Month: September 2021

The Lie of Sexual Liberation

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My parents, like my grandparents have remained faithfully devoted to one person their entire lives.  This was not always easy, people grow and change, there were failures and financial hardships along the way, and those initial feelings of love faded long away ago.  And yet, through these trials of life and tribulations, there has been a stronger bond of love that emerged that is far more profound.

My own life experience has been different from that of my father and grandfather, both whom married in their early twenties and never looked back.  They remained fully one woman men.  And it doesn’t even seem as if the serious possibility of another woman has ever crossed their minds.  That is what I had wanted.  Unfortunately, life had different plans for me, I have both imagined myself with many women and have had none.  I’m a virgin, having never been married, but have also had my thoughts of liberation from this system that has disadvantaged me.

Call it egalitarian or call it egotistical, but there has also been this alternative of being intimate with multiple women does have some appeal.  For me, outside looking in, it could feel a bit unfair that some men could hoard for themselves what some of us could not have at all.  So wouldn’t it be better to erase this patriarchal structure entirely and make manifest that heavenly ideal of Matthew 22:30, when we “will neither marry nor be given in marriage” and all are one?

It is no big surprise that sexual liberation is a feature of many ‘Christian’ reformation attempts, including a more radical faction of the early Anabaptist movement in Münster, where they indeed shared more things in common than mere material possessions in their rejection of stuffy tradition.  And such things, polygamy and sexual sexual orgies, have been a regular feature of various contemporary cults as well.  For whatever reason it does feel right, in theory, but in reality is a self-serving disaster.

From ‘Free Love’ To Hook-up Culture

The 1960s and 70s were supposed to introduce this wonderful new age, free from the bonds of organized religion and stifling tradition.  The communal living, the flower children, Woodstock, it all seemed so wonderful in that generation.  But, besides music, it has left very little in terms of true positive legacy and ended up an ideal as naïve as the 1950s culture it was supposed to replace.  The old hippies are a sort of comical absurdity anymore.

The only actually lasting legacy of that era is the American cultural institution of marriage becoming a mockery of the relationship that my parents and grandparents maintained throughout their decades.  Fewer young people are even bothering to say vows as they’ve basically become meaningless in this age governed by immediate feelings and shunning of any type of binding commitment.  Many today have never experienced the stability that I have had with two parents who didn’t quit on each other when times got tough.

Worse many in the current generation have gone a step further and pretty much entirely given up on love.  They go to Tinder looking for a hook-up, or the whole “Netflix and chill” short-term sexual liaison, which makes very little attempt to treat physical intimacy as something special.  It is crass, it is completely centered on the body and cares nothing about the soul.  The young and beautiful can trade partners as casually as deciding what fast-food to order in.

Most young people today, even if they do not hook-up per se, think nothing about serial monogamy or living with multiple sex partners over their lifetimes.  I’ll hear things like, “how can anyone really know what they want in their early twenties?”  It is simply an expectation now that relationships are transitory and not meant to last.  Although, for some reason, most do seem to cling to exclusive rights or at least so far as they themselves can’t find anything better.

The Harsh Realities of the Sexual Economy

In the religious subculture that formed me there was always this idea of “meant to be” that accompanied romantic relationship that ended in marriage.  Divorce was not an option.  The relationship of a man and woman was spiritual.  We would barely talk about sexual attraction as a factor in this decision making process.  We were told that our being pure and being the right one would bring about success.

This denial of the sexual motivation is what would later lead to my disillusionment when I discovered things truly weren’t as they were being framed.  The reason I had been overlooked did not have to do with my character, the impossibly (before I had expressed any interest in her) had told me I would make a “great husband” and wasn’t the first to say so either, but for some reason they weren’t lining up for the opportunity to experience my greatness first-hand.

The reality is that marriage is not only about the completely virtuous pre-destined love of two people as advertised.  It is also about climbing the social ladder, gaining access to the resources that another person has, and basically being able to routinely do the nasty with the hottest piece of Mennonite asset available.  Yes, it is sexual.  Yes, there’s a reason why my Mennonite marriageability rating blog struck a chord with so many in my former religious culture.

Marriage is a type of economic transaction, there is a sexual economy, and some simply bring more to the table in terms of excitement than others.  There areas where some of us got the short end of the stick and could not compete.  This was not spoken about honestly, for many years it felt like a judgment of my character rather than what it was and would have been much better if it had been acknowledged.  At least hook-up culture is honest and doesn’t pretend to be about more than it is.

