Boundaries in Dating: Boundaries are very anti-Christian [as I learned it]

An image with the text "Jesus first, Others second, Yourself last." It spells "joy." Image source.

In chapter 1 of Boundaries in Dating: How Healthy Choices Grow Healthy Relationships, the authors define the term "boundary." To do this, they first talk about freedom and responsibility:

Simply put, many of the struggles people experience in dating relationships are, at heart, caused by some problem in the areas of freedom and responsibility. By freedom, we mean your ability to make choices based on your values, rather than choosing out of fear or guilt. Free people make commitments because they feel it's the right thing to do, and they are wholehearted about it. By responsibility, we mean your ability to execute your tasks in keeping the relationship healthy and loving, as well as being able to say no to things you shouldn't be responsible for. Responsible people shoulder their part of the dating relationship, but they don't tolerate harmful or inappropriate behavior.

In other words, freedom and responsibility are key factors in a healthy relationship. Freedom means that people are able to make free choices, without feeling like they're forced into it, too scared to consider alternatives, etc. (Hmm, sort of the opposite of what I learned in church- "you HAVE TO read the bible every day, and you HAVE TO go to church every Sunday, or else you're a bad Christian and you should feel guilty about it.") Responsibility means you do what you've committed to in the relationship, and you say no to things that aren't your responsibility.

Wow. I'm pretty much blown away by how healthy this all sounds.

Continuing on, a "boundary" is defined as the line which tells you "what is your emotional or personal property, and what belongs to someone else." I've heard this term before- but only within the past few years, in the context of relationship advice from a feminist perspective. (Purity culture's use of the term "boundaries" doesn't count, because it just means "God said you can't have sex- yeah nothing about this is your choice at all.") As I understand it, the idea behind "boundaries" is that there will always be some jerks out there- you can't change them, but you can set rules about the extent to which they will be allowed in your life. So they can go be a jerk and engage in destructive behavior on their own time, but you make sure you don't give them an opportunity to do that crap with you. The point of boundaries is to protect your own mental and emotional health. It's about setting rules on the way people treat you, and what kinds of behavior you will or will not tolerate.

I don't know about the rest of y'all who grew up in American evangelicalism, but this sounds like "moral relativism" to me. What an idea- that you're okay with the fact that someone is a huge jerk, but you won't let them be a huge jerk who affects your personal life. That certain behviors are allowable in some situations but not others- for example, if you're at someone else's home, you have to respect their rules, but at your home, they respect yours. What about absolute truth and morality?

And what's this about setting boundaries in order to protect yourself, rather than trying to give of yourself in order to help other people change? I mean, if something is right, it's right- and we should try to get everyone to do it. If something is wrong, it's wrong- and we need to make everyone NOT do it. Don't you care about them? Don't you care about how their sin is ruining their life? Maybe by treating them with unreasonable kindness and vulnerability, sacrificing your own mental and emotional health, you can get them to realize they need to repent.

And- gasp- they might even be going to hell! How could you be so selfish to set a boundary and cut a destructive person out of your life- don't you know you could be the only bible they ever read? How are they going to hear about Jesus? You know, Jesus suffered unjustly too- you think your "hurt feelings" can compare with that?

Okay, yeah obviously I don't believe any of that stuff I just said, but that's the Christianity I was taught, and it is VERY MUCH opposed to this whole "boundaries" thing. We learned in Sunday school that you should put Jesus first, others second, and yourself third. Always give up something if it helps other people. The idea that sometimes you have to put your own needs before others' would be unthinkable- no one would ever say that out loud in church. (Well, maybe they would say that you should take care of yourself so that you can be stronger and better able to serve others. It's just a means to an end. You don't matter- serving others better is what matters.)

I wrote last week that if you're in purity culture, "Boundaries in Dating" would be essentially unreadable. It doesn't address purity culture's ideology at all, and a purity-culture reader would be baffled at how a CHRISTIAN book could talk about dating without talking about the risk of becoming impure, permanently damaged, losing parts of your heart. "Boundaries in Dating" is working off completely different assumptions about the basic definition of dating, so it would actually be impossible for a purity-culture reader to even understand what the writers are trying to say.

Well, turns out it would also be incomprehensible to a Christian who had always been told that they need to put others before themselves, that taking action to care for their own emotional health is "selfish".

Because I don't see anything here along the lines of "many Christians believe that it's wrong to set boundaries to protect themselves and say no to people who treat them badly, because they've been taught that they need to 'consider others better than themselves.' Here, let's explain why we disagree with that." It's all just about the benefits of having boundaries, and the potential harm if you don't have them- all of which is so practical and healthy I'm honestly shocked to read it in a Christian book, you guys- but nothing for readers who may believe that as Christians, they're not even allowed to care about consequences for themselves when people need God's love! they're in danger of going to hell! the bible says lay down your life for other people!

Y'all. I had to question and reject pretty much everything I believed about Christian morality in order to get to a place where boundaries sound like a really really good idea, very solid advice that everyone should know about. I've learned all about feminism, become a feminist, and done the hard work of unlearning purity culture. It has taken years. And my concern is that, if you're in the type of Christianity I used to be in, the book "Boundaries in Dating" won't be able to help you at all.

So I'm perplexed at how it could be possible that the "Boundaries" books are very much regarded as Christian books, I've heard them highly recommended by church people, and I haven't heard of anyone who says "Henry Cloud is a false teacher!" (Specifically, I saw Dr. Cloud speak at a Women of Faith conference years ago. Everyone there had great things to say about his books. And Women of Faith was totally promoted by my church and tons of other churches.)

How can this be?

I submit that a lot of Christians don't actually believe the things that are said in church. And I don't mean this in a "so many people go to church but they're not REALLY committed to God, they're not real Christians, they talk the talk but don't walk the walk" way. No, I mean stuff that's said at church (like how you should always put others before yourself) is really unhealthy, and fortunately, a lot of church people don't actually believe it.

