"Desiring God" says God wants women to be scared of men

Gaston corners Belle against a door. Image source.

So uh, here's a post on "Desiring God", written by Greg Morse: The Future of Masculinity [via]. The whole post is such utter nonsense, it's hard to even believe someone wrote this and took it seriously, and it was posted in 2020 so why am I even blogging about this? I'm blogging about this just so you know what the organization "Desiring God" is about. And just in case you ever come across something else that Greg Morse wrote, so you don't make the mistake of taking it seriously, lol.

Or, in other words, I'm writing for myself, little Perfect-Number-from-15-years-ago, who thinks that "Desiring God" is a really good Christian organization, and I have to believe what they say. Little Perfect Number who believes in complementarianism, that God made men and women different, and God wants women to be barred from certain leadership positions, and this is good and godly and I must conform myself to it, because that's what it means to be a Christian.

(Wait a minute, we've talked about Greg Morse before! Wasn't he the one who wrote a post about how real men don't use plastic forks, and I was so boggled by that? Fellas, is it gay to eat potato salad at a picnic?)

(Wait, Morse is also the one who wrote the post about how it's good to stand up at a funeral and announce that the dead person is in hell.)

Okay so let's talk about Morse's 2020 post. It's based around a scene from a sci-fi novel by C. S. Lewis, "That Hideous Strength." I haven't read that, so I can't speak to whether Morse's interpretation is actually what Lewis was trying to say. (I am a fan of C. S. Lewis though.) Apparently, in this scene in the novel, a character called "the Director" is talking to a woman named Jane, about how she has been trying to avoid men who are truly masculine, because she sees them as unpredictable and dangerous, but it's wrong for her to do that. Masculinity is supposed to be a little aggressive and dangerous, and women just have to accept that, rather than try to get away from it. Rather than marry a safe and trustworthy man. Like, what on earth? The post literally says "She had chosen a husband, Mark, accordingly. He 'really understood' her — meaning that he posed no threat to her self-government and asked nothing of her she was unwilling to give." As if that's a bad thing!

This reads like Morse lives in a fantasy world, where action heroes and movie villains are so cool because they're badass and violent. Like he doesn't know anything about the reality of what it's like for women who are victims of men's violence. Like he's romanticized it, like a little danger is exciting but at the end of the day you don't *really* have to be scared because masculine men are good. Like he doesn't know what it's like to be a woman and feel vulnerable and eventually realize that no one is going to come and save you- you have to make yourself stronger and protect yourself.

And then there's this extremely bizarre section which says that God is so incredibly masculine, that even men are feminine in comparison. What??? That's not in the bible anywhere- Morse just made it up! (Or he got it from someone else who made it up.) What on earth???

I will say, though, I do like the section in Morse's post where he takes bible verses about God and changes the "he/him" pronouns to "she/her"- that's my religion. My God is male and female and nonbinary. Makes me want to go change more bible verses to she/her, what a great idea! So ridiculous when people try to limit who God is, and say They are male and not female. Morse changes the "he/him" to "she/her" in an attempt to show us how that would sound wrong (???) and therefore God is a "he/him"- but really it says more about him than it does about God.

Anyway. What really struck me, while reading Morse's post, was thinking about myself back when I was a good evangelical. What if I had read something like this, back then, saying that masculinity is inherently possessive and dangerous, and that's the way it should be, and as a woman I am supposed to let scary manly men rule over me? (I did read articles from "Desiring God" back then.)

Also, what if a woman marries an abuser, and she's scared of him, but she thinks that's normal and doesn't realize the way he's treating her is wrong? What if she didn't even know that it's possible to marry a good and trustworthy man and have a healthy marriage? What if she doesn't know that it's NOT healthy to be scared of your husband? OMG. She thinks to herself, "He's a great guy, so loving and kind to me. Sometimes he gets angry and I'm scared of him, but that's normal, that's just what masculinity is, that happens in every marriage sometimes." 

!!!! OMG, if you've never heard this before, you need to hear it: Many many women are in healthy marriages where they are NEVER scared of their husbands. NEVER. It should happen NEVER. If it happens "sometimes," that's a red flag.

Anyway. Back then, I wondered what "wives submit to your husbands" really meant. I had heard it in church my whole life, but I didn't feel that it made sense to restrict people based on their gender, but I still believed that Christians were required to be complementarian (ie, required to believe in "wives submit to your husbands," and that women can't be leaders to the extent that men can, and that the man has to be the "spiritual leader" in a romantic relationship). So I was very much looking for an explanation of how this was supposed to work- what *is* godly masculinity, or godly femininity, and how can it make sense that as a woman I'm made for a role that feels restrictive to me, but the restrictions are right and good and how God wants it to be.

I was looking for answers, answers to help me believe in complementarianism. I know I'm required to believe this- make it make sense! (Forever grateful to Rachel Held Evans for presenting an argument that it's possible to be a Christian and NOT be complementarian- finally an answer that makes sense!) What if I had found an article like this back then? Saying that masculinity *is* aggressive and dangerous and I need that in my life. Saying that God wants me to be with a man who makes me feel unsafe. Saying that God is so extremely masculine, so different from me, a woman. Men are like God, and I am not. (I am sure Morse would say this is a misinterpretation of his article- but, come on, this is necessarily how it comes across when you make a big huge deal about how it's so important to believe God is masculine and not feminine.)

So when I read this, first of all it's just so much nonsense, so laughable, so obviously out of touch with reality- but then I think about where I was back then, 15 years ago or so, and how something like this could have really affected me. I understand how it feels to have a mindset that would take this seriously. I had been told my whole life that Christians have to believe that God made men and women different, for different roles, and that it's super important that we all follow the correct roles- and it made no sense but I tried to believe it... If I had come across some horribly misogynist hot take that genuinely did the world-building to make it make sense, like Morse's article, I might have believed it.

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Related:

"Desiring God" Goes Full Toxic Masculinity 

Men have no idea what it's like for women in complementarian churches 

This May Be The Most WTF Christian Article On Sex I've Ever Read 

Don't Invite Anybody From 'Desiring God' to Your Funeral 

"The Authority of Scripture" is One Hell of a Drug 

And this post from the Slacktivist: Brief Interludes With Hideous Men (Part 1)

Also please enjoy this song, "God is a Girl." This is my religion.

Nobody Tell John Piper To Have A Good Weekend

Clipart image of a man leaving the office. Image text: "Have a great weekend. I hope your code behaves on Monday the same way it did on Friday." Image source.

I came across this video on Desiring God, by John Piper: God Demands Our Delight: Foundations of Christian Hedonism, Part 2. Actually, I found it because my twitter friends were commenting on an extremely effed-up tweet from Desiring God, which said "God cares more about your happiness than you do. He is so serious about your joy that he threatens hell if you refuse to find it in him." and linked to that post. Everyone pointed out that this tweet is describing an abusive relationship.

So I rolled my eyes and thought I might as well watch Piper's video and see if his abusive nonsense is worth responding to. Well, as it turns out, the video isn't about God threatening us with hell at all. It's not anywhere near as horrifying as the tweet made it sound. Actually, it's a video where Piper claims that we are "commanded" to "rejoice in God" and shows us a whole bunch of bible verses that say so.

And I'm watching this video, thinking, "this is just bizarre." He keeps pulling up verse after verse that says things like "Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth" and says "this is a command." Over and over, Piper tells us "this is a command."

What?

This is so strange.

What? How can you read verses saying to "rejoice" and think those are "commands"? The writers are just very happy and inviting other happy people to share in their happiness. It's not about ordering people to act happy- that doesn't make any sense. Emotions can't just be manufactured just because you think you're "supposed to" feel a certain way. Like, what on earth?

