Is Susan Pevensie punished for growing up?

C.S. Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles ends where three of the four Pevensie siblings, and four of their friends of various ages, are taken to Aslan’s true Narnia. Since the books are an allegory for Christianity, readers understand that as Susan staying behind on earth when her brothers and sisters die and are taken to heaven. Some even say the writer is sexist and do not want women to grow up. I disagree, and will explain why I believe that Lewis, far from seeing himself as better than Susan for being male, imbued her with some of his own qualities.

Critics of Susan Pevensie’s treatment quote a few sentences out of context to explain Susan’s fate. Of the three friends of Narnia giving us hints to why Susan is “no longer a friend of Narnia”, they quote only the middle one:

“Oh Susan!” said Jill. “She’s interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up.”

The seven friends of Narnia, as pictured by Pauline Baynes.

Using this sentence they claim Susan was punished for growing up in general, or for liking lipstick and nylon stockings – growing up as a woman. But three of the seven friends of Narnia is older than her, with Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer in their sixties. Should we believe they never grew up? Also, should we believe the other female friends of Narnia never wore stockings or lipstick, or accepted a party invitation? This is very unlikely, and not what the context suggests. So, here is the passage in context. After arriving in the real Narnia, a symbol for heaven, someone asks where Susan is.:

“My sister Susan,” answered Peter shortly and gravely, “is no longer a friend of Narnia.”
“Yes,” said Eustace, “and whenever you’ve tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says ‘What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.’”

Susan sees Narnia and Aslan as fiction, as just a game. In Christian terms, she became an unbeliever. Lewis, as an ex-atheist Christian convert who wrote this book as Christian allegory, can identify with Susan here.

“Oh Susan!” said Jill. “She’s interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up.”

Notice the “only” in the first sentence. Jill is not judging Susan for her interest in lipstick and social invitations, but for being interested in nothing else. That said, Jill is 16. Judging 21-year-old Susan as “too keen to grow up” is a teenager’s perspective. To which Polly replies that Jill is not grown up:

“Grown-up, indeed,” said the Lady Polly, (My own note added in brackets: Polly is 60. She knows a lot more about being grown up than Jill, who is 16.) “I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she’ll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that way. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one’s life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can.”

Please allow me to half-defend Susan before we continue: In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Susan grew up in Narnia and reigned as queen for about 15 years (age 12-27) before returning to England, suddenly looking like the 12-year-old who left for Narnia again. Obviously, she would long back to adulthood!

However, it is the wrong part of adulthood she wishes for: In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, they “governed Narnia well… seeking out the remnants of the White witches army and destroying them … made good laws and kept the peace … encouraged ordinary people … entered into alliances with countries beyond the sea…” Instead, she only concerned herself with parties and outward appearances, even denying that she was ever a queen in Narnia. She not only denies her own experiences, she also denies the experiences her siblings had. Have you ever been mocked for an experience you find deeply significant? Susan, previously Queen Susan the Gentle in Narnia, reached the point where she hardened her heart enough to do that.

In Christianity, it is belief in God which saves. Since the books are Christian allegory, unbelieving Susan not only has no right to enter the true Narnia, she won’t be able to enjoy it if she does. The chapter after we learn that Susan is not back in Narnia is about a group of dwarfs. They have light, but believe they are in the dark. They have great food, but believe they have trash. They are in a wide open space, but believe they are in a cramped stable. To keep them – or Susan – in Narnia would do no good – they won’t be able to enjoy it!

The dwarfs are a picture of what Lewis also describes in The great divorce: A bunch of people from hell takes a tour bus through heaven in that book. They find it boring. They made themselves unable to enjoy the things that make heaven great.

So, is Susan sent to hell then?
No. The story tells us that Susan stays behind on earth, while the friends of Narnia die in a train crash and goes to the true Narnia. Lewis himself writes, in a letter to a fan asking him about it in 1955:

“The books don’t tell us what happened to Susan. She is left alive in this world at the end, having been turned into a rather silly, conceited young woman. But there is plenty of time for her to mend, and perhaps she will get to Aslan’s country in the end—in her own way…”

In another letter, he writes:
“I could not write that story [of Susan returning to Narnia] myself. Not that I have no hope of Susan’s ever getting to Aslan’s country; but because I have a feeling that the story of her journey would be longer and more like a grown-up novel than I wanted to write.”