Why Hook-up Culture Does Not Work

On the surface being able to sleep with anyone seems like freedom.  I know it would not take much convincing for me to have sexual relations with multiple women.  I mean, there are many different women that I appreciate, with unique personalities, black, white or Asian, all beautiful.  Why not take turns, spread the love and share a little, right?

Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that.  First, there’s this thing of STDs, multiple partners means a wildly increased chance of an incurable and painful disease.  Second, hook-up culture is not free love.  No, it is actually more exclusive than traditional monogamy in that only the most superficially desirable specimens have a chance of success.  Fall under the height requirement, have a few too many extra pounds, and you’re out of luck with no chance at all.

Yeah, sexual promiscuity may have been good to Wilt Chamberlain, who claimed to have had twenty thousand female sexual partners, but it doesn’t work out the same for the average guy who ends up going home with nothing.  This is, in fact, the biggest issue with polygamy, some men get more of what they want, even the women may be satisfied with the arrangement, and yet there are also many disgruntled men without a chance.  Marriage increases equity by helping with the fairer distribution of a limited resource.

And, considering how many young women get chewed up and spit out by a world full of guys willing to say anything to “get in her pants” only to change their tune later, the traditional arrangement doesn’t seem so bad after all.  It is simply mind-blowing how many women, otherwise intelligent, believe that giving a guy what he wants upfront, without anything in writing to prove he is not simply playing around, will help their chances of securing his continued interest in them.

Marriage is About Equity and Protection

Multiple partners and sexual liberation only benefits some.  The current paradigm favors attractive men, who are able to select from a large group of willing women, they get what they want and then are on their way again to the next hot body as soon as things become a little difficult.  Meanwhile the guys who fall a bit short of female aspirations get nothing at all, permanently friend-zoned, with no chance of sex.

With traditional marriage there’s also some equity there, or at least in theory, in that the hottest players don’t get everything for themselves.

More importantly, saving sex for real commitment means that a woman is not stuck raising a child alone.  It also helps to establish consent.  Marriage is truly a safeguard against the exploitation of women.  Women literally bear a larger burden from sexual relations, emotionally or otherwise, and are often better off with the less flashy faithful men than those more likely to sweep them off their feet.

Lastly, it is also an arrangement that considers the long-term good.  And not only of the children who are provided security from a stable established relationship, but also of an aging woman who no longer has that youthfully attractive body and would be left with nothing.  Sure, traditional marriage never guarantees success, nevertheless it is better than the alternative of loveless sex and no commitment.

The nail in the coffin of sexual liberation is that sex is more fulfilling in the context of a committed relationship.  This is what makes me most sad about the current pursuit of carnal appetite over a selfless and more satisfying (over time) alternative.  My parents and grandparents had it right, that’s what I want more than anything else.

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The Man I Never Met — Remembering Wayne_in_Maine

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There are some characters you meet online and never forget.

Such was the case with Wayne_in_Maine, who could come off as a sort of cranky or cantankerous old man and yet seemed (even then) to have a golden heart under the bluster. There is a way or an intuition I have, that can cut through the harshness on the surface. I can just know when someone is full of themselves and cruel despite their nice-sounding words or truly compassionate despite their surface-level unpleasantness.

Wayne was the latter kind.

The first thing notable about Wayne was that he was intelligent, he had been a nuclear engineer, could articulate his arguments well, and clearly was not going to be backed into a corner. The second thing was that he had a very unique journey and a different perspective from the other ethnic cultural inhabitants of the MennoDiscuss forum. He had gone from a hippy leftist to a conservative-minded neo-Anabaptist and could speak with authority on matters of science unlike the religiously indoctrinated parroting their fundamentalist teachers.

Initially, I saw him as a sort of threat to my worldview, another person compromised by secular influence trying to get Mennonites to shift to his views, and yet later his perspective would actually strengthen my faith when it faltered against the scientific evidence clearly pointing to the appearance of age in the universe.

Because of Wayne, I learned that young-Earth Creationism (or YEC) is not necessary to have a sincere and grounded faith in Jesus Christ.