Does John Piper hear the song "celebrate good times, come on" at a wedding and think that's a command? If he tells a friend about his upcoming vacation and the friend says "have a safe trip" does he think that's a command? In first grade, when the teacher told the kids their homework over spring break was just "have a good break", did John Piper think that was an actual homework assignment and he would be in trouble if he had a crappy spring break?

Like, I don't even know what to say about this. Usually when I respond to stuff from Desiring God, it's something that's abusive and dangerous. But this is just weird. Why on earth does he think those bible verses are "commands"?

I guess it's because he views the bible as a list of commands we need to follow. And believes in a God who wants to control every little tiny detail of everyone's life. And because he follows an ideology which policies people's emotions- we're required to feel certain feelings, and we're not allowed to feel certain "sinful" feelings.

That's just ... odd.

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Related:
"The Authority of Scripture" is One Hell of a Drug
John Piper Said "There Are No Innocent Children" and I am Not the Least Bit Surprised

"Waiting On God" - But Like, Why Though?

A picture of a clock, with the text "God's timing is always perfect." Image source.

I came across this article on Desiring God: When We Want to Give Up Waiting. It's written by Vaneetha Rendall Risner, and it's about the concept of "waiting on God." I was inspired to blog about this because yes, back when I was a good evangelical I bought into the whole "waiting on God" thing, but now it just reads as ... odd.

Let's take a look:

I am an impatient person. I don’t like waiting. I get annoyed by slow drivers in fast lanes. I audibly sigh when I get into a long checkout line. I am quick to remind wait staff in restaurants that I’m waiting to be seated or served.

That seems ... fine? Like, it's totally reasonable to not like wasting one's time waiting. It would only become a problem if you treat other people rudely because of your impatience. Or if it's making you so angry/stressed that it's really taking a toll on your mental health. But in this article there's no indication that Risner's impatience is that bad, so... this doesn't seem like a problem at all to me.

Like, I would advise you to look at the whole situation. See that you are not the only person affected by a slow-moving line; everyone else is just trying to do the same thing you're trying to do, so you should treat them with the respect you would want them to show you. And especially be kind to the customer service employee, because they have to deal with annoyed customers all day. And pay attention to your own mental health and emotions- if you're getting disproportionately angry, then it's time to take a step back and figure out why that is, and how to handle it.

Those are trivial situations, yet I still find it hard to wait. There are bigger, much more important issues that I’ve waited for as well. I’ve waited an agonizingly long time for healing from my post-polio. For clarity on which path to take in an important decision. For restoration of a difficult relationship. For a dear friend to return to faith. For each, I have waited long past the time when I thought my requests should have been answered. For many serious requests, I’m still waiting.

Umm. Okay these examples are ... odd. "Healing from my post-polio"- well, how long did your doctor say it was supposed to take? (I'll admit I don't know anything about post-polio.) Maybe the doctor's estimate was wrong and it's actually taking longer than that- yeah that sucks. But I wouldn't really use the term "waiting" to describe that situation. I would call it, trying to figure out how to live a good life when your health isn't what you would want it to be. And the other examples- "For clarity on which path to take in an important decision. For restoration of a difficult relationship. For a dear friend to return to faith."- umm these strike me as extremely weird because there's not necessarily any reason to believe these things will actually happen. Doesn't the term "waiting" mean that you're sure the thing is going to happen, sometime in the future?

And also, "for a dear friend to return to faith" is extremely creepy. People are in charge of their own lives, and they're not going to "return to faith" just because *you* want them to. That's their own decision. Very very creepy to pray for God to force someone to change their personal religious beliefs.

Anyway, maybe Risner is "waiting" for these things because she prayed for them to happen and believes they are "in God's will" so God should do them sooner or later. I guess? Her article doesn't say. (Though later on she does mention that it's possible the things we "wait" for will never have "fulfillment on earth" ... so ... yeah I'm still confused. How is your "dear friend" going to "return to faith" in the afterlife? Isn't it too late by then? Or ... does "fulfillment" not necessarily mean that the thing will happen, but that you will stop feeling bad about the thing not happening?)

Okay moving right along. Risner presents the story of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, and Ishmael, to teach us about how we should "wait on God."

God promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations. And then there was silence. Nothing happened for eleven long years (imagine where you were eleven years ago). Abraham’s wife, Sarah, was barren and well past her childbearing years.

After more than a decade of waiting, they both assumed that perhaps they needed to act on their own to fulfill the promise of God. So, Abraham took Hagar, Sarah’s servant, and had Ishmael. For a while, they thought the promises would now come true through Ishmael.

Thirteen years later, God told them Sarah would bear a son, Isaac. They had waited so long, neither of them believed God was going to do it now. Abraham was decidedly unenthusiastic at the proclamation. After he audibly laughed and inwardly doubted, Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before you!” (Genesis 17:18).

Abraham had figured out a way to have heirs on his own. The thought of waiting, being wholly dependent on God, wasn’t part of his plan. He wanted God to bless what he had done, rather than wait for what only God could do.

Umm. Wait. So, it was bad for Abraham to impregnate Hagar, but why was it bad, exactly? Risner seems to be saying it was bad because that's not the way God wanted things to go.

Umm. Okay let's think about this though. First of all, Hagar was a slave. Kind of f***ed-up that Abraham owned slaves. Kind of f***ed-up that the biblical writer was totally fine with that. Kind of f***ed-up that, in my experience in the white American evangelical church, Christians don't seem to notice the slavery part of the story.

Oh, what's that you say? She wasn't a slave, she was a servant? Okay, sure, call it what you want, but the fact is, it's extremely f***ed-up that Abraham and Sarah believed they had the right to order her to have sex with Abraham and give birth to his child.

Yeah let's talk about the sex part. The biblical story gives no indication that anyone cared about asking Hagar for consent. (And neither does Risner's article... And what's more, throughout the article, she keeps using Ishmael as simply a symbol of doing things your own way instead of God's way- she doesn't treat Ishmael like a real person. Which would be fine if she believed this is a fictional story rather than a thing that really happened, but lololololol this is Desiring God we're talking about here.) Indeed, the power dynamics between a slave and master make it impossible that consent can actually exist at all. The correct term for this is rape. Abraham raped Hagar.

Oh and it's worse than that, actually. He forced her to get pregnant and give birth to a child. Abraham seemed to think he "owned" Hagar so completely that he had the right to use her body as a vessel for growing his child for 9 months. Eww. (How will I explain this to my children?)

So why was it wrong for Abraham to impregnate Hagar? In reality-land, the reason it was wrong was because of the slavery, rape, and forced pregnancy. But Risner doesn't mention any of that. She seems to think it was wrong because ... like ... it wasn't God's plan, or something?

Moving along...

That’s what I often do. I don’t like waiting. I want to act, to figure it out, to know with certainty what’s going to happen. And then I want to move ahead. Abraham wanted God to bless Ishmael so he could have descendants through him. God had something different in mind, something that unfolded to Abraham over time — something impossible in the eyes of man.

Honestly, often I want Ishmael too. I want the thing I can figure out, that I have control over, that doesn’t require waiting and trusting.

Umm. What.

Okay, first she says "I want to act, to figure it out, to know with certainty what's going to happen." That seems totally fine to me. Those are perfectly fine things to want. What's the problem?

I guess, in Risner's worldview, the problem is that it's WRONG to take action and find your own solution when God told you that's not how the plan is supposed to go. But in practical terms, how would you know that God told you that? Sure, in the story of Abraham, God speaks with a real voice, but that's not how things work in our lives. And what if actually God wants you to take action to accomplish the thing, and that's God's way of answering your prayers? I just can't see any scenario where one could actually be sure that "Option A is waiting and praying and not taking action, and that is what God wants me to do. Option B is taking things into my own hands to solve the problem, which is BAD because it's NOT what God wants me to do."

Unless, of course, option B is bad for other reasons. (For example, if it involves slavery, rape, or forced pregnancy.) But in that case, you shouldn't do option B because of those other reasons. The reason you shouldn't choose option B has nothing to do with "waiting on God."

