.  To a mode of religious thought that believes that everything and everyone else must come first no matter what, this makes psychology downright horrible.

It's no wonder that such Christians would see psychiatry as a sure gateway to demonic influence.

Notes:
[1]  For the more daring reader, some "interesting" alternatives to psychological counseling can be find by doing an online search for "Bible based counseling."  However, be forewarned that while you will find some interesting pages of honest people trying to integrate their faith in sound, science-based therapeutic techniques, you will also find a lot about deliverance, victim-blaming, victim-shaming, and some of the worst aspects of the darker side of the so-called Prosperity Gospel.

[2]  In stricter fundamentalist circles, even acknowledging that one has problems is often considered a great sin or weakness.  Of course, that's getting into a subject of a future blog post.

I've been fascinated by Fred Clark's deconstruction of the Left Behind series since I first came into contact with it.  It's one of the reasons I've been reviewing Alisa Harris's book chapter by chapter.  I have also been considering tackling a more thorough reconstruction of another book.  The book that kept coming back to me was Frank Peretti's This Present Darkness, which I originally read while I was in late elementary school (approximately fifth or sixth grade).

While This Present Darkness is nearly three decades old, I think it's still relevant in that it has shaped and still expresses many of the ideas central to those Christians who are members of the spiritual warfare movement.  As I spent time involved in that movement, attacking this book made a lot of sense.

Yesterday, however, I discovered that a fellow Slacktivite, a woman who goes by the name of yamikuronue on her blog, began deconstructing Peretti's book back in September.  I read through the entirety of her deconstruction so far (thankfully, she's only fifty pages into it) and found it to be fascinating and remarkable.

From what I've gathered reading yamikuronue's blog, she was never a member of the spiritual warfare movement herself.  In many ways, I think this is proving to be an asset to her deconstruction.  I've looked at a lot of things that she covers and realized that I probably would have taken them for granted and glossed over them.  To give you an example of that, consider the following excerpt from her post dated 22 October:

The man has serious issues with anger management and victim-blaming; why complacency as his major sin? Complacency goes with despair certainly - "I can't fix anything, so why bother" - but that means the entire bit of irrational anger was all his own doing, with absolutely no infernal aid. Marshall is an abusive man without the demonic intervention; all the demon was doing was encouraging him to stop trying to be less abusive. And this is meant to be our hero?

Understanding how spiritual warfare types often see anger, I would have glossed over this excellent point, whereas yamikuronue focuses on it quite well.  As such, I think she is doing a far better job at deconstructing the books than I would have.

So instead of doing my own deconstruction, I'm going to follow along with hers and offer my comments.  I still have a lot to offer, such as how the things she is deconstructing ties into the greater spiritual warfare mindset and the community that subscribes to it.  I would encourage my readers to follow along as  well.

And I'll find another book to tackle when the time comes.

In chapter four of Raised Right:  How I Untangle my Faith from Politics, Alisa Harris talks about her childhood obsession with and idolization of Ronald Reagan.  Of course, Harris's obsession with Reagan was not limited to herself.  She describes the phenomenon among conservative evangelicals as follows:

Some children revere saints.  In the conservative circles of my childhood, we had heroes -- not suffering martyrs who sacrificed for their faith but conquerors who crushed the enemies of God with truth and justice.  These conquerors had to be Christians, preferably of humble roots and always of stainless character, who overcame their enemies to accomplish deeds that changed the world.  We read glowing heroic accounts that omitted Thomas Jefferson's deism, Louisa May Alcott's transcendentalism, and Christopher Columbus's avarice.

Harris's comparison between the martyrs idolized by other Christians and the "conquerors" of some conservatives is well worth noting, as both the Bible and Jesus[1] seem pretty obvious supporters of the former model rather than the latter.  Without explicitly doing so, Harris seems to at least imply that this conqueror-veneration represents a deviation from more traditional Christian philosophy.  This is further strengthened when she describes her rather curious re-interpretation of Jesus's words in Luke 4:18 at that time in her life:

When I heard "freedom," I thought "deregulation of onerous government rules"; when I heard "bind," I thought "bind to the virtue of limited government"; when I heard "oppressed," I thought of children who were not allowed to pray in school and successful rich people whose money was seized by the government.  I would whisper, "It is for freedom that Christ set us free," and would think, Freedom to display the Ten Commandments in a public place!