They might not even realize they don't believe what's said at church. Someone stands in the pulpit and says "you should consider others' needs before your own" and they hear "you should consider others' needs before your own. Within reason, obviously." And then they tell me I'm the one who misunderstood, I was supposed to just know there was an implied "within reason, obviously" attached to all those sorts of statements. "You take everything too literally," they say.

Yeah okay. I was supposed to just know that. After a lifetime of hearing sermon illustrations about people doing ridiculous things that make no sense because God told them, and look at what a great example of faith they are. And how we can't trust our own minds, we have to obey God instead, even when God's commands seem unreasonable. And how the world won't understand our devotion to God because we're so "crazy for Jesus." You want to know why I believed common sense was the enemy of Christianity? Because Christians ****ing said it was.

(And I'm angry about it.)

Yeah. So. So far, the book "Boundaries in Dating" seems to be incredibly good and healthy. But unfortunately, all that useful advice is inaccessible to good evangelicals.

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After I finished writing this, I did a google search for "boundaries false teaching" and found a couple results about the exact thing I'm talking about here- how Christians are supposed to believe boundaries are heresy. You shouldn't protect yourself; you should always sacrifice to help others- dying to self is what Christianity's all about. You shouldn't be in control of your own life; you should submit to God. I won't link to those posts here because that stuff is really triggering for me, but THANK YOU, fundie website with bad web page design, you've proven my point.

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A blog series reviewing the book Boundaries in Dating: How Healthy Choices Grow Healthy Relationships

Previous post: Boundaries in Dating: Introduction

Next post: What Kind of Book IS This?!

Blogaround

A dog who has helpfully brought you a pillow. Image source.

1. Hi I’m Demisexual. Here’s What That Means (posted May 13) "Growing up, long before I had a word to explain why I felt the way I did, I felt isolated from other guys my age because our sexualities diverged so radically. Pornography never interested me because I felt no attachment to the people having sex on the screen in front of me. I told my best friend, 'Maybe if they made a pornography where the couple was shown to be in an intimate, loving relationship, it might interest me, but why would I want to watch two strangers having sex?'"

2. U.S. Directs Public Schools to Allow Transgender Access to Restrooms (posted May 12) "What you don’t do is go and tell a kid, ‘You know, there is something so freakishly different about you that you make other people uncomfortable, so we’re going to make you do something different’"

3. A Response to Russell Moore's article "The Real Meaning of Transgender Bathrooms" (posted May 13) "She actually spoke the very words I would hope trans people could hear from the church: 'But no matter how isolated or scared you may feel today, the Department of Justice and the entire Obama administration wants you to know that we see you; we stand with you; and we will do everything we can to protect you going forward.'" Amen.

(also: 7 trans Christian voices worth hearing)

4. What Delilah Deserves (posted May 10) "Seems to me that her options were: betray Samson, get filthy rich; or refuse to cooperate, and seal her and her family’s doom."

5. "How is Your Walk With God?" and Other Questions Jesus Never Asked (posted May 17) "It sounds like an open-ended question at first blush, but it feels to me heavy-laden with expectation. There is a right answer to this question."

6. Scalia’s Death Just Prevented Alabama From Executing A Man (posted May 13)

7. This cat slithering down the stairs

Boundaries in Dating: Introduction

 Boundaries in Dating book cover

So I started reading Boundaries in Dating: How Healthy Choices Grow Healthy Relationships, by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, and I'm very excited about it and find myself with a lot of opinions, so I've decided to do a whole blog series review of this book.

This book is unique because it's very very NOT purity culture, but I've heard the "Boundaries" books highly recommended by church people. (Yes there's a whole series. Boundaries in the context of all kinds of different relationships.)

Take a look at this part, from the introduction:

A few years back I was doing a seminar for singles in the Midwest when the question came from the floor, "Dr. Cloud, what is the biblical position on dating?" At first, I thought I had misheard the question, so I asked the woman to repeat it. And the question came out the same as the first time.

"What do you mean, 'the biblical position'?" I asked.

"Well, do you think that dating is a biblical thing to do?" the woman explained.

Once I heard her question, I thought she was kidding, but I soon realized she was not. I had heard people ask about the biblical position on capital punishment or euthanasia, but never on dating.

"I do not think the Bible gives a 'position' on dating," I said. "Dating is an activity that people do, and as with a lot of other things, the Bible does not talk about it. What the Bible does talk about is being a loving, honest, growing person in whatever you do. So, I would have to say that the biblical position on dating has much more to do with the person you are and are becoming than whether or not you date. The biblical position on dating would be to date in a holy way.

"In fact, God grows people up through dating relationships in the same way that he grows them up in many other life activities. The question is not whether or not you are dating. The questions are more along the lines of 'Who are you in your dating and who are you becoming in your dating? What is the fruit of your dating for you and for the people that you date? How are you treating them? What are you learning?' And a host of other issues that the Bible is very clear about. It is mainly about your character growth and how you treat people."

In other words, someone asked if it's okay for Christians to date, and he was like "what even is this question? Isn't it obvious that if you date in a healthy way, that's good, and if not, then it's bad?"

I mean, YES! I love this because it's common sense instead of purity culture.

He goes on to say that, after hearing this same question over and over on many occasions, he finally decided to find out where it was coming from- and that's how he heard about "I Kissed Dating Goodbye." Then, in the rest of the introduction, he talks about his thoughts after reading that book and why he disagrees and believes that for most people, dating is a healthy thing to do.

But. You guys, I really don't think the authors of "Boundaries in Dating" understand purity culture at all. They seem to have interpreted Harris's argument as "in dating, sometimes people get hurt, therefore everyone should stop dating" and they respond by saying that if you have good boundaries, people don't have to get hurt. Now I've never read "I Kissed Dating Goodbye", but since it is THE purity culture book, I'm guessing the argument is more like: "in dating, sometimes people get hurt, and I will explain that hurt using concepts like purity and how if you loved an ex you have damaged your heart irreversably and can never love your future spouse 100%. Therefore everyone should stop dating." In order to respond to this, you can't just give your advice on how to date responsibly- you also have to engage with the purity argument. You have to make an in-depth refutation of the idea that the more romantic and sexual experience you have, the less potential you have to truly love a marriage partner.