So, if option B is bad for other reasons- like it's immoral or just a bad idea- then why introduce the concept of "waiting on God" at all? And if there's nothing inherently wrong with option B, then how can you be so sure God wouldn't want you to do it? Sure, maybe "God told you" that A is right and B is wrong- but a lot of us ex-evangelicals have testimonies about things that we were sure "God told us" that turned out to be really bad ideas. I know I do. (And from where I'm sitting, if God tells you "don't solve this problem using the obvious solution that's right in front of you; instead you should wait and do nothing and maybe the problem will magically solve itself at some unknown time in the future", that sure sounds like an example of a bad idea.)

However, in the examples Risner gave earlier in the article, I don't understand what the "option B" would be. About her health problems, or repairing a relationship, or creepily wanting someone to change their religious beliefs, umm how exactly would one go about taking matters into their own hands and finding a workaround that's not "God's way"? Like, does she mean getting really discouraged/angry and then letting those emotions come out in unhealthy ways? I can't really think of what else she might mean- what obvious solution is sitting there staring her in the face but she can't do it because she has to "wait on God"? I don't see any quick fix for those problems, so I guess maybe "taking it into your own hands" would mean giving up in frustration and handling those emotions badly, in terms of how you treat other people and your own mental health. I guess?

Which, as I said, would be a bad idea because it's inherently a bad idea. Not because of any nonsense about "waiting on God."

And the rest of her article pretty much goes along those same lines. About how we're supposed to "wait on God" so don't "settle for Ishmael" and so on. Without explaining how one could know that God wants you to do option A instead of option B, and without talking about option B being unhealthy or immoral anyway so that's why you shouldn't choose it. All in all, I'm left feeling quite confused about the whole concept of "waiting on God."

Like, why don't we just look at the reality of our situation, look at our options, evaluate each one, predict possible outcomes, and make a decision that way? Why do we need to add this extra layer of vagueness about "waiting on God" and pretend it's actually about that?

This is the problem I have with the stuff I learned in church about morality and how to make decisions. They didn't say "look at the actual reality of the situation and go from there"- instead it was about praying and listening to God, and we very much believed it was possible that God would tell you something that made no sense at all (ahem, Risner uses the term "impossible in the eyes of man"). And "faith" means you should obey and do that thing that makes no sense. Don't pay attention to reality. In this system, there's no way to say "no that is clearly a bad idea, so obviously I shouldn't do it." Lean not on your own understanding. Christians think Abraham was right to obey God's command to sacrifice Isaac. That Joshua was right to obey God's command to kill entire populations and take their land. If God tells you to do something that's clearly a terrible idea, well, just trust that God has a reason and actually it's somehow a good idea.

I've also talked about this a lot in my VeggieTales reviews. Instead of just teaching kids to look at the actual reality of the situation, understand the consequences of one's actions (particularly how they affect other people), and use that to inform their decision-making, VeggieTales introduces completely unnecessary concepts like thankfulness ("Madame Blueberry"), selfishness ("King George and the Ducky"), and temptation ("LarryBoy and the Bad Apple"), and teaches that we should strive to embody/avoid these abstract concepts. (And in "Josh and the Big Wall", they teach that you should always obey God, like Joshua did when he drove the inhabitants of Jericho out and stole their land, what a great role model.)

Yes, I also believe in abstract concepts. But mine are things that are directly tied to reality and the actual real-world results of one's choices. Boundaries. Mental and emotional health. Communication. Consent. Standing up for yourself. For example, instead of "selfishness is bad", I believe "it's good and healthy to put yourself first, but obviously we have compassion for other people- so 'selfishness' becomes a bad thing ONLY if it's causing you to mistreat other people."

And now "waiting on God" feels like such a bizarre, nonsensical idea to me. Why on earth would you "wait" instead of trying to solve your problem if you're able? And if the only potential solutions are actually really terrible ideas because they are immoral, make no sense, etc, then don't do them because they are immoral, make no sense, etc- not because they're not "waiting on God." The whole "waiting on God" idea is completely unnecessary.

Maybe it's just a Christianese way of saying "don't respond to uncertainty about the future by doing something that's a really bad idea"- okay, fine, then it's possible that you can hold that belief in a non-unhealthy way. But why? Why even introduce it? At best, it's a distraction. At worst, if people actually buy into it, if they think that God is actually telling them to do things that make no sense and that's what "faith" means, well that's harmful.

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Related:
From "Virtues Morality" To "Boundaries Morality"
Honest Lent: Abraham's Slaves
I Wish I Was This Angry About Slavery in the Bible
The Bible Lied About Lot's Daughters

Blogaround

This image wishes us "Happy Pi Day", with the pi symbol stylized to look like a cherry pie. In the background are digits of pi. Image source.

1. Philadelphia becomes first major US city to ban cashless stores (posted March 7) Having the option to pay in cash is also really important for international travelers.

2. Why Idaho Lawmakers Killed a Child Marriage Bill (posted March 4) "Their opposition to bans on child marriage is not so much that they don’t think girls are pressured into marriage as children as it is that they think pregnant girls should be pressured into marriage as children."

Remember when I wrote a post called Which is a Bigger Deal: Marriage or Sex? For this one, we could ask "Which is a bigger deal: child marriage or single motherhood?" See, the problem is the giant disagreement on the answer to that question.

3. The Anti-Choice Movement’s Imaginary Scenarios about Abortion Later in Pregnancy are Extremist Propaganda (posted February 26) "This simply is not how healthcare works, and the anti-choice movement is completely aware of that, but that hasn’t stopped them from trying to urge their followers to believe it."

4. Atheist to give invocation at DuPage board meeting (posted March 8) Cool!

5. Prospiracy Theories (posted March 4) Wow this is so good! The reality that is actually true, instead of conspiracy theories, but they've been stylistically formatted to look like conspiracy theory memes.

6. Behold Your Queen (posted March 11) [content note: this article is a misogynistic trash fire, published on 'Desiring God'] Wowwww it's our friend Greg Morse, here to tell us that "Captain Marvel" is a bad movie because women aren't supposed to fight to rescue men (?????). CAN YOU IMAGINE looking at the lack of representation of women in superhero movies and thinking, 'yes this is good and godly'? AND ACTUALLY THIS ARTICLE IS EVEN WORSE THAN THAT- Morse's actual point is that society should not let women have military careers that might involve putting their lives at risk. WOWWWWWWWWW. Hey Desiring God, friends don't let friends publish articles by Greg Morse.

In Which John Piper Doesn't Tell You To Find A New Job

Liam Neeson on the phone (from the movie "Taken"). Image text: "Post doc job search- I have a very specific set of skills." Image source.

So the Lord laid a burden on my heart to respond to bad theology from Desiring God. Here's an article on that site, written by John Piper: How to Serve a Bad Boss. The advice in this article is just... not good. Mostly because it NEVER mentions anything about "maybe if you're unhappy with your job and your boss isn't treating you right, you should think about getting out of there and finding a new job."

It's a short article, so I'll just go through and respond to the whole thing [all italics are from the original]:

Rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. (Ephesians 6:7–8)

Consider these five things from Ephesians 6:7–8 in connection to your job.

1) A call to radically Lord-centered living.

This is astonishing compared to the way we usually live. Paul says that all our work should be done as work for Christ, not for any human supervisor. With good will render service “as to the Lord and not to man.”

This means that we will think of the Lord in what we are doing at work. We will ask, Why would the Lord like this done? How would the Lord like this done? When would the Lord like this done? Will the Lord help me to do this? What effect will this have for the Lord’s honor? In other words, being a Christian means radically Lord-centered living and working.

