Power Dynamics in Evangelicalism

Evangelicals treat people like shit. Almost every relationship between evangelicals turns into something parasitical where the dominant one feeds off the weaker one. You see this between parents and children in the quiverfull movement, where the children’s interests are trampled to enhance the ego and power of the parents, usually the man. You see it in most evangelical marriages, where the man either rules by naked power, threats, and sometimes violence, or the woman rules by manipulation, nagging, and withholding sex. You see it between pastors and congregations where the pastor uses guilt leveraging to control the behavior of the sheep.

These mechanisms for turning any human relationship into a power struggle are built into evangelicalism at every turn. On the one hand, you have a sexual ethic meant to shepherd men into monogamy, which decidedly plays to the woman’s advantage. On the other hand, you have gender roles, which is the man’s way of fighting back: I’m the man, I’m in charge. Suck it. Which gender plays the role of abuser varies from church to church, but you can usually tell right away which gender is in charge. This is the real battle line of evangelicalism, not calvinism or courtship or any of those silly little fights they always have. At root it’s a struggle for power, and all the little rules are the weapons people use to get the power for themselves.

At some point if you’re honest with yourself you’ve got to look for a better way to live. I can control my sex drive without having to wait until marriage. I can stand up to women without hiding behind gender roles. When I have kids, I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to earn their respect without having to abuse them emotionally, physically, and sexually (I consider spanking sexual abuse).

It’s truly disgusting and it only works on people who allow themselves to be abused, which means they have serious problems to start out with. This actually brings me to my larger beef with Christianity in general. Evangelicalism is Christianity for people who don’t know how to draw boundaries – but if you know how to draw boundaries, you’re not a true Christian. The people who swallow the “give everything to Jesus” and “don’t close off any part of your heart to Jesus” bullshit are the ones who suffer the most, because those are the guilt mechanisms that evangelical authorities use to gain power over people’s minds. All a “normal” Christian is is someone who SAYS they’ve given everything to Jesus but really haven’t. They’ve put him in a nice little box in their minds where him and his religious crazy can’t get out and mess up their lives, and they keep him fenced in by these little things called boundaries. The evangelicals really do give it all to Jesus. And their lives go to shit. I’ve seen it over and over and over again. Which means that what they’re opening up the most vulnerable part of their minds to is not a benevolent God who wants to renew and restore them, it’s a bunch of dirty scumbags who just want control.

Theism

My belief in God has basically come down to nothing more than two songs: “All Things New” by Steven Curtis Chapman and “Everlasting God” by Lincoln Brewster.

I used to love Christian music. There was just something about it, that, if you let yourself, you could lose yourself in. A sort of delicious freedom, something that made everything else fall away except the fact that God unspeakably, desperately loved you. Christian music brought me to my knees, overcome by the fact that somebody so powerful and infinite could love me so deeply. It was sublimely beautiful. It was what first led me to pick up a guitar, the idea that maybe, if I practiced hard enough, I could eventually capture the immense beauty of who God really is and convey that to people.

Of course, this was clouded the moment the music faded away by all the rules and insanity of evangelicalism, to the point where it destroyed the effect of the music and now it’s all just a bunch of triggers.

But I believe that in those moments that I clearly remember, and that were some of the most delicious of my life (before I started dating :-p), I experienced a little of what God truly is—and it has very little to do with Christianity. That’s why my allegiance to Christianity has finally flickered out, but still, these two songs never fail to give me chills.

You are the everlasting God

The everlasting God

You do not faint, you won’t grow weary

You’re the defender of the weak

You comfort those in need

You lift us up on wings like eagles.

The Everlasting God is the one who created all things, who reigns over it all. The one whose strength remains when our strength is gone. He is the defender of the weak, who comforts those in need. He made all things, he flung galaxies from his fingertips, yet when a small child is crying, he picks her up in his arms and wipes away her tears with those same fingertips.

That’s who God must be, because that’s what my soul needs.

You spoke and made the sunrise

To light up the very first day

You breathed across the water

And started the very first wave

 

Then the world was broken

Fallen, battered and scarred

You took the hopeless,

The life wasted, ruined, and marred

And made it new

 

You make the sun rise

Day after day after day

But there’s a morning coming

When old things will all pass away

And everyone will see

 

You make all things new

You make all things new

You redeem and you transform,

You renew and restore

You make all things new

You make all things new

And forever we will watch and worship you

Now and forever you are making all things new

I want to believe in a God who makes all things new. Who heals me and my heart just like he will eventually heal all of this marred creation. He redeems and transforms. He renews and restores. That’s the kind of God my heart reaches for.