I believe that Lewis was not sexist with Susan’s fate. Far from it, he saw Susan as most like himself out of all the characters in his novel. Susan lost faith in Narnia, he lost faith in God and only returned at the age of 32. As for a grown up idea on fairy tales, Lewis writes:

“When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

Susan, in his books, reached a stage where she tries to be grown up not by just refusing to read fairy tales, but by calling the actual experiences she and her family had “funny games”. To be actually grown up, she needs to admit the “fairy tales” of Narnia as truth, and return to them.

I really hope someone writes the book, or short story, of Susan returning to Narnia some day. A book more adult than the Narnia Chronicles, a book about a young – or older – woman who grieves losing her family in a train accident. A woman who remembered how her family kept talking of Narnia, and who finds faith again. A Susan who even finds consolation from Aslan, missing her family but knowing where they are. A Susan who turns back from a one-sided social butterfly to becoming the one they called Queen Susan the Gentle, again. A Susan who goes back to Narnia – happy to see her family but even happier to look into the eyes of Aslan.

An adult Susan Pevensie looks into Aslan’s face. Generated by Dream AI

Does marrying really have the benefits it is hyped to have?

Many people, especially on the conservative side, can’t keep silent about the things they regard as the benefits of marrying: On average, they say, married people are happier and richer. Their children achieve more in school. Married men are less likely to commit violence, and married women to be victims of domestic violence. Married couples stay together longer than cohabiting ones.

I suggest that their data is almost 100% correct – but it does not mean what the marriage advocates conclude it does. It does not mean that I set myself up for failure and unhappiness by not marrying, nor that her divorce is the reason a particular woman I care about is poor. Most of all, it doesn’t mean an abused woman have to stay with the dad “for the sake of the children”.

Instead, I suggest it works the other way round: If certain good qualities are present in a particular partner and a particular relationship, the people involved are more likely to marry, and more likely to stay married.

You see, most people – those who marry and those who do not – make their decisions based on the information they already have about their partners. If women, for example, see signs that their partners are abusive, they will be less likely to marry these abusive men. But if they see the men are kind and good, these same women would consider marriage. This will cause statisticians to say that married women are less likely to suffer from domestic violence than unmarried ones. But it absolutely doesn’t mean that even one abusive male on the planet stops being abusive when he marries.

By this same phenomenon, a woman will be less likely to marry a man she knows is a criminal, or suspects is capable of crime. This means criminals are more likely to be single men, but it doesn’t mean that marrying will deter a bloke from committing a crime.

If married people are less likely to be poor, there are probably several reasons contributing to it. Among them are these three: * Women, especially, are unlikely to marry an unemployed man or a man who can’t make ends meet, and both sexes seem more likely to divorce when there is financial problems. * Two people living together can live slightly more cheaply than two living separately. (My article won’t investigate this particular fact.) * Both sexes seem, from the stories I heard of why people end their relationships, to seriously distrust and often choose to leave partners who are unwise with money and make impoverishing decisions about debt and spending.

For an example of how this may work out, your friend may leave a woman who financially ruined him, while another friend with the same income level stays married to a woman whom he can trust with the couple’s money. This will add to the statistic of married people being richer than single ones. However, it does not mean your friend would have been better off if he never divorced.

If children whose dads are at home fare better in school, on average, than those whose dads are not, it may not mean the woman who divorce is harming her children: These children’s dad may not be the sort of person they would have been better off with – and the woman whose husbands are good role models may be more likely to stay married.

You may have a son or daughter who is in a live-in relationship. Based on your values, you may pressure them to marry. But your son or daughter probably sees things in the partner – or the partner sees things in your adult child – which makes them reluctant to marry. If you get the couple to the altar, those qualities won’t suddenly change.

In short: A happy marriage is undeniably one of the greatest things any man or woman can have. But don’t judge people who divorce or stay single. And do not pressure us to marry or stay married. We may not have, or ever had, the prospect of a happy marriage.

Please don’t talk of body-revealing outfits this way!

It is common, but that does not make it right: Many people try to tell young women to cover up their bodies when they dress. In itself, I can see some reasons for that.

But too much of this kind of advice ends up treating women as objects instead of people. The short piece which I reference here is one often-shared admonishment of that kind. The article I respond to is in black, and my comments are in red.

Young ladies, this is for you!!!