"Boundaries in Dating" doesn't do this. So I believe this book will give a lot of healthy, practical advice and serve as a fantastic alternative to purity culture, but it is definitely not a response to purity culture. If someone has never heard of purity culture, and you give them this book, I think that would be very good and healthy for them. But if somebody believes in purity culture and you want to give them this book to help them get out, oh no no no that will never work. What I've read so far in "Boundaries in Dating" is literally incomprehensible to someone who believes in purity culture.

There are statements like this one: "People can have good dating relationships where they learn, are healed, grow, and are stretched, even when the relationship does not lead to marriage. It has value in a person's life." If you're in purity culture, this statement is completely nonsensical. Like, what is he even talking about?

It would be like if someone said, "When there's a lot of traffic, I find it helps to drive backwards." Like, what? I have no idea what this person is even trying to say. Even if you really wanted to agree with them, you couldn't. You have no way to even understand what they're trying to tell you.

In purity culture, dating (along with any other romantic or sexual thoughts, interactions, or experiences) erodes your purity, causing damage that can never be fully healed. So if you must do it, do as little as possible and go as slow as possible. And when this idea is part of your understanding of the definition of dating, at its most basic level, the above statement from "Boundaries in Dating" is literally incomprehensible. You have no idea what he's even talking about.

(And actually, here's a little story about how I first heard about this book: So, long ago, I heard there was a Christian book called "Boundaries" and I was very interested, because like any teenager or college student in purity culture, I wanted to know "where the line is." But upon reading the book description, I realized it wasn't about dating, it was about all your relationships. Then I found out there was a whole series! There was "Boundaries in Marriage." Wait what, that doesn't make any sense, when you're married you're allowed to have sex and do everything, you don't need boundaries. And there was "Boundaries in Dating"- the only title in the series that made any sense to me. So I flipped through it a little, and read a bit about like, honest communication or something, and concluded it was not a book about "where the line is" and so I was not interested at all. So yeah, not really useful if you're already in purity culture.)

So. I am super excited about reading this book because it is SO NOT purity culture. And the way the authors just nonchalently drop statements which contradict everything I ever believed about dating back then, like it's obvious and it's no big deal- wow, there's something that feels good about reading that. (There will totally be things I disagree with though- it's 100% heteronormative (heteronormativity is when you act like LGB people don't exist) and takes for granted the idea that OBVIOUSLY Christians believe we shouldn't have sex before marriage.)

I always say, if you're a good little church girl who wants to love Jesus with her whole heart, and so you ask, "what is the Christian view of dating?" well the only people who are offering an answer to that question are the purity culture advocates. Even though I really don't think most adults at my church believed in purity culture, there was no one who said, "Hey, how about being practical and having healthy relationships? And here are a bunch of bible verses to support this idea." And THIS IS A PROBLEM. Well guess what, looks like I finally found a Christian leader [who's not regarded as a "false teacher" or anything] saying just that. Very exciting.

Very much looking forward to reading "Boundaries in Dating." I expect it to have a lot of astonishingly healthy things to say. But it's not a response to purity culture. No no no. Very much not.

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A blog series reviewing the book Boundaries in Dating: How Healthy Choices Grow Healthy Relationships

Next post: Boundaries are very anti-Christian [as I learned it]

I speak evangelical. The Babylon Bee is NOT all fun and games.

A church sanctuary. Image source.

I am not a fan of the Christian Humor site The Babylon Bee, which has been described as "the Onion for Christians." I grew up evangelical, and I know the way we judged people who didn't agree with us, the little eupehmisms and jokes we used to mock them. We kept it indirect and coded in church-y language so it didn't sound so bad, but it had a rotten core of arrogance and hate, which we called "love."

That's what The Babylon Bee is.

Let's take a look. I'm writing this on Sunday, May 15, and the first article on the front page is Armed With Just His Personal Relationship With Jesus, Man Invents Several New Heresies. Hmm, reading this title, I'm not totally sure which direction this article is going. Obviously it will make fun of people who like to talk about their "personal relationship with God"- which is a concept I have some problems with- but the "invents several new heresies" bit is very ominous. Is this going to be mocking the idea of thinking for yourself, rather than just following what the church tells you?

And... unfortunately, yes.

"His theology, though vague, seems to be a strange mix of Arianism, semi-Nestorianism, and what commentators have identified as teachings from the Teletubbies and Dora the Explorer."

Whoa. Whoa whoa whoa. Hold up there.

Because I used to live in that world. I know the types of beliefs that we compared to children's cartoons. Specifically, the beliefs that I now hold. Specifically, the beliefs about love and acceptance and getting along with other people. And the ones about self-esteem and feeling good about yourself. All the beliefs that conflict with the evangelical teaching about sin, about hell, about how we're all terrible sinners who never deserve anything good. And all that stuff they're teaching kids these days about accepting yourself- no, we shouldn't accept ourselves, because we're crap. And that stuff about accepting people who are different from us- no, we shouldn't accept people who believe differently, that's the worst thing we can do, we have to convince them to agree with us, so they don't go to hell.

That's what we believed. We even used to mock the word "love." "Oh but we love each other, so it's okay," church people would say in an unnaturally high voice.

For real though. If you find God in Dora the Explorer, than good for you. Didn't the psalmist say, "Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast." I'm pretty sure if you're watching Dora the Explorer, God is there too.

I find God in Star Trek. In Star Wars. In writing fan fiction about the bible. I find God in my own life, in my experiences with phobias and depression. And I love to read about diverse interpretations of the bible, how people from different backgrounds see their own lives reflected in the stories. From liberation theology to queer readings of Scripture, and so many more. I don't think of it in terms of "is this the correct interpretation or not"; it doesn't have to be right or wrong, and you shouldn't take it too seriously. They're just interpretations made by imperfect people- very useful and interesting, but not "absolute truth." And it's beautiful to me how so many different people can find so much meaning in the bible. This creativity is a core component of what it means to be made in the image of God.