It's also noteworthy that Harris's heroes -- and the heroes of those around her -- had to be whitewashed to appear blameless and perfect in order to be accept.  Conservative heroes could not and cannot be "sinners bought by grace," but at least had to be practically sinless.[2]  She gives the example of Irving Berlin, who made her uncomfortable with his "coarse jesting" about having sex on his honeymoon.[3]

I suppose this explains why conservative Christians are so slow to acknowledge when their great leaders "fall" in scandals.  They've allowed themselves to build up this idea that they are heroes and so perfect -- something necessary to consider them great leaders -- that acknowledging those instances where their leaders reveal their "feet of clay" and falter means admitting that they invested in the wrong person.  In a sense, their leaders' failings are echoed in their own failings in "backing the wrong person."

Harris closes out the chapter in describing her time at a Decemberists concert after Obama's election victory.  She describes the crowd cheering on Obama's success and his promises of change, being encouraged and whipped up by the musicians on stage.  Harris compares this Obamamania to her childhood idolization of Reagan.  I'm inclined to disagree with Harris's comparison here, or at least as universal as she seems to paint it.  While I have no doubt that some liberals got caught up in a blind belief in Obama -- and are possibly still caught up in it -- most of my fellow liberals were and are well aware that Obama is just another human being, as mistake-prone and imperfect as any of us.  In my experience, liberals are able to be both supportive of our leaders and critical of them at the same time.

Notes:
[1]  The post-millennial dispensationalist version of "Turbo-Jesus" notwithstanding.

[2]  Of course, I suspect this was only true for certain values of "sin."  For example, it doesn't seem that conservatives were or are that concerned with whether their heroes show any signs of that great abomination, pride.

[3]  The conservative Christian treatment of sex, even when it's in the "sacred confines of marriage," deserves its own blog post.  Perhaps several.  I will note, however, that Harris lists Berlin's jokes about sex with his new bride was mentioned even before the fact that he was Jewish rather than Christian, suggesting that the former was a more troubling matter than the latter.

Several months ago, I foolishly filled out a "survey" about same-sex marriage put out by the Public Advocate of the United States.  I say it was foolishly and put the word "survey" in quotes because it seems to me that the real purpose of putting the questionnaire online was to gain email addresses of potential donors.  Since then, I have received frequent emails from founder Eugene Delgaudio telling me about the latest "homosexual menace" or "conservative traitor" along with a request for more money.

These letters are both infuriating and entertaining, as Delgaudio is the sort of professional anti-gay that has to give an incendiary name to every piece of pro-gay legislation that comes out.  It's entertaining because his outrageous descriptions of anything that might make life better for QUILTBAG people are laughable.  The infuriating part is that apparently, people swallow his outrageous nonsense and send him money to "keep fighting the good fight."[1]

Friday's plea for support, however, was not amusing at all.  Since Friday was Veteran's Day, Delgaudio chose to twist people's sense of appreciation for the courage and sacrifice of members of our military into something horribly hateful towards QUILTBAG people -- including QUILTBAG people who have themselves demonstrated their courage and offered their lives in the very military service Delgaudio speaks so highly of.

The U.S. Military has sacrificed so much for us, and our government repaid them with disgrace.

Now radical homosexuals are not only allowed to serve openly in uniform, but celebrated for their perversion.

What Delgaudio decries of disgraceful and perverse is the radical notion that some QUILTBAG people want to join the ranks of the veterans whose courage and sacrifice he just praised.  What Delgaudio finds disgraceful is that people -- including our current presidents -- has decided that if QUILTBAG people want to make that kind of courageous sacrifice for their country, we should let them.

Truth be told, Delgaudio doesn't care about the courage and sacrifice of veterans, at least not nearly as much as he cares about oppressing and demonizing QUILTBAG people.  If he truly cared about our brave veterans, he would care about all of them, even the ones who aren't straight or cisgendered.

And lest anyone think that Delgaudio is unique in caring more about a military person's orientation than sir bravery and sacrifice, consider again the following video:



That's right, some conservatives will thank you for your military service until they find out you're gay.  Once they find that out, they'll boo you.