Umm, I don't really think this a helpful way to conceptualize job responsibilities, but, eh it's not that bad so I guess I won't say too much about it. Probably it's possible to imagine you're actually working primarily for God rather than for a company, and have that not necessarily lead to unhealthy things. Eh. Sure, I guess. Personally, though, I don't think it's a good idea, because it adds a whole extra unnecessary person into the system and puts your focus in a weird place, which could cause you to not accurately see the situation.

2) A call to be a good person.

Lord-centered living means being a good person and doing good things. Paul says, “With a good will [render service] . . . whatever good anyone does.” Jesus said that when we let our light shine, men will see our “good works” and give glory to our Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16).

Yes, I agree with this one. Be a good person.

3) Power to do a good job for inconsiderate earthly employers.

Paul’s aim is to empower Christians, with Lord-centered motives, to go on doing good for supervisors who are not considerate. How do you keep on doing good in a job when your boss ignores you or even criticizes you? Paul’s answer is: stop thinking about your boss as your main supervisor, and start working for the Lord. Do this in the very duties given to you by your earthly supervisor.

Items 1 and 2 didn't mention anything about working for a bad boss, so I just assumed they are about average normal work situations, and sure, whatever. They're definitely not the advice to give someone working for a bad boss, but that didn't seem to be their target audience, so it's fine. But this one here, item 3 on Piper's list, is where we start getting into what to do if you have a bad boss.

And this here is BAD advice. Just keep "working for the Lord", if your boss "ignores you or even criticizes you"? What?

Okay, over here in reality, here is some advice: Maybe you can get them to treat you better, maybe by talking to them or some other influential person in the company. Or maybe you determine that your boss is sort of bad at dealing with people but it's not necessarily harming you; they are still doing their other boss duties good enough, so it's not ideal but you can at least accept it. You don't have to like each other, but at least you can coexist. Or you see if you can transfer to a different manager, or start looking for a new job entirely. Just a few suggestions I thought of off the top of my head. Obviously some of these will not work in some situations. You have to examine your own situation and decide what the best course of action would be.

But no, Piper wants us to just pretend it doesn't matter that your boss is treating you wrong. Just sort of try not to care about that, and force yourself to believe you are "working for the Lord." This is terrible advice.

4) Encouragement that nothing good is done in vain.

Perhaps the most amazing sentence of all is this: “Whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord.” This is amazing. Everything! “Whatever good anyone does.” Every little thing you do that is good is seen and valued and rewarded by the Lord.

And he will pay you back for it. Not in the sense that you have earned anything — as if you could put him in your debt. He owns you, and everything in the universe. He owes us nothing. But he freely, graciously chooses to reward us for all the good things done in faith.

Umm. No, this is terrible advice.

So Piper is saying that if you just keep doing the right thing, even when you're in a bad situation, good will come of it. This is just NOT TRUE, and it leads to people wasting so much time and emotional energy.

For example, when I was in college, there was a website that kept track of how many credits each student needed to graduate, and I noticed there was an error on the website- it said I had not taken a class that I actually had taken. So I sent a polite email to somebody about it. I got some polite response back that didn't really reassure me, and the website continued to claim I had not taken that class. A semester later, or a year later, I emailed somebody about it again, and got another "eh I'm sure it's fine" response, and nothing changed.

And I'm thinking, yeah it's easy for you to say "it's fine" when you're some administrative person in some office and this doesn't affect you, but this is my degree and this could potentially turn into a huge problem that stops me from graduating. I would like this problem solved.

It got closer to when I was supposed to graduate- maybe 1 semester or 1 year before graduation. And I concluded that my sending-of-polite-emails was not working. Maybe I was sending them to the wrong person. So I had to DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT, see. Eventually I ended up going and talking to someone in person about it, and they DID get the website changed so it had the correct information. Good. And I graduated with no problems.

But if I had followed Piper's advice? Well, yeah, it wasn't my fault I was in that situation. It was someone else's mistake. I did nothing wrong. And I politely sent an email to point out the problem. Which is the right thing to do in that situation. And... if I was following Piper's advice, that would be it. He doesn't say anything about "look at reality and the results of your actions, and if you're not getting the results you want, you will need to try doing something different." No- his advice is literally the opposite. To people in a bad situation, he says to just keep doing what they're doing. Just be secure in the fact that you are doing the right thing, you are doing nothing wrong, and that's all you have to think about.

If you buy into this ideology, there's no way to notice "hey this is not working, therefore I should try something different." You're supposed to just force yourself to not care that it's "not working." You're doing the right thing, so God will handle the rest.

Hey, people have emotions. You can't just force yourself to not care. I remember how ANGRY and STRESSED OUT I was about this problem, so angry because that wrong information was there FOR YEARS and nobody seemed to care. Back before I realized I needed to try something different, that sending polite emails to this one unhelpful person was never going to solve the problem.

In reality, it doesn't matter that it's not my fault, and that I'm "doing the right thing." The reality is that if this problem didn't get solved, I would be the one who suffered for it. Of course that's not fair, but that's how the world works. And so I need to understand that that's the reality I'm dealing with. And that the person I emailed was not the right person who could/would actually solve the problem- which is also not my fault, but reality doesn't care about that. I need to actually see the reality of the situation and figure out what to do from there- not just naively "do the right thing" and feel good about how none of it is my fault, and trust that that means everything will magically be okay.

But the advice and morality lessons I learned in church (and other Christian sources, like VeggieTales) were always about abstract "virtues" that we should apply to our lives. There was no mechanism to actually examine a situation and understand all the practical aspects of what was happening, or realize what I'm doing is not working so I should change my behavior. I'm learning that VeggieTales morality doesn't fit with the real world, and now I believe in what I'm calling "boundaries morality" instead. I had to figure this all out on my own. It totally goes against what the church taught me.

I'd like to point out that in Piper's article, he doesn't say that if you just keep doing good, that means the situation will get better. He says you will be "rewarded by the Lord" but he doesn't say what that reward will look like or when it will come. Perhaps you will only get the reward in heaven after you die. So nobody can accuse him of claiming that following this advice would actually solve the problem.

I'm here to tell you you don't have to live that way. You don't have to just "do the right thing" and let injustices happen to you and try to have faith that you will be rewarded someday because it was other people's fault rather than yours. You don't have to let computers claim that you never took a class that you actually did take. You can STAND UP FOR YOURSELF. You can make a plan about how best to navigate the situation and solve the problem. Yes, I know it's not fair that you should have to do that, because it's not your fault you're in that situation- BUT THAT IS HOW THE WORLD WORKS. And life is so much better when you take steps to solve your own problems, rather than waiting for God to "reward" you.

(I gotta put a disclaimer on that, because I'm a feminist and I know it's bad when people try to tell marginalized people to just work harder or have a better attitude or whatever, and that will solve their problems- without trying to do anything about the systemic injustice that caused those problems in the first place. I'm not talking about people who are stuck in a bad situation with no options because of systemic injustice. I'm talking about how evangelicalism trained me to not even look for what options I had.)

When I read Piper's advice in item 4, about how you should just stay in a bad situation but keep "doing good," I think of how the church tells women in bad marriages to just submit to their husbands more, just be an even better wife, just keep praying for him, and then magically it will fix your marriage. And people get stuck there and waste years of their lives. Just naively believing that because they're "doing good", good will come of it. No, it does not work that way. They're just wasting their time and their emotional energy, and it's not going to solve the problem. You are valuable and you deserve to be in a better situation- so get out when you're able to get out. There's nothing good or virtuous about continuing to stay and suffer in a bad situation.

One last thing about item 4: Gotta love how Piper finds an opportunity to tell us God "owes us nothing." Wouldn't want people to misunderstand his article and think that they deserve good things. Piper thinks we all deserve to go to hell, and God is well within his rights to just kill you at any time for any reason.

5) Encouragement that insignificant status on earth is no hindrance to great reward in heaven.

The Lord will reward every good thing you do — “whether he is a bondservant or is free.” Your supervisor may think you are a nobody — a mere bondservant, so to speak. Or he may not even know you exist. That doesn’t matter. The Lord knows you exist. And in the end no faithful service will be in vain.