And this last line from the Babylon Bee article: "Pershing is also reportedly beginning work on a new book chronicling his journey out of the institutional church and into a stronger relationship with Jesus, which is rumored to contain a systematic rejection of systematic theology." Okay, really? It's mocking Christians who write about leaving the church and rediscovering their faith? Like me?

What this "humor" article is really saying is this: "How dare anyone think about Jesus in ways other than those that have been approved by the church."

I am not okay with that.

And over and over, that is the punch line to so many Babylon Bee articles. "lololol look how silly people are, who don't believe the correct Christian things that we believe!" You want more examples? I got more examples:

Pastor Packs Sermon With Record-Setting 78 Euphemisms For Sin. Allow me to translate from evangelical-ese. What this article is really saying is: "Isn't it terrible how a lot of pastors don't talk enough about sin nowadays? They really need to emphasize how disgusting and worthless we are, and how we deserve God's wrath. How come Christians hardly ever talk about God's wrath?"

Target Announces Senior Discount For Anyone Who Self-Identifies As Age 60 Or Older. Translation: "LOL being transgender is clearly not a real thing!"

LGBT Advocacy Group Launches Center For Advanced Ad Hominems. WTF is this? As if conservatives are the victims, demonized by LGBT advocates. Tell me, which side is it that claims the other side is wrong about their very identity (and also probably all child molesters)?

Jesus Was A Socialist Deconstructionist Feminist, Claims Socialist Deconstructionist Feminist Scholar. Translation: "Isn't it terrible that people have opinions about Jesus other than the correct church-approved opinions that I hold?"

Yes, there are a few articles that I am fine with- they point out some of the same problems with Christian culture that I see too. Everything Local Man Feels Led To Do He Coincidentally Really Likes, for example. Some of the articles are harmless, or even a little funny. But running through most of them is judgment for people who are doing Christianity "wrong." And I know that, according to the writers of this site, I am one of those people doing Christianity "wrong."

It's not funny. It's triggering as hell. I speak their language, and I know what they're really saying.

Blogaround

Lieutenant Uhura, from Star Trek: The Original Series. Image source.
I have recently realized my life is incomplete without one of these little red Starfleet uniforms like Uhura wears. Where can I buy one? I looked on Amazon but the ones there seem to be more along the lines of "cheap sexy costume" rather than "authentic Starfleet uniform."

1. This guy hilariously recreates celebrity fashion moments with household items (posted May 4) LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

2. Harry Potter Theory: Dumbledore's Horcrux (posted May 3) Wow. I love this fan theory.

3. I'm Intersex and My Body Works Just Fine, Thank You (posted 2014)

4. 15 United Methodist clergy, candidates come out as gay (posted May 2) "Lamb said he thinks about 'children in our churches that hear this harmful rhetoric that they are incompatible with Christian teaching and how this does violence to our souls.'" Indeed. Think of the children!

5. 6 Tips on How Married Christians Can Embrace Single Adults (posted April 25) "Many single people feel that they are often automatically stereotyped as spiritually immature, morally dangerous, and unsuitable for leadership simply because they’re single. I’ve even heard pastors unapologetically and explicitly discriminate against single people: 'I don’t want to hire a single woman to direct the worship arts ministry because she’ll probably end up sleeping with all of the guys in the band.'"

6. What Pundits Keep Getting Wrong About Donald Trump and the Working Class (posted May 5) "This year, non-Hispanic whites are 58 percent of the working class, a historic low."

7. Who Did God Save When the Zamzam Sank? (posted April 12) "And hadn’t that same God also saved the Muslim Egyptians who worked on the boat? Was I the only person who wanted to know the Egyptian experience?"

8. How Birth Control Could Save Lives (posted April 11) "In fact, providing contraception to 90 percent of those in need around the world would ultimately save the lives of 67,000 women and 440,000 infants over the next year, according to an analysis published last week in the journal Lancet."

9. feminism and American exceptionalism (posted May 6) "I was taught that women can’t be trusted to supervise, manage, or govern anything– we barely even run our own households, and we certainly shouldn’t be given control over our finances. We didn’t have to wear burkas or hijab (although the definition I was taught for “modesty” was based on a Hebrew word that means “long and flowing” and a lot of us wore head coverings), but we were prevented from basically ever leaving our houses or existing in the public sphere."

10. Yes, Virtual Reality Has a Sexual Harassment Problem. What Can We Do to Stop It? (posted May 6) "When women join virtual spaces, he said, they're often the only female bodies in the room — and male users respond by swarming around them."

11. Christian Homeschool Leader Announces Conference for Arranging Child Marriages (posted May 5) Oh my god this is disgusting- this is human trafficking dressed up with bible verses. It's about a conference where good Christian parents arrange marriages for their teenage kids, who then have to go along with it or else they're ungrateful and disobedient. Apparently the event has been cancelled, since the internet found out about it and was shocked by how unimaginably terrible it was.

But seriously, back when I was a good purity-culture girl, I occasionally read articles encouraging Chiristians to marry young, and I read books which talked about how the parents should really be the ones making the decision. This kind of thing isn't unheard-of. I'm shocked at the idea of "let's actually hold a conference and set them up right now", but yeah... not unheard-of.

12. I Used THINX Underwear With No Backup For 3 Periods & Here's What I Discovered (posted March 11) Wow cool!

13. John MacArthur: The People of the Hispanic World “Don’t Know Christ.” (posted May 9) "Thus, when MacArthur says Hispanics don’t know Christ, that they don’t know the Gospel, and that they don’t know Scripture, what he’s really saying is that they don’t know Calvin."

14. Christianity Today Just Gave a Mouthpiece to an Alleged Abuser [trigger warning: all the tactics an abuser uses to make themself look like a victim] "I’m flummoxed that Christianity Today didn’t include any refutation of any of Saeed’s statements whatsoever, that they didn’t bother bringing up the content of the 2007 incident report, that they never bothered to conform any of Saeed’s claims with Naghmeh, and that they instead ran what is in effect a PR piece for a man accused of years of emotional and physical abuse."