And let me once more express my own gratitude for all our veterans and current members of the military, regardless of their orientation and gender identity.

Notes:
[1]  Some days, I'm not sure whether I'm more sympathetic that they're being swindled or more furious that they're allowing themselves to be motivated by such hateful vitriol.

Emilyperson left a great comment on Friday's post:

I'm curious, when you first started hanging around Pagans, was there a lot of jargon that confused your young Christian self? I wouldn't expect you to have been familiar with things like different deities, symbols, and procedures, but does the slang tend to be as far from mainstream American slang as the fundamentalists'?

To be honest, I can't say as I recall much about my early exposure to Paganism.  It would be hard for me to evaluate how I handled the introduction to Pagan, Wiccan, and psychic concepts and terminology thirteen years ago.  So rather than trying to remember, I'm going to just take a look at how I perceive such jargon now, how it relates to Wicca, Paganism, and psychic phenomena/practices, and try to guess how an "outsider" or "newbie" might perceive and experience an encounter with such terminology.[1]

I think that Pagan, Wiccan, and psychic jargon can be just as offbeat and unusual as fundamentalist Christian jargon.  And to be frank, there is a lot of it, due to the great diversity of practices and beliefs that falls under those collective umbrellas (each one is pretty broad and contains great diversity in its own right).

However, I also think that the jargon isn't quite as central to the Pagan/Wiccan/psychic identities.  You can learn a lot about all of those things without coming into contact with terms like "chakras," "arcana," "ardanes," and "visualization."  You can learn a lot of the basics and get a lot of information before delving into such technical, specialized terms.

Compare this to fundamentalist and even evangelical Christianity, where the first step involves being "born again," which is a jargon-y term.  In reality, I think fundamentalist jargon and one's knowledge of it is often used as part of the fundamentalist identity and a way to prove oneself part of the "in crowd."

This brings me up to my second point, in which I think the religio-magical movements I'm now a part of tend to be far better at presenting our jargon to "outsiders" in an accessible way.  This is done both through personal conversations and the constantly growing introductory literature available.

I think this can at least partly be attributed to the fact that these are relatively new movements and that many of the adherents are still converts rather than people who were raised by Pagan parents[2].  As such, they are religious movements that are more geared towards welcoming new members and making everything understandable and accessible, even to the point of often anticipating what terms may be unfamiliar to the "uninitiated."

Fundamentalists, on the other hand, tend to be more insular and seem to just expect everyone to automatically know what it means to be "born again," "sanctified," or "demonically oppressed."

Notes:
[1]  It would be awesome if any "newbies" and "outsiders" would pipe up in comments and offer their thoughts.

[2]  This certainly isn't universal.  I do know a growing number of second-generation Pagans and a few third-generation Pagans.  However, I think we converts outnumber them considerably.

This past Monday, The Former Conservative wrote a post critiquing a Rapture Ready conversation in which some people suggested that both mental illness and addiction were actually a matter of demonic oppression.  FC mentioned in passing that he had never heard the phrase "demonic oppression" before.

This surprised me for a moment.  As a former fundamentalist who had gotten involved in the spiritual warfare movement, I was all too familiar with phrase, but what it meant and why it was coined as a phrase to represent something distinct from demon possession.  The idea that other Christians were completely unfamiliar with the term surprised me, even thirteen years after I left that particular subculture.

Any group -- whether you're talking fundamentalists, more liberal Christians, or even video game players -- tends to develop their own jargon, words and phrases that are not familiar to those outside of the group.  This can create communication issues with those outside the group when discussing certain topics, though it's an issue that's normally easy overcome.

I think this can be somewhat harder for fundamentalists and even more conservative evangelicals, however.  As I mentioned in a guest-blogging post over at CoaFC, fundamentalist identity tends to consume and isolate its adherents to a near-absolute degree.  It occurs to me that another consequence of this process is that fundamentalists can become quite oblivious to their jargon and how peculiar it is to their group.  Effectively, they're so invested in and surrounded by their subculture, that the idea that anyone might not even be aware of their specialized terms doesn't occur to them.