In fact, it might actually be a liability and cause many to fall into a serious crisis of faith when they go to university, study biology or almost any science and find out the case for YEC is not as clear as it was presented. That Wayne, a rational mind and well-educated, could both reconcile modern scientific theory and his faith was more useful to me (a critical thinker) than some Hammy tourist attraction put there to feed the confirmation bias of fundamentalist midwits. I came around to his position and haven’t looked back.

I have long respected Wayne despite our sometimes clashing and my occasionally coming away feeling unappreciated by him.

He was a man a conviction. He gave up lucrative career paths, actually tried communal living, literally sold all from what I recall, and had come much further in developing his own perspective than most do.

However, despite my respect, Wayne’s version of Christianity didn’t appeal to me. He had, inadvertently, pushed a friend of mine away from Anabaptism with one of his responses. I still believe his take on the rich young ruler account misses the mark, where he read the response of Jesus as a sort of legalistic prescription rather the same as we understand Luke 14:26 where Jesus says if someone “does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.”

I know, for a fact, that he did not take that literally. He came across, from my limited ability to see, as a very loving father and committed husband. I can’t imagine him hating his family to prove his commitment to Christ. Nevertheless, he was adamant about being completely Anabaptist in his perspective about wealth or warfare, an inconsistency of thought that bothers me about him and others of that fold. It did annoy me too when he characterized the Orthodox tradition as “smells and bells” as if worship was supposed to be something other than a beautiful or full sensory experience.

The Cancer and Change

After I heard about Wayne’s cancer diagnosis, none of our previous sparrings mattered much to me. Wayne, despite our differences, was a true friend and someone that mattered to me. It was especially important to me, given my mourning of Uriah, to talk to someone coming to terms with their poor prognosis and yet not giving up hope.

When I reached out on Facebook Messenger, mentioning Uriah and my desire to meet with him, he replied quickly and with more warmth than I had expected. There was no standoffishness, as had kind of been a feature of his personality, he reciprocated the desire to meet and we talked about various matters of faith.

I took a look at some of the MennoNet discussions he was involved in and got a laugh together about the various bad arguments being used. That’s one thing about him, his humor was dry and always fun, or at least fun when you were on the same side.

It was a sort of therapy, talking to this different side of the pragmatic engineer. Truly, it was special, the man that I saw emerge in this final trial was different. My own thought was that this was the Wayne that was always there under the snide comment and cynicism. Men can put up their walls, to not appear vulnerable, and that was no longer there. We were just two old keyboard warriors with nothing left to prove to the other.

And that’s not to take away from anything he said as far as the grace he was given to endure to the end. It was definitely something spiritual. His testimony of faith was clear. As a friend described him, in this transformed version, “It was like he became a totally different person. Happy, cheerful, optimistic.” He would not be defeated in death and I wanted to hear more about how a rational man, such as himself, given my own struggles, could continue in hope of the eternal.

I had to think of this Scriptural passage:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

(1 Peter 1:3-9)

More important than all of his intellectual endeavors and Christian apologetics, theory or theology, is Wayne’s undying faith through trial is of the greatest comfort to those still in the fight. I never did get to have that face-to-face meeting that we had committed to upon his planned move to Pennsylvania to be closer to his daughter and grandchild. We had planned to meet in order to give us both something to look forward to when he did.

Now that meeting will have to change locations. Wayne took his final breaths yesterday evening, on August 12th, a couple of days after his 65 birthday. By God’s grace, in triumph, we’ll see each other on that other side.

I’m sad that Wayne remains a man that I’ve never met, in the flesh, despite our interactions over the years. However, in his terminal illness, there was also a man that I never met, that softer side, and feel blessed have finally met this man. I loved him and believe that he loved me too. I’ll remember our last interactions for much more fondly than our first. It was beautiful to see his golden heart revealed.

My Suspicions Confirmed

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I’ll have to concede, I was wrong about face masks.  Early in the pandemic, in January of 2020 while the corporate media ‘experts’ were saying that we should be more concerned about the seasonal flu.  I was worried about this mystery virus in Wuhan and decided to get a box of N95 masks in case my fears were confirmed.  I was ridiculed, at the time, for my warnings and telling people to be prepared.

Months later, as the “no human-to-human transmission” claim of WHO became too obviously false to ignore and the glib urgings of politicians for their constituents to visit China were replaced with terror, that confirmed my warnings.  But now, with mask mandates and recommendations rolling out, many friends began to resist the idea.  They weren’t going to wear a “face diaper” and ridiculed the idea that a bit of cloth would be effective against a virus.