All young ladies and only them? Are you sure that there are no young ladies who already cover their bodies, nor older ladies or males who let too much hang out?
A woman arrived in a store wearing clothes that showed her body all too well.
Too well? By whose opinion of too well?
The shop owner, being a wise older man, took a good look at her, asked her to sit down, looked straight into her eyes, and said something she would never forget for the rest of her life.
“Young Lady, everything that God has made valuable in this world, is covered up and hard to see or find.” I notice that his advice was not covered up, nor was it hard to find. Does this mean his advice is not valuable?
For example:
1. Where can you find diamonds?
• In the ground, covered and protected. Also, on the wrists, necks, fingers, and ears of the rich. And in display windows of shops like American Swiss. Uncovered and displayed, but often still protected.
2. Where are the pearls? Almost all of them are cultured in the shallow water of pearl “farms”. Also, the same as diamonds, on the wrists, necks, and ears of those who can afford it. And in display windows of jewelry stores. Uncovered and displayed, but still protected.
• Deep in the ocean, covered and protected in a beautiful shell. If you think pearl oysters, freshwater mussels, and abalone are beautiful on the outside, that makes one of us.
3. Where can you find gold? In all the same places as diamonds and pearls.
• Underground, covered with layers of rock, and to get there you have to work very hard and dig deep.
He looked at her again and said, “Your body is sacred and unique to God.”
You are far more precious than gold, diamonds, and pearls, therefore you must be covered too. Or uncovered, too – since they are often uncovered. Also, a young woman’s valuable aspects are not just her bust, legs, and other body parts, but her heart and knowledge, her wisdom and actions – should all those be covered too? Should the valuable heart, knowledge, wisdom, and actions of men and older women be hidden, likewise?
He then added: “If you keep your precious minerals like gold, diamonds, and pearls deeply covered, a “reputable mining organization” with the necessary machines, will work for years to mine those precious goods.
* First, they will contact your government (family),
* Second, sign professional contracts (marriage),
* Third, they will professionally extract those goods, and tenderly refine those precious goods. (marital life).
But if you let your minerals find themselves on top of the Earth’s surface (exposed to everyone), you will always attract many illegal miners to come, exploit, illegally, and freely take those riches and leave you without the precious goods God gave you!

Illegal miners and legal miners do the same thing: They dig up the riches and sell them, leaving the mine without any treasure. Also, the wording of one mining company against “many illegal miners” is intellectually dishonest – a legal mining company employs dozens or hundreds of miners to work together to leave the mine bare. The man as the miner and the woman’s body as the treasure being mined is probably the worst metaphor I ever heard for a healthy marriage.

WOMEN, YOU ARE VALUABLE!!
Remember – Class is more desirable than Trash. Pick a lane. Either all women are valuable, or some women are “trash.” Prior to that last sentence, I was willing to give the writer the benefit of the doubt. But to call women valuable, while actually thinking some young women are trash? The writer doesn’t believe in young women’s value. He believes they are objects to be mined empty – as long as it is legal, in other words within marriage.

We need a better way of speaking of women – a way that does not call them objects for male use. We need to call them image-bearers of God and fellow heirs to God’s kingdom.

Women are not apples (objects) for men (pictured as humans with agency) to pick, gum (objects) for men (pictured as humans with agency) to chew, or grounds filled with treasure (objects) for men (pictured as humans with agency) to dig up. We need metaphors that call women people, standing sometimes beside men and sometimes away from them, living their lives.

This picture – without the text – is usually shared with the story which makes her an object for mining.

The Gospel Coalition seemingly endorses phallic worship – and inadvertently makes the case for woman elders

Three days ago, the Gospel Coalition put out a preview from a book by Josh Butler, named Beautiful Union: How God’s Vision for Sex Points Us to the Good, Unlocks the True, and (Sort of) Explains Everything. Keep in mind that this is not a self-published article and book by a lone blogger. The article was reviewed and published by the Gospel Coalition. It is from a book reviewed and published by Multnomah Publishers, the parent company of which is Penguin Random House. It bears the header The Keller Centre – a Centre for Apologetics where Josh Butler is a fellow. This means that several men in three different religious organizations saw and endorsed Butler’s writings. (Society would probably be better off if nobody named J. Butler, whether male or female, wrote any books about sex. But I digress. I thought of Judith Butler for a moment.)

The front cover of Josh Butler’s problematic book. It already occupies Amazon’s #19 spot in “Ethics in Christian Theology – even though it is still a month before the April 11th release date.

He wrote:

“[W]hat deeper form of self-giving is there than sexual union where the husband pours out his very presence not only upon but within his wife?…
[I]n sexual union… the groom … enters the sanctuary of his spouse, where he pours out his deepest presence and bestows an offering, a gift, a sign of his pilgrimage, that has the potential to grow within her into new life.
This is a picture of the gospel… Christ gives himself to his beloved with extravagant generosity, showering his love upon us and imparting his very presence within us. Christ penetrates his church with the generative seed of his Word and the life-giving presence of his Spirit, which takes root within her and grows to bring new life into the world.”