I've been a witch for thirteen years now, and I've met people who were not raised with my background.  Intellectually I know that there are people who never had a reason to hear terms like "demonic possession" and "blood bought."  And yet, it's easy to fall back into old thinking patterns just enough that an instance where I'm reminding of that fact catches me by surprise, however slight that surprise might be.  I think that says something.

Last Friday, I explored some of the flaws in some equality opponents' argument that lowing same-sex marriages will further weaken heterosexual marriages.  I think it's equally important to understand why it's important to actually tackle this argument despite the fact that it's not quite as commonplace as (more overtly) religious arguments against same sex marriage.  It's importance is best understood in light of some equality opponents' attempt to rebrand themselves as "defenders of traditional marriage."

You see, some anti-equality organizations have figured out that being openly identifiable as anti-gay casts them in a bad light.  The National Organization for Marriage explains this with surprising candor on their "Talking Points" page:

Extensive and repeated polling agrees that the single most effective message is:

"Gays and Lesbians have a right to live as they choose, 
they don't have the right to redefine marriage for all of us."

This allows people to express support for tolerance while opposing gay marriage. Some modify it to "People have a right to live as they choose, they don't have the right to redefine marriage for all of us."

Language to avoid at all costs: "Ban same-sex marriage." Our base loves this wording. So do supporters of SSM. They know it causes us to lose about ten percentage points in polls. Don't use it. Say we're against "redefining marriage" or in favor or "marriage as the union of husband and wife" NEVER "banning same-sex marriage."

They go on to explain that it's important to stress that they defend traditional marriage no the grounds that, in their opinion, the best families have a man, a woman, and children.  Their desire is to prove that they are for this rather than against gay people having equal protections and rights.

However, there is a slight problem with this.  You will not find a single press release on NOM's site that isn't about stopping, banning, or repealing same sex marriage.  You will not find any press releases about them doing anything to improve the state of marriage, the rights of married couples, or providing support for struggling families.  You will not find Maggie Gallagher or Brian Brown teaching a workshop on how spouses, parents, and children can develop better communication skills, create a safer environment for honest discussion, or deal with troubling issues like peer pressure, substance abuse, or domestic violence.  The only thing NOM wants to do to "protect" marriage is keep QUILTBAG people from enjoying its benefits.  As such, their claims about "protecting marriage" are already flimsy at best.

Challenging the idea that same sex marriages would destroy "traditional marriage" - or that "saving traditional marriage" is the burden of QUILTBAG people in the first place - serves to drive the final nail into that coffin.  When organizations like NOM can no longer fool anyone into thinking that they're doing anything productive to protect "traditional" families, they will have to admit that yes, they really are just about stopping QUILTBAG people from enjoying the same rights and protections as their favored "in-crowd."

Or they'll have to come up with a new lie.

In chapter three of Raised Right, Alisa Harris explores the confrontational approach  to both politics and evangelism she was taught in her youth:

Like Socrates I was a gadfly - always provoking, stinging citizens out of complacency, and melodramatically drinking the hemlock they forced on me in punishment.

I remember this mentality growing up.  The idea of remaining silent on any issue deemed important by certain Christian leaders was unthinkable.  The evil of the day -- abortion, homosexuality, moral relativism, and the New Age movement all had to be soundly and unequivocally renounced at every opportunity.  (And sometimes, like Harris's description of the county fair, it was up to us to create such an opportunity.)

And like Harris, I remember how those people who took issue with the heavy-handed tactics I learned were to be considered proof that I was doing the right thing.  After all, the BIble said that those of us who followed Jesus were sure to offend people.  So I had the perfect excuse to see reasonable criticism of my aggressive posture as mere rejection of the Truth I was proclaiming.[1]  In effect, I was set up to be obnoxious and see myself as a martyr.

Harris goes on to talk about the Four Killer questions that one of her evangelism mentors taught her and her peers to use:

• What do you mean by that?
• How do you know what you are saying is true?
• What difference does it make in your life?
• What if you are wrong and you die?

These were not questions I was taught to use.  I was taught standard arguments to use on different topics and techniques to force the conversation along a certain path.  Both approaches are based on the idea that what the evangelistic or political target actually thinks or believes isn't important as in forcing the conversation int he direction you want it to go.