Ughhh. If your supervisor really doesn't care about you that much, maybe find a new job where people appreciate you? SERIOUSLY. Why on earth would you just try to tell yourself "that doesn't matter", if you have a chance to get out?

In this whole article, Piper never once says anything about your happiness, or getting into a situation that's good for you. Instead, it's all about how to stay in a bad situation and force yourself to not care when people mistreat you. Because in Piper's ideology, we don't matter. All that matters is our obedience to God, and how we are glorifying God. It's like it never even occurs to him to mention anything about pursuing your own happiness. He really doesn't care about that. It's not a priority at all in his belief system.

That't the end of Piper's article. Coincidentally, I read another post this week about somebody with a bad manager, so I'd like to talk about that. The post is What can I do about doing badly on an impromptu coding test?, posted on Workplace Stack Exchange by a user named Cloud:

I have been at my organization for around 18 months. I took a technical programming test (basically a C# kata of sorts) in the interview and flunked it. However, they said they liked my attitude and could see I had other skills (outside of .NET) and so agreed to hire me. I agreed to accept on the condition I received the support and training required.

The short story is the last 18 months have been very dramatic. I've had personal issues with my manager and have struggled to complete some work (and also successfully completed work within my skill-set) and feel I haven't learnt from the team as I hoped I would.

I have been studying for around 5 - 10 hours a week in my free time and feel I have improved my C# / .NET skills by a decent amount since starting.

Yesterday, my manager came to my desk, asked me to close all applications and turn off my internet connection. He then inserted a flash drive into my machine and said I had 30 minutes to complete a programming challenge. It was the same one I was given in the interview (I hadn't attempted it since).

There were 9 'stages' to the challenge. I believe I could have completed all of them but due to the time constraint I only managed 3.

In a follow up meeting, I was told that a 33% success rate is not good enough and that I need to show significant improvement in the next 6 months.

I feel that this kata didn't represent my learning, it was very niche and I didn't get to demonstrate all of the things I've learnt that were outside the scope of the challenge.

What can I do to show 'significant improvement' from here? I have asked what I should be learning specifically but just get told 'it's your career, you decide', which frustrates me.

Cloud here is in a bad situation. Their manager says they need to "show significant improvement in the next 6 months", so Cloud feels quite worried and asks for advice on "What can I do to show 'significant improvement' from here?"

And the response? Here's the top answer, written by a user named Twyxz:

The way your manager has sprung this test no you is completely unfair and clearly an attempt to prove that you are not able to work here when realistically the time restraint was likely too short and the notice was non-existent. The way he approached you was outright rude to begin with.

Your best choice here given your past experience and current situation is to spend the next 6 months continuing as you are and starting a job hunt. Look for a new job as the way you are being treated is unacceptable and you should not have to tolerate it.

Your manager has:

1. Not told you what to improve on which is completely unfair especially when you're trying to.
2. Specifically targeted you with a test (potentially triggered by something else)
3. Given you bad training and caused issues in the past.

The bottom line is Get out of there ASAP!

Your manager is targeting you and is doing anything he can to get you fired without breaking any rules per se.

YES. Cloud wants to know how to improve so their manager will be happy with them, but the other users in the forum recognize that's not going to happen. The manager is treating them in a way that's completely unprofessional and unfair, and there's likely nothing Cloud can actually do to please him and keep from getting fired.

You don't stay in a situation like that. You get out.

(Isn't it nice to read some reality-based advice, not written by John Piper? Love it.)

To me, Cloud sounds very young, like maybe this is their first job and there are a lot of things they don't understand about how "the real world" works. (Sounds a lot like me when I first started working as an engineer.) They don't understand what a manager's job is- a manager should give feedback on your performance, and they should give you training if there are skills you need to learn. They shouldn't wait 18 months and then suddenly tell you you're not doing good enough. Cloud seems ready to blame themself, and thinks they can fix the situation if they just try hard enough to improve. But that's not how it works. And the other posters explained that it's not right for your manager to treat you that way, you deserve better, this isn't a situation you can fix, so you should look for a new job.

But I can imagine someone with an evangelical background, equipped with nothing but Piper's "you're working for the Lord" advice and VeggieTales morality lessons (like me...), being told by an authority figure "you need to show improvement in the next 6 months" and naively believing it. Staying in that situation because it never occurs to them to think about other options, or because of simplistic Sunday School lessons about "quitting is bad." Just trying to obey what the authority figure says, just trying to work hard and "do good" and trust God that it will be okay. And then 6 months later suddenly getting fired and being COMPLETELY SHOCKED and devastated and blaming themself.

They never taught us how to recognize when a situation is bad and GET OUT. It was always about how to try to change other people's behavior and solve the problem, or how to help yourself accept the situation. It was always about "doing the right thing", picking the right "virtue" to apply. I was never told to prioritize my own health and happiness and just GET OUT because IT'S NOT MY JOB TO FIX OTHER PEOPLE. (Boundaries!) No, I'm supposed to say to "set a good example" and be "the only bible they'll ever read."

And sometimes I think, well that's because I was just a little kid when I was taught these things, and kids don't really have the option of getting out of a situation they don't like. Their parents make decisions about where they go to school, where they go to church, what friends they see, what extracurricular activities they do, and so on. So sometimes I think maybe it makes sense that I was never taught about how to recognize an unhealthy situation and get out. But then I read things like Piper's article, which is definitely for adults, who HAVE THE OPTION to send out their resume and find a new job, and not once does he say anything about "consider looking for a new job" or anything about getting yourself into a situation where you'll be more happy and healthy.

I've embarked on a quest to review all the VeggieTales movies, and there's a lot I criticize about them. And sometimes I think, well this is just a movie for kids, they had to simplify things, that's why the advice comes across badly. But... when I reached adulthood, I never got an updated version of those things. There was never a Sunday School lesson on "you know how we said don't spread rumors? Well actually here is a more nuanced perspective on when it does or doesn't make sense to repeat information you've heard about another person."

And John Piper's article about "How to Serve a Bad Boss" ... it's not any more grown-up than "VeggieTales: The Ballad of Little Joe." The advice is the same. Just keep doing the right thing, and even though you're being treated badly, God cares, so eventually you'll be rewarded.

You don't have to live that way. Just because some authority figure tells you "you have to do XYZ" doesn't mean it's true. Look for your other options, and get out if you find something better. It's not your job to stay for the sake of people who aren't even treating you right. You deserve better. You deserve happiness. But of course John Piper doesn't believe that.

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Related:
From "Virtues Morality" To "Boundaries Morality"
I knew Desiring God ideology is spiritual abuse, but wow.
Christianity Taught Me I Don't Matter

"Desiring God" Goes Full Toxic Masculinity

Plastic forks. Image source.

What even is this? This article from Desiring God, Grooming the Next Generation, like, what on earth? It's a response to the backlash about Gillette's advertisement about how men should fight against toxic masculinity. And it's ... wow it's bad.

The writer, Greg Morse, says there are actually TWO TYPES of "toxic masculinity." One is what people typically think of as "toxic masculinity"- about how it's normal for men to be violent and sexually harass women and so on. Morse says yes we need to fight against this. But he also says there's a second type of "toxic masculinity"- where men are ... uh... how to even define what he is talking about? I'll just quote from the article:

Too often we swing from decrying chauvinism and abuse to producing a society of plastic forks, nonfat lattes, and men who don’t mind going to church because of the free babysitting. When our children look at men today — the kind in television shows, homes, and the classroom — what do they see? What is this masculinity of tomorrow we are all concerned with?

Manicured Manhood

Just having returned from a visit to “the greatest place on earth,” my wife and I were shocked at how many men boldly acted like women. Lispy sentences, light gestures, soft mannerisms, and flamboyant jokes were everywhere to be seen — on display for a park flooded with children. No hiding it. No shame. No apologizing. This perversion of masculinity warranted no commercials.