Of course, they were a little right, cloth masks aren’t at all effective against stopping the spread of the virus and now the corporate media is finally conceding this.  But still, based on laboratory experiments and filtration level, I believed my N95 masks were effective.  However, laboratory conditions are not the real world and, eventually, even that became a question mark for me.  Many countries also require facemasks with the masks because the masks are not adequate.

A few weeks ago, I may have overstated, I said that masks were completely ineffective at stopping the spread.  Technically correct since the virus spread as much (or even more) in states with strict requirements and yet I’ve also ran into some convincing data that suggests the good masks, the N95’s with a decent seal, may make an 10% difference overall.  So on this basis I’ll admit there could be marginal benefit.

The Wishy-washy Way To Truth

Many people, once they’ve made up their minds, never reconsider their stance.  If they believe masks are stupid then they will use every excuse in the book not to wear one.  I’ve heard them all.  The fear about being dehumanized.  That breathing carbon dioxide is dangerous.  But then they’ll contradict by calling people who disagree “sheeple” and claiming that something that can stop carbon dioxide from leaving can’t stop a virus from entering, hmm?

This is called confirmation bias.  People are emotionally invested in their ideas.  It is not easy to admit being wrong after making strong statements one way or another. So, rather than be on an unbending quest for the truth, most people (including your’s truly) will seek out the information that ‘confirms’ an established position and ignore what does not.  It takes much more effort to take an honest (and critical) look at the evidence and go wherever it leads.  Few actually do.

Confirmation (or my side) bias is powerful because it is hidden under layers of fact and explanation that sounds rational.  The position being guarded seems completely reasonable to the holder of the opinion, in their eyes they own the moral high ground, and those who disagree are simply ignorant, selfish or otherwise deficiencient.  It is often this moral stake in the ground that makes it so hard to back off from an established opinion, we would rather continue in the righteous delusion than deal with the possibility the other side was right.

As the saying goes, “a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”  Even a mountain of evidence cannot uproot an established position.  It is the same as a fortification on a hill that can hold off waves of an assault with few defenders.  That hill being our ego, the banner flying our identity, and we cling to this ground because to lose it would cause us to question ourselves, ask the hard questions of if we are truly virtuous and good, if we are actually intelligent or fooled by our own desire to be right?

It is far easier to remain in the comfort of our own righteous delusion than to consider that the very foundation of our citadel of reason could be sand.  We fear changing our perspective will mean we’re wishy-washy or, worse, might require us to examine the underpinnings of other long held beliefs and leave us with no bedrock to build on.  Most of all, we fear the ridicule and abuse of our ideological enemies, we can’t let them win!

Powerful Propaganda to Innoculate the Masses

The point of propaganda is to build confirmation bias.  The propagandist tries to encourage an emotional bond to an idea, often through appeals to popular prejudice, and yet not overtly or in a way that the targets know they’re being used.  Almost every war is fought for the financial benefit of a few and yet sold as some righteous common cause.

For example, both sides of the American Civil War felt they were fighting for civil rights.  Both sides used labor that was either property outright or treated like a rented mule.  The Northern elites, for all their moralizing abolitionist hubris, depended on an industrial machine that exploited poor European immigrants, taking them right off the boat to send into dark mines, dangerous factory conditions or conscript them into the meat grinder of Lincoln’s war.  The South, obviously, was fighting for the privilege of the slaveholding elites and yet convinced they were depending themselves from Northern tyranny and aggression.

Propaganda is about framing an issue in terms favorable to a particular side without ever appearing to be biased to the target audience.  It is subversive by design, aims to overwhelm the true complexity of debatable mathers with simple sloganeering, refrains meant to be picked up by the midwits in media and then spread by the unsuspecting masses.  The point is to convince the enforcers of the order, the common folk, that they are doing God’s work, being patriots, on the side of irrefutable science or what have you, when in reality they’re serving some undisclosed agenda.

Hitler did not rise to power by being the caricature of evil that we see him as on the other side of the conflict.  No, rather, he had convinced enough of the German people that he was on the side of progress, that he would remove the causes of disease and suffering, then build their country back better than ever.  The Nazis dressed up in a magnificent authoritarian style, it might look bad in retrospect, knowing where it was leading, yet was hope for a nation emerging from years of crisis.

