Friday night I embarked on a top secret mission with Hemant of Friendly Atheist (who has his thoughts on our adventure here). Hemant brought the event to my attention. Because I like him so much and I’m a bit of a masochist, I agreed to tag along. We headed to Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL for the Focus on the Family Celebrate Family Tour:
If you’re not familiar with FotF, you should be tipped off by the fact that “Family” is in their name. I’ve ranted about them here before – about them calling Harry Potter witchcraft, spreading misinformation about gay parenting, and wasting money on misleading pro-life Super Bowl ads. I’m not exactly a fan of this conservative Christian organization, but I was willing to listen for a night out of curiosity and the desire for blog fodder.
Hemant and I had some fun hyping this up in our minds. …Okay, so it wasn’t exactly a spy mission since anyone could attend and when we signed up we used our real names. Yeah, awesome spies. But I still had the Mission Impossible theme song playing through my head, and we even made up aliases. I was his wife (woo, take that fangirls!) who was trying to show my heathen husband why Christianity was so awesome. We picked 3/14 as our anniversary because we’re nerds and that’s the only date we could remember.
We later discovered we were terrible spies because 1) A good Christian woman would have taken her husband’s last name, 2) We didn’t have wedding rings, and 3) I know diddly poop about acting like a Christian. I also tried to fit in by wearing my Sunday’s best, but I later realized the new Christian fashion is all about capris. Seriously, every woman there was wearing capris. I think this was just a ploy to get me into a skirt for the first time in years.
Proof for the skeptical. Also, yay Christ and his kingdom.Hey, at least we were smart enough to take Hemant’s car. My Darwin Fish, Obama sticker, and Republicans for Voldemort sticker probably would have given us away.
Anyway.
I’m not going to spend time discussing certain Christian tropes that you hear all the time (“It’s not about you, it’s about God,” “God saved me from death! …but not from breaking my legs,” etc). 1) I’ve discussed them before, and 2) I can discuss them later – they’re not exactly specific to this particular event. So even though many things had me facepalming, I’ll save them.
The event had about 1,000 people in attendance. It opened with FotF President Jim Daly sharing some personal stories and explaining the different programs that FotF organizes. FotF is known for its rabid pro-life and anti-gay marriage stances, so I was impressed by how much good they actually are doing (or at least attempting to do). I wasn’t aware that FotF was so active in encouraging adoption* or providing marriage counseling (though we could debate how useful Christian counseling is over getting counseling from a psychologist…).
*(An aside on the adoption thing. Apparently one of the higher-up officials with the Colorado adoption agency, a Dr. Sharon (missed her last name), told FotF that “The best homes for these kids are Christian homes” and wished there were more of them. This may have been said in confidence, but wow. Kind of not a good thing if a government employee is viewing a certain religion as superior when deciding who gets to adopt children.)
I have to give them props for being aware of this problem – people not knowing about their good works. They mentioned it several times throughout the night, and stressed the idea that “If we want people to believe in Christianity’s message, we need to show them the actual good it’s doing.” Again, we could debate if that message is true or not, but I’m all for Christians being less hypocritical when it comes to being moral/doing good works.
Some of the stuff he said was definitely silly though. Apparently 9 year olds are never supposed to say “no” to their parents. Yep, train your children to be good little unthinking drones! Oh, and Nick at Night is horrible television for your child to be watching. That explains why I turned out the way I did. Thanks a lot, I Love Lucy.
The main part of the program was with Dr. Emerson Eggerichs of Love and Respect Ministries and his wife Sarah (…is it bad that this makes me think of the Ministry of Love from 1984?). They mostly discussed the following quote from Ephesians 5:22-33:
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything… 33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Of course, when I say “they,” I mean Emerson did almost all of the talking while Sarah just sat there and looked pretty. I’m not sure why she was even there, other than so they can say “Look, we’re progressive and including women in our discussions!” …Except not really.
Emerson’s main message was that this passage wasn’t about submission, but about the different ways men and women communicate. He claimed women desire to be loved, and men desire to be respected. This claim was “supported” by a poll FotF did of its members – not exactly a scientific study of all men and women. During conflict, when women feel unloved they respond with disrespect, and when men feel disrespected they respond by being unloving. This starts what he refers to as the “crazy cycle” where a fight will just escalate until, apparently, someone realizes the Bible is telling them to stop.