... what?

What?

Morse thinks it's ... bad... that some men are ... "lispy" and "flamboyant" and use plastic forks? What? What on earth? The plastic forks actually appear 3 times in this article. What on earth is Morse's obsession with plastic forks and how they are apparently not manly? What?

Why are plastic forks not manly? I'm so confused. And Morse claims he is promoting "biblical masculinity." Where in the bible does it mention plastic forks?

And okay, what Morse is really saying here is it's bad when men act in ways that are typically seen as "queer." He's horrified that such behavior is "on display for a park flooded with children. No hiding it. No shame." Oh god what on earth even is this? Why should people be ashamed about expressing themselves and being who they are? Why does Morse think that's inappropriate for kids to see?

You know what? Queer men are courageous as hell. Men who ignore these rules about how "real men" shouldn't do this or that, shouldn't use plastic forks- men who don't care about that but instead just be themselves- that's courageous. Why on earth would it be a good thing if a man is like "I wish I could wear pink/ paint my nails/ have a nonfat latte but then people would make fun of me and take away my man card"? Why does Morse want men to be ashamed?

And then it gets worse:

Instead, our society celebrates what Paul calls literally “soft men” (Greek malakoi), a group that will not enter the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9). And discomfort at this will-not-inherit-the-kingdom version of manliness is exactly a symptom of what the APA finds malignant in traditional manhood. But as much as the APA and LGBTQs protest it as hate speech, the effeminate shall not enter the kingdom of God, and it is unloving not to say so.

HOLY SHIT WHAT IS THIS? Like I knew Desiring God is extremely anti-queer, but like, WOW. Wow this is messed-up.

(For those of you following along at home, yes, this is hate speech. Also, unloving. AND ALSO, mocking men who don't act "manly" enough, as Morse does here, IS TOXIC MASCULINITY. And also, I find his clear disdain for "acting like women" extremely misogynistic.)

Throughout the article, Morse makes it clear that he's not saying men shouldn't be gentle. He says yes, it is good and masculine for men to be gentle and compassionate. But he says it's bad when men are "passive, complacent, spiritually and emotionally frail", "soft, fragile, weak, or effeminate". Why on earth he thinks these qualities have anything to do with one's gender presentation or plastic forks is BEYOND ME.

I gotta say, my favorite part of the article is this:

And too many classrooms that celebrate this perversion act as accomplices to confusing the boys (and girls) of today.

What is it with conservatives claiming that if people don't fit gender stereotypes and/or are queer, it's "confusing" to children? In reality, it's... not actually confusing? You know what's confusing? I'm actually still stuck on the whole "plastic forks" thing. Whyyyyyyyyy are plastic forks not manly? What is that all about? What does Greg Morse do when he's at a barbecue and wants to eat potato salad? I want to know!!! Why should people be limited in what they can do and what they can wear- limited by their genital shape, of all things? Now THAT'S confusing.

This article is ... wow it's really something else. It's an absurd, nonsensical mix of gender roles, misogyny, queermisia, and just generally being an unloving jerk. It claims to be about "biblical masculinity" but is actually about modern American Christians' stereotypes about what is and isn't "manly." None of it even makes sense at all!

Long ago, when I was a good evangelical, I respected Desiring God and saw them as a good godly resource of correct beliefs. I bought into complementarian and anti-queer ideology. So I understand where they're coming from- but wow, I can't even make sense of this article. It's bizarre. It makes ridiculous claims about how men are supposed to be, without even trying to support those claims. As if it's self-evident (and biblical!) why plastic forks are unmanly and there's no need to explain. Like... what?

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Related:
Feminism 101: Toxic Masculinity and Fragile Masculinity
I'm a woman, and God created me to do math and build robots
BREAKING NEWS: Purity Culture Adherents Completely Miss the Point
Don't Invite Anybody From 'Desiring God' to Your Funeral

Evangelicals Agree With What Chau Did (And It Makes Me Angry): Here Are The Receipts

Clip-art image of an island. Image source.

Last week I published This Is Exactly the Martyr Fairy Tale We Aspired To, about John Allen Chau, a missionary who was killed by the island tribe he was trying to "reach." I wrote:

Chau is going to be seen as a hero and a role model. There is absolutely no part of this story that will come across as a cautionary tale for evangelicals, nothing that will serve as a warning that other people should NOT do what he did. It's perfect, and that scares me.

Right now, I'm so freaking angry about being proven right.

Well, the evangelical blogosphere got right to work, publishing posts about how Chau was doing a good thing and he just loved Jesus so much and loved the Sentinelese people so much, etc. All of which COMPLETELY MISS THE POINT, which is THEY DO NOT WANT CONTACT WITH THE OUTSIDE WORLD. LEAVE THEM THE **** ALONE. Evangelical Christianity doesn't understand the concepts of boundaries and consent. They think if a missionary *feels* loving toward a group of people, and works hard for years to prepare to live among them, that gives him the right to go and do it whether that group of people likes it or not.

Receipts, receipts, receipts, I got your receipts right here. Let's start with this podcast from Christianity Today, What John Allen Chau’s Missions Agency Wants You to Know. It's an interview with Mary Ho, the international executive leader of All Nations, which is the missions agency Chau worked with. Ho talks about how Chau prepared for years for his trip to North Sentinel Island:

He first contacted [All Nations] about two years ago, and he's a very interesting young man, very focused. Since he was about 18 years old, I believe, he took a mission trip. And on that mission trip, he really felt a call to be a missionary. And around that time, he started researching on the different people groups and he came across the North Sentinelese people. He really felt that this was his life call. That his life call was to take the love and the goodness of Jesus Christ to the North Sentinelese. Since then, every single decision he has made has been to thoroughly prepare himself for this life call, and to prepare him to love and care for the people well. As you pointed out earlier, All Nations missionary John Chau, he graduated from Oral Roberts University. He majored in sports medicine, in health, in exercise science. Later he got trained as a wilderness EMT, worked at a national park, got trained in linguistics by SIL, which is probably just about the best place to get trained in linguistics. He became acquainted with all the writings on cultural anthropology. So, this young man, he was intent on fully equipping himself, and I think he knew what his life purpose was about.

She talks about how All Nations requires their missionaries to go through training, and even sometimes advises someone not to go if they don't believe that person is prepared enough. She says Chau knew about the risks of introducing diseases to the Sentinelese, so he was vaccinated and he quarantined himself for several days before he went to the island.

Well whoop dee doo. I guess the point is, if you assume Chau was just some random guy who woke up one morning and decided to illegally go to North Sentinel Island, you would be wrong. Instead, he worked hard for years to prepare to illegally go to North Sentinel Island. We are supposed to be like "ah, I see, that makes it okay."

Like if you work hard enough, you can earn the right to violate other people's boundaries. What? No, reality does not work that way. The Sentinelese have made it clear they do not want outside people on their island. And that should be the end of the discussion. Their island, their choice.

Oh but he worked hard for yearssssssss! Maybe 5 or 10 years! Well guess what, the Sentinelese have worked hard for thousands of years living on their own. The idea that some American gets to override that because he worked so hard and really really wants it and has good intentions- no. See this is what I mean when I say evangelical Christians don't know what boundaries are.

Ed Stetzer, dean of the School of Mission, Ministry and Leadership at Wheaton College, also seems to think that Chau's preparedness somehow completely changes the story. Here's Stetzer's article for the Washington Post: Slain missionary John Chau prepared much more than we thought, but are missionaries still fools? (I highly recommend Chris Stroop's "translation" of Stetzer's evangelicalese into English. For example: "I am having to do way too much damage control for evangelicals this year. Please clap.") Stetzer writes:

While both Christians and non-Christians have raised profound questions about the biblical and ethical appropriateness of pushing into places where you’re not wanted, much criticism of Chau has focused on what appeared to be his lack of preparation.