The Safe and Effective Deception

As part of the propaganda campaign, to convince people to inject the controversial new vaccines, news articles repeated the “safe and effective” mantra over and over again.  Both of those words are, of course, subjective.  However, they are assuring and have a sort of sophisticated ring.  Surely this sort of confident declaration is the result of rigorous science and more or less an unquestionable truth, right?

Those in support of vaccine mandates completely ignore the known risks, Big Tech monopolies literally removing groups of people who had encountered adverse effects, and seem to have no awareness of the great potential of unknown risks that come with any new technology hastily introduced.  I mean, somehow the 737 Max got through the approval process, was essentially declared safe and effective, despite a serious defect.  So, in short, we can’t possibly know that there are no long-term health consequences of these experimental vaccines and are only now starting to study that potential.  

But the thing most egregious propaganda is not the downplaying and dismissal of the documented deaths or reasonable concerns of those who have studied history enough to know how quickly narratives change.  They are simultaneously attacking treatment options, like Ivermectin, that are truly effective, cheap and present less of a risk than Tylenol.  It is actually this that makes me distrust them as far as the vaccines.  Why are they so adamantly against things that are actually safer than the vaccines and with a proven record?

Even as the new vaccines have proven to be ineffective as far as stopping the spread and preventing infection, despite the natural immunity of those who had the disease being up to thirteen times stronger than the vaccines, the current propaganda narrative continues that it is the unvaccinated are the real cause of the suffering.  Nevermind that Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson all have financial ties to big media and make a windfall off of this new product.


Far Should Our Trust Go?

The real question is why should we trust the same political and media establishment that lied about where the virus originated, initially downplayed it as less a threat than the seasonal flu, parroted the Chinese regime that was no human-to-human transmission, and even had the audacity to encourage people to visit the crowded streets of Chinatown?

At what point do we start to question their bold declarations?

Can we really trust the same people who, in a complete panic after being wrong, first said “two weeks to stop the spread” and then somehow transitioned this into months of lockdowns?  Can we trust the people who, months ago, laughed off the concerns about vaccine cards being turned into a sort of passport and are now pushing for that very thing?  What can be for a President who is on record, before the election, saying he would not mandate vaccines and is now trying to impose that very policy?  

Supposedly they’re completely trustworthy this time around?

Anyhow, each day I hear stories, that man a friend knew who faithfully wore a mask, had two shots, and then died after becoming sick from the Covid virus.  We have the trickle of stories about vaccine related health complications, contaminated injections resulting in deaths and recalls of millions of doses, warnings from the very inventors of the mRNA technology, and yet told that we’re a conspiracy theorist to question.  Those blinded by confirmation bias will never see.

Raped — But Not Devalued

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I was on the elevator down from the psych ward, having visited a friend in a bit of a rough patch and struck up a conversation with one of the other riders.

As it turned out, she was a psychologist, visiting a friend (not her patient) who was not doing so well.  This young man, now catatonic, had once had it all together. He was a standout athlete, had a girlfriend who was gorgeous, and then something happened that turned his world upside down.

What would take the feet out from under a strong and healthy male?

He was raped.  

While in the military, the Navy as I recall, he was forced by another man and this started his downward spiral.  It is not possible to know, having never gone through anything similar myself, what happened in this young man’s mind.  But one can imagine, if he had an identity and self-worth built around his ability to protect, being overpowered in this way would have to be absolutely devastating to him.

How could he provide security for a woman if he couldn’t even defend himself from an assault?

His relationship, his life, his will to live, crumbled.  This one experience, possibly over in minutes, probably not doing him lasting physical harm, broke him mentally and turned him into a shell.  I have no idea of what became of him.  Did he find a way to bounce back, form a new identity, move on from the trauma and overcome?  Or has he withered away into nothing?

More Common Than Thought

One of my first encounters with a victim of sexual abuse was in school.  A friend of mine, from elementary school all the way through high school, told me that he had been molested by his stepbrothers while living in Texas with his biological dad.  I had always felt bad for Justin. He was socially awkward and bullied by classmates, had a domineering mother, and came out of the closet later on as a teenager.

I’m also had some very close female friends that have told me about being raped.  Their stories are very similar.  A trusted male, often a boyfriend, talks them into a place where they are unable to escape his sexual aggression.  In all of these cases, to head off any assumptions, there was no alcohol involved.  They were good morally upright girls who were too trusting of a male ‘friend’ who stole their innocence and left them feeling completely broken.