To compare the male orgasm – roundabout the simplest and most self-serving thing that a man or even a fifteen-year-old boy can do to please himself – to what Jesus did on the cross, calling men “extravagantly generous” for doing this, is ridiculous! As a believer in Jesus Christ, I’d even say it borders on blasphemy.

Moreover, how does this phallic worship affect the woman? If what men do in intercourse is a picture of God’s desire for us, then the woman with a headache is a picture of rejecting God, of making excuses not to follow a wise and loving Being whose plans are always best. If the presence of male ejaculation is analogous to the presence of God, women should be awed by semen, enlightened by semen, and changed fundamentally by semen, in a way somewhat analogous to how God changes His daughters and sons.

Even in a literal sense, his views do not describe semen well. Semen does not hold the ability to create in itself. The woman’s egg holds most of the genetic information, her body holds the child, and her body delivers and feeds the child. Is this a picture of God generously giving and us cooperating to bring forth a new creation, it implies God is a partner who does almost nothing and leaves all the work to us.

And where does this backwards analogy* leave single women like me? Do we stand for entirely Godless unbelievers?

This brings me to the female eldership point in my header: To really see this for what it is, you have to talk to the church in this alleged “picture of Christ and the church”. You may say they already did: Butler talked to plenty of men who are probably believers, working at The Gospel Coalition and Multnomah Publishers, and the Keller Centre. You are almost right. He was endorsed and promoted by plenty of men.

Angela Weiler responds on Twitter

That is a problem, because men allegedly represent God in this picture, while women represent the Church. This book tries to tell the church what they can learn about God from looking at sexual intimacy. To do this, he needs to look at what women (the representatives of the church, in his picture) experience from intercourse. If women do not see the alleged self-sacrifice in men getting to orgasm, Butler and his ilk give a terrible picture of the gospel.

If Butler spoke to many Christian women while writing this, and let as many Christian women as men oversee, edit and approve of it before publishing, and if he respected the women’s views even more because they see the angle he is trying to use to teach what God is like, Josh Butler would probably have written a very different book. But herein lies the problem: Any preacher who publishes via the Gospel Coalition is a complementarian. They believe that women should not have the role of overseer, also known as an elder. Pastors who believe in not learning from women have, on a normal day, half of the church’s wisdom unavailable to them.

Julie Bell responds on Twitter

But in a case like this, it is even worse. Pastor Joshua Ryan Butler overlooks almost everyone who has firsthand experience of why this “icon” of his can be ridiculous or even blasphemous. He writes an entire book that immediately gets the wrong kind of buzz before release, causing endorsers**to retract their endorsements, unbelievers to take a swipe at the gospel, him removed from speaking at the IF Gathering this weekend, and many Christian writers to call his analogy just absolutely very badly problematic on several levels. Even the Gospel Coalition pulled their article.

TGC said it “lacked sufficient context”, and replaced the article with the entire first chapter that it came from. Reading the chapter does not make the excerpted article any better. If anything, it makes it worse. Example one: He quotes Sheila Wray Gregoire, but misses her entire point.
Example 2: The chapter proves how his analogy really does not deliver. This chapter has a few paragraphs on rape, followed by a few on prostitution. In order to denounce rape, Butler had to backtrack on his premise – he does not call sexual penetration giving when it is rape – he calls it taking. The very same activity can’t be called giving when it is wanted and taking when it is not. When the topic is prostitution, he backtracks on his analogy too: He admits prostituted women “are often pressured to do so by circumstances beyond their control”, but for his analogy, he describes the problem as women selling sex, not men buying it. For him, prostitution is a picture of an unfaithful church. If actual prostitution was the source for his analogy, it would lead to discussing a church that is sometimes unfaithful for reasons partly beyond its control, and in some cases completely hijacked to do traumatic things it never wanted, and which it could not be blamed for at all. Sex, or more accurately his sex analogies, does not “explain everything” – despite his book title.

Good intentions and bad theology, not combined with discussion with the believers who could enlighten him, combine here for an indefensible basic premise, and a book which, if chapter one is anything to go by, can’t deliver on its premise or promise.

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Another Twitter user responds

*Backward analogy: This writer claims that sex is an analogy that pictures salvation. But sex presumably existed in Eden – before humans sinned and needed a Savior. I respond to another theologian with a similar assertion here.

**You may have noticed that one of the endorsement retractors, Dennae Piere, is a woman. This does not disprove my thesis on having women involved. She says she barely skimmed it and endorsed it based on what she previously saw of his work – she did not actually oversee the writing, nor had to approve of it, in the way several male theologians at Multnomah, The Keller Centre, and The Gospel Coalition had to.