15. Off Brand (posted May 4) "I always thought that I would be one sort of person: but now I’m someone else."

Wear Your Retainers, Kids

Artwork showing a shark with braces. (In British English I think they're called something different? I mean the wires for straightening teeth.) Image source.

Way back in the day, I had braces. Then after I got them off, I got a retainer. And I had to wear it every night, for forever. That's what the orthodontist said.

I was a good kid who took rules very seriously- but I had been noticing that I often took rules more seriously than they were actually intended to be. I maintain that this is not my fault; it was adults saying things they didn't really mean. (Also, Asperger's. But let's not pretend like that lets adults off the hook for saying things they didn't actually mean.) Like about wasting water. I was so worried that future generations wouldn't have clean water, I stopped flushing the toilet. I don't know how long that phase lasted- maybe a few weeks? Don't worry, it wasn't long. My parents managed to convince me that flushing the toilet is necessary.

So when the orthodontist told me I'd have to wear the retainer every night for the rest of my life, I was highly suspicious. Was this one of those rules that I would naively treat with total seriousness, only to have people laugh at me for "taking everything too literally"? What if I happened to stop by the orthodontist's office 5 years later- say, when my sister had braces- and somehow let it slip to the receptionist that I was still wearing the retainer every night- would she excitedly tell all the other receptionists and staff, "Wow, you guys, this girl is STILL WEARING HER RETAINER EVERY NIGHT! How adorable!" And they would all gather 'round and tell me how good I was- but the real message would be "wow, we didn't expect you to ACTUALLY keep wearing it, like we said. How strange!"

I never thought I would keep wearing my retainer for my whole life. All throughout middle school and high school, I told myself, oh when I go to college, I'll probably stop.

Went to college. Brought the retainer. Still wore it every night. (Well, skipped a night here or there, but basically yeah, every night.)

Went to grad school. Moved into my own apartment. Still wearing the retainer.

Got on a plane and moved all the way around the world, to China. Brought the retainer. Still wore it every night.

And then somehow, I stopped. I don't remember how. Just got out of the habit.

AND YOU GUYS. Now there is a gap between my two top front teeth. YEAH. I wore that retainer almost every night for 10 years. Then quit wearing it for like, 1 or 2 years. And my teeth moved.

Turns out the retainer actually did matter. It wasn't just an arbitrary rule. Back when I was little, everything was about rules- there were all these things that I was supposed to do, and I did them because those were the rules. I didn't really think about the reasons behind the rules very much. But as an adult, I don't exactly have rules that are imposed on me- I get to choose what I do, and I base my decisions on the expected outcomes of various options. I don't have to clean my apartment- there's no rule. But if I don't clean it, there is cat hair everywhere. So I have to find the equilibrium point between how much I dislike sitting in cat hair, and how much I dislike vacuuming. It's my decision. There's no "rule."

And now that I have this gap between my teeth, it's my decision what to do about it. I decided to get braces again. I weighed factors like how much I dislike having a gap, how it will keep getting worse if I don't do anything, the amount of pain involved with having braces, etc. I wouldn't say "you need to wear your retainer because I quit wearing mine and then my teeth moved and I had to get braces again." No, I don't "have to" get braces. This is my decision.

Blah. Yeah. So that's kind of a huge pain. The point is, sometimes people's teeth move, so you should really listen to your orthodontist and keep wearing that retainer. Not because it's a rule, but because it's pretty easy to put in a retainer every night, compared with the amount of money and pain that it takes if your teeth move and then you choose to have them moved back to the right places.

And also, I'm doing this in China. Which means this whole "living in China" thing isn't some silly phase I'm going through before I start my real life- no, I'm making important medical decisions right here and right now- this is my real life. (I go to an international hospital for all my health care stuff. Everyone is super-professional, they all speak English, and they wash their hands ALL THE TIME like doctors and nurses are supposed to. I've had a few pretty bizarre experiences in Chinese hospitals and yeah, not doing that any more. International hospitals from now on. Oh and by the way, in China, the doctors are all at the hospital, that's where you go for your normal doctor's appointments and everything. When I use the word "hospital" don't imagine it means there's some super-serious problem.) But I guess, since I'm thinking about this, it means even after living here for 2 and a half years (and studying Chinese for 6 years) I'm still a little worried that it's just a phase and I'll "get over it" at some point. Hmm.

The Shanghai Natural History Museum (has got me thinking about evolution)

I'm very excited to share with y'all my photos from the Shanghai Natural History Museum. I love science and dinosaurs and all that stuff! This museum was just opened last year, and it's super cool.

This exhibit was called "The River of Life", and it included a huge variety of animals- from the oceans, land, and air; prehistoric and modern; models, fossils, and dead stuffed animals.

There were many kinds of dead taxidermied animals here. This photo shows the exhibit with tigers, lions, and other big cats. There were also bears, moose, deer, pandas, wolves, monkeys, goats, and others.

There was a butterfly house, with live butterflies.

There were a bunch of exhibits with live animals in them- reptiles, fish, big bugs, that kind of thing.

There was a whole section on dinosaurs. In this photo, a museum employee is telling us about the fossils.

This huge animatronic T-rex can open its mouth and roar.

Here's another animatronic creature, protecting its eggs.

There was an exhibit on human evolution, which was very interesting to me because I'm interested in re-learning evolution.

Here's an activity where you put the various skulls under the scanner and it tells you the brain capacity.

This exhibit showed local Shanghai wildlife.

There was a whole big exhibit of African animals.

I'm pretty much 100% sure that kid is not allowed to climb up there.

A bunch of animal skins, laying flat like rugs. SUPER CREEPY.

The "Bird Tree of Life", which has dead stuffed birds arranged according to their species classification and such. (Guess what? This is related to evolution.)

Here's a science kit in the gift shop, with English and French on the packaging. On the back of the box, a label with a ton of Chinese text had been stuck on. It's an interesting example of how a lot of science and technolocy education stuff in China is imported from western countries.

Here's an exhibit with some artifacts from China. This part shows movable type, which was first invented in China.