Then there’s Adam, the school friend who took his life a few years ago, victimized as a child by a predator college professor.  His alcoholism and failed relationship no doubt, in part, linked to this experience.  I mean he let me in on this secret, and many years after it happened, so it was obviously still part of his thought process.

At one point in my life all of this was unthinkable.  I was in a home that offered stability and protection, with two good parents.  I’m sure there were things that I did not know about, but my community seemed mostly healthy and safe.  There was simply no reason for me to assume this sort of violating behavior was common.  So statistics about 1 out of 5 women being victims of rape seemed impossible.

It is truly understandable that many who were raised in sheltered homes are in denial of the extent of this problem.  It makes sense that they would try to explain it away as the promiscuous putting themselves in a compromised position.  It is probably a good thing when the reaction is disbelief. Most men aren’t rapists and would be horrified, like I was, if they heard a story firsthand from someone they love.

Boundaries and Consent

As part of my culture, and also my lingering shyness, it is difficult for me to so much as give a woman a hug.  It’s actually very frustrating to me, that I’m so awkward in this regard and would almost need to ask permission rather than simply make the read.  Why is this?  Well, it only seems right to respect another person’s space.  Intimacy is supposed to be reserved for special people, right?

It actually makes me livid to see even a boy too grabby with a girl too early, even if she seems to be enjoying it, because he’s treating her as an object.  And yet this sort of ‘confidence’ is often rewarded.  The women who think that every man is a rapist may have simply spent way too much time with men who do not respect their or any boundaries. 

And, yes, men who pressure with “if you love me you will…” are evil. 

Period.

Rape is a product of an entitled mind, a psychopath, someone who sees other people as something to be exploited for their pleasure.  Sure, maybe they can turn on the charm and blend into normal society, but their true character is revealed when there is nothing to stop them.  Be it in a back alley or her bedroom that he talked himself into while her parents were away, rapists exploit the vulnerable.

Incidentally, this is why I’m still in favor of at least one aspect of traditional courtship.  If a man can’t keep his hands off of your body for a few dates, if there is any unwanted pressure whatsoever to be physically involved, then maybe find someone who is interested in you rather than merely sexually attracted to your physical form.  If a man can’t commit to a relationship without sex, he certainly isn’t the type to commit after sex.

Lust and Self-control

In the animal kingdom there is no such thing as consent.  Often the strongest, most competitive, male gets to mate and by simply overpowering the female.  He runs on instinct, male hormones, testosterone, and is basically acting out his natural programming.  We don’t generally describe a buck “in the rut” as being a rapist because we do not see the animal as capable of complex moral reasoning.

And humans do have these similar underpinnings too.  Men, for the most part, are more aggressive, and women tend to be more submissive, agreeable, etc.  It is simply the substance we’re made of in the same way it is for any other animal.  We’re instinctive creatures that seek out, and imagine, the things we want.  But we also have a layer beyond this, a large frontal lobe in our brain, which gives us an extra capability for self-control.

Lust is often confused with simple desire for something.  Many in a strict religious upbringing, like my own, are made to feel extremely guilty for looking upon a fair maiden and finding her desirable.  But that’s not lust, that’s healthy sexual attraction and not a sin.  What is lust is when we dwell on something that’s not ours to take. That is a path that can lead to rape, as in this Biblical account:

Amnon became so obsessed with his sister Tamar that he made himself ill. She was a virgin, and it seemed impossible for him to do anything to her. […]
So Amnon lay down and pretended to be ill. When the king came to see him, Amnon said to him, “I would like my sister Tamar to come and make some special bread in my sight, so I may eat from her hand.” David sent word to Tamar at the palace: “Go to the house of your brother Amnon and prepare some food for him.” […] 
But when she took it to him to eat, he grabbed her and said, “Come to bed with me, my sister.” “No, my brother!” she said to him. “Don’t force me! Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don’t do this wicked thing. What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel. Please speak to the king; he will not keep me from being married to you.” But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her.

(2 Samuel 13:2‭, ‬6‭-‬7‭, ‬11‭-‬14 NIV)

Awful!

The sad part is that when Amnon’s lust was satiated, he discarded his half-sister (not biologically related) as if his sin were somehow her fault.  Incidentally, this violence did not go unavenged. Amnon was eventually killed by the victim’s brother, Absalom.  But this lack of self-control seemed to plague David’s house.