These songs have almost become anthems of rebellion for me: every time I sing these lines about who God really is and what he really does, I am speaking truth against the lies of the evangelicals. It’s a counter-argument to the first twenty-five years of my life. This is the God I hold up against the ugly, cold, cruel god of the evangelicals, who is my advocate and my defender. Who is making right the wrongs they have done to me.

God creates people just to send them to hell. No. He redeems and transforms.

God condemns your longings for companionship as rejections of him. No. He’s the defender of the weak.

It makes God angry when you experience physical affection. No. He comforts those in need.

You’ve ruined your life by looking for love in the wrong places. No. He makes all things new.

Whoever God really is, these songs get to the heart of it. God is not the jealous, raging, obsessive, cruel Yahweh of the Old Testament, neither is he the smug, self-satisfied, nitpicky, cliquish Jesus of today. Maybe he was the Jesus that actually existed; I don’t know. I don’t know if that person was who his “followers” say he was; I can’t imagine he was anything else, because I imagine they would know who he was better than anybody else. And I can’t take that Jesus and make him what I wish he was, because he doesn’t belong to me. He belongs to the Christians, and they can have him.

I’ll take the Everlasting God.

Sh*tuff Christian Guys Say…and shit they say too.

This one’s not as good as the first, but I’m probably just biased.

This one’s better.

Sh*tuff Christian Girls Say

Oh HELLZZZZ yeah…

“God Has A Plan”

I don’t know about you, but one of the most goddamn insufferable things to me about Christians is their tendency to blame God for any bit of bad luck they or those around them happen to stumble upon. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard, nay, even sought out, the advice: “Well, just remember God has a plan for all the bad things that happen to you. One day they will all work together for good.”

It’s a nice thought, really it is. The problem is that it’s bullshit.

The bad things that happen to you may contribute to something wonderful down the road, or they may not. Most of them will just suck. They will make your life harder right now, and 20 years from now you will be able to look back and say, “Yup, that still sucked.” Inspirational, I know.

There are two main problems with taking the God-has-a-plan attitude:

1. Shit no longer happens; God does it to you. Which means that you are now not just a human being, you are a victim. Life is no longer simply unfair, it’s now an unavoidable exercise in taking divinely mandated ass-rapings. And since they’re done for your own good, you should be thankful for the ass-rapings. This is so totally a healthy way to think.

2. Bad luck is your fault. Which means there’s something wrong with you. So now every speeding ticket, every rainy day, every bounced check, every breakup, every missed opportunity, every ATM that’s out of cash becomes a divinely-mandated reason to excoriate your very soul in search of the glaring sin that brought such ill fate upon you. This, again, has wondrous effects on the human psyche.

Victim complexes and self-obsession. Apparently, they do a body good.

So the next time somebody says this:

“Maybe that’s God’s way of trying to teach you patience,”

You should reply:

“Maybe me pistol-whipping your ass would be God’s way of teaching you to shut your sanctimonious dickhole. But I don’t know; you’re the expert.”

Random Problems I Have With Christianity

In no particular order:

The Authority of the Bible – Where does it come from? Every time I ask a Christian this question they embark on an infinite regression designed to show me that as long as the Bible has been around, people have thought it was authoritative. What this boils down to, of course, is the exact same rationale behind fiat money—it has value because people say it does. But it’s actually real simple. The Catholic Church proclaimed the Bible the Word of God in the 4th century and it has been the “Word of God” ever since. So much so that Christians who hold the Catholic Church in complete contempt still swear on, well, the Bible, that the book that was declared the Word of God by the church they hate is exactly what they say it is. Even though they’ve plucked out the books that they didn’t like, and thus basically created their own Word of God. So the question remains—why exactly is the Bible the Word of God? It was, after all, written by men. Like me. Who I’m free to disagree with if they say stupid shit like…

Women Should Shut Up in Church Because Eve Sinned First – The Christian attitude toward women is reprehensible. Read I Timothy 2: “Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.” That’s the Bible, people. If you’re a Christian, you have to accept it. But I’d rather not accept it, because I believe in human dignity.

Back to the Bible’s Authority Real Fast – Actually, the argument that “the church has believed this for thousands of years” is very common as a defense of Christian practices and beliefs. It’s also a fallacy. People believed that slavery was right for thousands of years, but that doesn’t make it right. More on that later. It doesn’t matter how long any number of people have believed anything; they might still be wrong. This is such basic logic that it’s impossible that Christians don’t grasp it; it’s more likely that they’re simply ignoring it. Speaking of ignoring basic logic…

Calvinism – It doesn’t matter whether Calvinism is scriptural or not; the fact that tons of people can read the Bible and get Calvinism out of it still scares the hell outta me. It boggles my mind how people can believe Calvinism—it’s both completely illogical and extremely depressing. Talk about redefining morality. I don’t know how they can sleep at night knowing, as they must, that every time they praise God for choosing them to go to heaven, they are actually praising him for sending someone else to hell. Some people think if Calvinism is scriptural they have to become Calvinists. I take the opposite view. If Calvinism is scriptural, scripture can go to hell.