Owen Strachan’s version of male strength weakens the church

Owen Strachan, former president of the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, loves strong men. No, I don’t mean his sexual preferences. He loves them in the sense Marilyn Frye observed:

“To say that straight men are heterosexual is only to say that they engage in sex… exclusively with the other sex, i.e., women. All or almost all of that which pertains to love, most straight men reserve exclusively for other men. The people whom they admire, respect, adore, revere, honor, whom they imitate, idolize, and form profound attachments to, whom they are willing to teach and from whom they are willing to learn, and whose respect, admiration, recognition, honor, reverence, and love they desire… those are, overwhelmingly, other men. In their relations with women, what passes for respect is kindness, generosity, or paternalism; what passes for honor is removal to the pedestal. From women, they want devotion, service, and sex.”

Unlike most men, Strachan and his ilk elevate the attitude Frye describes to a holy command: For them, Imitating Men and Not Learning from Women are backed up by how they understand obscure Bible verses. See this Tweet of his:

God has staked everything on men.

Strong men are the foundation of a strong marriage.

Strong men are the foundation of a strong home.

Strong men are the foundation of a strong church.

Strong men are the foundation of a strong society.

God has staked EVERYTHING on men.

Strachan probably knows that this view is indefensible, as he set it up so that only people he either mentions or follows can comment. On his less controversial tweets, anyone can comment.

The “strong men” tweet is limited in who is allowed to respond

Even so, Strachan still got a lot of pushback. For example, Rohan Johnson replied:

I see what you’ve done here. I’ll fix this for you.

God has staked everything on Christ.

Christ is the foundation of a strong marriage.

Christ is the foundation of a strong home.

Christ is the foundation of a strong church.

God has staked EVERYTHING on Christ. Not you.

Other responses reference the hymn My Hope is Built on Nothing Less: “On Christ the solid rock we stand, all other ground, or men, or women, are sinking sand”, or reminds him of Mary, who gave the news to the church that Jesus rose from the death – the news without which the church would never have started.

A woman posting as Tzedakah Ministries asks Strachan:

Question – Do you believe I as a woman am equal to you in the eyes of God? Do you have the courage of your “convictions” to answer me?

By the time I post this, it is three days later and Strachan has not answered her. His silence speaks loudly to all who will listen.

(I don’t think anyone reminded him that there was a Bible woman who also had a stake in men: Jael. But I digress.)

Strachan doubles down:

“Another way of saying this:

Christ is the spiritual foundation of everything and men are the anthropological foundation of all these institutions.

In Christ, men hold fast to–and are head of–one wife & family; men lead the church as elders; men must lead in public …” Owen Strachan

My first observation is that changing a statement that does not refer to Jesus to one which mentions Jesus is not another way of saying the same thing. The second is that he is still idolizing males. But any Christian can see his idolatry. I assume I can move on to another topic, as his lack of respect for God/ Jesus is obvious.

So, for another topic: Do you see how Owen Strachan shows the fruit of complementarian religion? Complementarians claim women are equal but do not need to have their voices heard in the church, home, and society because men will speak up for everyone. But if this actually worked, then men like Strachan would match any statement about the importance of men with an equally strong similar statement, in the next or previous tweet, about the importance of women.

I looked up if he has any (in his mind similar) woman-glorifying tweets right before or after that one. Of course, he did not. He certainly does not – as an honest complementarian would do if they really believed complementarian doctrine as written* – honor women as equals, but who have another equally significant role.

And there is such a lot even a complementarian can mention! God has entrusted (I prefer that to Strachan’s unfortunate word choice, “staked” – his word calls God a gambler, who will lose if men fail), among others, these things on women and not men:
> the survival of Moses, several times
> the return to God in the time of King Josiah (2 Kings 22:14–20 and 2 Chronicles 34:22–28 )

> the birth of every single man in the Bible and since, including God-and-man Jesus
> the news of the resurrection

God has also given almost every command and promise in the Bible to people of both sexes, after creating both sexes to rule the earth (Gen. 1:27). If the comp interpretation didn’t have such serious implications, their prejudice would be almost comical: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife” is never preached as: “…but hey, ladies (wink, wink, nudge, nudge), there is nothing in the Bible against coveting your neighbor’s husband!” Yet “an elder should be a one-woman man” is preached as: “See, elders should be men, not women!” “Fathers should bring their children up in the training and instruction of the Lord (Eph 6:4)” is never taught as: “Men, stay at home with your kids so you can teach them!”. Yet, mothers are asked to stay home with their children on lesser Biblical justification than that. These men’s blinkers make them miss all the women and exaggerate the importance of men – and then they say God is the author of their prejudice.