Harris describes the superbly beautiful way in which the Four Killer Questions not only accomplish their goal, but make themselves the ultimate universal approach to winning any argument:

This approach didn't require you to refute, or even know, the tenets of Marxism or socialism or secular humanism because you strictly limited your conversation to asking these four simple questions again and again. If the Marxist responded with the same questions, you shot back, "What kind of evidence would you accept as proof?"  Since wed learned that his objections weren't serious or even intellectually honest, that they were grounded in nothing but a stubborn blindness to truth, the Marxist could give just one honest answer:  "None."

Of course, anyone who has been on the receiving end of the Four Killer Questions[2] or similar debate tactics could tell you, the most likely reaction to being thus heckled[3] is frustration, anger, and returned hostility rather than conversion.  In addition to the promise of "martyrdom for truth," Harris's mentors offered the perfect way to assuage any concerns about the ineffectiveness of the approach:

The Four Killer Questions brought the godless to Christ - later.  Those Four Killer Questions would gnaw away at the girl from Planned Parenthood or the guy with the dreads, eroding their faith in their worldview until someone else dropped along with the gospel message...

This is a convenient out, as it allows the person to imagine the "effectiveness" of their obnoxious behavior appearing out of their own sight, beyond their ability to objectively - or even subjectively - measure them.  In a way, it creates a fantasy where one's "evangelistic efforts" are completely detached from not only the people being evangelized, but from any sort of results.

I've occasionally commented on the Former Conservative's posts criticizing some evangelists' approaches pointing out that "saving souls" is not nearly as important as "preaching the message" and that to such people, "evangelism" is an act of piety rather than an honest attempt at persuasion.  I think that in this chapter, Harris demonstrates not only the truth of that statement, but the ways in which such evangelicals rationalize the transition from the latter intuit the former, or at least the conflation of the two.

Notes:
[1]  In fairness, some evangelicals do try to combat this notion.  For example, in college, the volunteer staffworker that InterVarsity Christian Fellowship assigned to my campus's chapter often said, "The Bible may offend some, but that's no excuse for presenting its message offensively."  This isn't to say her presentation of Biblical truth was always the best it could be, but at least she tried to make it clear that "being as harsh as possible as long as you're convinced you're right" was not an acceptable approach.

[2]  Harris provides a perfect anecdote that shows what I imagine would be a fairly typical reaction.

[3]  I think this is a far proper term to describe the intent and effects of this approach rather than "challenged" or "debated."  Both of those terms suggest actual engagement with the substance of one's positions.

The other day, I received an email from the administrator of another website asking if I would be willing to do a link exchange with them, as our sights are of "common relevance."  The site in question (which I will not link to, even in this post) is a site dedicated entirely to offering online psychic readings.

Now, bear in mind that I do not generally[1] link to or promote businesses.  And to be honest, if I was going to promote a psychic, I would either promote myself or one of the other psychics with which I am friends and for whom I can personally vouch in terms of reputation.

In terms of reputation, the site that asked for the link exchange raised concerns for me instantly.  When I received the request, the included description of the site read as follows:

Enjoy a complete site encompassing Online Live Free Psychic.

Ignoring the horrendous grammar[2], the promise of a site offering "free psychic readings" seemed to good to be true.  And sure enough, a glance at their "how it works" page upon visiting the site proves it:

3. First step towards getting services is to fill up registration form correctly. Sign in to website; add fund in advance and click chat now button with your preferred experts.

Now, tell me, why would one need to "add funds" for a free psychic reading?  Could it be that "free" isn't so free.  I'm smelling a bait and switch here.

Now, the page does eventually explain the "free" part:

8. You'll have a few minutes, at no cost, all sessions start 'free', to get a sense of the person you've chosen and to recognize whether they're right for the job. Whenever you feel confidence that they'll be able to provide you with the quality service that you need, you can click the 'Hire now' button to begin your paid session. None of session will go into paid session automatically like other websites. Submit your psychic experience!

So you see, you don't get a full psychic reading for free.  It starts out free so you can feel comfortable that the psychic really can help you they can get you hooked and real you in.  Unfortunately, this is a common practice among unethical psychics.  The fact that the site can bury this explanation of how the "free" part works so deeply on their site is simply troubling.