The Christian Sexual Ethic – “Just wait until marriage” is a junior-high level sexual ethic. It’s really simplistic and creates just as many problems as it solves. According to Christian standards, I would have to accept that a married couple with 19 biological children is exhibiting sexual responsibility, while a man who has protected sex with a girlfriend he loves and cares for is not. And that’s bullshit. The morality of sex is defined by numerous factors, including affection, trust, consent, and provision for consequences, not by a magic ceremony that suddenly flips the tables of right and wrong. On this one, people always tell me I’m just reacting to fundamentalism. I would invite those people to go read “On Marriage and Concupiscence” by Augustine, a document that outlines his belief that any sex act undertaken for any purpose other than reproduction is a sin—any sex act, even within marriage. An attitude that I still see shadows of everywhere I look in Christianity. And Augustine was definitely not a fundamentalist.

Joshua Was Not a Hero – If you’re a Christian, you pretty much have to consider Joshua a hero of the faith. It occurred to me the other day: he was actually a genocidal mass murderer. He also killed a man’s entire family for something that only the man (Achan) had done. “But God told him to do it!” Suuuuuuure. You would sure as hell not accept that excuse if somebody used it today, so why do you accept it when used 3,000 years ago? Oh right, because the church has always believed it. My bad.

Slavery was Protected in the Mosaic Law – Joshua’s example notwithstanding, I understand the concept that not everything done in the Old Testament was done with God’s explicit sanction, but that the characters were real people who made mistakes and sometimes did reprehensible shit. However, the Mosaic law, according to the Bible, was spoken directly from the mouth of God. And if you dig into that shit it gets ugly. Try this on for size:  “And if a man beats his male or female servant with a rod, so that he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he remains alive a day or two, he shall not be punished; for he is his property” (Exodus 21:20-21). Perhaps the Mosaic law was an improvement over other ancient legal codes. Perhaps it was even the best ancient legal code. But to say it came straight from the mouth of God? It didn’t. God doesn’t think people are property, so he wouldn’t say that they are. Slavery is one of the most evil things that humankind has ever done to itself, and there’s no way that a God who had any shred of justice would tolerate it among his “chosen” people.

Christianity Redefines Morality – I blogged about this before. There’s a difference between ethics and piety. Ethics is basically the golden rule. “That’s Christian!” you exclaim. Not so fast. Pretty much every culture on earth has independently arrived at the golden rule as the foundation of their ethics. And yes, Jesus affirmed the golden rule. Most, if not all religions have something to say about ethics, and Christianity is no different. However, no religion, including Christianity, is primarily concerned with ethical systems. They are primarily concerned with explaining where those ethical systems come from. And their pronouncements regarding right and wrong usually revolve around some form of veneration of a deity.

This is actually a subtle rejection of ethics. Religion takes ethics, which is the use of reason to discover what is right and wrong, and substitutes piety in its place. Piety is fidelity to one’s religion. And it has nothing to do with ethics. Piety cannot be discovered by reason; it must be conveyed directly from the Divine by someone authorized to speak on His behalf. Sometimes serving God means honoring your parents, being faithful to your wife, and giving to the poor. Sometimes it means sacrificing your children to a bronze statue. It all depends on which religion you choose. But even one of the best and most ethical religions—Christianity—ultimately falls short. I’ve already given examples of how Christians accept certain instances of historical slavery and genocide because it’s the pious thing to do. There’s more.

Ever wonder why so many pastors get away with murder, adultery, fraud, embezzlement, rape, tax evasion, etc? It’s because the pastor’s followers have rejected ethics and substituted piety. The pastor preaches from the pulpit exactly what I said at the beginning of this section: “Christianity—Jesus—redefines morality.” And everybody oohs and ahhs and begins to think something that I’ve heard evangelicals say multiple times: “It doesn’t matter whether you’re a good person or a bad person, because we’re all sinners. What matters is whether you love Jesus.” If you can’t hear the rejection of ethics in that statement, it’s because you don’t want to. The truth is that it does matter whether you are a good person or a bad person. It will make all the difference in your life. And there are very bad people who believe in Jesus, and very good people who don’t. But once your morality has been redefined, you can no longer see this. All you see is that Muslims and Hindus and gays and lesbians and Democrats and people who are richer than you and people who are poorer than you are BAD PEOPLE, and your pastor is a good person. Even if he’s paying for sex and spending your tithe check on cocaine. And when the story finally breaks and the truth comes out, Christians just stand there racking their brains, trying to figure out why this happens over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

I Can Explain Away 99% of What Happens When People Pray – Seriously? God gave you a wife because you prayed for one? Here’s what happened, dude. When you prayed for God to give you a wife, for the first time in your life, you relaxed and you had confidence. Which are pretty much the two most consistent traits of single people the day before they meet The One.