Strachan’s way of Bible reading serves only his group. In itself, this is a very human flaw, but Strachan’s theology means that the opposite group cannot correct him. Women, in his view, may not teach men. One-sidedness may start out as a flaw anyone can largely overcome by humbly discussing your views with others, but complementarian Bible understanding exacerbates it to an insurmountable obstacle to knowledge, kindness, and justice. If they actually believe in the Kingdom where many of the last will be first and many of the first will be last (Matt. 20:16), Strachan’s sort should really, deeply rethink leadership.

If a tree shall be known by its fruit, complementarianism is a poisonous tree that should be chopped down.

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Note

* Despite all my criticism of complementarian doctrine, the Danvers Statement does have: “Both Adam and Eve were created in God’s image, equal before God as persons …” as the first part of the first affirmation. One could thus ask Strachan to pay at least lip service to equality.

Does purity culture lead to disregarding consent?

There is a conclusion I sometimes saw in purity culture material that I can’t quite grasp. The conclusion is that consent can’t be taught in purity culture.

The argument goes like this:

Premise 1 – Purity culture calls women givers in sex. They save themselves for marriage, they lose virginity, and some even teach that virginity is a gift they give to their husband.
Premise 2 – Purity culture calls men takers in sex. They score, they get what they want.
Conclusion: You can’t teach consent without eradicating purity culture.

I see this argument as incorrect and too fatalistic. Both premises are probably true, but they do not automatically lead to this conclusion. If you see something as yours to give or keep, does this mean that you can’t consent, or learn consent around this thing? No! For example, you see the contents of your wallet as yours. You can consent or not consent to spending it or giving it away.
If a man sees it as something he does not have but gets from others, does this mean that he has to take it without asking consent? Of course not. Children learn from a young age to ask for what they want. Does it mean men can’t say “no” or “yes” to it? Of course not – they still have the right to refuse or accept a gift.

“So what?”, you may ask. “Why does it matter if purity culture is compatible with consent or not?” My answer will be that it matters to those who grow up in a church that practices purity culture.

I found this picture doing the rounds on Facebook. It presents the conclusion I question as a meme.

For their churches’ leadership, purity is important – it is part of the foundations for a good life, a good marriage, and living close to God. Those who are schooled in feminism mostly know that purity itself is not synonymous with what we call purity culture, but the term “purity culture” makes them sound pretty close together to the uninitiated.

This means these churches won’t stop teaching purity. If feminists then testify that purity culture (which they see as synonymous with teaching purity) and consent is incompatible, it means that consent is the enemy and something they can’t even start to teach. Since some church youth are very much influenced by their church, this makes it impossible for them to learn about consent.

And consent is very much compatible with actual Christianity! Jesus said the greatest law is loving others as yourself – this is very much compatible with men asking what their partners want (asking consent) as much as what they themselves want, and women seeing their own needs as equal to those of their partners, and thus consenting or not from that place.

What about intercourse that purity culture already sees as wrong, starting with sex outside of marriage? Can consent still be taught then? Well, purity culture will tell both partners to not do it. (Purity culture assumes this is harder for the man, but that is not the point of this post.) Teaching a boy that a lack of consent turns what he does into rape is entirely compatible with telling him that he should not do it at all. Teens – and the adults teaching them – are completely able to understand there are various classes of wrong behavior, ranging from undesirable to serious crime.

I used to be a very religious, very legalist late -80s-early-90s teen in a Calvinist church. I am less legalist now, but still religious (although I don’t prefer the word religious) and still in a Calvinist church. I know from firsthand experience what it is to believe purity ideas. I nevertheless knew from a young age that rape is a lot wronger than illicit consensual sex. If even I, with my autistic limitations in understanding non-autistic minds, was able to instinctively know that without any direct lesson comparing these issues, then other young people can too.

It is very important for young people to learn consent. As such, I hope my readers would encourage even conservative churches to teach it – it is the caring thing to do!

Image: My own

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PS: If you see this topic as important, you may also like: https://biblicalpersonhood.wordpress.com/2016/10/31/why-i-do-not-believe-consent-is-everything/

Proven!

I drew this picture maybe two or three years ago. It deals with how the church sometimes translated the Bible in such a way that the (egalitarian) meaning of the text does not come through, and then church members pointed to those translations to “prove” their point.

For example, “head” in koine Greek never/ very seldom had any inkling of leadership in it. In English it is a major definition, so it is not the perfect way to translate the Greek in “the man is the head of the woman.” To then refer to the text “the man is the head of the woman” to prove male lead is misusing scripture.

