This is the ninth installment in The Sounds of Fundamentalism series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a clip taken from a sermon preached by an unnamed Alabama preacher.
Bethany Baird is a writer for the Lies Young Women Believe website. In a post titled 8 Ways to Fight For Purity, Baird gives sexually aware young women eight ways to sex-proof their lives. If young women follow Baird’s advice, they can be certain that they will never get laid until their wedding day. Isn’t that good news? Here’s Baird’s prescription for a sex-proof life:
Girlfriend, are you dating a young man who wants to get in your pants? Read the Bible, pray, and take up the shield of faith. How does this work? Evangelical Suzie is out with Billy Bob and Billy starts getting frisky. Should Suzie call a time out for Bible reading and prayer? In what universe would this EVER happen? As study after study tells us, Evangelical teenagers and young adults engage in sexual intercourse at roughly the same levels as their unsaved counterparts in the “world.” Instead of teaching sexually aware young women to be responsible for their sexuality and to plan for sexual intercourse, Baird presents a voodoo-list of spells she hopes will extinguish raging hormones. Spells, by the way, that do not work.
Baird should be honest with her readers. The only sure way to make certain young Christian women never, never do the dirty is to avoid any contact with the opposite sex, the same sex, or their index finger. If young men are the problem, shouldn’t young women just stay away from these horn dogs? Why not cut the temptation off at the source? Of course Baird won’t suggest this because she knows that young women want what young women want: boyfriends.
Baird, thanks to her fundamentalist indoctrination, lives in denial of basic human biology. Instead, she suggests that young women spiritually cross their legs, blocking access to their vagina. The minds of young women, honed by evolution, naturally desire to mate. If this wasn’t so, our species would have perished long ago. Instead of preaching the failed gospel of purity, people like Baird would better serve their readers if they talked honestly about human sexuality. Of course they can’t do this because the Bible says that any and all sexual activity (fornication) before marriage is a sin against God.
I’m all for teenagers understanding everything there is to know about sex. From biology to contraception, teenagers need to know the facts. Far more effective than Baird’s eight steps is sexual knowledge. Equipped with this knowledge, young adults can then determine when or if they want to have sex. Telling them to Just Say No (and No including masturbation) is setting up young adults for failure. Baird knows this, but she has to justify the continuation of her ministry, so she continues to guilt young women unto ignoring their sexual desires.
Let me finish this post with several of the comments that appeared on Baird’s 8 Ways to Fight for Purity. I think most readers will find these comments heartbreaking illustrations of what happens when young women buy into Baird’s guilt-inducing purity gospel:
(All grammar errors in the original. Each paragraph is a new comment)
I had sex outside of marriage. I feel so ashamed even if I prayed. Please pray for me. I know our God is a good and forgives but the guilt inside me is killin’ me and making me feel unworthy of God’s love.
I don’t know what to do… i masturbute. I know its wrong but I don’t feel sorry when I’m done. I don’t feel anything. I feel like I can’t stop. Pray for me!!!!’
Do you think that God still might call some young women/girls to be like Jephthah’s daughter and be dedicated to God to never marry and remain abstinate?
Love it! Sadly for me I have no Goddly girls in the area! I do have some that I have met, who are close with the Duggar family! A year ago I decided to come out of public school, and do an online school, and I am so thankful God put opportunity in my life. After a while, with all the time I had, I found the show 19 kids and Counting! They helped me to change my life (before I started to date because everyone was doing it!) So glad!!!! They helped me to realize that you don’t HAVE to do everything that the world does. God loves you, and you need to think about the future. Then I started a CHRISTIAN online school, and boy did that help! Anyway, excuse me for the long backstory. I, one day decided, to get one of my special rings that my Grammie gave me, and have it be my “purity ring!” Every time I look at it, I remind myself that God DOES care what I do and think about!!! The kind of purity I keep for myself is more on the moral side, and less on the physical purity side (because I don’t plan to date for a while, I’m 15!) So maybe you could just have your own purity ring, and wear it as a reminder! Mine isn’t fancy or anything! Hope it helps someone!