I really liked the exhbit on human evolution. Also, I noticed a lot of the exhibits were arranged with evolution in mind- for example, the different fossils or specimens were put in order of when they lived, and from simple to more complex, with labels explaining that one species developed into the next. It feels very strange for me... because I've definitely been to a LOT of museums that set up their exhibits this way. And the different human-like ape-like species- I've seen those fossils before.

Somehow, I've seen all this before, was excited to learn it because I love science, and yet never realized how much it all assumed evolution as its context. When I was a kid, I knew that Christians DEFINITELY don't believe in evolution, but it was very unclear what exactly that meant and what we were supposed to believe instead. I remember seeing in a science book one of those drawings of the series of creatures from ape to human, each standing up a little straighter than the one behind it, and I quickly skipped to the next page because I knew that was something bad and we weren't allowed to look at it. And yet, I would read statements like, "Many people think pandas are bears, but actually they are more closely related to raccoons," and not realize that it was talking about evolution. (A google search reveals that currently, scientists believe pandas are more closely related to the spectacled bear of South America, rather than raccoons. How about that.)

I would go to museums and love looking at all the animals and learning about them. I would see them arranged in different types- for example, different kinds of turtle-like animals would be together- and I would read about how this one lived so many million years ago, and later this other one descended from it, and I would believe all of it except the part where one descended into another. I guess. I never really thought about it though. I mean, OBVIOUSLY I didn't believe in evolution- but I didn't realize that all these things in my books about dinosaur fossils were actually about evolution.

If this sounds confusing, it's because IT IS. I thought I never actually encountered evolution until 9th grade biology class, but now I realize that so much of everything I learned about fossils and animals and biology was assuming evolution as its context. I had no idea- I knew Christians weren't allowed to believe in evolution, but nobody ever specifically said to me "hey this part about animals being 'related' to each other- no, that's bad, we don't believe that" or "this bit about 100 million years, no that's not what the bible says, we don't believe that."

I actually asked a Christian adult one time, if dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago, and never lived at the same time as humans, but everything was created in 6 days, well, how does that work? They told me it was a good question, and they didn't know the answer- maybe nobody knows. It wasn't until I was in high school and started looking for better answers than this vague suspicious feeling anytime someone says the word "evolution" that I heard about young-earth creationism (and converted to it).

(My experience with this is different from that of a lot of other former young-earth creationists I've met in the land of blogs. I've read about people who grew up in a fundamentalist church and learned a pretty awful version of science which was anti-evolution and actually consistent, unlike my "regular science class in public school but I just ignored any sentence with the word 'evolution' because I'm a Christian." Lucky me. Could have been A LOT worse.)

I see this as a really good example of how Christians trying to be "less extreme" doesn't really work. The Christian adults in my life probably thought they were at a reasonable middle ground- they weren't like those fundies who had all those bizarre anti-science beliefs, but they also weren't like the evil worldly culture which denied the bible and claimed we came from apes. But in reality, their position was an ill-defined, logically-inconsistent blend of two completely opposite idelogies, which couldn't even answer THE MOST OBVIOUS question that a kid who loves dinosaurs would ask about the creation story. Coming from this background, it was pretty much inevitable that I would become a young-earth creationist. They were the only ones who gave actual answers to my questions and also emphasized the importance of "following the bible over the wisdom of the world"- that perfectly matched the view of the bible I was taught in church.

And now that I've decided I "believe in" evolution, I'm surprised to find that all these things I learned in science class and never saw as unbiblical are actually related to evolution. It's pretty cool, and I'm excited to keep learning more.

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Readers: If any of y'all are former creationists, I'm interested in hearing about the context in which you became a creationist. Was it explicitly taught, or did you just sense this weird vaguely-bad feeling from church culture any time evolution was mentioned, like I did?

Also, I'm looking for recommendations of books I can read to learn more about evolution. Anybody know any good ones?

"God has one perfect guy for you!" Yeah, that's not biblical.

Solomon and a few of his wives. Image source.

Jacob loved Rachel. And finally, all their dreams came true and they were married.

But Rachel missed her own wedding night. Her father swapped her with her sister Leah- essentially tricking Jacob into marrying both Rachel and Leah. And from then on, the sisters competed for Jacob's love, competed by bearing children.

So I want to ask all the Christians who promoted purity culture and said that God was creating one special guy for me- what about Rachel? Where was her happily-ever-after with her perfect guy?

What about Leah? Forced into a marriage with a man who didn't love her. How? She had "kept herself pure", hadn't she- where is her "one perfect guy" that God supposedly promises? (To be clear- all the language I have here about "God promising one perfect guy" comes directly from purity rhetoric. These are NOT quotes from the bible.)

And then Rachel's servant girl, Bilhah. Rachel told Jacob to sleep with her too, so that Bilhah would have children because Rachel couldn't. Where was Bilhah's "one perfect guy, hand-crafted by God"?

Same deal with Zilpah, Leah's servant. Jacob ended up with 4 wives: Rachel, Leah, Bilhah, Zilpah, none of which lived that perfect happily-ever-after with their special man- the perfect marriage that purity culture promises God has planned for all of us girls.

And remember Abigail? Her husband, Nabal, was a huge jerk, but Abigail went against Nabal and helped David. Later, Nabal died, and David asked Abigail to marry him. Aww how nice. And the sermons are preached about what a good godly person Abigail was. But, if that's true, then how did she end up with a jerk like Nabal? And why, in the "happy ending" to her story, did she end up married to a guy who had already married two other women- one of which he was still married to at the time? How can purity culture explain this story?

And speaking of the other women that David married- his first wife was Michal, daughter of Saul. We don't really have much evidence about whether she worked hard to be good and pure and follow the rules- but nope, she definitely didn't have that perfect marriage that's promised to all the good and pure girls. When things went bad between David and Saul, Saul "gave" Michal to another guy, Paltiel. Later, David had her taken from Paltiel by force- for very political reasons, as a symbol in the struggle between the house of David and the house of Saul.