Umm. Did it though? Personally, because I have been part of that Christian missions culture, from the moment I heard about Chau I assumed he had some kind of backstory about how he was "called by God" and "loved" the Sentinelese people, and spent years telling all his American Christian friends about how obsessed he was with "reaching" people "for the gospel", and had a well-thought-out plan about how he wanted this whole thing to go, and prayed over every single part of his mission efforts, and so on and so on. People don't do stuff like this because they're "crazy" in some weird, impossible-to-understand way. No, people do stuff like this because they live in a culture that sees it as good. They pray about it and think about it logically, and because they start with certain assumptions about how the world works, they end up quite reasonably coming to these kinds of conclusions.

When I say "assumptions about how the world works" I mean things like "all non-Christians are living sad, meaningless lives" and "people who don't believe in Jesus go to hell" and "God calls us to take risks and make sacrifices, but it is SO WORTH IT, even if we die."

Stetzer then says the real question is about the concept of missions itself. Obviously, he is in favor of it. He says:

For some, the very idea of trying to convert others to a certain faith and taking any risk to do so is simply abhorrent. But Christians worldwide genuinely believe that people who hear and respond to the gospel are better off when they do.

In other words, when he's writing for a "secular" audience, he does this "oh but you gotta understand, we REALLY DO think people are in danger of going to hell, and we REALLY DO believe we are helping them by evangelizing, so you can't criticize us" routine. (He made the same argument in a post for CNN back in 2017.) And, ughhhhhh. UGHHHH. Okay, the reason this makes me mad is because HE'S RIGHT. Like if you really do believe that non-Christians go to hell, and you really love them and want to save them, then logically, you should become a manipulative creep that puts on a show of being kind and loving in order to coerce people into changing religions. And that's how I used to live when I was an evangelical.

Basically, Stetzer is right about that, and therefore we don't really have any common ground to work from, if I were trying to convince him that it's, you know, *bad* to be a manipulative creep who coerces people into changing religion. (He also wrote an article for Christianity Today, elaborating on this point. "I actually believe what is offensive to many today— I really believe that the world needs Jesus. And, I am OK that you think me a fool for believing that." All right, what do I even say to that... I got nothin'.)

But he seems to think non-Christian readers will be like "ohhhh, okay, I didn't realize that, okay that totally excuses this kind of Christian behavior, so I will not criticize them." HAHAHAHAHA yeah right. My feeling is more along the lines of "we can't reason with these jerks, so let's not even try."

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Belief in hell completely ruins anything good about Christianity. (Note: I am a Christian who does NOT believe in hell.)

Stetzer then goes on to talk about 2 things he thinks Chau should have done differently. To me, this reads as "I totally agree with what Chau did, but people won't like it if I say that, so I'm going to pretend to criticize a few small aspects so that I end up looking 'reasonable.'" Like, to me, neither of these read as real objections.

The first so-called objection is that Chau should have gone with a group, rather than alone. Just like Jesus sent the disciples two-by-two. Stetzer is acting like this is some well-known, universal, biblical command. Ha, watch this, I can come up with some biblical-sounding arguments for why it's totally legit to go alone. Hmm, remember the bible story about Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch? God told Philip to go do missions alone, so that's what he did. Maybe God told Chau to go to North Sentinel Island alone. Also, Chau probably had a lot of Christian friends back home praying for him. Maybe they supported him financially, and he sent out email updates about how his missions work was going. (I haven't heard anything about that in any of the news stories, but I will be 0% surprised if it's true.) See, he wasn't *really* alone. And also, for practical reasons, he is less of a threat to the Sentinelese people (in terms of spreading disease, and also in terms of how they perceive him) if he's just 1 person, rather than 2 people or a group.

I just find it bizarre how Stetzer seems to be claiming "see, Chau's problem was that he went there alone, when every missionary KNOWS you should NEVER do that." Ha. Yeah right. Yes, I am sure that missionaries believe it's generally better to go with other missionaries, rather than alone, but hey, if that's what God told you to do... well maybe it's not ideal but you gotta do it anyway, for the sake of the gospel.

As for Stetzer's second pretend-criticism:

Also, in regard to people’s choices, Jesus makes it quite clear in Mark 6:11, saying, “And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place.” It appears that Chau returned to North Sentinel even after being shot at with arrows, one of which, according to his journal, stuck in his Bible.

Well I would laugh out loud if this whole situation wasn't so sad.

Like, oh, Christians are supposed to give up and go home if their evangelism targets aren't interested in being evangelized? SINCE WHEN? This is very much NOT what I was taught in church.

I was taught if people weren't interested in hearing the "gospel", that just meant it was "harder", that it was more of a "challenge"- not that you should leave them alone and stop trying. You shouldn't give up- you should "pray for God to soften their hearts" and "look for opportunities to start spiritual conversations."

Also, I would like to know why the Indian government's decision to stop trying to contact the Sentinelese, after decades of trying to send them gifts every now and then, and being rejected over and over, is somehow NOT enough of a sign that Chau was not "welcome." Apparently, it took Chau actually going there and getting shot at on his first attempt- that's when he should have known he was "not welcome" and he should leave, according to Stetzer. Well that's rich. Kind of seems like Stetzer is inventing rules after-the-fact and then claiming that CLEARLY this is what JESUS SAID and so THAT'S where Chau went wrong.

But do you want to see THE WORST article about Chau? It's this one, from Desiring God, and oh it is bad: What God Might Do with Satan’s Arrows (written by Garrett Kell).

Kell seems to completely buy into the whole "God totally called Chau to go share the gospel with these sad lost people" nonsense. But it's worse than that:

Questions have emerged about John Chau’s zeal, training, prudence, and legacy. But another even more important question sits under the surface of such a tragedy: What is God doing in all of this?

How is God working to reveal his glory to the Sentinelese people? Could he bring them forgiveness for their murder and freedom from their own pain? How will he bring healing to the heartbreak of the Chau family? Could our God be using injustice, arrows, and a fallen missionary to make his reconciling grace known to the entire world?

What? NO, no no no nonono. "What is God doing in all of this" oh god no. As if, just because someone got killed while "obeying God's call", that means there's some huge grand purpose to it, oh this is bad, this is bad. Okay, the Sentinelese DO NOT WANT contact with the outside world. LEAVE THEM THE **** ALONE. But Kell sees them as nothing more than characters in his imagined story about "God's glory" and "the gospel"; it doesn't matter what they want.

(Also, Kell takes the Lord's name in vain by assuming that God will side with him rather than with the Sentinelese people.)

Then Kell tells the story of John Williams and James Harris, missionaries who were killed by the people of an island called Erromango. Apparently, this is a beautiful story with a happy ending because years later, other missionaries came and succeeded in getting the islanders to become Christians, and then there was a big ceremony where the islanders apologized to Williams's descendants, and isn't that just great. On Twitter, Jesse T. Reese said "This article is an unbelievable piece of #ChristianAltFacts propaganda that sanctifies genocide, and it only gets worse if you dig a little" and wrote a thread about how ACTUALLY missionaries have caused a lot of harm to the people of Erromango. Go read it.

Oh, but Kell's article gets even worse:

We cannot know for sure what God is doing. But might he be stoking the hearts of his church with a fresh fire to reach the unreached peoples of the world? Could God be using the death of John Chau to stir the souls of more missionaries to take the good news of Jesus to the Sentinelese people? Could he be stirring you? Is it possible that God might be working to bring them the message of forgiveness for killing the missionary as well as healing from the injustice done to them generations ago? Could God be plotting a reunion of forgiveness in months, years, even centuries from now that will magnify his mercies before the world? Can you picture that moving ceremony on the shores of North Sentinel Island?