Considering what king David did to have another man’s wife, we could say “like father like son” to explain what happened here. 

Rabid Dogs Are Put Down

In the end, we all have sexual desires. Attraction is natural and not something to be ashamed about.  But, when this crosses over into lust, when we choose to dwell on something unattainable and scheme to have it through immoral means, that’s a choice and what separates us from animals.  The reprobate tries to hide behind their urges and impulses. 

If a dog can’t keep from biting we’ll put it down. 

Should a person with no self-control, who harms others because of their unwillingness to rein in their lusts, be treated any differently?

I know Jesus said, pertaining to those who harm the “little ones” (referring to those young in the faith, not necessarily children), that it would be better that a millstone be hung around the neck of those who do these things and they be cast into the sea.  He may not have been talking specifically about sexual abuse and yet, knowing what this sin does to those who have fallen prey, I’m quite certain it’s included.

Jesus never said, “if she’s wearing a skimpy outfit, then she shares some of the blame,” but he did say, in the context of lust, If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out…” (Matthew 5:29a NIV) 

Good people do not create scapegoats.

Godly men do not blame women.

Your Body Is Not Your Worth

The more important message of this blog, and my main reason for writing it, is to tell those who have been through this kind of trauma this: Your rape is not a reflection of you or your value.

As one who fully appreciates the human form, especially that of the female body, and completely desires physical intimacy, it could be easy to treat our bodies as being one and the same as our being.  We show preference based upon stature, beauty, shape and other matters of outward appearance.   So it can feel as if this form we reside in is of greatest importance and, therefore, what happens to it a reflection of ourselves.

Women, traditionally, put value in their cleanliness or purity, men in their strength and ability to protect.  Our identity is often wrapped up in this external image.  Rape is an attack on the physical manifestation of these things and causes the victim to question their identity or value at a deeper level.  This is why, in mere moments, someone can be shattered.  They now see themselves as dirty or defiled, inadequate or weak, and thus of less value.

But the truth is that our human value has nothing to do with what others have done to our bodies and everything to do with how we choose to live.  

I’ve encountered toxic and nasty people, bitter, who have used the abuse they’ve experienced as an excuse to mistreat others.  I have also met those who have not been defeated, who are able to put the unpleasantness behind them, and even become a better person in the end.  This idea that we’re damaged goods or have lost our worth because of something that happened, through no fault of our own, is choosing to put our own value in our bodies.

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.

(Matthew 10:28a NIV)

There is so much more to our being than our physical form.  We might convince ourselves, based on the world’s obsession with the external, that our worth is in only these physical things.  But what matters, the real value we have, is our soul and that thing that can’t be touched. 

Age will eventually destroy our bodies. The tall youth will some day be hunched over, the strong man’s muscles will atrophy, wrinkles will spread on that angelic face.  The world abuses us, we will all likely face trauma even if not rape, and yet—if we know that value is something other than the physical—our worth will increase.

At the very least, no matter what anyone has done to your body, whether you were abused as a child, raped or whatever, I do not look at you as damaged or inferior. 

No, you are strong to keep going. There is a special beauty to a survivor that is not found in those sheltered.  And I believe there are more who agree with me than do not. 

Your value is in who you are and not what was done to you!

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.
(Luke 12:6 NIV)

Let the Seed Fall!

Standard

Some might wonder why I have such a visceral reaction to wokeism.  I have written a few no holds barred blogs trying to warn people of what this is and where it invariably leads.  But each time I write it feels as if my concern is not well-explained.  I mean, I know some probably read and ask, “why is Joel attacking these well-intentioned people?”

However, I’m having a moment of clarity and therefore will try to expound on why it is absolutely necessary to shock people out of their stupor.  The reality is that wokeism (or grievance culture) and religious purity culture are two branches off of the same tree.  Both patriarchal conservative men and those angry pink-haired feminists are trying to create a world without suffering.  Both, tragically, create more problems than they solve.

First, what is purity culture?  

As I experienced it, in the conservative Mennonite context, it was a branch of Biblical fundamentalism (Protestantism) that had been grafted in to the Anabaptist tree.  It was a legalistic perspective.  The pure life was to avoid vice (no drinking, dancing, going to movies, etc) and remain completely a virgin until marriage.  It is not that the aim is entirely bad, but there was also a lack of grace accompanying this perspective.