Note
Bethany Baird and her sister Kristen Clark blog at Girl Defined: Getting Back to God’s Design
The Evangelical church is built around one inviolable belief; that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God. This belief is irrational and intellectually bankrupt, but it is the one belief that binds every corner of Evangelicalism into a cohesive whole. Throw in a healthy dose of literalism and what you have is a recipe for emotional, mental and, at times, physical abuse.
Evangelicalism, for the most part, is patriarchal. God is a man (father), Jesus is a man (son), and the church is led by a man or men. In the home, the man is the head and his wife and children are to submit to him as unto the Lord. While egalitarianism has made some inroads in the Evangelical church, complementarianism is still the dominant family structure said to be approved by God. Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. Evangelicals are outraged over this decision. Why? Because it legalizes “sin” and goes against God’s divine order for the sexes. Evangelicals, thanks to their commitment to inerrancy and literalism, see same-sex marriage the same say they see egalitarianism; a rejection of God’s divine order for the sexes.
I think it is important to keep encouraging Evangelicals to talk out loud so the public can hear them. I hope they write lots of blog posts and opinion pieces and preach lots of sermons about same-sex marriage and the destruction of Christian America. The more they talk and write, the easier it is to show that Evangelicalism is, for the most part, a dangerous religious ideology. Let me give you an example of how dangerous Evangelicalism can be.
The man behind the blog Biblical Gender Roles, an anonymous writer who refuses to identify himself and who will now be called Coward Behind the Screen, recently wrote a post titled Is My Husband Raping Me? In a previous post titled Is a Husband Selfish for Having Sex with His Wife When She is not in the Mood, a married woman left the following comment:
“My husband and I have been married for 9 years. When I was pregnant with our first child we sat down and had a discussion about sex. I told him while I was pregnant there would be times when I probably would not want to have sex and if he did I understood and I would be willing to fulfill my duty and his desires………well it all went downhill from there.
I understand what the Bible states. I am a Christian however he is not. That being said when sex began to be painful because of pregnancy he did not care. I would receive the comment “It will only take a few minutes, and I’ll be quick.” Whatever, I took it. Did not hold a grudge. Got past it. The problem is, it has never stopped.
My husband has sex with me whether I want it or not, all of the time. It has tainted our marriage and our sex life to the point of disgust. Even when I would cry, he would still have sex with me. I can read a book and he will still have sex with me. I have tried to tell him how this makes me feel, I have begged and pleaded with him, not to do this to our marriage, that I feel like his whore, or his piece of trash, he does not care.
I have told him this is not love, this is not biblical love, I do not feel loved and he does not care. I hate when he touches me. It literally makes me sick to my stomach. I became so deep in depression because of it. I will be so sad and heartbroken after we have sex sometimes and he actually will ask, “What is your problem?”
I even went as far as to get drunk so I could have sex with him. Guess what….he thought that was the best idea ever, so he would make sure I would have enough alcohol in me to have sex. Even when I said I wanted to stop drinking, he would always make sure the fridge is full.
When I would beg to see a counselor, I would get a guilt trip of 100 reasons why I shouldn’t or cannot. Now I am so numb to it all, I put a pillow over my face, and say just get it over with. And still I am trying to be a Godly wife.
So please tell me how this is not sin. How this is not rape, or abuse of some sort. Because in my mind I feel like I am living with my molester every day. Yes he says he is sorry, he does try to get me in the mood. You can definitely tell when he want wants it, it is the only time he comes up behind me and holds me, and the nonstop sexual comments like “Why don’t you come sit on my lap?” Gross. And If I don’t have sex with him the sighing and whining is sooo overwhelming. It becomes a punishment.
When I’m upset after we have had sex, I get “You told me to do it, I don’t know why you are so upset”. I can go on and on. So as a Christian women do I just keep taking it and keep the smile on my face pretending everything is ok when it is killing me inside? And just a side note, I am not a feminist, I am very biblical when it comes to God’s way, and not being in this world but of this world. So I do get what you are saying about not denying your husband of sex.
But what do you do when it has turned into what yes I would call rape?