John Piper’s call from five years ago in the wake of another martyred missionary is just as relevant today: “I call thousands of you to take [their] place. Let the replacements flood the world. We do not seek death. We seek the everlasting joy of the world — including our enemies.”

God can spark a movement from a martyrdom. He’s done it before. Let’s pray he’s doing it again.

HOLY CRAP. NO. LEAVE THEM THE **** ALONE.

No. NO NO NO NO NO. That is the WORST possible outcome of this: that more missionaries would be inspired to go and barge in on the Sentinelese people. Kell waxes poetic about how wonderful it will be when someday there is reconciliation between Christian missionaries and the people who killed Chau- SEE, THIS IS WHAT I MEAN WHEN I SAY EVANGELICALS DON'T BELIEVE IN CONSENT. The Sentinelese have made it clear they DO NOT WANT this fantasy that Kell is imagining. But does he care what they want? Ha. Nope.

(See also: White Christian saviorism is a helluva drug, by seelolago.)

Also, remember a minute ago Ed Stetzer was claiming that JESUS CLEARLY SAID you should leave people alone if they make it clear they don't want to hear your "gospel", and then I said hahaha nope that is EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of what I was taught in church, but good try Ed Stetzer? See this is what I mean. Garrett Kell very much does NOT believe Christians should just give up and go home because the Sentinelese do not "welcome" them. He thinks that just makes it a better story, a more amazing victory when the missionaries finally succeed, some time in the future. If they kill one missionary, well that means we/God should respond by sending "thousands of you to take their place." The Sentinelese are just playing hard-to-get, as it were.

Ughhhhhhh. This is very not okay. Just LEAVE THEM ALONE. I've never been so angry about being proven right. I knew that Christians of the "unsaved people go to hell" persuasion would love this story and see Chau as a great role model driven by love for God and love for people. Those of us who live in reality see that historically, this kind of missions has done a lot of harm to indigenous people. But evangelicals imagine that they are the heroes of some grand story that God is writing, a myth that says hard work earns them the right to override other people's consent, and actually consent doesn't even matter in the first place- what really matters is that in the end, more people become Christians.

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Related:
This Is Exactly the Martyr Fairy Tale We Aspired To 
Because of an Idea
Runaway Radical: The Stories You Can't Tell In Church

A Post About Masturbation

Putting a wedding ring on new spouse's finger at the wedding ceremony. Image source.

So I want to write about this article on Desiring God about masturbation. It's called If Your Right Hand Causes You to Sin, because of course it is. The article is from 2016 but I saw it being discussed on Twitter recently, and you all know God called me to blog about crap from Desiring God.

The article is quite long so I won't respond to the whole thing. I just want to talk about this part:

2. God purposed that all righteous forms of sexual expression be for the marriage bed. Masturbation removes sexual expression from its only God-intended context.

Sexual expression manifest in orgasm is a good gift of God (1 Timothy 4:2–5) that men and women are to enjoy only in the context of marital intimacy (Genesis 2:23; Song 8:4–6; 1 Corinthians 7:2–3; Hebrews 13:4). When people reach orgasm outside the covenant-confirming act of lovemaking in marriage, the act becomes solely self-seeking, divorced from its purpose of creating intimacy. Sexual expression through orgasm should be an overflow of a desire for a spouse, not merely for a feeling or experience.

• “[Liars] forbid marriage . . . that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.” (1 Timothy 4:2–5)
• “Because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. . . . Do not deprive one another . . . so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” (1 Corinthians 7:2–3, 5)
• “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” (Hebrews 13:4)

So wait wait wait. Let's see if I'm understanding this: God wants you to only have orgasms if your spouse is there participating.

...........................................................why...?

What is this business about "Sexual expression through orgasm should be an overflow of a desire for a spouse, not merely for a feeling or experience"? Like, this writer just completely made that up. Who made him the expert on everyone else's orgasms?

In this culture of "sexual purity" (which Desiring God is a part of), sex and love are connected in only one way. Sex (and anything involving orgasms or anything sort-of sexual) is something you do with your spouse, of the opposite gender, to whom you are committed for life, monogamously. That is, apparently, "God's design" for sex. Because sex means love, and sex means lifelong commitment, and marriage means sex. There's no acknowledgement that maybe sex could mean different things to different people.

I love my husband. And I am interested in learning about my own body through masturbation. And those two things just aren't in conflict. Like, why would they be? They're two completely unrelated things. Masturbation doesn't take away from my love for my husband- it has nothing to do with him at all. (Well, except in the sense that if I understand my own body better, then we will be able to have sex together better.) Just because we're in love and I fully intend to spend the rest of my life with him, why on earth would that mean that he needs to be present every time I stimulate my genitals?

Like why does genital stimulation need to have anything to do with love?

Yes, I grew up in that culture, I know the reasons that Christians say masturbating is bad. Because if you get good at masturbating, then maybe you won't be interested in having sex with your spouse any more. And if you don't have enough sex with your spouse, then you two will feel like you're not close. Blah blah blah. Sure, it's possible that could happen in some cases- so if you find yourself in those cases, then take a step back and figure out where you went wrong and what you need to do to get your marriage healthy. But that's no reason to teach that masturbating is bad for EVERYONE in ALL CASES. I'm tired of being afraid of my own goddamn body, and I'm angry.

Why, in "God's design," is "sexual" supposedly synonymous with "lifelong love and exclusive commitment"? Why would a certain physical action always have the same emotional and symbolic meaning, to everyone? Why?

Many married people have had sex with an ex before they got married, and they're fine. Some couples (who are having sex- not that it's any of your business though) choose not to get married, even though they are committed to each other. Some people have casual sex. Some people are polyamorous and have sexual or romantic relationships with multiple partners, and do so in a healthy way that relies on honest communication between all the partners involved. Some married couples don't have sex at all, maybe because they're both asexual. Or maybe they don't have sex with each other because one spouse is asexual, but the allosexual (non-asexual) spouse has sex with someone else.

And all of those examples about relationships aren't even related to masturbation at all. You can just masturbate by yourself, no matter what your relationship structure is. It doesn't have to "mean anything" about your love for your partner(s).

Like, there are a lot of ways to mix and match sex, love, and commitment. How on earth could it be possible that those things would map to each other in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY for every person in the world? Above all, we need to value consent, respect, and honest communication.

And I'll conclude by saying this: I very much recommend masturbation. I see no downsides at all- it's just a thing one does by oneself, it doesn't have the emotional vulnerability risk factor that partnered sex does, and you can learn about your own body. I wish I had started a long time ago, like maybe when I was a teenager, rather than believing that masturbating was sinful and being terrified of it. I personally use a magic wand sex toy like this.

And maybe that's "too much information" but I am saying it here because I spent all those years not allowed to talk about it, not allowed to have desires or even curiosity, too scared to even think about the existence of my genitals. No one should have to live like that and I'm ****ing angry. I want to preach the good news of masturbation to all the church kids. 

Especially the aces. Because they're the ones most likely to actually be able to keep the rules about abstinence and no masturbation. They're the ones who are likely to remain ignorant about their own genitals, because they don't learn it through "falling into temptation" and beating themselves up about it like other kids. I feel so sad for all the good pure baby aces out there who believe they're so godly and that someday they'll be rewarded with mind-blowing awesome honeymoon sex. (And speaking of asexuality- I want to make it clear that some people just aren't interested in masturbation or sex and THAT'S ALSO COMPLETELY 100% FINE AND NORMAL. I personally am very interested even though I don't experience sexual attraction.)

All right. Anyway, the point is, that Desiring God article believes that God intends for orgasms to only ever happen in the presence of one's spouse. Which is just so absurd. So laughably ridiculous. My favorite part was how the writer couldn't even find bible verses that said anything like that- the examples given are along the lines of "marriage is important, and don't be sexually immoral." Apparently, figuring out a reason why masturbation is "sexually immoral" is left as an exercise for the reader.