This is just one example. Bottom line, you see what you want to see.

Christianity Tends Toward Fundamentalism – True, not all Christians are fundamentalists. But Christianity has shown a propensity to slide into fundamentalism time and time and time again (which is no different from many other religions). Funny thing: a lot of Christians, even my priest, will defend Christians by saying that they’re normal people and the people who turned me off to Christianity were all weird fundamentalists. And then he’ll get up behind the pulpit and say that if we look and act just like the world, we’re bad Christians. So basically normal people aren’t real Christians. Which raises the question, who is? I’ve found that whenever somebody begins a statement by saying “If we really loved Jesus we would…” the best thing to do is RUN. RUN VERY FAST. The trick is finding a church where people don’t say this all the damn time. Really, the only Christians who aren’t in danger of sliding into fundamentalism are those who already have, and have now recovered. They are pretty much the only kind of Christians I like. Oh that reminds me…

I Don’t Like Christians – Christians, by and large, are shitty people. As mentioned above, they don’t care whether or not you’re a good person, they only care whether or not you love Jesus. And aren’t sleeping with your girlfriend. And aren’t gay. And look like them. And don’t cuss. And…

Christianity Doesn’t Make Me Happy – Here it is. When my life sucks, I take no comfort from the idea that Somebody is actively up there doing this shit to me. I’d rather just believe that shit happens and the only question is how I’ll respond to it. If Somebody is doing it to me, that introduces guilt and resentment because now I have to answer the question of why he would do that to me. And finally…

All the Christians Who Read This Whole Thing will Ignore Almost Everything I Said and Just Start a Massive Debate About Calvinism.

New Year’s Reorientation

This gonna be nice and honest…

I’m feeling really worn down by my history this week. I think it’s being back in the U.S. for a few weeks and interacting with intelligent, attractive, single, English-speaking girls again (not that Japanese girls are anything less than beautiful and classy; it’s just kinda hard to communicate with them). I know how much progress I’ve made over the last six years but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m awkward, unintelligible, and just plain unattractive and that I’m doing everything horribly wrong. And I’m not even trying to DO anything–I’m just hanging out and catching up with friends, some of whom are girls. I’ve wondered if maybe there’s potential with some of them, but I’ve forced myself to put those thoughts out of my head and just concentrate on being friendly–since I’m still overseas for another year at least and I’ve made a firm decision not to stir up feelings that have no chance of going anywhere–and now I feel guilty for that too! Like I’m shutting myself off from solid options when, in reality, I’m just being smart and considerate.

I hate hate hate being a product of courtship philosophy. I hate it. It just never goes away. You always feel awkward if you so much as tell a girl she looks beautiful, much less try to kiss her or anything like that. And I’m trying not to put pressure on myself to do those things because I’m just trying to swear off pressure in general. But there’s always a voice in the back of my head telling me that if I don’t make any moves I won’t be “exciting” enough for any girl I would actually fall for. If I make any moves, of course, there’s lots of other voices telling me that I’m dishonoring her and turning her into an object blah blah blah. And with all the voices going on I can’t really hear common sense, or her body language, or anything else I should be listening to rather than all my fears.

I am happy being single for the first time in my life. I’ve finally accepted myself as a real, interesting, awesome person all by myself. I don’t get bored as much as I used to, I don’t feel an immense weight of loneliness crashing in on me, I don’t envy happy couples I hang out with and then go home and cry. I’m OK.

In Japan, anyway.

Here it seems like the stakes are higher and all the baggage just comes crashing back in.

Maybe that’s why I’m posting again. The last month or so I’ve felt emotionally drained, devoid of creativity, and not really wanting to face all the misery, shame, and loneliness that courtship, Christian dating, quiverfull, homeschooling, and related philosophies have caused. I just want to leave it all behind and start over with real people who haven’t sold their souls to some religious ideal.

But I want to do this; I want to make a difference. There are more and more voices speaking out every day against these forms of abuse, and that gives me hope for the future. It has already been immensely reassuring this year as I’ve realized that there are TONS of people like me and that having a weird fundamentalist past gives me common ground with A LOT of people. Better people, in fact, than the one-dimensional paper dolls our culture glorifies. And better than the sick minds who stay at the helm of these twisted movements.