Coward Behind the Screen responded:
…Aside from his physically harming her by forcing himself upon her no he is NOT abusing his wife from a Biblical perspective. Even if he did physically force himself upon her – it is IMPOSSIBLE Biblically speaking for a man to rape his wife. Abuse? Yes. Rape? No. For a larger discussion of the Biblical impossibility of marital rape I refer you again to my post “Is a husband selfish for having sex with his wife when she is not in the mood”.
If he convinces her to yield her body to him, then no sin has been committed on his part. But it is very possible that even if she yields to him – there is still sin on her part. If she acts disgusted by him and acts like he has no right to have sex with her – then the sin lies squarely in her court. She needs to eliminate the terms “rape” and “molester” from her vocabulary regarding her husband’s sexual advances toward her…
…Perhaps if Christian wives in the situation described in this story would go to God and ask him to remove all bitterness in their hearts, submit themselves spiritually, mentally and sexually to their husband’s with a right heart they may have a chance of bringing their husband’s to Christ and as a result of that God can do wonderful things with their marriage…
…I have shown here that Biblically speaking this woman’s husband was not raping her. Did he sin in other ways? Yes. Is it possible for a husband to abuse his wife? Yes. Is it possible for him to rape and molest his wife? From a Biblical perspective the answer is NO. Christian wives must eliminate the terms “rape” and “molester” from their vocabulary were it references their relationship with their husband.
Anyone with a modicum of reason, decency, and respect for women should be outraged ove this man’s defense of marital rape. How can anyone defend such a belief? Simple, it’s in the Bible. Our 21st century view of sexuality, marriage, women, and family is very different from what is taught in the inspired, inerrant Evangelical Bible. Evangelicals like Coward Behind the Screen think the Bible is a timeless, perfect book, words from the very mouth of God. If the Bible says a wife is to submit to her husband, then she must have sex whenever he wants it. To not do so is a sin, a violation of the teachings of the Bible.
I wish I could say Coward Behind the Screen is an outlier and his beliefs are his alone. Unfortunately, they are not. Within the patriarchal movement, such beliefs are common. After all, it is in the B-i-b-l-e:
Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. (1 Corinthians 7:1-5)
According to the Evangelical interpretation of this passage:
Remember, this passage must be read with a patriarchal filter. The man is the head of the home. He is commanded by God to lead his family and wife in the way of the Lord, and that includes reminding his wife that she is to submit to him as unto the Lord. Never mind that, supposedly, Jesus was single, never married, and never even had a wet dream. Even Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 argues that it is better for people not to marry, that marriage is not the preferred way of living. Why? Because when a couple marries:
But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: but he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband. And this I speak for your own profit; not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction. But if any man think that he behaveth himself uncomely toward his virgin, if she pass the flower of her age, and need so require, let him do what he will, he sinneth not: let them marry. Nevertheless he that standeth stedfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth well. So then he that giveth her in marriage doeth well; but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better.(1 Corinthians 7:32-38)
Paul seems to say that marriage is a concession to the sexual weakness of Christian men. Since the horn dogs can’t contain themselves, they need to marry so they can have sex whenever they want to. And since the Old Testament law is no longer in force, the prohibition of sex during menstruation no longer applies. The wife is expected to have sex whenever her husband wants it, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
As long as the Bible is considered the inerrant, inspired Word of God, there are going to men like Coward Behind the Screen. Some of them will be pastors and evangelists who will use the power of the pulpit to shame women into conformity and submission. No matter how some within Evangelicalism try to dress up their abhorrent patriarchal beliefs, the fact is they believe woman are the weaker vessel, inferior to men and in need of their care and protection. What’s a little inconvenient, painful sex compared to the awesome spiritual guidance and protection given to you by your spirit-filled, Bible believing horn dog of a husband.
Note
I am sure an offended Evangelical will whine and complain that I am lumping all Evangelicals together. I am. Don’t like it? Change churches. I have no time or use for people who continue to belong to churches and organizations that promote demeaning and subjugating women, all in the name of God and his inspired, inerrant B-i-b-l-e.