In other words, there was no room for failure.  It a hellscape of unchecked perfectionist tendencies.  People who should be diagnosed as having obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), along with other mental illness, viewed as being virtuous.  And the rest of us struggling to meet an unreasonable standard without the actual spiritual help we needed.  

For example, girls who thought they were ‘defiled’ for simply talking to a guy that they didn’t intend to marry.  And heaven forbid you did date and break-up.  Then you were damaged goods.  Cursed to walk the earth, like Cain, a stigma tattooed to your chest, a scarlet letter.  

To those steeped in this religious purity culture it was about saving the next generation.  It was a reaction to a world of promiscuity and failed commitments have produced far-reaching consequences.  And yet, while it does work for some, those who check all the right boxes, it permanently marginalize others and gives them no real road to redemption.  Divorced and remarried?  Tough luck, you’ll need to break up that successful loving family to become a Mennonite.

That’s the purity culture I know all too well and, for reasons I’ll get to later, have fully rejected as being unChrist-like and spiritually void.

Wokeism, despite the vast difference in appearance to what I’ve described above, is another subset of purity culture.  It is a reaction to the ‘privilege’ of those who better represent the cultural ideal.  It is another form of utopian idealism.  

Whereas the latter religious variety of purity culture believes that if their children only kiss one person, never experience the pain or disappointment of a break-up, then heaven will come to earth—the ‘woke, by contrast, believe that if everyone was forced to tolerate their ugliness and embrace their toxic grievance; if they could live free of further offense, then they would be fulfilled.  

Both forms of purity culture are offshoots of Western values.  They both see suffering as a flaw in the system and try to eradicate it through their own means.  And they do have their valid points.  No, the girl, the victim of sexual abuse, who (because of her loss of self-worth) goes from one guy to the next, should not be called a slut.  But, that said, nor should her unhealthy coping behavior be normalized.  Instead, we should stop seeing people as damaged goods because they failed to reach some sort of phony cultural ideal.

The truth is, the woke, as much as they attack whiteness.  Or the feminist who acts aggressively and looks to a career as being freedom.  The patriarchal father, as much as he claims to be protecting.  Are all the thing that they despise most.  Religious purity culture, sadly, is hypersexual in focus and produces conflicted men like Bill Gothard, Doug Philips and Josh Duggar.  Feminism amounts to a form of female self-loathing that unwittingly idealizes the male role.  And so-called social justice is simply a means to manipulate and enslave another group of people.

All of them assume that if a person could simply avoid pain and bad experience they would find their completeness.  All seek a kind of perfection outside of Christ and very quickly, despite their wonderful intentions, turn into a dystopian hell.  

What is wrong is this idea that pain us is less for our good than pleasure.  The religious, ignoring the lesson of Job, neglecting what Jesus said about the tower tower of Siloam or the man blind from birth, see suffering as a sign of God’s displeasure and a punishment.  Likewise, the woke want to be embraced without repentance, if they would simply be called clean then they could finally escape their terrible anguish, right?

The truth is, bad experience is part of life and as beneficial as the good.  Growing up in a single parent home can be an excuse or a motivation to do better.

This is what makes the story of Jesus so compelling.  Unlike us, he was completely innocent, his intentions were pure and should have been loved by all.  But, instead of embrace him, his own people saw him as a threat, he would undermine their system and perspective, show them for what they were, thus had to be eliminated.  That he was executed with criminals would seem like a humiliating defeat.  He suffered and died for what?

The tree of life.

However, it was in this suffering that salvation came.  Sure, the burden of the cross comes with anguish.  We would rather seek pleasure and avoid pain.  However, in Jesus, the cross is transformed from being a brutal instrument of death into a well of eternal life.  How?  It is in the same way that a seed falls to the ground, is buried and leads to new life.  

Why would we cling to the seed or refuse to let it be buried and prevent the tree?

The overprotectiveness of religious purity culture, the refusal to acknowledge our brokenness and need of transformation of wokeism, both try to find salvation by human means.  One seeks to impress God, like the rich young ruler or proud Pharisee, whereas the other (like Cain) demands that God accept their unworthy sacrifice and then murders their righteous brothers.  Both need Jesus.

The wonderful cross

In conclusion. We’re all damaged goods and can be made more beautiful than ever through repentance. Jesus can make our pain as much a joy as our pleasure.