I thinks it's time to tell you a little about my Husband. He grew up in a semi-religious family that never went to church. His childhood was punctuated with tragedy caused by alcoholism and infidelity. When he was around 11 years old his mom found Jesus. His little brother jumped on the bandwagon, but my Husband followed much more cautiously. All throughout high school he studied and researched the subject of religion. As he searched and learned and struggled, he watched how the God began to change his family. At some point he finally decided that he believed in God. His family has been healed and He has an incredible and inspiring faith in God that i wish i could share.
Over the last few months, he has been learning about the darker side of Christianity. The side that i was raised in. He has been shocked and horrified but what I've shown him. After reading This Post By Lisa of Broken Daughters, my husband emailed me at work. It is clear by his writing that he is startled and supremely annoyed by the Fundie interpretation of his religion. I liked what he said so much that i decided to re-post it here. He is responding to the three YouTube Videos that Lisa linked to in her post.
These men are the definition of interpreting scripture without historical and cultural context. Their entire argument is as follows; "there is nowhere in the bible that says anything about dating" and "there are betrothals that take place in the bible." That is the same painful anti-logic that the Amish follow in order to conclude that pants and electricity are the work of the devil (but girls wearing skirts and riding horses are God's two favorite things). What's worse is that these genius's then go on to perform a ritual betrothal that they readily ADMIT is found nowhere in scripture (but some historian says its from around the time Jesus was born so its gotta be OK).They look so proud of themselves when they point out that their form of "betrothal is not accepted by our current culture" but they fail to realize that there are a hell of a lot of things that are far better about our current culture than the culture that Jesus happened to be born into (see slavery, governmental oppression, racism, and sexism).The truth is that these men are worshiping a culture. They are placing an inordinate amount of emphasis on the culture surrounding the time the bible was written because in areas where the bible doesn't explicitly tell them what to do, they are unwilling to use their own brains.There are clearly matters of biblical indifference where the bible is silent (I have yet to read a verse telling me whether or not it is a sin to deep fry a twinkie). Rational human beings can have disagreements, Paul even addresses some directly (meat sacrificed to idols). However there can be no gray areas for these people because if there were, then how could they claim to be perfect in EVERY aspect of their anal retentive lives? If Jesus had come to earth yesterday and these guys were alive in the year 4011, then we would all be treated to a holographic video of perfect dad 1 and 2 telling future you and me how awful our current culture is. If only we would have our children date like they did in Jesus' day then surely we would truly be following God...
Like i said in my last post, Patriarchy promotes a lifestyle that is supposedly Godly only by virtue of being different from everyone else. Of course its all old hat to me. I know all the rhetoric by heart. But it is fascinating for me to watch him hear this stuff for the first time.
His perspective is refreshing don't you think?
So very true.
ReplyDelete"The truth is that these men are worshiping a culture."
ReplyDeleteYES.
Great thoughts!
ReplyDelete"The truth is that these men are worshiping a culture."
This is what struck me the most. All of these men are so obsessed with being "set-apart", they can't get enough of screaming how terrible culture is and you're not supposed to live in the culture, yet they develope their own, which you have to follow in order to be godly. They are doing just the same as every culture does, apply self-made rules to their entire group must adhere to them. If they don't, they're considered 'strange' at best. Luke-warm is my favourite term for that. If you don't listen to their rules, you're luke-warm.
Matter of fact, by their set of rules, they stop people, especially women, from having their very own relationship with God/Jesus, and I think that's the saddest part about it all. No wonder so many girls can't find a connection to God when all they have learned is that they can't have it.