In recent years, it has become fashionable to blame Baby Boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, for every perceived American social and moral ill. According to Larry Tomczak, the blame for the legalization of same-sex marriage belongs to the ‘Summer of Love’ generation. In a post titled 6 Lies from the Pit of Hell, Tomczak traces the moral decline of the United States from the drug using, free sex days of the 1960’s to the recent U.S. Supreme decision legalizing same-sex marriage. Tomczak, a one time associate of C.J. Mahaney and Sovereign Grace Ministries, writes:
…Beginning with the shocking assassination of President Kennedy in the ’60s, a flickering of Camelot–inspired hope was extinguished. Prayer and Bible reading were banned from our public schools and the “God is dead” pronouncement of 1966 fostered an era of skepticism and cynicism bleeding through our land.
It’s not like there was one defining event that triggered our current confusion, but when the turbulent 24 months of ’67 and ’68 erupted on the scene, clues emerge. Cultural analysts call this a “tipping point.”
The year 1967 was dubbed, “Summer of Love.” Scores of us naïve youth fell in line behind pied piper Scott McKenzie as we grabbed our knucklehead buddies and love beads and swayed with the wind all the way to San Francisco. Do you remember the song? “Are you going to San Francisco? You’re going to meet some gentle people there. … ” It almost moves you to put some flowers in your hair!
Millions of us idealistic young people and our counterpart “hippies” believed we were ushering in the long–awaited “Age of Aquarius” with all our peace symbols, free love and free speech. American psychologist Timothy Leary, took LSD and told us, “Turn on, tune in and drop out.” Seduced by our foolishness we declared, “Never trust anyone over 30!” while Pete Townshend and the Who exclaimed, “Hope I die before I get old!” (He’s now 70 and still cashing in on his musical career!). Soon thereafter, hundreds of thousands were sloshing in the mud at the Woodstock Festival—can you believe it’s been almost 50 years?
Jim Morrison, lead singer of the Doors, was my idol as I was a drummer in The Lost Souls. His moronic philosophy: “I’m interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos, especially activities that appear to have no meaning. It seems to me to be the road to freedom! ”
Slowly but surely, years of “freedom” took its toll. Time magazine called 1968, “A knife blade that severed past from the future.”
Casting off restraints to protest and launch the Gay, Women’s and Black Power Movements, the Sexual Revolution and the Drug Counterculture, we soon morphed into meltdown. The Civil Rights Movement was one positive initiative.
Pop idols Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison all were dead at age 27—overdosing on drugs, sex and unrestrained freedom. AIDS (GRID – Gay-Related Immune Deficiency, as it was called) followed. Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were assassinated. Student riots paralyzed Chicago. The Altamont Rock Festival degenerated into murderous mayhem right before Mick Jagger’s bloodshot eyes. Kent State University erupted in campus shootings over the still-simmering Vietnam War. Hippie communities and gay bathhouses started folding like houses of cards as Barry McGuire sang “Eve of Destruction.”
Abortion demands intensified as all the “Make love—not war” mantras spawned unwanted babies. Soon abortion was legalized.
Divorce laws were liberalized (today 80% of divorces are “no fault,” translating into 45 million divorces since the end of the ’60s!) Sexual standards evaporated and resulted in rampant pornography, skyrocketing out-of-wedlock births, one in every four teens strapped with a sexually transmitted disease, drug abuse, school violence, teen suicide, spousal and child abuse, violent crime, prison overpopulation, sexual anarchy, gender confusion, glamorizing and promotion of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, and transgenderism with gender reassignment surgeries. All of this proliferating since the now infamous “Summer of Love” soured to a stench…
Multitudes of people need a reality check to bring them out of a sentimental yet distorted remembrance of this period. We must remove the romantic recollections of this turbulent ’60s era. In contrast to PBS nostalgic specials highlighting the supposed peaceful and musical ’60s time period, we need to come down to earth and recognize the devastation that resulted. This was not a time that was all groovy, lovey, peaceful with flowing-hair, girls in granny dresses twirling in the park amid syrupy-faced guys with tambourines and doves flying around their heads as they harmonized in childlike unity, singing “Kum ba ya” and playing flutes while innocently getting high. This is a fantasy that needs to be shattered immediately…
Like many of his ilk, Tomszak pines for a return to the 1950’s; a time when Negroes knew their place, abortion and birth control was illegal, sodomites were still in the back of the closet, women stayed at home, divorce was rare, and Christianity ruled the land, In Tomczak’s mind, everything began to go downhill when God was thrown out of the public schools and hippies spent all their time smoking dope and screwing.