While I appreciate the attempt to say this isn’t about submission (but not some of his pot shots at feminists), it’s still just replacing one stereotype about men and women with another. Great, women don’t have to “submit” to men – but we’re hyper emotional beings that communicate completely differently. He even referred to women as having “Pink glasses, pink hearing aids, and pink megaphones.” Next time someone doesn’t understand me, I’ll try to put away the pink megaphone, I guess.
This part of the program got kind of old after a while – Emerson just basically repeated the same thing for an hour. But then we got to see the comedian Jeff Allen perform. He was actually really funny – we were a bit doubtful at the beginning what a “Christian comedian” would be like. Some of his jokes were about God or religion, but they were ones anyone would find amusing, even a couple of atheists.
I should say, he was really funny most of the time. At the end of his act he felt the need to lay the evangelizing on thick, and tell a serious story about how finding Christ saved his life, etc etc. It wasn’t lame because it was about Jesus or Christianity – I was eating up the rest of his skit. It just…wasn’t funny. His job was to be a comedian, so it just came off as totally awkward to get up on his soap box. It would have been equally awkward if a comedian started going off on how awesome atheism is without actually making any jokes.
Not to mention this was the one moment of the night someone decided to take pot shots at atheists. I made sure to take some quick notes on what I learned about myself:
Yep, the whole atheists are depressed canard. It never gets old, does it?! Hemant and I decided we weren’t living up to our atheist standards, and we needed to angst and shoot up heroine more. Or something like that.
There were a couple of general things that struck me as odd, from the perspective of an outsider looking in:
1. Well, feeling like such an outsider. Even though no one knew Hemant and I were a couple of atheists (I promise we were respectful through the whole thing), I still felt out of place. As someone who was not brought up in a Christian household, there are just so many cultural things I don’t know about. Certain phrases or ideas seemed to elicit unanimous mumbled praise from the audience… usually the phrases that I found particularly silly or contemptible. And the way all heads instantaneously snapped down when a prayer started was just odd to someone who hasn’t been trained to do those mannerisms.
Not to mention the inside Christian jokes. Apparently Lutherans are very “cerebral”, and this titillated the audience. Anyone care to explain this in-joke to me?
2. FotF seems to think that any sign of interest is equivalent to winning over supporters. They’ll probably love this blog post if they find it. I don’t know if this is wishful thinking or purposeful spin, but it popped up a lot. For example, Daly made a comment how the former President of the National Organization for Women supported FotF’s right to have a pro-life Super Bowl ad. Daly quipped with a grin, “You know something’s going on,” referring to her support. Yeah, an understanding of freedom of speech is going on.
Another example of this is when they mentioned how 27 non-Christian Comcast staff members were helping them film one of their events. The staff mentioned they had never heard religion discussed that way before, and asked for more information. More information does not automatically mean you converted all of those people – but that’s how FotF framed it. I often ask for more information from religious people when I think they’re particularly wacky, not correct.
3. The Christian Veneer. I can’t get over this phenomena. Most of what FotF was saying throughout the night in terms of families and relationships with your spouse was fairly relatable and sane. It was the same sort of advice you’d hear from many secular self-help books like the typical Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus idea (as untrue as that may be).
…But then they had to go and slap Jesus all over it. Is it not enough to just love your spouse, respect their feelings, and compromise a little with them without having a Bible verse telling you to do it? Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and atheists have the same problems and the same solutions. It’s not the Bible that’s giving you the answers – you’re just cherry picking things from the Bible that happen to fit your solution… after you’ve come to it.
4. They didn’t mention gay marriage at all. Hemant and I were both really disappointed. We figured with their fervent anti-gay marriage stance and the recent Prop 8 ruling that they’d be sure to say something. Nada. I guess it just wasn’t the topic of the night. But if anything, I’m now convinced we need more gay marriages because of this event. I mean, the whole thing was about how marital strife comes from men and women inherently communicating differently. If it was a man communicating with a man or a woman communicating with a woman, no problem, right?!