John Piper – as wrong about Domestic Violence as ever (read if you want to see me agree with Piper on something)

Domestic abuse is always about power and control
… Red Flags” Of An Abusive Personality:
… 2. CONTROLLING BEHAVIOR: At first, the batterer will say this behavior is because they are concerned for your safety, a need for you to use time well or to make good decisions…” – Cantara Safehouse

———————–
John Piper is at it again. He is vehemently denying that Complementarianism can ever be complicit in the abuse of women.

Even before we go to Piper, I want to compare a definition of complementarianism to the definition of domestic abuse at the start:

“Complementarianism holds that “God has created men and women equal in their essential dignity and human personhood, but different and complementary in function with male headship in the home and in the Church.” – Duncan, Ligon

The first part – before the word “but” is asserted by egalitarians too, and as such is not what Piper speaks about when he opposes egalitarianism. Basically, complementarians say leadership, or control, belongs to men. If abuse is always about power and control, and controlling behavior is a red flag for an abuser, complementarianism is a red flag for abuse.

But let us hear Piper in his own words.

First, note that he does not define abuse. In fact, I never heard one complementarian actually deal with the link between control and abuse. (As an aside, if any complementarian leader ever starts out by mentioning the link between the two issues, and then discusses how complementarianism can or cannot be called complicit in calling men to be controlling, please tell me where! I am very curious to see them handle the elephant in the room.)

At 1 minute and 20 seconds, he says:

25 “We not only say: ‘Humans do not treat humans that way’, but ‘men don’t treat women that way’…”

Firstly, please bear with me if I get very literal. (Hey, I’m autistic. I take things literally. It is better than kleptomaniacs, who take things – literally.) He is wrong. Men do treat women that way. Not all men, of course, but too many of them. In fact, whether you define abuse as control, or as giving your partner physical injuries, more men than women do it.

I realized he meant it as a form of shaming. He meant it as peer pressure: Men shouldn’t is intended where he said men don’t. In the same way boys in high school would shame another boy who does not (falsely) brag about (alleged) sexual prowess, he wants to shame men who abuse women.

However, most men are less influenced by peer pressure now than they were in high school, and Piper is not the cool kid in most circles. But there are few theological circles where Piper is one of the “cool kids”, so I would love it if he actually speaks up against abuse.

Ultimately, messages like: “(Real) men should not abuse women” is less effective than “(real) men should control/ be the heads of women“, for a simple reason. Manhood, to have any meaning, must be different from something else, in this case from womanhood.

“Men should not abuse women” would be a special manhood assignment if women had the right to abuse men. Women do not, so it is not. “Men should control/ be the heads of women” is a manhood assignment if women are not supposed to control/ be the heads of men. By complementarian theology, women are not supposed to control, so it is.

“…It is written on your soul, man. You are a wicked, unmanly person if you do that. Complementarians are the only people who can talk that way.”

Complementarians may be the only people who talk that way, but it is a very ineffective way of talking: Your average baby, child, or woman does not abuse a woman. The majority of people who abuse them are men. Why would an abuser believe his behavior is not manly, if it is more common in men than in women and even supports male “headship” – which Piper endorses?

1:50 “It makes for beautiful and safe and flourishing relationships.”

When I heard the word “safe” in there, my mind immediately returned to the second red flag for an abusive personality:

“CONTROLLING BEHAVIOR: At first, the batterer will say this behavior is because they are concerned for your safety…”

When I heard flourishing, I smiled because it is such a typical Piper adjective. I don’t think I ever hear anyone else say it, except him when discussing complementarian relationships.

But my favorite part is about 25 seconds into the video:

“Complementarianism stood in the gap between (gesturing with his right hand as far right as it can go) abusive, dominating, patriarchalism and egalitarianism (gesturing with his left hand as far left as it can go) over here.”

I actually believe him here. Egalitarianism is as far as can be from abuse! He actually made our point for us. Thank you for that, John Piper!

Gender role adherents need a deeper view of work

A 1950s ad with “traditional” gender roles

The scenario in which Daddy goes to work to provide, and Mommy stays at home with the kids, is not as common as it used to be. You, like me, must have heard of people who claim that this scenario is the Biblical™ Will of God for all Men and Women. (If you read this blog before, you probably know that I don’t think this is Biblical.)

Have you ever noticed the way these Biblical™  gender role endorsers discuss work? Women’s paid work is seen as selfish – it keeps them from what they should be. Women’s unpaid work is not recognized as work, and men’s are seldom called that either. Men’s paid work is seen as an effort to get money for their families.