As I mentioned above, I am a psychic and I do occasionally give paid readings.[3]  As a professional, I find the above practices highly objectionable.  The idea of offering a "free reading" when what you really mean is "a quick taste for free followed by a paid reading" is simply dishonest and it leads me to wonder what else those people associated with the site are willing to lie about to attract and keep customers.

Even if they were honest about what they're really offering, I'm also extremely uncomfortable with the "free till we get you hooked" approach.  I've known too many unethical psychics who are willing to string clients along by giving them information and then hinting that there's more that can be told, if they're willing to pay for a longer session.[4]  This "starts free, then turns to a  paid reading" approach gives me the impression that this is likely a common tactic on that site.

What bothers me is that there appear to be large numbers of people who go to this site.  I find that unfortunate, as I suspect there are better and more ethical avenues for finding psychic advice close to their own homes.

Notes:
[1]  The only two exceptions I have made so far are (a) to sell my own stuff through Zazzle.com and (b) to promote the local New Age shop with which I am associated.  I promote the former because it' s my business and "it's good to be the king."  I do the latter because in addition to being a fantastic business, Psychic's Thyme is a valuable resource for learning and networking here in the Rochester area.

[2]  This is actually one of a couple complaints I have about the severe unprofessional presentation of the site.  But I'm trying to stick to my ethical objections.

[3]  Thankfully, it's not my sole or even primary source of income[5], and I only do it when Psychic's Thyme needs a spare reader.

[4]  In fairness, something similar happens during ethical readings.  Sometimes, a client wants more information than is initially given or has follow-up questions, and that takes time (and money).  However, ethical readers try to make the reading as complete and comprehensive in as short a period of time as possible.  Personally, I rarely have a reading that lasts beyond the minimum length set where I work.

[5]  If you're not willing to pull the kinds of stunts this site is pulling, being a psychic doesn't pay that great.  Sure, you might have that rare day when you get tons of readings.  Most days, though, you'd be better off working eight hours at minimum wage.

I'm sure that by now, all of my readers are well aware that Kim Kardashian's marriage ended this past Monday.[1]  Most of you have also probably seen one of the snarky jokes in support of marriage equality suggesting that it's not gay people who cheapen marriage.  I've even seen photographs edited to add such comments.

This isn't the first time a celebrity's failed marriage has been tossed about like this by marriage equality advocates.  A similar flurry occurred when Britney Spears had her marriage to Jason Alexander annulled a mere 55 hours after they tied the knot back in 2004.  And it's certainly understandable why those of us who want our relationships protected by law would enjoy a certain amount of pleasure in pointing out the hypocrisy of accusing QUILTBAG people of being incapable of taking marriage seriously while heterosexuals -- and prominent ones at that -- don't seem to do much better.

But by Wednesday, I was getting tired of all the snark.  To be honest, while I can certainly identify with the sentiment behind it, I'm not convinced that "heterosexuals treat marriage like a joke, so quit blaming us" is a good or effective argument.[2] And it's certainly not our best argument.

I think we need to get back to talking about how the legal protections of marriage are numerous and impossible to duplicate.  I think we need to continue to point out that SCOTUS has already determined that the right to marry the person of your choice is a fundamental right and challenge the anti-equality crowd's arguments for denying us that fundamental right.  I think we need to remind people why marriage matters.

And let's live Kim's, Britney's, and any other heterosexual person's failed marriage alone already.  We don't need to resort to pointing out that we can "do better" than them.[3]  We're better than that.

Notes:
[1]  Seriously, I heard about this already, and I normally don't find out about these things until someone living under a rock mentions it to me in passing.

[2]  Some might argue that it's not meant as a real argument but as a joke.  The problem with this argument is that, like most jokes, it's gotten old through repetition.  So while I might accept the "it's a joke" stance on the face, I'd still argue it's time to put this one to bed.

[3]  Seriously, isn't that what the argument boils down to?  A snarky reply of "well, we can do better than this loser"?  And talk about judgmental!