5. All the speakers seemed genuinely nice. This shouldn’t be shocking, but FotF has some platforms that are so nasty that it’s sometimes hard to separate the people from the ideas. I constantly have to remind myself that Christians go out of their way to evangelize and fight for their specific morals because they truly believe in them and care about people. It may be misguided and ultimately harmful, but they’re really doing it with good intentions. I’m sure any of the speakers would be great to chat with over tea… I just don’t want them making any sort of laws. Nor will I stop criticizing their viewpoints just because they’re trying to be nice – it just helps to know where these people are coming from when you do have to debate them.
I’m still no fan of FotF. While they’ve become a bit humanized to me, I still can’t support most of what their organization is doing. Adoption is awesome, but not when you only think heterosexual Christians make good homes. Marriage counseling is great, but not when you assume all other religions are doomed to have failed relationships. Continuing to perpetuate myths about atheists is…well, not so hot. And hell, one of their college programs focuses on teaching students about creationism and intelligent design – it was difficult for this evolutionary biologist to not start facepalming in the middle of the event.
You know, it would be nice if people from FotF would attend some of our godless events. Maybe we could become a bit more humanized, instead of representing depression and debauchery.
…As much as I do like debauchery.
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I want to commment on point #5 a bit. Christistians do care about people (by and large) but they care about their Sky Fairy much, much more. Their good intentions may be used while arguing against Christianity’s wacky thought-killing propaganda (as I tried to do in the link below).http://laughinginpurgatory.blo…I think Atheists argue too much from the head at times and try to win on points while distancing their opponent from Atheism.
You were lucky they didn’t recognize you because of Boobquake. They might have thrown holy water at you!
Thanks for doing this.I used to be a fairly Catholic lad, and in fact, most of my family still is. I, more or less, have fallen out of the church, mostly due to laziness and having wildly differing opinions from most of the Church.As such, I am very much aware of the opinions coming from both sides of the debate. What used to bother me though was the way both sides vilified the other. Ultimately, both sides really are arguing for what they think are right. Neither is intentionally trying to ruin the world. (That being said, I think I’d make an exception for Mr. Phelps. There’s no way you can be that vitriolic and not be downright insane.)So I’m glad to see someone come to that same conclusion. It’s nice to see someone give the opposing side the benefit of the doubt.All in all, good work, and such.
I’m glad you mentioned Christian marriage counseling versus secular marriage counseling. I have a friend who used to be Mormon until he went into clinical psychology. It is all but impossible to give counsel that is both in accordance with Mormon doctrine and conducive to good mental health. As for the stereotype that atheists are depressed, well, Utah has the highest rate of antidepressant use in the country.But I think point #5 is important too. Most religious people are sincerely trying to do what they think is right and kind. That doesn’t make them right. It doesn’t make the ideas any less vile, but it does make the people less vile.
Sounds like an interesting event. I’m not sure I could have gotten the strength up to go, to be honest, knowing what sort of hatred they’ve put out in the past. I can’t believe they didn’t mention Proposition 8; but this is a tour, so maybe they already had their setlist sorted out.
I have to disagree with #5. I don’t think that trying to help makes them slightly less vile. It makes them even more vile, in my mind. I take a ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse’ take on this. If your boyfriend/spouse truly comes to truly believe in religion and decides that you must submit to him and truly believes that in forcing you to submit, he is helping you… how is that better than him just smacking you around? If you truly believe that Homosexuals are evil/sinful/less-than-human and they deserve no rights, how does that make them slightly less vile?If someone reached comic book supervillany and told me, point blank, they were going to suppress the rights of Homosexuals because that would get them votes and they could assume power (nothing against Homosexuals, they are just standing in the way of my plot for world domination) I would find that less creepy than someone who will look you in the eye and tell you that these people are less than human, or evil in some inherent way.As Christians themselves say, the path to hell is paved with good intentions.
For some reason the phrase “Holy Water Wet T-shirt Contest” went through my head upon reading this. Hmmmm…
Excellent post! Thanks for going to one of those events and showing what the “other” side is up to. You can’t fight someone if you’re uninformed of what they are doing.
It was really interesting to read this post after reading your post about Greta Christina’s talk and viewing the video. Hearing about people getting beyond preconceived ideas and finding common ground and becoming more tolerant by actually coming in contact with people from that group-your reaction shows that a number of her insights are spot on.(although I’m sure if some of the attendees who have heard of you and Hemant had known you were there, they would have been disappointed to find his fingers uncovered with blood and stem cells from his last meal and you not setting up a booth to flash your breasts).You got it exactly right when you talked about their “insights” on family life-they aren’t much different than what you’ll hear from other groups, religious, cultural or whatever, except that they had to baptize them in bible verses and christian terms. Otherwise they would be suspect and lack certainty.The same thing with the comedian. To simply get up and tell jokes and be content at that wouldn’t be acceptable. Given the presuppositions of the group, entertanment for entertainment’s sake would be frivolous and a waste of time-in can only be justified in the light of making people open to hear “truth”. (that’s the same reason why so many christians have to perform christian music and share-their talent is worthless otherwise).As a group, they accept the idea “unless it comes from jesus, how can we know it is true?” And given their idea of the afterlife that comes with false beliefs, it makes for an incredibly effective carrot and stick.But there are practical concerns as well. Some people would buy their products to benefit their child, but to motivate people who practice risk avoidance, there needs to be a danger to avoid as well-hence the comments about Nick at Nite, etc. I knew people who subscribed to their magazine’s, but their books attended their conferences and donated on top of that to ensure that a) their family was getting the best “godly advice” possible and b) that fotf would have the resources to fight for an optimum environment in which to raise christian children.There is also the spin on witnessing and having an impact becuase likely a large percentage of the attendees are donors to fotf, and like shareholders in a company, they want to hear how they are making a good investment and shouldn’t consider moving their money elsewhere. That may be one of the reasons you heard so little about Prop 8-they’ve spent a lot of money there and appear to have little to show for it-so better to downplay it, like a CEO whose new product launch flopped. It’s all about continuing the cashflow, as that is also considered a sign that god approves of their work-no cash, no approval.(SIDEBAR-fotf used to have an amazing rapid response machine here in Canada to generate alerts and such on events and issues that was the envy of the US group until they realized that our system of government is less vulnerable to such lobbying. At that point, they cut it way back realizing that they could never present evidence to jusify to donors the money being spent on it.)I believe those two concepts: things have to come from Jesus and it’s all about ROI and god’s approval are the two keys to understanding the “quirks” of groups like fotf and christian ministers and performers. That’s why it can be so hard to get them to consider an alternative.It would be interesting to hear in more detail exactly what sorts of things set off your spidey senses in the meeting-it was interesting reading Hemant’s take on the things that were unfamiliar to him about church in his book-it would be interesting to see if there were significant differences between what caught his attention and what caught yours.As for the “cerebral” lutheran joke, a quick skim of a page like this might help clear it up. http://lutherantheology.wordpr… A much different approach than your typical baptist or episcopalian. I have lutheran friends-we never tallked theology when I was a christian-we certainly don’t now. :)
Awesome review, Jen. Your comments and the review itself appear to be open-minded, observational and not filled with automatic scorn or vitriol. You rock! I keep telling myself that I’m going to do this sort of thing for a Michelle Bachman rally, but whenever I consider actually attending an live MB event, I start to gag uncontrollably. I need more spy practice.
Every time I see that Jen and Hemant are going to some crazy christian event together I keep imagining you guys being found out and having to hide in a closet somewhere to escape the frothing mob. Then one thing leads to another…Got a problem with a lack of diversity in the atheist movement? Fine, go make some! ;)
That sounded like fun…next time you’re in town, you should come to a Tea Party event with me :-P
I agree. And their “help” is all tainted. If you read any of these resources that “help”, it’s a load of anti-feminism, authoritarian parenting, “we’re better than everyone else” bullshit. It’s subtle because they’re trying to do exactly what they presented: make themselves more palatable for the masses. Not everything they say is bad, but sometimes they say on one hand, some women work, but in another program you will hear about the evils of daycare and how poorly children do in it. It wasn’t their politics that turned me off. It was learning about things in my psychology class, where I learned how deceptive they are in their studies. The politics came later. If you want to dig into the heart of FotF, try reading some of their Citizen stuff. FotF is not itself political. They were running into problems (I forget what exactly, I think something to do with tax structure), so they came up with a side organization, CitizenLink, to do their dirty political work for them. That’s where you’ll find the anti-gay marriage (and other) hysteria. In fact, right now on their banner is a link on “how to respond to homosexual advocacy”.
I know this wasn’t the thrust of the post, but…“My Darwin Fish, Obama sticker, and Republicans for Voldemort sticker probably would have given us away.”A Republicans for Voldemort bumpersticker! Squeeeeee! I’ve got one on the back of my Camry, and I’ve gotten more great feedback on it than I could possibly mention. You can get them here. Pardon for the advertisement–I’m only a highly-satisfied customer)–but Jon’s work is just too good not to trumpet about them.
Can you expand on how fotf is helping kids get adopted. Because I thought they were heavily involved with crisis pregnancy centers. If their activities include helping kids in foster care find loving families that’s great. Good for them. But if their good works amount to convincing women not to have abortions and then helping them give their kids up (a potentially lucrative proposition depending on how they go about it) I don’t see how that’s all that benign.
Oops that first statement should be a question. Sorry for my lack of punctuation.
I don’t have THAT much patience =P
At least from what they said at the talk, they do claim to greatly increase the number of kids who find families. The reason they mentioned the Colorado adoption agency was because it had told them to “slow down” because they increased the amount of adoptions so much that they didn’t have enough people to handle the paper work.They also do work with crisis pregnancy centers and having women take ultrasounds before abortions, and I do *not* agree with what they’re doing there. Basically making a woman decide out of guilt and emotions instead of rationality.
I don’t see it as an “excuse” – more like a point of reference from which to view their actions. I still think what they’re doing is vile. It just helps that when you’re trying to communicate with these people, you can talk to them like they’re severely misguided but with good intentions, rather than Snidely Whiplash or something. You can’t change minds unless you know *why* they think some way.
I think the thing to keep in mind is that not all Christians are this weird, fringy type that have become so vocal as of late. Perhaps my perspective is somewhat skewed in that I’m Canadian. We seem to have less-bold wing nuts. Ours are becoming vocal, but they took their cue very slowly from south of the border. (Yes, we have one of them in charge of our country, but he’s only recently flaunting his colours. He did his best to appear moderate at first.)Regardless…. when my wife and I were going through hard times a few years back, trying to hold down our minimum wage jobs while avoiding dropping out of college, we turned to Loaves and Fishes, a Christian foodbank, for the help we needed. There was no preaching beyond a few “God Bless” style comments, and only a tiny bit of creepiness in the Stepford-style mannerisms of a few of them. Most were very civil. They didn’t ask us to pray, and they were even supportive of my vegetarianism.I think the thing to remember here is that while churches are designed for indoctrination, they are also fantastic organizing bodies – they bring people together. If those people have a genuine desire to make the world a better place, that can even be a good thing.
I’ve long been fascinated with the idea of “going undercover.” Though for me, the whole point is to get myself into a position to address the audience and make a speech about the evils of religion.It would probably be counter productive though, and a lot of work, so I’ve not done it yet.
“You can’t change minds unless you know *why* they think some way.”Exactly. And given the incredible degree of belief variation even within a given congregation (much less a denomination or whole religion), it’s almost essential to learn exactly what a given religious individual believes if you want to have a real discourse with them. Everyone has their own interpretation of the doctrine, and their own justifications and exceptions to mentally iron out the inconsistencies.
“Atheist” and “atheism” ain’t proper nouns.
There’s another big issue regarding Christian marriage counseling that you didn’t mention. Many such practitioners will see divorce as absolutely not an option because it is not part of “god’s plan”. Some of these supposed counselors will go to great lengths to encourage women to stay in abusive relationships because they see divorce as a greater evil and god can change your husbands heart or some nonsense. I don’t know what they actually tell these women to do. My only evidence for this is that Christian radio call in shows frequently tell women who should obviously be getting divorced to seek a Christian counselor who will advise them in accordance with God’s Word. It’s really pretty sick.
As for the Lutheran joke, my boyfriend’s family is Lutheran and he said it’s because they are known as being proud of themselves and having big heads.
Regarding the 27 Comcast employees…you’re being generous to assume they’re not lying about that. Within Evangelical circles, there’s a tendency for leaders to dramatize their stories about “what God is doing,” and a tendency for the flock to cooperate with it. I’m not sure why, but I think it makes everyone feel more spiritual to think the stories are true. That culture of credulity also helps spread myths about non-Christians, Democrats, liberals, and the other sources of evil in the world.
I love the added argument that Christian marriage is not better than Gay Marriage because Christians are having such a hard time, they need specialists in Christian Marriage Counseling. Plus, you and Hemant pretending to be married. You two are spending an awful lot of time together ;-)
ok… token conservative christian reader here. :) (i’ve been reading on and off since blogathon 2009 but steadily since boobquake. i’m not a troll. really.) i thought i should clarify a few things and dispel a few myths.1.) not all “good” christian women take their husband’s last name. i didn’t. we hyphenated instead and have yet to make it legal. (hyphenation counts as a full name change and that’s kind of expensive.) i also don’t usually have my wedding ring on. it’s kind of a pain because my hands tend to swell (and are still not completely unswollen from my pregnancy 16 months ago) and it gets in the way when i’m changing diapers, washing dishes, and doing other things.2.) the comment about lutherans being “cerebral” is because we’re not super-emotional like most of the evangelicals are. we’re also more into doctrine than the whole “personal relationship with Jesus” thing.3.) a parishioner gave me a book by eggerichs and it promptly went into the “burn in case furnace goes out” pile. not all of us are fans of his. i have a much different view of submission than the fotf peeps do.4.) a lot of us are really turned off by focus on the family because they give us such a bad name. we’re not all homophobic people who freak out about satan corrupting our kids. (having said that, i was going to sponsor a harry potter table at a church dinner with themed tables. the kids were SO excited and it would have happened if a few of the older women hadn’t derailed it because OMG what would people think???? my response: “that we know the difference between fiction and reality?”)i highly recommend reading “the unlikely disciple” by kevin roose if you haven’t already. he spends a “semester abroad” at liberty university learning about an unfamiliar culture: evangelicals.oh… and we don’t all wear “skirts” as our sunday best. i see a number of people in jeans and capris on sunday when i actually make it to church. (16 month olds and church don’t mix well.)
but not too proud — pride is a big no-no to lutherans.
any christian counselor worth their salt is not going to encourage a woman to stay in an abusive relationship. nowhere in the Bible does it say that a man is allowed to abuse his wife and any decent counselor would get that woman out of that relationship.
Thanks for clarifying those things! I know not all Christians are necessarily fangirling about FotF, but it’s good to be reminded of that *from* a Christian. And The Unlikely Disciple is definitely on my list!
Why be disappointed at the lack of homophobia on display? I would think that not seeing homophobia where you expected it should be a *pleasant* surprise.
The people who follow them, yes, I totally agree that they are misguided. The leaders? Not so much. Someone with a PhD in ANYTHING, let alone child development, should know how to read a study about daycare. There’s ignorance, willful ignorance, and downright deception. I don’t know much about Daly, but I do know about Dobson. There have been multiple instances where what he does crosses a believable line from “whoops” to “accident on purpose.” FotF hasn’t changed that much, and I don’t buy that just because they are playing nice at a conference means that they are just poor, ignorant people with a good heart. I’m not trying to sound inflammatory, but I grew up with Jim Dobson as a guiding light for my family. Both of my parents came from less than stellar homes, and they reached out to FotF materials for help. Those are the people we should be treating as misguided, not the leadership or the organization itself, but the broken people who reach out to them, trying to achieve something better for their families. But it’s not better. In some ways it is definitely better, but in other ways, it’s worse. I don’t give a free pass to organizations like these. Time and research say differently than one night on a super fun secret spy mission. Again, I know that sounds kind of rude, but what was fun and games for you ruined me.
Eek, I wasn’t trying to give FotF or its leaders a “free pass” or anything like that. I’m sure there are leaders who are purposefully deceptive… But my point was that it’s because they genuinely think they’re right. I tried to make it clear that most of what they’re peddling is still BS and I’m ready to call them out on it. I’m sorry if it didn’t come off that way, because my views of FotR are honestly pretty similar to yours.I read your blog, but have you posted on FotF specifically in the past? I’m just curious to read the perspective of someone who was immersed in the environment.
Is there any way to report that state worker from the Colorado adoption agency? As far as I know public servants are not supposed to endorse any political or religious view.
Sorry, I am probably a bit overly sensitive, too, since I just got out of staying with my family over the summer. I’m definitely very much on edge, and trying to come to terms with it all. I’ve written a lot here and there, but the big thing is a 4-part series on some of the deceptive things they do, though this is mostly about Dobson. http://www.redheadedskeptic.co…
Dr. Sharon (missed her last name) likely is Dr. Sharon Jacksi, Director of the Division for Developmental Disabilities, Colorado Department of Human Services — and if that comment is accurate, yes, that is disturbing. :(
Indeed I misspoke. The ones I found absolutely appalling were those in emotionally abusive relationships where the call in assholes encouraged women to seek chirstian counseling to fix their marriage. If your partner is being emotionally abusive it is not time to fix your marriage, it is time to get out of it. Perhaps it was just the show hosts that were the problem and not the counselors though.
Then, yes, I think she can be reported. That’s a terminable offense.
Physical abuse, no. Emotional abuse? You betcha.I once had a (otherwise normal and nice) pastor tell an entire congregation that he had a woman in “counseling” who was crying and said that her husband raped her. He then said, “Your husband can’t rape you. You’re not to deny each other.”The same pastor also told a woman that she should submit to anal sex that her husband wanted to try, though he added the caveat that it wouldn’t be “loving” on the husband’s part if he forced the issue.Oh, and the idea of leaving a husband because he screams at you or puts you down or calls you names? Unfathomable. That can be “counseled” and “prayed” out of someone.
“Homosexuals” is kind of an ‘outdated’ term. Please use “gays and lesbians” or the “LGBT community.” Even “queer people” works. Just so that it sounds less rigid, clinical and distant. :)You know, in the same way we don’t refer to dogs as Canis lupus familiaris every time we’re trying to make a point.
Capris, aren’t those, like, high-water nerd pants?
Pretend you’re a reptile to act like a christian. You don’t have lips, and your eyelids should be transparent. Also nod a lot and make strange humming noises when another christian addresses you.
Not just any kind of reptile. A special humanoid one with a few hybrid traits, obviously.
What should you do if you find an atheist?http://9gag.com/full/31609I’m curious where this was found (geographically, I mean).
A little comment on the atheists are always depressed thing:I got depressed an abusive relationship. I left the church after their total lack of understanding for what I was going through. So perhaps it’s not so much “atheism makes people depressed” as “christianity doesn’t support people dealing with problems”? I know that was the case for me – once I stopped showing a happy face the church support basically disappeared and was replaced with constant criticism of what I was doing wrong.
All denominations have silly inside jokes about other denominations. Not to mention that I am a member of one of those awful liberal christian denominations (we allow homosexuals! GASP!) Organizations like FotF often openly question our legitimacy as members of the faith. Anyways for a witty discussion of many of the inside jokes and quirks of evangelical Christian culture, I highly recommend the blog “Stuff Christian Culture Likes” She’s thought provoking and always good for a laugh!http://blog.beliefnet.com/stuf…Sorry, I’m not cool enough for hyperlinks.Enjoy!Liz
Hi. I’m a Lutheran here myself, so I’ll just comment on Lutherans being “cerebral.” Maybe “cerebral” is a code word for “boring.” For example, when explaining what my church was like to an Anglican (that’s Episcopalian in the US; I’m Canadian), I said, “Well, we don’t bring snakes to church.” On the other hand, while we don’t have the excitement of the fundamentalist crowd, we don’t have the pageantry you might find at the Catholic or Episcopal church (though we have had hymns that have “made it big,” like “How Great Thou Art”).But on the other hand, it’s kind of hard to classify Lutherans as a group. They include everyone from Creationists to evoluntionists to people against gay marriage and churches that ordain gay ministers in committed relations and from anti-abortionists to pro-choice activists. Maybe that’s because we’re not centralized; we don’t have anything like a Pope or even an Archbishop of Canterbury.
Thats what I wondered. Why on earth were there 27 comcast employees at thier home or business at one time? And it implys there were actually more than 27 because statically some of the comcast workers had to have “heard about God” before. I had comcast for 26 years and I haven’t met had 27 comcast workers in my house over a lifetime, let alone in one day
Ha. That was hilarious.