How about Esther? We learned in Sunday School about how Esther was such a good role model in the bible. So brave, standing up for her people. Yeah, and she was forced to be part of the king's harem. Sure, she was the queen, but what did that really mean? She was just one of the many women that the king had sex with, and she didn't even have the right to go and talk to him unless he summoned her first. What kind of marriage was that? But, as far as we know, Esther was a good and pure girl. Seems that, if God promises a perfect husband to girls who follow the purity rules, God's not holding up his end of the deal.

Do you know what happened to Jepthah's daughter? Her father promised God that he would sacrifice whatever came out the door of his house- and it turned out to be his daughter. So he did. The bible says she was a virgin. Doesn't purity culture teach that good virgin girls will be rewarded with a wonderful godly marriage?

What about Tamar, David's daughter? She was raped by her brother, and David did nothing. Poor Tamar. Whatever happened to the happily-ever-after for girls who follow the purity rules?

And Dinah, Jacob's daughter? Also raped. As far as we know, she was a good pure girl, though. What gives, purity culture?

[Note: I'm trying to use the logic of purity culture here and show how the bible directly contradicts it, but wow... I'm really uncomfortable with the way this is framed- as if rape is a reasonable and expected consequence for girls who fail to keep all the purity rules. Wow, that's disgusting.]

And the other Tamar, Judah's daughter-in-law? She was in an arranged marriage to Judah's son Er- but Er was apparently wicked, so God killed him. Then she married Judah's second son, Onan- wow what bad luck, he was also wicked and God killed him. She then had the right to marry Judah's third son, but Judah seemed to conveniently forget about her- so Tamar pretended to be a prostitute, and had sex with Judah, and had babies. Before all this, she had been a good and pure girl, right? How did this happen? How did she end up in 2 marriages to awful guys?

And I could keep going, listing example after example of biblical women who, as far as we know, never did anything bad/impure and yet the bible tells us they didn't have wonderful, perfect, godly, one-man-one-woman, lifelong marriages. Bathsheba. David's concubines who were raped by Absalom. Samson's wife. Esau's wives. Hannah and Hannah's, umm, wife-in-law. Solomon's 700 wives and 300 concubines. Hagar. Captive women taken in war. Foreign women sent away in a mass divorce.

And you could argue that, oh, they weren't actually role models of purity, they must have done something impure and that's why this happened. Okay, then- where are the pure women in the bible, who did get the perfect marriage they deserved? I challenge you to name a single one- name one woman in the bible who was not raped, was only ever married to one man, and that man never cheated on her or did anything else incredibly shady to her. Are there any? Maybe Priscilla and Aquila? Adam and Eve? Noah and his anonymous wife? [Really, though, we don't have enough details to say if these women were in good and healthy marriages.] Any others? Are there ANY women in the bible who followed the purity rules and had good marriages? [And yes, I'm aware that it makes no sense to even ask this question- while it's true that many cultures have treated women as objects whose value is based on their virginity, the specific "purity rules" I learned are very much a modern American invention. But purity culture proponents claim "this is what the bible says" so I'm just going along with that.]

And even if you find some "impure" thing that each these women from the bible supposedly did, thereby losing their chance to have a perfect Christian marriage [which is super-victim-blamey anyway and I'm not okay with that], you're still admitting that the proportion of women who end up with that perfect marriage is incredibly low. Then why are you telling the girls in Sunday School that this is God's plan for all of them? If this is "God's plan", then please explain why so few women in the bible actually had things turn out that way.

Seems to me like, during the time when the bible was written, women were treated like property and had no choice in who they married. It was seen as a sign of success for a man to have many wives. OF COURSE in that kind of society, you're not going to see many examples of women who have good marriages by today's standards.

So the next time someone tells you that "the bible says" you have to be pure, not have sex, not date without God's permission, and then it will all be worth it because God will bring a wonderful man into your life, and married sex will be the BEST THING EVER and you will live happily ever after, go ahead and laugh at them, because that's complete bullshit. The bible says no such thing. Instead, the bible shows us a culture where it was unheard-of that a woman would have a choice about marriage, where nobody cared about consent, where women were treated like property and the man who had the most wives was the winner.

The bible does NOT say that pure girls get a good marriage as a reward. Nope. Not even close.

Blogaround

A Cardassian (from Star Trek) wearing a Trump-style red hat that says "Make Cardassia Great Again." Image text: "I will build a subspace graviton field and I will make Bajor pay for it." Image source.

1. After North Carolina’s Law, Trans Suicide Hotline Calls Double (posted April 20) Oh god.

What It's Like to Use a Public Bathroom While Trans (posted March 31) [trigger warning: anti-trans violence] "You stand outside the bathroom for maybe a minute or two to make sure no one is coming out or no one is coming in. Then you go inside and if you hear someone, you just look down and hope they don't look at your face.... You run into the stall and you lock the door as fast as you can, and then you do what you have to do. If you hear someone walk in, or you hear someone else in there, you have to wait until they leave. Once you hear that they are gone, you can run out. Washing your hands is a difficult situation because it takes time, so hopefully you brought disinfectant."

2. Massachusetts Seeks Incarceration Alternatives for Parents (posted April 13) "A bill under consideration could help keep families together when a parent is the primary caregiver and is convicted of a nonviolent crime."

3. When Black People Were Not “Ladies” or “Men” (posted April 26) "Additionally, there was no concern about men going into bathrooms with “little girls.” Just if you were “colored” you all had to share the same bathroom."

4. What's Wrong with Voluntourism? Everything (posted April 18) "I have many childhood memories in Nicaragua that include voluntourists and missionaries. I remember that they were really kind, almost too kind. When you grow up poor, you have a lot of street smarts and reading people comes second nature. It was like they were trying to make up for something."

5. Beyonce, Black Feminist Art, and this Oshun Bidness (posted April 30) "Alone, the album is a tale of singular journey of personal growth. Read against the text of the film however, it becomes something else. Like the patron saint it claims as its sire, the film utilizes Oshun’s needle to stitch the album’s singular story into a larger diasporic narrative of community comprised of black women’s struggle, sacrifice, survival, and transformation."

6. Bill would force faith-based colleges to reveal LGBT exemptions (posted May 2) "“There is an alarming and growing trend of schools quietly seeking the right to discriminate against LGBT students, and not disclosing that information publicly,” said HRC President Chad Griffin."