Work does not, in complementarian doctrine, get described as a mission, as a way of giving love, as help to society, or as a witness to the world. The contents of what men and women do outside the home seldom get discussed by complementarians. When it does, it is often in the class of this quote:

“If a woman’s job involves a good deal of directives toward men, they will need to be non-personal in general. If they don’t, men and women won’t flourish in the long run in that relationship without compromising profound biblical and psychological issues.

Conversely, if a woman’s relationship to a man is very personal, then the way she offers guidance and influence will need to be more non-directive. My own view is that there are some roles in society that will strain godly manhood and womanhood to the breaking point…”

– John Piper to a woman who wants to be a police officer, in a sound clip at Desiring God.

In this type of work discussion, people are afraid that certain jobs may take people out of their pink and blue boxes.

There is more to work than that.

Whether you are a truck driver or teacher, a nail technician or a nuclear scientist, a librarian or a landscape artist, a short order cook or a stationery store owner, you only get paid for one reason. This reason applies to both owners of their own businesses and wage earners. You get paid because someone believes your work is worth something. You gave your boss or customer something they wanted, and they paid you for it.

We should put our Christianity into the things we do, and our jobs or careers are no different. The purpose of our jobs – whether men or women – is not just about earning an income, it is about living out our gifts and serving the world.

This is another place where complementarian doctrine falls short: It can’t encourage women to live out their mission in the world. Even if they actually believe women belong at home with their children, women spent more of their lives in a pre-children or post-underage-children-who-need-care stage than with growing children in the home.

But they can hardly encourage men either, as any mission is about serving people’s needs – and stories about serving are very seldom stories about male leadership.

On being a real woman, undeceived by flowery prose

Is the content of the flowery prose true, or not?

Have you ever heard religious people saying things designed to get other believers to agree, but which has no substance? Here is one of those examples. It is full of Christianese like being created by God and giving in to God’s design, but never gives evidence that what it advocates for is actually God’s design:

“A real woman is a woman who recognizes that she has been exquisitely and perfectly created by a loving God for a unique purpose. Out of genuine gratitude, awe, and a desire to please her Maker, a real woman joyfully embraces her femininity and submits every aspect of her identity – the attitudes and affections of her heart and mind, her appearance, her manners, her speech, her ambitions, and her beliefs – to God’s original and unique design for her as a woman. A real woman understands that God designed femininity because masculinity was not enough in itself to represent God’s image and glory. The differences between men and women glorify God, and downplaying these differences downplays God’s glory. A real woman wants to bring glory to God by being a woman.”

This is one of those deceptive paragraphs where someone with a pre-decided notion surrounds his notion with religious-sounding language. A similar example will be someone who believes God called blondes to other roles than brunettes (an idea not in the Bible) and then saying:

“A real blonde recognizes that he has been exquisitely and perfectly created by a loving God for a unique purpose. (Unique does not mean the same as other blondes/ other women. Yet this kind of message calls all blondes or all women to the same “role”.) Out of genuine gratitude, awe, and a desire to please his Maker, a real blonde joyfully embraces his hair colour and submits every aspect of his identity to God’s original and unique design for him as a blonde. (No evidence is given that God’s design for blondes differs from His design for brunettes.) He understands that God designed blondness because dark hair was not enough in itself to represent God’s image and glory. (Does God say that was His motive, or is it their interpretation?) The differences between blondes and brunettes glorify God, (If that meant not dyeing your hair/ not going for gender reassignment surgery, I could follow the argument. But once other things except for hair colour/ genitalia is seen as “being blonde/ being feminine”, then the argument is deceptive.) and downplaying these differences downplays God’s glory. (By the same measure, do the person who asserts this downplay the glory of God by pretending there are more differences than the ones God intended? If s/he called some commands from God the job of blondes to keep, did s/he discourage non-blondes from keeping those commands?) A real blonde wants to bring glory to God by being blonde…

People, blonde and brunette and redheaded and grey and bald, are made in God’s image. So are men and women. People, blonde and brunette and redheaded and grey and bald, should be what God called them to be. So should men and women. But the same way the previous paragraph doesn’t actually tell us anything about living for God as a blonde, such flowery prose don’t tell us anything about living for God as a woman.

Also, a real woman is any woman who really exists, regardless of lifestyle, attitude or religion. Wonder Woman, Cinderella and the Goddess Artemis are unreal women. Atheists and religious women, virgins and mothers of five by five men, murderesses and soup kitchen organizers, women who never wear a touch of cosmetics and those who don’t go anywhere without full-face make-up are all real women.

 

If you sweep away some flowers, you may find this.