Barry Deutsch wrote a guest post over at Family Scholars Blog in which he talks about the most common argument he heard against same-sex marriage while cold-calling Oregon residents and asking them to support marriage equality.  It's well worth reading, as was his approach to continuing the conversation with these people.

At the beginning of his post, he describes one of the arguments against marriage equality that he roll-played with a fellow volunteer, but never actually heard while making his calls:

I explained that I didn't think that there was anything wrong with gay sex or gay relationships per se., but that I was concerned with how changing the definition of marriage would alter the country's already fragile marriage culture. If there's no longer a special status set aside for generative relationships, how will we continue to say that every child needs and deserves a father and a mother?

While I'm not surprised that Barry did not hear this from the average person he called, this argument is commonly forwarded by professional equality opponents like the folks at the National Organization for Marriage.  Indeed, it's basis of their attempts to repackage themselves as "marriage defenders."  The problem is, it's an argument that doesn't make a lot of sense.

At its most basic, the argument is based on the assumption that heterosexual people's ability to keep their marriages intact hinges upon what gay people do.  To put it more succinctly, if a little harshly, the founding premise is that other people are responsible for heterosexual's couples morality or lack thereof.  The very idea that allowing two men or two women will suddenly cause heterosexual people to decide that their own relationships matter -- and make no mistake, the above and similar statements are implying exactly that -- suggests that heterosexual people aren't taking their relationships very seriously to begin with.

If -- and I think this is a rather huge if -- heterosexual people are not taking their relationships seriously to the point that it has become a problem, then allow me to suggest that this is not the fault of QUILTBAG people, nor should the burden of changing that state of affairs or prevent it from worsening.  That is the sole responsibility of the heterosexual people in question.  To make this the burden of QUILTBAG individuals is unreasonable and unjust.

Furthermore, robbing heterosexuals of the responsibility for their own choices -- which is ultimately what this approach does -- is unjust towards heterosexual people.  To suggest that heterosexual people do not have the integrity or ability to treat their own relationships with care is to suggest that they are severely lacking in moral fiber.  It is an insult, and the suggestion that such people should be allowed to continue with such a deficiency is injurious on top of that.  One often gets what one expects out of people, so if anti-equality advocates wish heterosexual people to treat marriage more seriously, they should be addressing heterosexual people, telling them, "We expect better from you."  They should quit scapegoating QUILTBAG people.

Sunday evening, I went to Wegman's to pick up a salad for Monday's lunch as well as sodas and snacks for the week.  Derek, the cashier who rang me up, inquired about where I had my face painted (I was done up like Tigger), and I told him it was at the annual psychic fair at Psychic's Thyme.  He asked me about that and then asked if I believed in ghosts.  I simply smiled and said, "Well, I sorta have to, seeing as I'm a medium."  I think that answer rather surprised him, as he started babbling a bit.  He mostly started talking about the "Paranormal Activity" movies.

This is something I've noticed with some people.  While they are fascinated by movies and tales of the paranormal, they really get uncomfortable around those of us who are (or claim to be, if my more skeptical readers prefer) "the real deal."  I'm not sure whether it's because they find the idea of spirits frightening[1] and therefore find a spooky, controllable fantasy more appealing than if they were to consider it a reality they do not understand.  Or maybe it's for some other reason.

Of course, in reality, communicating with spirits isn't nearly as interesting or titillating as the stuff they put in Paranormal Activity or similar movies.  In a lot of ways, spirit communication is quite ordinary and unremarkable.  Granted, it's touching in its own way, but in a very different way than the normal thrills.

Spirit communication is ultimately about connection with our greater spiritual comity.  In Saturday's post, I spoke of the ancestors as a source of wisdom and the creators of the world we inherited.  Spirit communication is an opportunity to connect with those predecessors -- though more recently passed loved ones are the most likely to connect with us this way and maintain that sense of continuity and community.  It's a way to remember them, honor them, and learn just a bit more from them.

But then, I'm not sure everyone values that the same.

Notes:
[1]  To be honest, I'm more inclined to find them annoying, especially on those occasions where they show up in every day life.  After about the third time I look behind myself to see if the presence I'm feeling is connected to a physical body in a public space, I start to worry that the other people are starting to think I'm weird.[2]

[2]  In fairness, they'd be right...