7. ID to Pee? (posted May 2) "All of this is completely unrelated from what appears to be the most common form of bathroom predation—male employees placing hidden cameras inside women’s restrooms in their establishments. Where is the outrage about that, I wonder? I’ve as yet seen no attempt to legislate against male employees cleaning women’s restrooms, or entering them when they’re closed."

8. My Church Basketball Coach Wasn’t Transgender (posted April 28) [trigger warning: child sexual abuse]

Now that I'm engaged, I'm all like "hell no" on the whole "wifely submission" thing

A women using a computer. Image text: "To order a Christian husband, click 'submit.'" Image source.

A few months ago- before we got engaged, actually- I told Hendrix about an idea I had. And he told me no no no, don't do that, it's a bad idea. [I won't say what it is, because it turned out to be a bad idea.] And I told him no, I'm doing this, here are the reasons. And he told me, no no no that would be really bad, here are the reasons.

And we talked/argued about it for a little bit, and I decided actually he was right. It was not a good idea. So I'm not doing it.

And I wondered, is this what "submitting to your husband" is supposed to feel like?

Actually I felt good. I knew that he really really cared about me, and that's why he told me not to do that. And that he understands me and loves me, so I trust him and definitely take his point of view seriously.

But there was one huge difference between this and "submitting to your husband." A difference so huge that it makes Hendrix changing my mind a really good and healthy thing that I value in our relationship, and "submitting to your husband" a terrifying thing I would never ever agree to.

The difference is this: I "submitted" to Hendrix's point of view because he was able to explain it in a way that led me to believe he was right. I don't submit to him because he's a man, I "submitted" because, in this particular situation, it turned out that he was right and I was wrong. If I believed in "submitting to my husband", then any effort he puts into explaining himself is just a formality intended to make me feel better, but really not necessary- I have to do what he says, whether I agree with it or not.

And damn, it is terrifying to imagine a situation where I'd listen to his explanation, knowing I didn't have the option to disagree with it. Knowing from the start that I'd have to do what he said, and trying to force myself to believe whatever reasons he gave for it, so that I could at least feel like it was sort of my choice.

Hell no, I am never doing that. If Hendrix had told me why he thought it was a bad idea, and I didn't agree with him, I wouldn't have "submitted." I would have been like, nope, I'm still doing this, nobody tells me what to do. And not for one millisecond would I have thought "oh but I'm supposed to submit to him- should I really do this or not?" (I might have considered not doing it because I care about him and it might have affected him negatively. I would NEVER EVER EVER consider doing or not doing something for "wifely submission" reasons.)

(Also, there have been times when he wanted to do something, and I told him it was a bad idea and explained why, and he "submitted" to me. Basically the one who realizes they were wrong submits to the other one.)

And now that I'm actually engaged, now that I have an actual living human being who will be my husband, who is delightful and funny and imperfect and likes different movies than me and asks "why are you being a squirrel?" when I make weird faces at him- a real person rather than Perfect Purity Man- I'm kind of surprised that I ever believed in "wives submit to your husbands." Like, how did I think that was going to work?

Well, actually, back then I always wondered about that. How was it supposed to work anyway? It seemed like a big abstract concept and I couldn't imagine how it would actually play out in real life. I always wondered about this, but I never thought to question it and say "hey, maybe it's NOT true that wives submit and husbands lead." No, of course not, of course good Christians are required to believe wives submit and husbands lead.

I guess I never really saw complementarianism modelled by Christian couples. Sure, they all talked about it- or rather, I never heard of any Christian who questioned it- but I was never aware of any practical examples of what it meant. (Or maybe I'm just oblivious to most things about socializing and relationships. Yeah. That's a strong possibility.)

People would say things like "if you have a really great man who loves you, then it's totally wonderful and easy to submit." And yeah, in the example about me and Hendrix, I was willing to listen to his reasons and seriously evaluate whether I could be wrong, because I know he loves me. His opinion carries a LOT of weight. But not infinite weight- not so much weight that I'm just going to automatically do what he says without really needing an explanation.

And probably the closest thing I ever heard to a real answer on what "wives submit to your husbands" actually means was something like this: "When they have to make a big decision, they talk about it together and try to agree. And if they can't agree, they should keep talking about it and see if there's any way they can reach some kind of compromise where they both agree. But if this just won't work, then the husband has the final say. Now OF COURSE he has to value his wife's input when he makes the decision, but ultimately if ever a situation arises where they can't make a decision together, the husband decides and the wife has to go along with it." Other bloggers have pointed out how the ideal relationship described by complementarians is actually an egalitarian relationship. In the ideal case, the husband will never actually use his position as the "leader" to force his wife to do something.

Basically I believed that explanation for a while, because I couldn't imagine any scenario in which it would make sense for women not to have rights equal to men, but I believed Christians had to believe in some concept of marriage which could be [at least in a vague, confused way] described as "wives submit and husbands lead."

I think about my relationship with Hendrix and how completely ridiculous it would be to suggest that I should "submit" to him [to a much greater extent than he should submit to me]. We're equals. We're a team. We work so well together, and we complement each other. I'm more likely to get angry about something somebody said on the internet; he's more like "calm down, people will always say ignorant things, you can't force them to change." I'm more interested in big ideals like justice and equality; he's more focused on our actual relationships with family members and how we can be kind to them even when we don't agree with them. He's more of a people person and I'm not. He always says, "I hope our children will have your IQ and my EQ." I talk a lot, and he listens. I'm really really glad to have someone who complements me like that. (And it should be noted that defining what kind of person "complements" someone is based on their individual personality, not gender.)

The kind of guy that purity culture tells girls to look for- a perfect godly man who always knows what the right decision is- doesn't exist. That's become even more obvious to me, now that I'm engaged to a real human who does exist.

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Note on commenting: If you post a comment that says I misunderstood complementarianism and what "wives submit to your husbands" means, and then you proceed to define it in a way that's totally within the range of very normal definitions I've heard in church for my entire life, I will probably just laugh.