Tomczak mentions six lies, lies he says are from the pit of hell, that are now accepted by many Americans:
In typical Evangelical fashion, Tomczak shows he has no understanding of what those outside of his cult believe. He also assumes that the only legitimate standard of morality is his fundamentalist interpretation of the Christian Bible. Using Tomczak’s infallible moral standard, premarital, extramarital, and homosexual sex become abnormal, immoral, and unhealthy. An unwillingness to believe life begins at conception means that you believe human life has no value and should not be legally protected.
I don’t know many people who think that drug use is a “great recreational sport” or that divorce “offers an easy escape from marriage.” Do some people treat drug use as a recreational sport? Sure, but I have yet to see anyone suggesting we start the ADUL, the American Drug Use League. Long before the ‘summer of love’, humans were using drugs, legal and illegal, to alter their mood or emotional state. 2,000 years ago, Jesus turned water into wine. Unless Tomczak thinks Jesus turned the water into Welch’s grape juice, the wine provided by Jesus at the Wedding at Cana, was a mood altering drug.
And when it comes to divorce, what is really behind Tomczak’s objection to an “easy escape from marriage?” Is it because divorce is forbidden by the Bible or is the real reason women are now able to free themselves from abusive men? Perhaps the real issue is uppity women who dare to think they should be treated equally. Kick them shoes off, clean the house, cook supper, and have lots of little Christians, ladies! That’s your calling. Leave the hard work to men like Larry Tomczak.
The real reason men like Tomczak rage against liberalism and secularism is because they no longer have a preferred seat at the cultural table. They are upset that progress has moved the United States beyond the zenith of Evangelicalism, the 1950’s, when In (Christian) God we Trust was added to our paper money and allegiance to the Christian God was added to the Pledge of Allegiance. More and more Americans are indifferent or hostile towards Christianity and this has Evangelicals looking for someone to blame. For Tomczak, the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of long-haired tie-dyed wearing hippies.
Like every Evangelical guru, Tomczak has a plan:
Three things are essential for us to see societal transformation.
1. We must recognize the gravity of the situation.
2. We must cry out to God for wisdom and a sense of urgency.
3. We must pray and proclaim the gospel and truth at every opportunity as we engage outsiders in a winsome way.
This presupposes that we know the issues, the truth, and have the courage and confidence to speak out. “Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, wisely using the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you should answer everyone” (Col. 4:5-6).
Seeing the gathering storm clouds on the horizon, I recently pulled apart with my wife to a secluded cabin in the mountains of Tennessee. My assignment from God was to write a book that would be a tool to help shape informed influencers to make a difference in today’s confused culture. I pinpointed the 30 “hot button” issues of today.
God gave me a practical plan: Challenge people to take 30 days and invest 15 minutes a day in a 3 step process to develop a biblical worldview and confidence in addressing our country’s controversial issues: 1. Review a video—3 min. 2. Read an article—10 min. 3. Reflect and pray—2 min. The title of the book is Bullseye and it’ll help us “hit the mark” in sharing the gospel and biblical truth to dispel deception and foster spiritual awakening.
I invite your prayer support as we finalize this project. May this be one of many divine strategies given by God at this tipping point in America’s history.
“God” gave Tomczak a practical plan that is sure to “dispel deception and foster spiritual awakening.” For 30 days, 15 minutes a day, Tomczak wants like-minded Evangelicals to:
Oh, and he is writing a book he wants everyone to buy. There’s a-lw-a-y-s a money angle.
On his blog, Tomczak calls his plan the Bullseye Challenge (link no longer active). According to Dr. Michael Brown, a former “heroin-shooting, LSD-using Jewish rock drummer” and the “world’s foremost Messianic Jewish apologist”, Tomczak’s plan will turn Game of Thrones watching, NASCAR loving Republicans into a “confident communicator and change agent in today’s confusing culture.” So far, Tomczak’s blog post has ONE Facebook like and ZERO retweets on Twitter.
Want to know more about the Bullseye Challenge? Check out Tomczak’s video:
