Thread: "I kissed dating goodbye" author has second thoughts Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
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"I kissed dating goodbye" was a big hit in the new church circles I used to move in (although I never bought into this particular trend).
The title is pretty self-explanatory. quote:
Aimed at teens and twentysomethings, the book discouraged teen relationships and proposed that courtship, in which a couple moves purposefully toward marriage with their parents’ blessing and involvement, was a superior model to dating. And it argued that any kind of physical intimacy before marriage was a violation of the sacredness of married sexuality, and could lead to lifelong regret.
Now, 20 years on, Slate has run an interesting article on how the author, now a father of three teenagers, is having some second thoughts. Kudos to him for having the courage to say so.
quote:
“It’s like, well, crap, is the biggest thing I’ve done in my life this really huge mistake?”
What I didn't know previously was that he was 21 and just out of home school when he wrote the book!
Did this book impact you or anyone you know? What lessons might be learned about publishers' responsibilities? How does a well-known author go about changing their stance on moral issues?
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
How does a well-known author go about changing their stance on moral issues?
It is poignant, isn't it-- recognizing your life's work may have been built on straw, maybe even did more harm than good?
Reminds me a bit of Alan Chambers:
quote:
"I am sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced. I am sorry that some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractions didn’t change. I am sorry we promoted sexual orientation change efforts and reparative theories about sexual orientation that stigmatized parents."
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Now, 20 years on, Slate has run an interesting article on how the author, now a father of three teenagers, is having some second thoughts. Kudos to him for having the courage to say so.
Up to a point, the two couples who served as canonical examples in his book got divorced some years ago - before he then republished the book in 2011. So I'm not particularly impressed.
But then I'm not impressed at all by the long term legacy of the movement he was part of (SGM).
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on
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Maybe no one should be allowed to write a book before age 70?
We all grow, learn, change awarenesses if we are alive. Decades ago a conference speaker said he wished he could recall 90% of his books and tapes because he no longer believed all of what he said in them.
Of course, an age 70 threshold would mean we expect people to stop learning and growing at 70!
People, including authors, do change their understandings, yea for those who are willing to admit it!
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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IMO his mistake was his choice of genre. He should not have written a spiritual-sexual advice book. He should have written the exact same material as fiction. Then he would have total coverage now. ("It was a novel! Do you believe that all young people should trek to volcanoes and throw rings in?")
Stepping back to the question of when one should write: easy. You write when you have no choice but to write. Whether you are eight or eighty, if the work sits on your back and insists on coming to the light, then you write it.
And if it doesn't? Don't. There are easier, more profitable things to do with your time. Always allow yourself to be distracted by chores, family, job. Only write if you are compelled to do so, the Muse standing at your back with the sword pressed to your throat.
Here is a cartoon that shows you exactly what I mean. Be warned it Oglaf, a web comic that is famously NSFW although this one is only R rated.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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Where were his mentors/publishers etc helping him see the errors in his thinking?
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
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Indeed. "You may have no choice but to write", says Brenda Clough, but increasingly I think Christian publishers and distributors are absolutely terrible at taking responsibility for anything other than their own bottom lines.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Where were his mentors/publishers etc helping him see the errors in his thinking?
That the mentors think the same way and the publishers were more concerned about £ than errors in thinking?
What is the focus on his being 21 when he wrote that? You folks are seriously saying that there are not plenty of older folks peddling the same BS?
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
What is the focus on his being 21 when he wrote that? You folks are seriously saying that there are not plenty of older folks peddling the same BS?
No doubt, but one would have thought, naively perhaps, that an editorial committee might have given some thought to whether the author had sufficient experience and/or qualifications to be writing about the subject.
I wrote what I termed a "minim opus" on divorce aged 22 (unpublished!!), but had the sense to concede then and there that my views would likely change with time and experience; which they have.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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Publishers are famously and necessarily focused only upon the bottom line. (An old joke: How do you make a small fortune? Start a publishing house with your large one.) How Christian publishers balance this with their 'mission' is a difficult question.
I am certain this was a 'gimmick' book. A book written for teens by a peer. No one expected it to be taken so very seriously. The blame should be fixed, not upon the author (too young) or the publishers (driven by $) but upon the readers, especially the adults who foisted the thing off upon impressionable youngsters. They didn't use their intelligence and discernment.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
What is the focus on his being 21 when he wrote that? You folks are seriously saying that there are not plenty of older folks peddling the same BS?
No doubt, but one would have thought, naively perhaps, that an editorial committee might have given some thought to whether the author had sufficient experience and/or qualifications to be writing about the subject.
It fit the message the community were promoting, I think that is as far as even the best intentions went. And, again, publishers want money.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Publishers are famously and necessarily focused only upon the bottom line. (An old joke: How do you make a small fortune? Start a publishing house with your large one.) How Christian publishers balance this with their 'mission' is a difficult question.
I am certain this was a 'gimmick' book. A book written for teens by a peer. No one expected it to be taken so very seriously. The blame should be fixed, not upon the author (too young) or the publishers (driven by $) but upon the readers, especially the adults who foisted the thing off upon impressionable youngsters. They didn't use their intelligence and discernment.
The publishers were a Christian imprint, so they deserve blame as well.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Where were his mentors/publishers etc helping him see the errors in his thinking?
Publishers don't exist to help you see the errors in your thinking, particularly if seeing those errors means the book will be withdrawn. An author of adult age is expected to work out his own salvation/damnation on his own.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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Exactly. The publisher is only somewhat of a gatekeeper. Clearly you are not going to go to that Christian publisher for your hard-core porn. But no publisher can vet every book for suitability for every possible reader. That's on you, as the customer, to spend your money on what meets your needs. The very popularity of that book shows that it did meet some market need. People wanted to read it and put good money down. A younger reader might not have known that the practices advocated were pernicious. (The adults should have known.) The solution to that would be to read more widely, and find other points of view.
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on
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Back 100 years ago publishers worked on improving the thoughts and structure of manuscripts. Now they want to receive camera ready and at most have to fix a few mis-spellings.
The idea that a publisher would check for theological and experiential accuracy - perhaps in some narrowly denominational houses, but for the bigger general "Christian" imprints the only question is "will people who look to a Christian bookseller buy it?"
Sort of like Christian radio - each speaker must appear to be Christian, each gets an hour, they blatantly contradict each other, radio station doesn't care what the theology or logic is so long as it won't alarm too many listeners, they just need to fill the slots with apparent Christians.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
The very popularity of that book shows that it did meet some market need.
Yes. The parents of horny teenagers who remembered what it was they got up to when they were horny teenagers.
Aaaand that's about it.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
Sort of like Christian radio - each speaker must appear to be Christian, each gets an hour, they blatantly contradict each other, radio station doesn't care what the theology or logic is so long as it won't alarm too many listeners, they just need to fill the slots with apparent Christians.
Yes, but by its very nature the media and distribution add an air of credibility and authority. There can be a sort of "legitimacy by association".
I think many Christians make the assumption that "it was published by XYZ/available in this bookstore/broadcast on that channel so it can't be too dodgy".
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Yes, but by its very nature the media and distribution add an air of credibility and authority. There can be a sort of "legitimacy by association".
I think many Christians make the assumption that "it was published by XYZ/available in this bookstore/broadcast on that channel so it can't be too dodgy".
This is the same group of Christians who go to churches where everyone is supposed to read the Bible for themselves and come up with pretty much the same interpretation as the ministers. They criticize the Catholic Church for telling people what to say when they pray, but they have their own magisterium and their own stamps of imprimatur.
I read this book years ago and thought it was bullshit; the things it proposed were unbelievably sexist and patently absurd, and the author didn't speak from successful experience. Why Christian leaders in their 30s and up didn't look at this guy's own life and note that he didn't know what the fuck he was talking about I don't understand. I can only guess that it fit the purity culture and seemed cool (the hat on the cover!).
People shouldn't blame Josh Harris for ruining their sex lives, though - they should blame the Christian sub-culture that makes this kind of fad successful. A little discernment would have gone a long way.
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
by its very nature the media and distribution add an air of credibility and authority. There can be a sort of "legitimacy by association".
I think many Christians make the assumption that "it was published by XYZ/available in this bookstore/broadcast on that channel so it can't be too dodgy".
Yes, and by their standards the "Christian publisher" (or Christian radio station" is making sure nothing "too dodgy" is done. They refuse to publish a book of magic love potions, or endorsing atheism, or obvious sexual porn. You concept of where they should draw the line differs from theirs, that's all.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
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In the past, the glorification of premarital "purity" was part not only of evangelicalism, but of Christianity and the broader culture generally.
I suspect that the book in question was as much a symptom as a cause, and that those condemning it as the root of all their problems have bought into the current obsession with blame and victimhood.
[ 26. August 2016, 02:51: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
In the past, the glorification of premarital "purity" was part not only of evangelicalism, but of Christianity and the broader culture generally.
Not 'in the past', but st different times in the past. It is a contemporary fallacy to assume any sort of direct progression in morality other than in a strictly narrow time-frame and location.
quote:
I suspect that the book in question was as much a symptom as a cause,
If by this you mean equally, then yes.
quote:
and that those condemning it as the root of all their problems have bought into the current obsession with blame and victimhood.
Identifying the root of a problem isn't inherently "victimhood".
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
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Lil'Buddha wrote: quote:
Not 'in the past', but st different times in the past. It is a contemporary fallacy to assume any sort of direct progression in morality other than in a strictly narrow time-frame and location.
Damn right! A stunt that continues to irritate me, albeit not restricted to any particular constituency.
Mind you, blaming a paperback written by a 21-year old for "all your problems" sounds a bit of a stretch. How about blaming yourself for being such a credulous twit in the first place?
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
Mind you, blaming a paperback written by a 21-year old for "all your problems" sounds a bit of a stretch. How about blaming yourself for being such a credulous twit in the first place?
I'd have some sympathy with that view, and would take it myself on occasion. The churches in which the book was promoted tended to be of the more than averagely authoritarian stripe where there is very little awareness of church history, and where home schooling or attending a church school was pushed, so within that context I have a little more sympathy for those who feel they were misled
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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Of course what credulous parents were snookered by, and what they foisted on unsuspected and trusting teens, are two different things. Even though they're the same book. Parents have a responsibility to choose wisely for their children, who are not yet wise enough to make good choices for themselves.
tl;dr I blame the parents but not the kids.
Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on
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quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
Mind you, blaming a paperback written by a 21-year old for "all your problems" sounds a bit of a stretch. How about blaming yourself for being such a credulous twit in the first place?
I'd have some sympathy with that view, and would take it myself on occasion. The churches in which the book was promoted tended to be of the more than averagely authoritarian stripe where there is very little awareness of church history, and where home schooling or attending a church school was pushed, so within that context I have a little more sympathy for those who feel they were misled
I do have sympathy and you are quite right, cs. But I think the point is that if you don't learn from this, you are at high risk of moving on to The Next Big Thing, with all its new attendant risks. This corner of evangelicalism is very issue-driven, and as you imply can be very inward-focussed.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
In the past, the glorification of premarital "purity" was part not only of evangelicalism, but of Christianity and the broader culture generally.
AIUI though, we aren't just talking about abstaining from sex but from any kind of physical contact whatsoever. Which has never been part of any Western marital code except possibly dynastic marriages and Spain under the Almohads.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
AIUI though, we aren't just talking about abstaining from sex but from any kind of physical contact whatsoever. Which has never been part of any Western marital code except possibly dynastic marriages and Spain under the Almohads.
Not just physical contact, but you're also supposed to maintain "emotional purity" by abstaining from being attracted to anyone other than your future spouse. This post by a blogger who was raised using Harris' teachings and who read I Kissed Dating Goodbye at 14 sums it up.
quote:
After reading I Kissed Dating Goodbye, I was afraid to so much as have a crush on a boy. I had always been taught that I should be sexually pure, but adding emotional purity to the mix raised everything to the next level. For me, it was easy to be sexually pure. None of my friends were dating, and I didn’t even really know any guys my age anyway. As for sexual thoughts, I was pretty good at sublimating them. I was not, however, very good at not having crushes on boys. I would make up elaborate daydreams of how this boy or that would ask my father’s permission to court me, and there were of course roses and romantic walks and eventually a ring. But because of Harris, I now believed that these daydreams were wrong. They were a form of cheating on my future spouse. It got to the point where I was afraid to so much as think about guys for fear of cheating on my future spouse.
I wish I’d realized that love is infinite. I wish I’d realized that my girlhood crushes were harmless. I wish I could have enjoyed those feelings instead of hating them and feeling eternally guilty.
The post summarizes the things learned by a teenage who had Harris' work inflicted on her. She was unimpressed by Harris' alleged "apology". He seems not so much to be having "second thoughts", as the thread title suggests, as to be weaseling around putting his original thoughts in a new package.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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In the words of the song, who died and made this guy God? He can (and did) say anything. You don't have to believe him. These are people who are in crying need of broadening their reading. A wider experience of human interaction, even on the page, would allow them to put this silly stuff into perspective.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
In the past, the glorification of premarital "purity" was part not only of evangelicalism, but of Christianity and the broader culture generally.
Not 'in the past', but st different times in the past. It is a contemporary fallacy to assume any sort of direct progression in morality other than in a strictly narrow time-frame and location.
Opposition to premarital sex was still widespread when Harris wrote his book, and was just as strong (or stronger) in Roman Catholicism than in evangelicalism.
It is ludicrous to moralistically witch-hunt him for special attention.
quote:
Identifying the root of a problem isn't inherently "victimhood".
Obviously.
But truisms like this don't alter the facts that first, roots can be misidentified, and secondly, that the two can be (and often are) dubiously conflated.
[ 27. August 2016, 02:11: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
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One of the links has the author, a pastor for 9 or 10 years, now at last planning on going to a seminary!!!!!
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Opposition to premarital sex was still widespread when Harris wrote his book, and was just as strong (or stronger) in Roman Catholicism than in evangelicalism.
It is ludicrous to moralistically witch-hunt him for special attention.
But, as posted above, he goes far beyond 'no pre-marital sex' to 'no pre-marital anything'. See Croesus' post. And that does merit him special attention.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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I've never come across the book but for a wee while in the restorationist 'new churches' there was a bit of a reaction against the idea of 'dating' (as the Americans would call it) - and on the one hand some of the pastors were bemoaning the fact that people weren't courting or getting married whilst on the other you were almost too frightened to talk to girls let alone 'ask them out' because the whole set-up was such a goldfish bowl.
In one of the leading churches in the 'network' I belonged to it was customary for some of the youngsters to get married younger than was customary across the other churches and indeed in wider society at that time. Some of these marriages were successful. Others weren't.
Overall, there was a fair bit of interference from the 'elders' whenever any couples paired off - it could be quite heavy at times.
There was a brief flurry of rhetoric to the effect that couples shouldn't snog - or even hold hands -from some of the more fervent types - but it didn't last long. By and large the view was 'no buttons and zips and don't get horizontal.'
I'm sure some people found creative ways around that.
There were instances of couples 'falling pregnant' and I cringe at the memory of them being called 'to the front' to repent in front of everyone in the church and to publicly apologise ...
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
This sort of thing used to happen in Scottish Presbyterianism too, back in the day.
So, no Kaplan, it's not a case of people villifying the memory of authors like this but the fact that some of this schtick went way, way too far.
It went a lot further in many churches than a straight-forward and conventional disapproval of pre-marital sex.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
In the words of the song, who died and made this guy God? He can (and did) say anything. You don't have to believe him. These are people who are in crying need of broadening their reading. A wider experience of human interaction, even on the page, would allow them to put this silly stuff into perspective.
Regardless of whether they should "broaden[] their reading", it seems fairly obvious that a book whose target demographic is homeschooled teenagers is deliberately selecting an audience who by definition have a narrow band of exposure to anything outside their subculture and whose access to outside reading material is fairly tightly restricted. This kind of deliberate targeting makes Harris' teachings particularly damaging. The people he was reaching pretty much by definition had no "wider experience of human interaction".
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Opposition to premarital sex was still widespread when Harris wrote his book, and was just as strong (or stronger) in Roman Catholicism than in evangelicalism.
It is ludicrous to moralistically witch-hunt him for special attention.
First off, I'd dispute the notion that the kind of "emotional purity" Harris is peddling (having a teenage crush is a betrayal of your future spouse, even if never acted on) is a commonplace teaching in most of Christianity.
Second, I'm not sure what you mean by "special attention". People are singling out Harris for the specific damage he has caused a lot of people. That's a very ordinary form of attention. No one is arguing that Harris is the only one who has promulgated harmful teachings and portrayed them as God's own wisdom. The argument that it's impermissible to discuss X unless you also discuss Y and Z isn't usually driven by any interest in Y or Z, but is typically a device used to avoid discussing X. If you feel there are others who deserve a similar level of attention, there's nothing stopping you from starting a similar thread.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It is ludicrous to moralistically witch-hunt him for special attention.
Second, I'm not sure what you mean by "special attention". People are singling out Harris for the specific damage he has caused a lot of people. That's a very ordinary form of attention.
If I could marginally correct your post (which I largely agree with), he is being singled out for specific damage he caused to a specific set of people, which is indeed a very ordinary form of attention.
In a particularly subculture (the YRR - Young, Restless and Reformed), the movement he was part of had a fairly outsize influence.
Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on
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Originally posted by Gamaliel:
quote:
This sort of thing used to happen in Scottish Presbyterianism too, back in the day.
Way back in the day, Scottish Presbyterians used to have stools of repentance on which fornicators sat in sackcloth before the congregation. What is often forgotten is that when this was happening (C18th, early C19th) the Kirk also administered the poor relief, and often supported the illegitimate children born as a result of said fornication.
The records of my church go back to 1713. I find myself more impressed at the extent of church care for the poor and marginalised, than horrified by their attitude to extra-marital sex. In my church, by 1800, repentance was no longer public but involved the couple making a donation to the Poor Relief box. The amount varying according to the means of the couple and was waived if the couple were poor.
I can cite an instance where the father did a runner and the Kirk Session ordered the man's employer to hand the balance of his uncollected wages and his personal effects to his pregnant girlfriend. The girl had to profess repentance, but she did have the backing of the Session in getting some form of restitution.
The church also took a pretty dim view of any man who took advantage of a vulnerable woman.
Realistically, an extra pauper illegitimate child to be supported by the Parish meant less money to go round; less money to provide fuel for the pauper elderly, less money available for those too sick to work, less money to pay to a family stricken by emergency such as a house fire.
(For non-Presbeterians, the Kirk Session comprised the Elders of the Church who were responsible for administering the church.)
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
There were instances of couples 'falling pregnant' and I cringe at the memory of them being called 'to the front' to repent in front of everyone in the church and to publicly apologise ...
This sort of thing used to happen in Scottish Presbyterianism too, back in the day.
There was once a custom in the Brethren of making such erring couples "sit behind", ie they were permitted to attend the Breaking of Bread but not participate in the elements.
quote:
So, no Kaplan, it's not a case of people villifying the memory of authors like this but the fact that some of this schtick went way, way too far.
It went a lot further in many churches than a straight-forward and conventional disapproval of pre-marital sex.
Everything he is accused of - condemning not only premarital sex, but lustful thoughts, all physical contact, multiple romantic relationships, etc. - can be found in Christian culture long before his book appeared.
I have no interest in defending him, but the fact is that he was not peddling anything new, and it is obvious that he is being made the fall guy for many who are embarrassed about their adolescent scruples and don't want to take personal responsibility for their past silliness.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
[QUOTE]Everything he is accused of - condemning not only premarital sex, but lustful thoughts, all physical contact, multiple romantic relationships, etc. - can be found in Christian culture long before his book appeared.
Lustful thoughts I'll give you, but where can any of the others be found?
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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Bloody hell, Kaplan. You might not be defending this guy but you do sound rather judgemental about people who may have been influenced by him as adolescents.
I cringe at some of the silly stuff I did back in the day but whilst I'm more than happy to accept responsibility for it, I'm also perfectly prepared to acknowledge the influences, peer pressure and general milieu that contributed to it all.
These things don't happen in a vacuum.
Sure, there are things people could highlight that have been problematic in any Christian tradition. I don't see anyone queueing up outside this fella's door sueing him for messing up their sex lives or anything of that kind.
Heck, there have been threads before about guilt-ridden RC childhoods and adolescence. Why should this guy get a free pass?
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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At least he acknowledges there is a problem. Unlike Some People, who would insist that it is all the fault of the readers and not himself. So in this he is being a quite good example of Christianity, and is to be applauded.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I have no interest in defending him, . . .
Don't be so modest! All your posts so far on this thread have been variations on why Joshua Harris should be immune from criticism or any kind of negative discussion.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
. . . but the fact is that he was not peddling anything new, and it is obvious that he is being made the fall guy for many who are embarrassed about [adhering to Joshua Harris' recommended] scruples and don't want to take personal responsibility for their past silliness.
That reminds me of the line from the film Animal House:
quote:
You can't spend your whole life worrying about your mistakes! You fucked up... you trusted us!
It's an interesting bit of blame shifting, blaming people for believing the things you said.
And there's the creepy way that Harris' whole teaching seems to mirror the typical domestic abuser's grooming, convincing the victim that they're damaged and no one else will want them. I'll take your word that this is a standard Christian teaching, but "everyone is doing it" isn't really convincing for something that harmful.
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
At least he acknowledges there is a problem. Unlike Some People, who would insist that it is all the fault of the readers and not himself. So in this he is being a quite good example of Christianity, and is to be applauded.
Perhaps not. From the critique of his supposed apology I linked to earlier:
quote:
I mean he can’t be serious with this, right? He wrote his book in a very authoritative “I’ve figured it out” voice. He presented various principles as, yes, rules. And yet he’s all “my book was used as a rule book to say this is the only way to do it” and all “that was not my intention.” So in other words, when asked for something specifically he changed his mind on that he wrote in his book, all he can come up with is well, everyone else applied my book wrong, I never meant for them to use it as a rule book.
And in his last paragraph? Notice what he still can’t say. He says that we shouldn’t latch onto formulas and that when we try to control other people’s lives “we end up harming people.” Not “I harmed people.” He can’t seem to admit that his book caused hurt. Instead, everything has to be passive voice, or plural, or vague, or someone else’s fault (i.e. the churches or communities or those reading his book).
Italics in original, bolds added by me.
Maybe Harris has made other, more definitive statements since then, but this seems like he's blaming his readers at least a little.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
At least he acknowledges there is a problem. Unlike Some People, who would insist that it is all the fault of the readers and not himself. So in this he is being a quite good example of Christianity, and is to be applauded.
Totally agree. We need more who are willing to examine their positions and simply say "I was wrong" when appropriate.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I cringe at some of the silly stuff I did back in the day but whilst I'm more than happy to accept responsibility for it, I'm also perfectly prepared to acknowledge the influences, peer pressure and general milieu that contributed to it all.
"Acknowledge" is fine, but it is petty, childish and pharisaiacal to bear resentments and grudges and play the victim card, especially when , as in this case, he has recognised his past silliness.
When I was a hormone-charged evangelical adolescent, I read somewhere (Scofield Bible notes?) that over-indulgence in sex within marriage was as culpable as sex outside marriage, and agonised about whether I was over-sexed, and how you were supposed to know how much sex was too much.
And anyone over a certain age will remember the fear produced by those dire warnings about the spiritual, intellectual and physical dangers of masturbation.
We have all had exposure to bullshit in the past, some of it barking mad, but we get get over it, laugh at the way we once took it seriously, and move on.
As we grow up and look back we begin (it is to be hoped) to understand that the sources of said bullshit were not manipulative psychopaths who set out to fuck with our minds, but merely an expression of ideas that were currently floating around in a particular Christian tradition or subculture at the time.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
This is beginning to remind me of the controversy surrounding To Train up a Child by Michael Pearl, following the deaths of three children whose parents are believed to have read the extreme corporal punishment book.
It seems only right that the parents should be the ones to have faced criminal charges for their actions, but also ludicrous to argue the book had no influence at all. Even if the authors have escaped criminal liability they should shoulder a share of the moral responsibility, as should those who published and distributed the book.
Having had direct experience of how Christian publishers handle material they claim to be true that is demonstrably false, my default position is that their sole motive in publishing a book, until proved otherwise, is profit, irrespective of all other consequences or motives and including "fresh" translations of the Bible.
I also believe Christian publishers can and will talk people into writing books purely because they think the book will sell well, not because they think it has an important and powerful message but because its message is controversial and thus likely to attract sales.
(The least bad argument for doing this is that these sales will allow the publisher to produce other, better but less profitable books).
There are only so many times you can blame-shift in this manner before losing any credibility as a reputable Christian publisher, and thereby impugning the credibility of the central message of Christianity.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
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Christianity, along with other religions, has taken it upon itself to obsess about sex for a very very long time. Maybe if we could jump into a time machine and see what sexual excess did to end Roman civilisation we might find some merit in it.
Living as we we do today, with the luxury of medicines to control STI's, contraceptive and off-the-shelf abortion, it strikes me that religion would do better to leave people to do as they wish with their parts.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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I dare to hope that this is the generation when It Will Change. It has a little to do with birth control, drugs for STDs and so on.
But the main driver is surely the Internet, which (as the song reminds us) was Made For Porn. The quantity of sex ed available now to even the most casual internet user would make Byron and Casanova sob with envy. If some ignorant jerk tells the boy that touching himself Down There will cause his dick to fall off, ten seconds on Google will get him the facts.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
But the main driver is surely the Internet, which (as the song reminds us) was Made For Porn. The quantity of sex ed available now to even the most casual internet user would make Byron and Casanova sob with envy. If some ignorant jerk tells the boy that touching himself Down There will cause his dick to fall off, ten seconds on Google will get him the facts.
Well, that's the first time I've heard internet porn referred to as factual. Although if you're using "if you touch it, it will fall off" as the metric, then perhaps it's marginally more true.
But not in a helpful way, I fear. I'd venture to suggest that the casual degrading of women and pandering to rape culture that is present in most online porn is actually worse than sexually-repressed ignorance.
The worst case is probably when you combine the two. I'm certain readers don't need me to refer to the various press reports involving a member of a large American "conservative Christian" family here.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
It seems only right that the parents should be the ones to have faced criminal charges for their actions, but also ludicrous to argue the book had no influence at all. Even if the authors have escaped criminal liability they should shoulder a share of the moral responsibility, as should those who published and distributed the book.
Indeed, and this wasn't a random book by a random person who just happened to be promoted by the church.
This was a book written by someone who was in training to take over the flagship church in a very tight knit denomination, and who whilst doing so was junior pastor at that church and living in the basement of the senior pastors house. {This tangentially answers the question of why he didn't have a seminary degree]
Two of the examples used by the book would have been familiar to everyone within that denomination as the children of the movements senior worship pastor.
In a previous incarnation (PDI) the denomination had been influenced by the Sheparding movement, whilst the current incarnation was influenced by home schooling figures like Bill Gothard and Doug Wilson.
Finally, the book itself wasn't simply about sexual purity taken to the max. It also pushed the 'courtship' model as a more 'biblical' alternative - i.e the man should always initially seek approval for the relationship via the womans father or family, and all single women should seek to place themselves under the authority of a father or father figure (often the pastor from their church).
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I suspect that the book in question was as much a symptom as a cause
Yes, to an extent it's a symptom. It's symptomatic of the views of a small minority within the very conservative end of the evangelical and fundamentalist churches, and if Harris hadn't written it I'm sure that someone would have written something similar.
It's also a symptom of the manner in which a relatively small number of books become the "must reads". And, often those are recommended by church leaders from outside those very narrow roots. This particular book didn't come my way, in my day the books present on the church bookshelf to "help teens understand Godly relationships" were by Joyce Huggett - even in the middle of the road, not particularly evangelical Methodist church I was in at the time. They weren't as extreme, but those books probably screwed up a lot of young people as well. Part of that is down to marketting by the publisher - put a couple of quotes from people who sound like important church leaders saying it's a "refreshing insight into healthy relationships" on the back cover, place a positive review in the right magazine ... and watch the book fly out of their warehouse and the cash roll in.
It's also a symptom of parents passing responsibility to others. I wonder how many parents actually read this book (or, those by Huggett) before passing it onto their children. How many simply heard the youth leader, or minister, or someone else in authority say it was a book all teens should read and then got it for their children? It's far easier to just trust someone else than to take the effort to read a book before giving it to your children, besides it's for teens and young adults and so will be boring and tedious for parents who are better off reading the latest must read "how to be a witness to God in your workplace" book.
But, of course, the book is also the cause of much grief. I don't think that's mitigated just because if it hadn't been that book it would have been another.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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I was quoting from the Broadway musical Avenue Q. And look! Here's a YouTube video of the song! It is puppets, but not especially SFW.
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
But the main driver is surely the Internet, which (as the song reminds us) was Made For Porn. The quantity of sex ed available now to even the most casual internet user would make Byron and Casanova sob with envy. If some ignorant jerk tells the boy that touching himself Down There will cause his dick to fall off, ten seconds on Google will get him the facts.
Not only information that casts off Old wives tales but also advice on multiple masturbation and endomorphine release, or so I,ve been told. This apparently has caused many males in their 20s, (a time when normally they'd be at the peak of prowess), to succumb to erectile dysfunction. It is also now emerging that some males who are heavily into IT porn experience little or no interest in having an actual physical relationship with a female.
So far from driving humanity into the abyss of rampant promiscuity, the Internet along with the technology of sex simulation might just be it's saviour.
"Why buy the whole pig when you only need a piece of pork" as the old joke puts it.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
It's also a symptom of the manner in which a relatively small number of books become the "must reads".
To be sure this is the case in virtually any subculture. Nobody can read all the books, so a few rise to the top and become the sine qua non of the universal reading list.
_______________
*without which not
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
Christianity, along with other religions, has taken it upon itself to obsess about sex for a very very long time. Maybe if we could jump into a time machine and see what sexual excess did to end Roman civilisation we might find some merit in it.
Living as we we do today, with the luxury of medicines to control STI's, contraceptive and off-the-shelf abortion, it strikes me that religion would do better to leave people to do as they wish with their parts.
I doubt that 'religion' as a whole will ever be uninterested in people's sexual behaviour. Not as long as humans remain sexual beings. And not as long as sexual behaviour creates the next generation of potential believers. Not while faith is generally transmitted in stable families headed by heterosexual couples. And not while men remain concerned about paternity, as I said on the 'Who gives this woman?' thread.
As for the author mentioned in the OP, the influence he apparently had is very impressive, though scary, but I'm assuming that his book represents a certain type of Christian hysteria about the normalising of sexual license in contemporary culture.
Previous generations of American Christians must have been less worried about crushes and passing fancies, either because these were less likely to lead to illicit behaviour, or because if such behaviour occurred and led to pregnancies the wider community would apply effective pressure on the couple to marry. Neither outcome could be assumed today.
OTOH, googling suggest that religious colonists in America, Puritanism and Great Awakenings notwithstanding, faced numerous challenges when it came to regulating sexual behaviour, so perhaps some things never change.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Of course ...
And as we've been reminded by the interesting post about how the Kirk operated in Scotland, the wider societal issues need to be taken into account as well - and in the case of 17th-19th century Scotland we're talking about a society largely shaped by Reformed versions of Christianity ... for all the residual or continuing RC influence in the Highlands or in Strathclyde.
I'm not quite sure, though, to pick up on Kaplan's earlier point, that anyone's playing the victim-card here. I don't see anyone here queueing up to sue Harris nor anyone taking out law-suits against the Brethren, the various house-churches or against Rome or whoever else might have told them not to twiddle their dangly or wibbly bits at one time or another.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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Is there any period of time, culture or element in current society that hasn't got some sort of a hang up about sex? That has got it all sorted?
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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No. Any more than human beings have resolved the issue of governance and power. Sex and power is all there is to us, when you scratch everything else away.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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No, but just because no one has it sorted doesn't mean that it's therefore OK to totally screw up our lives and the lives of our children and other young people in our care. Even without reading anything by Huggett, or similar advice to young Christians, I absorbed that whole ethos. I was looking for The One™, my perfect partner, keeping myself pure until then. And, when I met her I had no idea what I was doing, no experience in relationships to build upon. Which is a recipe for disaster. That sub-culture, even though I was on the edge of it, has screwed up the lives of many. There's no one person to blame, no single author who created it, it's bigger and less well defined than that. And, it'll take more than a few apologies to make things right - it won't every be right for us, but let's not make the same mistakes with our own children (I know, life being what it is we'll make a whole new set of mistakes).
Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
No, but just because no one has it sorted doesn't mean that it's therefore OK to totally screw up our lives and the lives of our children and other young people in our care. Even without reading anything by Huggett, or similar advice to young Christians, I absorbed that whole ethos. I was looking for The One™, my perfect partner, keeping myself pure until then. And, when I met her I had no idea what I was doing, no experience in relationships to build upon. Which is a recipe for disaster. That sub-culture, even though I was on the edge of it, has screwed up the lives of many. There's no one person to blame, no single author who created it, it's bigger and less well defined than that. And, it'll take more than a few apologies to make things right - it won't every be right for us, but let's not make the same mistakes with our own children (I know, life being what it is we'll make a whole new set of mistakes).
Every sentence of the above applies to my own situation, and more concisely than I could have put it. Particularly I am keen not to pass the mistakes on, but jeez, what advice can I give, as one who knows basically nothing - other than 'Don't do what I did'. I guess I needn't worry about that, most teenagers are pretty keen to differentiate themselves from their parents.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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The only thing teenagers would be keener on is not hearing about their parents love life, including the mistakes we made that we want them to avoid.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I was looking for The One™, my perfect partner, keeping myself pure until then. And, when I met her I had no idea what I was doing, no experience in relationships to build upon. Which is a recipe for disaster.
Are you saying you needed other women to provide you with a few trial runs, so to speak? Fair enough, but that means you would've shared disastrous times with them instead. So someone, somewhere would still have had to put up with your ineptitude!
Part of the problem is that popular culture has given us a fantasy of what true romantic love should be like, in which every gesture and turn of phrase combines perfectly to create a sort of fairy tale experience. In reality, those expectations are merely cultural. They're not set in stone anywhere.
Maybe some of the evangelical subcultures ought to inculcate a more realistic set of expectations in their young people rather than playing along with the fantasy and setting them up for disappointment. But that would be even more counter-cultural than encouraging 'dating'.
[ 30. August 2016, 00:53: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I was looking for The One™, my perfect partner, keeping myself pure until then. And, when I met her I had no idea what I was doing, no experience in relationships to build upon. Which is a recipe for disaster.
Are you saying you needed other women to provide you with a few trial runs, so to speak? Fair enough, but that means you would've shared disastrous times with them instead. So someone, somewhere would still have had to put up with your ineptitude!
Obviously I can't speak for Alan, but seeing as I identified with the substance of his post, I think I can reply on my own account. (I'm female, by the way, so I would have needed a few men to provide me with 'trial runs' to work off my ineptitude). Or not, as the case may be, because I note that Alan didn't say 'no experience of sex to build on' - he said 'no experience in relationships to build on'. Obviously the first time anyone has sex there's going to be fumbling and let-downs. For my part, at least, that's not a huge worry. What I wish we had done differently is live together before getting married. We didn't because - well, living in sin and all that. But it was the most enormous shock to the system for me to go from spending time with my boyfriend/fiancee, where when we were together, we were actively, you know, being together,* to be plonked straight into a situation where we were actually together a great deal of the time, and I learned just how much of his time he spent playing online RPGs and just how different his body clock was to mine, and just how difficult it was to sleep in the same bed as a snorer** - and all this came, all at once, it was all so big, and everything mattered so much because this was it, for the rest of my life, the big one. Whereas most of our non-churchy friends, so far as I can make out, and flatmates, sort of started seeing someone on a let's see how this goes basis, then started seeing them more seriously/shagging them a month or so later, then another month or so and the girlfriend or boyfriend would be staying over every now and then, and a few months after that the rest of the flatmates would be starting to get pissy about how much hot water and food this non-paying-non-tenant was using, but they'd still only be there half the time, tops, and doing their laundry and so on back at their own flat. Then after I guess about a year or so the couple would either move in together and relieve some grateful ex-flatties of their antics, or they'd call it quits and start the process over. I know that from a purity culture perspective this is all Wrong. WRONG. WRONG., but it seems so very sensible to me, in retrospect, getting to know someone in stages, seeing if you can cope with it, stage by stage. You don't really know what a person is like, until you've lived with them. Anyone who's had flatmates knows that.
*and no, that's not a euphemism for anything sexual
**and that's just from my perspective - I suspect he found me a bit panicky and clingy as I tried to absorb/work around those things.
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I was looking for The One™, my perfect partner, keeping myself pure until then. And, when I met her I had no idea what I was doing, no experience in relationships to build upon. Which is a recipe for disaster.
Are you saying you needed other women to provide you with a few trial runs, so to speak? Fair enough, but that means you would've shared disastrous times with them instead. So someone, somewhere would still have had to put up with your ineptitude!
Sure, but a disastrous relationship with a boyfriend or girlfriend is a hell of a lot better than a disastrous marriage.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
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quote:
Originally posted by anoesis:
they'd still only be there half the time, tops, and doing their laundry and so on back at their own flat.
I have heard "doing laundry loads together" described as today's unofficial hallmark of a long-term relationship.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Are you saying you needed other women to provide you with a few trial runs, so to speak? Fair enough, but that means you would've shared disastrous times with them instead. So someone, somewhere would still have had to put up with your ineptitude!
It would not need to be disastrous. Dating, as opposed to the courting for marriage BS, gives the opportunity to end the process before disaster strikes. It can also teach one about oneself, so to be a more tolerant person for the one you marry, as anoesis illustrates.
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Part of the problem is that popular culture has given us a fantasy of what true romantic love should be like, in which every gesture and turn of phrase combines perfectly to create a sort of fairy tale experience. In reality, those expectations are merely cultural. They're not set in stone anywhere.
They are not realistic in any culture. relationships are work. But that does not mean any relationship can work. We expect practice and experience before any important job or endeavour, why should marriage be different?
quote:
Maybe some of the evangelical subcultures ought to inculcate a more realistic set of expectations in their young people rather than playing along with the fantasy and setting them up for disappointment. But that would be even more counter-cultural than encouraging 'dating'.
Getting rid of "God's perfect match" rubbish, accepting that sex before marriage doesn't ruin a person,
.................................................
And, screw you, new snarky Preview Post message. I always use preview.
However, errors will occur even so. When one writes substantive, weighty posts, little things like spelling and code might be missed. Something I do not expect you to have encountered.
[ 30. August 2016, 06:58: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I was looking for The One™, my perfect partner, keeping myself pure until then. And, when I met her I had no idea what I was doing, no experience in relationships to build upon. Which is a recipe for disaster.
Are you saying you needed other women to provide you with a few trial runs, so to speak? Fair enough, but that means you would've shared disastrous times with them instead. So someone, somewhere would still have had to put up with your ineptitude!
Sure, but a disastrous relationship with a boyfriend or girlfriend is a hell of a lot better than a disastrous marriage.
My problems included a shyness and a lack of confidence, which the supposed norms of the subculture built on. Most of the people I knew at university were forming relationships, though very few of those broke up during their time at university. But there was that niggle that wanting to go out with someone was wrong (is that a form of lust?), they may not be The One™, and therefore asking someone was a bit naughty and some confidence was needed to overcome that "is this right?" feeling.
The problems this gave later in life ranged from the very start all the way through to everything about living together. When two people who like each other have a meal out, what do you talk about? When you live with someone (and, unlike student digs you don't have your own room, a private space you can retreat to listen to your music, read a book, maybe even have your own TV) how do you manage deciding what to watch on TV, what to cook ... ? When you're in the same room, which is most of the time, is it OK to be quiet with your own thoughts, or should you find something no matter how trivial to talk about?
Two people spending a significant proportion of their waking hours together (and, not in a group with others) will gain at least some insight into these sort of issues. There's no guarantee it will make a future marriage perfect, but at least you won't be learning all those lessons at the same time as you worry about money with a joint account and mortgage, struggle to find the sleep pattern that works for both, find that the bathroom is now your only private space, and do all that first time fumbling with sex.
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
My problems included a shyness and a lack of confidence, which the supposed norms of the subculture built on. Most of the people I knew at university were forming relationships, though very few of those broke up during their time at university. But there was that niggle that wanting to go out with someone was wrong (is that a form of lust?), they may not be The One™, and therefore asking someone was a bit naughty and some confidence was needed to overcome that "is this right?" feeling.
My son was at university about 10 years ago and attended a Well-Known Evangelical Anglican Church. On a number of occasions he asked girls out for meals (and nothing more than that) simply with a view to getting to know them as friends. But he soon found that doing so was earning him a bit of a negative reputation among some of the student Christian leaders. There were other issues too (he wasn't at the "posh" University in town that most of the other students at the church belonged to) so he switched his allegiance to a Much Less Favoured Baptist church, which he enjoyed.
BTW I can identify with Alan's own experience - I had no idea of how to respond to Girls - I was gawky and terrified. Being a late developer and attending a single-sex school didn't help! Having said that, I've now been happily married for nearly 35 years!
[ 30. August 2016, 07:33: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
I was a 70s girl in every sense of the word. I went to university as far away from home as I could, lived in a squat and attended as few lectures as I could get away with. I tried everything there was to try and enjoyed the boys too. I used to ask them out as shy boys don't only roam Christian circles!
Do I regret it? Not in the least.
I lived with my husband for two years before we married, which certainly gave us an idea of each other's foibles. The only time we didn't cope was when we moved in with his mother (disaster!). We've been together 40 years now.
Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
The problems this gave later in life ranged from the very start all the way through to everything about living together. When two people who like each other have a meal out, what do you talk about? When you live with someone (and, unlike student digs you don't have your own room, a private space you can retreat to listen to your music, read a book, maybe even have your own TV) how do you manage deciding what to watch on TV, what to cook ... ? When you're in the same room, which is most of the time, is it OK to be quiet with your own thoughts, or should you find something no matter how trivial to talk about?
Two people spending a significant proportion of their waking hours together (and, not in a group with others) will gain at least some insight into these sort of issues. There's no guarantee it will make a future marriage perfect, but at least you won't be learning all those lessons at the same time as you worry about money with a joint account and mortgage, struggle to find the sleep pattern that works for both, find that the bathroom is now your only private space, and do all that first time fumbling with sex.
This is actually kind of getting freaky now. ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
Hey there [waves], man on the other side of the world - you have a female doppelganger down here in the antipodes. How very symmetrical and all that...
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
I've now been happily married for nearly 35 years!
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
We've been together 40 years now.
Two different experiences. The same (give or take a few years) outcome. And, of course, we could line up a whole load of people who took more or less the same approach to relationships with very different outcomes. That's life, it's complex, uncertain, a good dash of chance thrown in.
Which I think illustrates another one of those problems that face some sections of the church, to add to my list earlier. There is a tendancy within parts of Evangelicalism to become programme oriented. For someone to devise an approach which which becomes The Only Method™ for (whatever). The "I kissed dating goodbye" book, or the books by Huggett etc, became The Only Method™ to Ensure a Godly Perfect Marriage. Whichever of these your particular group adopted had a monopoly on how young people were taught to approach relationships (and, as I said that spread beyond those who were actually teaching this and reading the books as the culture conformed to that). Even if that method worked for the authors of these books, even if it works for the majority of people, it isn't going to work for everyone - and, when it fails there isn't the support network available that would exist with a broader base of approaches to the subject. Plus, of course, the guilt that goes with "it didn't work, it should have worked, therefore I did it wrong".
Of course, it's not just relationships for young people. We too easily fall for the same error in just about everything else. Congregations blindly follow the latest book by the pastor who turned a congregation of 20 into a network of churches with thousands of members, or the way to organise a praise band, or the latest method to tell people about Jesus that will have your church bursting with new converts ...
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
We expect practice and experience before any important job or endeavour, why should marriage be different?
Well, it depends, I think. Some jobs just require you to have had a good education, or an appropriate attitude. You don't need to have had experience of that particular line of work before. Similarly, not everyone who goes on an adventure has had specific experience before, just good health, a positive attitude, a guide book, advice from friends, etc.
Knowing how to talk to your wife over dinner shouldn't require all that much practice with other girlfriends if you come from a culture where people are simply in the habit of talking to each other. A romantic agenda with a few other people beforehand isn't required for that, is it? Maybe in reserved, Anglophone cultures.
Mind you, I'm somewhat confused about the evangelical subculture I'm reading about here. Are young men and women not even allowed to talk to each other as friends? If that's the case how on earth would you even know if the person you're attracted to is compatible with you?
If the subculture here is that young people should get engaged based on physical attraction but not on personality, shared interests or a compatible outlook on life, then that's what I'd find distasteful.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
I've now been happily married for nearly 35 years!
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
We've been together 40 years now.
Two different experiences. The same (give or take a few years) outcome. And, of course, we could line up a whole load of people who took more or less the same approach to relationships with very different outcomes. That's life, it's complex, uncertain, a good dash of chance thrown in.
This, 100% this.
Chance plays an enormous part, far bigger than any of us like to think imo. The same with having happy, healthy children - it's not often what we do as parents which has much bearing one way or the other (except in extreme cases, of course) yet folk agonise and write endless books about it.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Mind you, I'm somewhat confused about the evangelical subculture I'm reading about here. Are young men and women not even allowed to talk to each other as friends? If that's the case how on earth would you even know if the person you're attracted to is compatible with you?
As I said, there was (probably still is) a small sub-culture, or a set thereof, which developed some extreme ideas which then filtered out to the wider evangelical culture. But, the central sort of ideas that meshed into most of these approaches to relationships were/are:
- It is not good for a man (or woman) to be alone, therefore God has created the perfect partner for each of us
- God has plans to prosper us, therefore He will will lead us to that perfect partner
- When we meet them we will know (I've never quite figured out how we are to know ... and that is probably part of the differences between approaches).
- Having met our partner, and known that, we will then live happily ever after in perfect bliss producing lots of children who will be raised as good little evangelicals to lead the church into revival.
Of course, we were to keep ourselves pure until lead to the partner God had prepared for us. That included lustful thoughts about others who were not that partner. Which, until we knew we'd met him/her meant everyone. The difficulty was distinguishing lustful thoughts, the desires of our flesh, from the call of God that this was The One™. I guess that one of the attractions of "I kissed dating goodbye" is it provided a mechanism for that discernment - approaching the father (or equivalent male guardian).
For those who didn't go for the whole "no dating at all" thing, there was still always that concern hanging over: if I get this wrong, do I miss meeting The One™ and hence not live the perfect life God has planned for me? Even worse, if that happens then my mistake has also doomed The One™ I should be with to a less perfect life as well. So, play it safe, don't take chances dating someone who may not be The One™ and wait for whatever means God will choose to make His plans clear to you.
Talking as friends was OK. But, probably best to stick to safe subjects like Paul's teaching on justification. Though, in some churches, make sure that the girl doesn't stray into the territory of instructing. But, best not to be alone to avoid the temptation of lustful thoughts. And, certainly no physical contact.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Talking as friends was OK. But, probably best to stick to safe subjects like Paul's teaching
Even that's not safe. Mrs-Eutychus-to-be and I were having an argument on that very subject, as friends, when things suddenly took a very different turn.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
Alan Cresswell
I see.
As I thought, it seems to be the evangelical version of the secular 'happily ever after', in which everything is meant to be perfect once you've met your 'soulmate.'. The difference is, of course, that in secular culture one is expected to trawl through a lot of frogs in order to find a prince/princess.
[ 30. August 2016, 11:32: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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I do think a lot of this rubbish derives more from Holywood romantic movies than Christian theology.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I do think a lot of this rubbish derives more from Holywood romantic movies than Christian theology.
I think the expectations of the life thereafter certainly do, the initial stages you laid out above are highly down to the particular way Christian theology is worked out in evangelical circles.
It's a toxic combination of the idea of a 'soul mate' tagged onto the concept of 'The One'.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
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Alan Cresswell
It does sound like that.
I doubt that Christians in earlier centuries had such grand ideas about 'The One'. Members of small evangelical denominations would have had a restricted pool of potential mates to choose from in any case, and appearing to be too picky in a fairly homogeneous community wouldn't have made much sense.
Nowadays, surrounded as we are by so many people, it must be hard for anyone, Christian or otherwise, 'experienced' or not, to feel that there isn't someone else out there who might really be The One, rather than the one in front of us.
[ 30. August 2016, 12:14: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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The first time I spoke to my wife, I was talking to a friend about a (well known at the time) book which suggested that unmarried people should not even lie down next to each other. I turned from my friend and asked my wife what she thought about this. I can't remember what she said, but knowing her I suspect she just looked at me quizzically.
I resemble a lot of the things others have said above due to my rather closeted single-sex schooling, the efforts of my mother - and church - and general lack of social skills. Looking back, I wonder what on earth my wife saw in me.
In contrast to me (two girlfriends in my life, second became my wife), I knew of various people who would date widely, sometimes a relatively long chain of semi-serious relationships.
I can't honestly say whether people in my situation are "better" or worse than these*. I know people who I've known since I was a young teenager who married and (apparently, from a distance) seem still happy. I know people who dated and got to about 40 without committing to anyone, though eventually married. I've also known people who married their school sweetheart and eventually divorced after more than 10 years, others who dated and then married and divorced in a short time.
* of course, there is a real question of what "better or worse" really means. In this instance I'm talking about the length and stability of relationships, and I don't think in my generation and circle it really made any difference wrt divorce. On the other hand, my upbringing made me socially incompetent when thrown into a mix of different people. Thanks school and mum.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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To be fair, the evangelical and charismatic circles in which I moved did promote a pretty realistic and unromanticised view of what marriage entails - often quite graphically with puking babies, morning sickness and so on brought into the equation.
That wasn't the issue.
I was never exposed to the idea that there was 'the One' out there somewhere and if anything there was a refreshingly down-to-earth approach in the outfits I knew best.
The problem was more that the whole subculture fostered a somewhat intense and hot-house atmosphere - and I can relate to what Baptist Trainfan describes of his son's experience at a 'well-known' and large evangelical Anglican church.
People notice what you do, who you talk to and whether you're showing any interest - however 'innocently' in the opposite sex. There's a kind of proprietorial thing going on which is well-intentioned but can be interfering.
But you've got to take the rough with the smooth, and if you want to spend your time in that kind of church culture then it's a case of getting used to the norms or working with the difficulties they pose.
I'm really not sure what the answer is. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. There's no point in wondering what would have happened if things had worked out differently - if we'd married someone other than our partners, if we'd had some 'trial runs' with people, if we'd been promiscuous rather than restrained ...
To be fair, the churches I knew didn't pretend that relationships were easy or that it was all a bed of roses and in one sense the reaction - as in the case of Harris - against the whole 'going out' or 'dating' culture was part and parcel of that - they genuinely believed there was a 'more excellent way'.
There were elements of 'anti-dating' in some churches I knew but given that they were part of wider society and not living in a bubble, they couldn't really impose that to any great extent. So some of the places I knew that started to trumpet that they'd found an alternative to the nasty secular way of doing things didn't really follow through on it all because it proved impossible - there was no way they could 'enforce' this stuff.
So, in many ways, as in much else in revivalist or charismatic forms of evangelicalism, the rhetoric belied the reality. The reality wasn't really that different to what was going on anywhere else. They just liked to pretend it wasn't.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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I wasn't going to say it, but then thought maybe I should: some guy randomly asking young girls out for one-on-one dinner dates is weird. I can understand lots of people thinking that this is strange behaviour.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I do think a lot of this rubbish derives more from Holywood romantic movies than Christian theology.
I think the expectations of the life thereafter certainly do, the initial stages you laid out above are highly down to the particular way Christian theology is worked out in evangelical circles.
It's a toxic combination of the idea of a 'soul mate' tagged onto the concept of 'The One'.
I think what we have is an acceptance of the "happy ever after" myth that is widely followed in society at large. What evangelicals did was to accept that, but then reject the "have lots of relationships until one clicks" model of attaining that point. What then happens is that other models, which share common features such as "don't sleep around", are proposed for young people to find The One™. These are then dressed up in spiritual language, rather than derived from a solid theological basis.
It's another example of Evangelicals copying contemporary culture, and then giving it a spiritual veneer. And, as you say, it is very toxic.
A genuine attempt to develop a theology of relationships drawing on Scripture, Tradition, Experience and Reason would almost certainly look very different. For a start, I would be surprised if it started with an assumption that there is a perfect soulmate for each of us. Remove that expectation of finding The One™, with all the associated stress of "what if I miss The One™?", would be an enormous help.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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I think there are several strands running alongside one another in contemporary evangelical and evangelical/charismatic subculture that occasionally interwine and fuse and which occasionally create electric shocks ...
One strand carries a kind of 'down-home' folk wisdom - of the sort that the sociologist Dr Andrew Walker identified and praised among the old-school, traditional working-class Pentecostals.
The other carries a kind of populist 'self-help' type of pop-psychology or pop-theology picked up from conferences, from the Christian book-trade and from various fads and fancies promulgated by big-name preachers and writers.
The sort of secular values thing given a spiritual -sounding veneer.
At best, this can represent a fusion that combines the practical and pragmatic with some values that might take you a certain way around the track.
At worst, it can become programmatic and stultefying.
In most instances, I suspect, the practical outworking lies somewhere between those two extremes.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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I agree: chance, or if you prefer to think of it as the hand of God, totally rules on this.
Cast your mind back to when you first met your spouse or Significant Other. At that exact moment, an infinity of happenings could have prevented you two from clicking -- indigestion. Thunderstorm. They ran out of chicken pilaf in the food line and you got the burrito. Some other guy asking you about the football scores. She could have been one minute early, or one minute late, and stood next to the other guy, and now twenty years later she is sitting with him in front of the telly watching football.
Everything had to fall precisely into place for you to meet and mate your SO. The most powerful tool God has in his kit is not the lightning bolts and the burning bushes. It's the power of circumstance, the tiny incident that kicks off the whole cascade of consequences. They were out of rice pilaf and you got the burrito, so that while standing next to her two hours later the fart was irrepressible and, gagging, she moved over to stand next to him, and now twenty years later they are the proud parents of twins, etc. etc.
Which is of course how the book author and his ilk are able to say that God Has A Plan For You and there's only One who you have to wait and hang tough for.
But ... turn it around. The power of circumstance is irresistible; you cannot evade it. (Suppose you had been at the circus, and she could attribute the odor to the elephants? This actually happened to me; only after the wedding did I realize that no, it was not the elephants.) The power in God's hand is so very great that there is no point in worrying about it. If you meet her, you meet her. You might as well relax. Have the burrito, because if it is meant to be then nothing you can do can evade it.
Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I wasn't going to say it, but then thought maybe I should: some guy randomly asking young girls out for one-on-one dinner dates is weird. I can understand lots of people thinking that this is strange behaviour.
BT didn't say "dinner dates" he said "meals." I wouldn't regard lunch (especially if it was in the Student Union!) as a date.
I had one excruciatingly awkward lunch when a woman at church set up a meeting between her son and myself during our lunch hours. I was dating my now-husband at the time and had no suspicion that she had seen me as a potential girlfriend for her son until he told me, right at the start of our meal, that he didn't need his mother to organise his love life, so I needn't get my hopes up!
As far as I was concerned, meeting up with a young man for lunch was just a networking thing, not a date at all.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
BT didn't say "dinner dates" he said "meals." I wouldn't regard lunch (especially if it was in the Student Union!) as a date.
I had one excruciatingly awkward lunch when a woman at church set up a meeting between her son and myself during our lunch hours. I was dating my now-husband at the time and had no suspicion that she had seen me as a potential girlfriend for her son until he told me, right at the start of our meal, that he didn't need his mother to organise his love life, so I needn't get my hopes up!
As far as I was concerned, meeting up with a young man for lunch was just a networking thing, not a date at all.
I very rarely ate alone or went to any kind of meal alone with anyone. I still don't really think it is a good idea.
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on
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Well, they tended to be evening meals at a not-too-expensive Italian place. But he didn't just pick young ladies 'at random' - they were folk he already knew a bit and hoped to get to know a bit better. And I think that the group was sometime bigger than just two, anyway.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
Well, they tended to be evening meals at a not-too-expensive Italian place. But he didn't just pick young ladies 'at random' - they were folk he already knew a bit and hoped to get to know a bit better. And I think that the group was sometime bigger than just two, anyway.
Again, that would have been considered to be weird in the circles I went to university with. "Getting to know" someone was something you did in larger groups. You only get to one-on-one meals with someone when you were actually "going out".
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
(Suppose you had been at the circus, and she could attribute the odor to the elephants? This actually happened to me; only after the wedding did I realize that no, it was not the elephants.)
Sometimes you end up getting married even though he knows it was you all along.
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
"Getting to know" someone was something you did in larger groups. You only get to one-on-one meals with someone when you were actually "going out".
For my son, the one-to-one meal was a "sort of perhaps" date, but with no suggestion that they were actually "going out together", at least not at that point. The mismatch of understanding was not AFAIU with the young ladies concerned but with the self-appointed "purity police" of the wider Christian student group.
Anyway he's now been happily married for a number of years!
[ 30. August 2016, 14:49: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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The fashions on this have altered in our lifetime, and are also subject to local custom. A large group of young people going out together is actually a fairly common preliminary in the US. If you pair off with someone else in that large group then you might gradually spin off and do things just the two of you. A clever church works this, and sets up many opportunities for casual groups of people -- college fellowships, young adult groups, canoeing excursions, etc. I met my husband at a college Christian fellowship, and I do not doubt that my son will meet a young woman either at the church young adult group, or at a political meeting. (Although I have warned him that in our blue district a young unmarried female Republican is surpassingly rare, and he had better grab her if he sees one.)
Here, btw, is an article about Christian masculinity and how the unreasonable demands upon Christian men does not work well.
Posted by quantpole (# 8401) on
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I was at university when this book was a thing. And a rather conservative CU and church. It wasn't so much that dating was thought of as wrong, just not the 'ideal'. I remember a couple of people who got engaged when they hadn't been on any dates, and this was widely held up as being a more virtuous way of doing things. (Incidentally I don't think the couple in question didn't date because of any church/CU pressure, and if anything I could see that for them it was maybe the best way to approach it).
It was yet another thing to be guilty about. And to my mind fed into the hugely negative attitude to sex in that sort of Christianity.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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I can see how the philosophy of this book might be a relief, if you are a shy and awkward teen. Throw aside all the stresses of actually getting to know young women! Hand off the problem to God! What a vast time saver it must be.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
We expect practice and experience before any important job or endeavour, why should marriage be different?
Well, it depends, I think. Some jobs just require you to have had a good education, or an appropriate attitude. You don't need to have had experience of that particular line of work before.
Having worked in, and adjacent to, several fields technical, it is a combination of education and experience that is the most effective. It will vary, but the more important or permanent, the more both come into play. If you think marriage neither, then whatever.
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Similarly, not everyone who goes on an adventure has had specific experience before, just good health, a positive attitude, a guide book, advice from friends, etc.
depends upon the adventure. A trip through the civilised world or a solo trek down the Amazon. One is a happy lark with interesting stories to tell, the other is a very tragic outcome. Well, one's decaying body will feed the local flora and fauna, so not all bad.
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Knowing how to talk to your wife over dinner shouldn't require all that much practice with other girlfriends if you come from a culture where people are simply in the habit of talking to each other. A romantic agenda with a few other people beforehand isn't required for that, is it?
Romance changes the interaction. Partners are not just friends with whom you have sex. They should be friends, yes, but even the mundane interactions are different.
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
The difference is, of course, that in secular culture one is expected to trawl through a lot of frogs in order to find a prince/princess.
Not necessarily. The idea is that you do not expect...shimmery halos, butterfly wings, celestial music...The ONE...shimmery halos, butterfly wings, celestial music..., not that you {i]must[/i] experiment madly. It is possible the find a compatible mate right off the starting line, just not crazy likely.
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I agree: chance, or if you prefer to think of it as the hand of God, totally rules on this.
Cast your mind back to when you first met your spouse or Significant Other.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Did I say no?
This idea is madness! It is absolutely no different than the lightning bolts.
THERE. IS. NO. ONE.
Soulmate isn't something you are, it is something you become. Some relationships have that chance encounter, that sparkly bit, some develop out of friendship or acquaintance, some out of dating.
Thinking God has a PLAN™ is as likely to end in tragedy as triumph. If God is to be involved, it is in you listening, not God indicating.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
They are not realistic in any culture. relationships are work. But that does not mean any relationship can work. We expect practice and experience before any important job or endeavour, why should marriage be different?
I think there are two separate things here. The first is that, like everything else, you get better at relationships and at sex with practice. You are likely to make mistakes in the course of your first romantic relationship, and you're unlikely to show great skills during your first sexual experience. With practice, both will get better.
But there's nothing here to say that the practice has to be with other people. Certainly you can (and hopefully do) learn from previous relationships with other people, but it's just as possible to do all your learning with a single partner, from scratch.
The second thing is the question of compatibility. Again, I mostly agree with you. I don't subscribe to the soulmate claptrap - I think there are thousands of women with whom I could have built a perfectly satisfactory marriage. Had I not met my wife, hopefully I would have met one of the others. Equally, there are many more women who I could never have married. A couple of those are dear friends, who I have known for ages and like very much, but we'd probably end up killing each other if forced to live together.
So I think the question here is what it takes to determine whether you make a compatible couple. (And yes, finding out that your prospective partner smells like an elephant is probably included here.)
I don't think this requires sex, and I don't think it requires sharing a home, but I think it probably must require significantly more time together than conservative Christian "courtship" societies usually permit their members. It's probably also true that this process is harder and takes longer the more differences there are between the cultures and upbringings of the couple.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
I think there are two separate things here. The first is that, like everything else, you get better at relationships and at sex with practice. You are likely to make mistakes in the course of your first romantic relationship, and you're unlikely to show great skills during your first sexual experience. With practice, both will get better.
But there's nothing here to say that the practice has to be with other people. Certainly you can (and hopefully do) learn from previous relationships with other people, but it's just as possible to do all your learning with a single partner, from scratch.
I do not think that having sex is a requisite part of the dating experience. That will depend on a variety of issues. Sex should definitely be on the discussion list, though. Good sex isn't just practice, there is a considerable mental component and, like any other part of a relationship, there can be incompatibilities.
Frankly, though, if you've never had sex, you do not know what you truly like, but what you think you might like.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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Regarding the sudden shock of living together: AIUI in the days when living apart until marriage was the norm, there were lots of books and magazine articles with advice on how to face up to the challenge*. They may or may not have provided good advice but they show that it was acknowledged to be a problem.
Conversely, I get the impression that the 'no sex before marriage' subculture expends much more energy on the 'no sex'.
* I have one such book, Everyday Problems and their Solution, from the 1930s. Full of terrible dilemmas such as 'I fell in love with a factory girl.'
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
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quote:
Originally posted by quantpole:
I was at university when this book was a thing. And a rather conservative CU and church. It wasn't so much that dating was thought of as wrong, just not the 'ideal'.
Though as I pointed out above (over the page) how things worked out in the UK, where the context for the book was set by whatever your regular church context was like was different from how it worked out when you were in the US and/or homeschooled and/or and/or in a church whose leaders promoted CJ and Josh and/or in the SGM itself.
I remember at the time I had more than one female acquaintance tell me that they felt they were being called to marry an SGM pastor (as that was the only type of person who could possibly live up to the picture they had in their mind of their soul mate).
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
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Doctor Johnson: "I believe marriages would in general be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made by the Lord Chancellor, upon a due consideration of characters and circumstances, without the parties having any choice in the matter."
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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At least that gives one somebody to blame.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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Bollocks, Brenda. Your 'it had to be' determinism us a load of crap, as is the idea of mating with Republicans. There are too many Republicans already. Perhaps not where you are but every fucking place else. Get over it already. At least until you've come up with a better candidate than Trump.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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I don't propose determinism as my own belief. I propose it as something to tell these poor sex-starved teens. Is God in charge? Well, then God is in charge. Don't sweat it.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
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One of the "no dating around until God leads you to the one whom He has chosen for you to marry" brigade's inducements is the myth of being rewarded with an awesome wedding night.
There are arguments for Christian sexual abstinence prior to marriage, but this isn't one of them.
The idea that on top of a physically exhausting and emotionally draining wedding day, the culmination of weeks or months of preparation, a shy and awkward sexually inexperienced couple are going to get together that night and produce multiple explosive orgasms - or even a mutually fulfilling romantic interlude - is wholly fanciful.
And then there are problems such as hymen disasters and honeymoon cystitis...
In a healthy, realistic relationship these challenges will be dealt with over time through patience and consideration, leading to a great sex life, but it is insane to promise that it is going to happen overnight.
(We had an enjoyable honeymoon forty-six years ago, but I have heard of enough Christian honeymoon catastrophes to make me think of a The Honeymoon From Hell thread, but it might be too hurtful - and require a censorship rating!)
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I don't propose determinism as my own belief. I propose it as something to tell these poor sex-starved teens. Is God in charge? Well, then God is in charge. Don't sweat it.
Are you being sarcastic? Cuz otherwise I don't think there's any reason to believe a system that proves unsatisfactory for dealing with your own adult challenges will be any more satisfactory in dealing with the challenges of "poor sex-starved teens."
I think we have a tendency to dismiss the struggles of adolescents. But the older adolescents I work with are dealing with some pretty dark things-- and not just the "sex-starved" stuff. Indeed, the main charge that's being leveled against Harris is not the lack of sex, but the impact of the sense of shame-- which is far more serious. Most of the students I work with have had a friend or relative commit suicide.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I think we have a tendency to dismiss the struggles of adolescents. But the older adolescents I work with are dealing with some pretty dark things-- and not just the "sex-starved" stuff. Indeed, the main charge that's being leveled against Harris is not the lack of sex, but the impact of the sense of shame-- which is far more serious. Most of the students I work with have had a friend or relative commit suicide.
I was going to say that it can't possibly be that common, but then remembered that I've had two people I knew from my teens who committed suicide, in each case partly due to shame from an inability to form a lasting relationship. Both - in different ways - "checked out" because they couldn't take it any more.
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on
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quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I think we have a tendency to dismiss the struggles of adolescents. But the older adolescents I work with are dealing with some pretty dark things-- and not just the "sex-starved" stuff. ... Most of the students I work with have had a friend or relative commit suicide.
This report, just published, is germane.
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
I have one such book, Everyday Problems and their Solution, from the 1930s. Full of terrible dilemmas such as 'I fell in love with a factory girl.'
Presumably, therefore, not written from the perspective of a "factory boy"?? ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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Yes, Kaplan, I'm sure there's a book waiting to be published about Christian honeymoon disasters and subsequent struggles ...
To be fair, in the circles I moved in they didn't give the impression that 'it'd be alright on the night' as it were and were realistic enough to acknowledge that things might not go that well at first in the below-the-belt department.
I don't think evangelicalism is the only Christian tradition that can struggle with the realities of this area of human life and experience though.
In fact, I know it isn't, not from personal experience (most of my adult life has been spent in evangelical circles of one form or other) but from what I've seen on-line and heard from people in other traditions.
I do think that there is/was something particularly pernicious about the Harris-style thing though - not so much in the promotion of abstinence and restraint in general terms - but the way it was applied.
You have to look at the full picture and in and of itself the Harris sort of hairiness mightn't be too bad or harmful, but once it's embedded within a subculture with an already particularly heightened sense of expectations - and the mileage varies with that of course - then you're going to get problems.
Even the less prosperity-gospelly influenced evangelical and charismatic outfits do seem to suffer from an over-blown set of expectations when it comes to human frailty or expecting God to sort out all your problems for you - be they work-related, to do with relationships or whatever else.
In the charged and fervid atmosphere of adolescence or early 20s singleness (or later singleness in many instances, come to that) then that particular theology and spirituality can be found wanting when it comes to every day and perfectly normal stresses and strains.
That's by no means always the case, but it is an ever-present danger within the more pietistic forms of Christianity.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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What I find dismaying about the Harris prescription is the idea that you can't talk to members of the other sex, or become their friends, or in any way get to know them. This must make a challenging process far more difficult, and is clearly un-Biblical.
At the very least, if you converse with members of another (sex, race, religion, nationality) you can get to know them as people. At a visceral level you learn that they are not just walking (penises, nappy haircuts, burkas, etc.) but persons like yourself. And youth is the time to learn this -- pre-puberty, ideally, so that you don't have the hormonal fume fogging up the issue.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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Yep.
I get told off for using - or over-using the phrase - but to use a quaint British expression, he over-eggs the pudding.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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Yep.
I get told off for using - or over-using the phrase - but to use a quaint British expression, he over-eggs the pudding.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
What I find dismaying about the Harris prescription is the idea that you can't talk to members of the other sex, or become their friends, or in any way get to know them. This must make a challenging process far more difficult, and is clearly un-Biblical. ...
Is 'un-Biblical' quite the right word? How much do most of us actually know about courtship customs at various different biblical times and places?
We know that though betrothed, they had not had sex. However, did Joseph and Mary choose each other or did their parents arrange their marriage? Had they been allowed to meet, and if so under what constraints?
Were the couple who were being married at Cana allowed to meet together beforehand, get to know each other, 'walk out', or even be involved in choosing each other? We get the impression that society in Corinth was a bit louche, but what were the approved customs in respectable Christian circles in the eastern Mediterranean? And what about early Iron Age Judea? We know that even a king was not supposed to seduce the wife of one of his military commanders. What else can we say?
And even if we did know how courtship was done then, to what extent would that be authoritative as to what we recommend as the best way now?
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Is 'un-Biblical' quite the right word? How much do most of us actually know about courtship customs at various different biblical times and places?
I think 'extra-biblical' may be a better word.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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Nope, dial it back. Not courtship. Talking. It is clearly Biblical to talk to people. Jesus did it (woman at the well, people falling out of trees). If we do not communicate we cannot know each other. And then how can we possibly love each other?
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Nope, dial it back. Not courtship. Talking. It is clearly Biblical to talk to people. Jesus did it (woman at the well, people falling out of trees). If we do not communicate we cannot know each other. And then how can we possibly love each other?
Although Jesus is often causing shock and offense when he talks to certain people (women, foreigners, sinners). So when we're talking 1st c. Jewish custom, obviously there were some taboos re talking-- including some low-level barriers to men talking to/with unrelated women. So advocating a separation of the genders is "unbiblical" in the sense that it is contrary to Jesus' practice/example, rather than being contrary to common practice at the time.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Is 'un-Biblical' quite the right word? How much do most of us actually know about courtship customs at various different biblical times and places?
Well, you send your servant to your father's home town, and he picks a woman who waters his camels. He then gives her jewels and meets her parents, and explains his mission. Then if her father sends her back with your servant, she's yours.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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Or in the case of Boaz, you get blind drunk one night at an end-of-harvest party, pass out, and wake up to find a strange woman in your bed. Truly a template for modern life ...
[ 31. August 2016, 21:18: Message edited by: Ricardus ]
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Although Jesus is often causing shock and offense when he talks to certain people (women, foreigners, sinners). So when we're talking 1st c. Jewish custom, obviously there were some taboos re talking-- including some low-level barriers to men talking to/with unrelated women.
Not sure. ISTM that when Jesus' interactions with women caused scandal, it was because those women lived colourful lives (e.g. the woman at the well, the woman who bathed his feet with her tears), rather than just because they were women. No-one seems to have been particularly bothered that he hung out with Martha and Mary, or that he was supported by Joanna the wife of Herod's steward. And the personal messages at the end of St Paul's epistles (which in some ways are the most fascinating part of them) are quite often directed to women, which implies that women had a fair amount of autonomy - if St Paul could ask a woman to do something for him, that implies that doing it was within her power and wouldn't cause scandal.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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What I'm saying is that Jesus didn't cut Himself off from contact with people, simply because he might or might not marry them. (Let's not get into the whole Jesus-was-married controversy.) He just hung out. So should we. Because not only can you never convert anybody if you don't talk to them, you can't ever know them or become their friend.
Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Mind you, I'm somewhat confused about the evangelical subculture I'm reading about here. Are young men and women not even allowed to talk to each other as friends? If that's the case how on earth would you even know if the person you're attracted to is compatible with you?
If the subculture here is that young people should get engaged based on physical attraction but not on personality, shared interests or a compatible outlook on life, then that's what I'd find distasteful.
I know the discussion has moved on, but I thought I might come back to this, because it's important to everyone in every 'romantic' relationship, for want of a better term. How do you know if this person is compatible with you? As I've already indicated, I have a seriously limited frame of reference for these things. But I find myself asking, after 20 years in this relationship, What is compatibility anyway?, and, Is it really the thing that matters?
At the time we got married, as university students, I would certainly have said we were compatible, and I would have based that on pretty much Svitlana's list of; personality, shared interests, and general outlook on life. But we were very young,* and our personalities were not fully formed (are they ever?) and have not continued on a parallel track. We had a couple of very major shared interests: acing university, and Christianity. Outside of university, and at this distance, on the other side of Christianity as well, we both like tramping/hiking, and cricket. Not much to go on, and neither combine well with small children. Compatible outlook on life? Not so much, and probably mostly it's me that's changed there. All I'm trying to say is, these things can slip away, like sand through your fingers, as surely as looks do.
So what, then? What questions would I ask myself now, if contemplating marriage? Well...Am I going to be able to continue to respect this person, even when I fundamentally disagree with him? Is this person likely to be prepared to continue to engage with me, even when they fundamentally disagree with me?, and, Do I like or respect this person's family members?
I think if you have these, you can rub along, with continued hope of a brighter patch around the corner somewhere (and there have been a few). However, I can't help thinking that if we were truly compatible, in the generally understood sense of the word, it wouldn't be so much work to make it work.
---------------
*I know that throughout much of history people have been married in their late teens or early twenties and not thought too young to handle it. I think maybe I mean emotionally and mentally young, as many 'academically gifted' people are, as say compared to someone the same age who has been working at a job and generally dealing with life, and the world, for a few years already when marrying young.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Or in the case of Boaz, you get blind drunk one night at an end-of-harvest party, pass out, and wake up to find a strange woman in your bed. Truly a template for modern life ...
Some things never change.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
If we do not communicate we cannot know each other. And then how can we possibly love each other?
Makes sense to me as a modern Westerner, but if we are talking about marriage, then I am very aware that possibly most people throughout history, and many people in the world today, got and get married while hardly knowing their spouses.
In India, both our Christian and Hindu friends would say, "You fall in love and get married, but we get married and then learn to love one another".
One of my students, a Westernised and well-travelled teenage girl, repeated with approval the common saying, "Love marriage, lust marriage", and was obviously happy for her parents to plan hers.
We are close to an Indian couple here in Australia who had had only one or two (chaperoned) meetings before they married, but have a very warm relationship.
We might find this strange, but we must avoid being parochial and judgemental about it.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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quote:
Originally posted by anoesis:
However, I can't help thinking that if we were truly compatible, in the generally understood sense of the word, it wouldn't be so much work to make it work.
Without wanting to make any comment about your situation, which is obviously tough for you, I'd say that marriage is always hard work for the reasons you outline; people grow and change, nobody fully knows another person before they're married etc and so on.
That's not about compatibility or otherwise, that's just the reality of trying to live with someone else (without actually murdering them) for a long time.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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Very little combines well with small children! Survive that stage and you have done well.
Then, when they have left home a whole new chapter begins - none of which is easy either.
I think the Church and the World have far too much idealism. 'Good enough' is GOOD. Muddling along and getting through with bright spots here and there is just fine.
Lower expectations, enjoying the small things and far, far fewer 'programmes' please.
Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on
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I read that book … I’d be more convinced of his “repentance” if the book wasn't still in print … But I’m a cynic.
I agree with Alan. The teaching around dating that many of us got growing up in that era was really unhelpful. Harris’ book – that I read – was rooted in a US Christian culture that doesn’t really exist in the UK. Which made picking holes in it easier. OTH, we had Joyce Hugget. Bless her heart.
The problem with all the material is that:
- It failed to engage with how people actually live, form relationships or enable them to develop the life skills needed to spot a wrong ‘un. (Or a wrong for me ‘un). The Western courtship model means that you may have kiss a few frogs to find your prince. Or at least talk to them for more than five minutes without having the hideous thought that this means you're committed to a forever relationship with them.
- Much of the teaching does owe more to Hollywood or Mills & Boon than the actual Bible. There is no such thing as The One ™. There are lots of Potential Ones ™.
- Our view of courtship and the path to marriage isn’t the same as the Bible’s. Biblical courtships were likely to be similar to arranged marriages – your parents find a suitable candidate within your community, you have a few heavily chaperoned meetings, you get married and get on with it. Suitable candidates” are of sound financial standing, well thought of in the community and with good moral values. Naomi suggested Boaz because he was a close relative and had other good qualities. The closer relative wasn’t such a good sort. (No references to foxy good looks at all!)
- Most of it is unbelievably sexist. OTH, men have been blaming women for stuff since the start of the Bible so why should it be any different now?
![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Tubbs
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
I read that book … I’d be more convinced of his “repentance” if the book wasn't still in print … But I’m a cynic.
I suspect you will find he has no cohtrol over that. Hence my remarks about evil publishers.
quote:
OTH, we had Joyce Hugget. Bless her heart.
I was at university with, and occasionally played in a band with, a son of hers. Imagine the pressure on him!
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
Our view of courtship and the path to marriage isn’t the same as the Bible’s. Biblical courtships were likely to be similar to arranged marriages – your parents find a suitable candidate within your community, you have a few heavily chaperoned meetings, you get married and get on with it. Suitable candidates” are of sound financial standing, well thought of in the community and with good moral values. Naomi suggested Boaz because he was a close relative and had other good qualities. The closer relative wasn’t such a good sort. (No references to foxy good looks at all!)
No disagreement from me insofar as that refers to the wealthy and powerful. What happened at village level between the shepherd's daughter and the ploughman's son? And on a slightly different tack, what were the weddings at that level like. Do we have the waiting bridesmaids, the grooms bursting forth from their chamber? And where did the happy couple live?
I've not seen any reliable writings on the private lives of villagers that explore these questions.
Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
I read that book … I’d be more convinced of his “repentance” if the book wasn't still in print … But I’m a cynic.
I suspect you will find he has no cohtrol over that. Hence my remarks about evil publishers.
quote:
OTH, we had Joyce Hugget. Bless her heart.
I was at university with, and occasionally played in a band with, a son of hers. Imagine the pressure on him!
Suddenly, I have the thought that my lot could have been considerably worse ...
I know some of Rev T's friends were concerned because I was a bit older and had previous relationship related form. He wanted to show them a picture of me and my then tiny baby of a god daughter and watch them go. ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
After 16 years, I think they're cool with it all. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Gee D,
I can't remember the TV programme, but they were going through the punishment books of medieval churches and there were plenty of people getting done for sexual misdemeanours of various sorts. Ranging from the being found in the company of a member of the opposite sex without being married to having children out of wedlock.
My guess is that for some people, the family would have had a lot of influence in who they married, but there was more of a business element too it. X marries Y because she has the land and he has the combine harvester.
For others, the main thought was not getting caught out as that would mean banishment from the community. (Or, in later times, being let go without a character so being unable to find other work).
Tubbs
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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In medieval times there were plenty of six-month babies. You got pregnant, then married. Not necessarily a bad thing, since then both parties knew that they were fertile and able to reproduce. Furthermore, since (except in romance novels) you usually need a couple of goes before you 'catch', the fact that she is pregnant shows that the couple is at least reasonably compatible in the sack.
Nor is it at all unknown in modern times. Winston Churchill is alleged to have been suspiciously well-developed for a premature baby.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
If we do not communicate we cannot know each other. And then how can we possibly love each other?
Makes sense to me as a modern Westerner, but if we are talking about marriage, then I am very aware that possibly most people throughout history, and many people in the world today, got and get married while hardly knowing their spouses.
In India, both our Christian and Hindu friends would say, "You fall in love and get married, but we get married and then learn to love one another".
One of my students, a Westernised and well-travelled teenage girl, repeated with approval the common saying, "Love marriage, lust marriage", and was obviously happy for her parents to plan hers.
We are close to an Indian couple here in Australia who had had only one or two (chaperoned) meetings before they married, but have a very warm relationship.
We might find this strange, but we must avoid being parochial and judgemental about it.
One thing this points to is how very much baggage we have placed on the marital relationship in the modern West. In a different-- more communal-- culture with some version of arranged marriage, the expectations placed on the marriage would be far less, and would be fairly clear: husband provides support, sperm, and protection. Wife provides sex, children, caring for the home. That sounds narrow and transactional, but it's very clear. And, in a more communal culture, you have other relationships-- friends and family-- who are meeting a lot of your needs for emotional support, companionship, etc. Your marriage may or may not turn into a friendship/ partnership, but whether it does or doesn't, you are part of a community where you are known, loved, and hopefully respected.
Today we are so isolated and individualistic that all of those emotional/social needs end up wrapped up in a single individual. It's just too much for one person to live up to.
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
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Totally agreed. Especially when a married couple turns into parents, I can't believe how isolated we expect the nuclear family to be.
Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Totally agreed. Especially when a married couple turns into parents, I can't believe how isolated we expect the nuclear family to be.
True this. When my Hindu friend said that when after the baby was born, it was traditional for her mother to come and help for a few months I seriously thought about converting.
Tubbs
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
True this. When my Hindu friend said that when after the baby was born, it was traditional for her mother to come and help for a few months I seriously thought about converting.
Pretty much everyone I know has had their mothers show up to help when they have babies. The extent to which their mothers are able to do this is governed by their mothers' jobs, not their religion or ethnicity. If your mother has to work, and if she has a job that doesn't offer much in the way of vacation, then the amount of support she will be able to offer is limited.
On a personal level, we were glad to have parents show up to cook and clean when our babies were born, and equally glad when they left a few weeks later. ![[Two face]](graemlins/scot_twoface.gif)
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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I spent two weeks in June helping my daughter after the birth of her son. I can't afford to move in with her, however -- I have a job.
Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on
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Anoesis said (a while ago):
quote:
What I wish we had done differently is live together before getting married. We didn't because - well, living in sin and all that. But it was the most enormous shock to the system for me to go from spending time with my boyfriend/fiancee, where when we were together, we were actively, you know, being together,* to be plonked straight into a situation where we were actually together a great deal of the time, and I learned just how much of his time he spent playing online RPGs and just how different his body clock was to mine, and just how difficult it was to sleep in the same bed as a snorer**
This echoes the experience of my wife and I - going from dating every other weekend involving short flights, neighbouring countries, and total priority time for each other - to living together, with her TV habit and his hours in the shed. I knew she snored...and then we lived together for 3 years while we argued like f*ck and couldn't bring ourselves to arrange the day. But I guess, since she'd moved countries to be together, that we were kind-of-married - I couldn't imagine having called it off at that stage.
Now we have two kids, and the reasons for ongoing commitment are practical as well as moral. We've grown apart a good bit, and often live complementary but quite separate lives - and this can be lonely and discouraging. My Catholic friend views all this, in his marriage, as a painful process of sanctification from which there is no escape. Perhaps he's right - I dunno.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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From what I can gather, both sets of my grandparents 'had' to get married - as the saying went. It wasn't at all uncommon and family lore has it that their parents might have married for similar reasons.t
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Today we are so isolated and individualistic that all of those emotional/social needs end up wrapped up in a single individual. It's just too much for one person to live up to.
Somewhere in-between seem the most rational to me. Somewhere between the fairy tale true love v. the Shut up and Deal would seem the most rational.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Makes sense to me as a modern Westerner, but if we are talking about marriage, then I am very aware that possibly most people throughout history, and many people in the world today, got and get married while hardly knowing their spouses.
Arraigned marriage does not inherently mean the individuals have no choice or knowledge of partner. In addition to models that allow for the individual's input, practical realities often preclude the lack of familiarity.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
In India, both our Christian and Hindu friends would say, "You fall in love and get married, but we get married and then learn to love one another".
Except, as the knowledge of the surrounding world increases, so to does dissatisfaction with this model.
Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
From what I can gather, both sets of my grandparents 'had' to get married - as the saying went. It wasn't at all uncommon and family lore has it that their parents might have married for similar reasons.t
Of my eight great-great-grandmothers, two were married when they gave birth for the first time. Of those two, one had been married for only six weeks.
For assorted reasons, the rural north east of Scotland had the highest illegitimacy rate in Britain in the late C19th.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Arraigned marriage does not inherently mean the individuals have no choice or knowledge of partner.
I'm almost sure you mean "arranged" marriage. If they drag you to court and force you to marry, you may not have much choice.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Totally agreed. Especially when a married couple turns into parents, I can't believe how isolated we expect the nuclear family to be.
True this. When my Hindu friend said that when after the baby was born, it was traditional for her mother to come and help for a few months I seriously thought about converting.
Tubbs
My daughter is pregnant with our first grandchild (pause for mass rejoicing). Her husband will be out of town doing research the month before her due date. She is surprisingly calm about it, she said very matter-of-factly that if she goes into labor early, we'll just do it "old style" with her mom (me) and mother-in-law doing the midwifing/coaching rather than husband.
I don't want the baby to come early (we've had too many tragedies already in that regard) but I was rather tickled by that possibility.
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Winston Churchill is alleged to have been suspiciously well-developed for a premature baby.
Born with a silver spoon and a cigar in his mouth?
Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on
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Nice
Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
True this. When my Hindu friend said that when after the baby was born, it was traditional for her mother to come and help for a few months I seriously thought about converting.
Pretty much everyone I know has had their mothers show up to help when they have babies. The extent to which their mothers are able to do this is governed by their mothers' jobs, not their religion or ethnicity. If your mother has to work, and if she has a job that doesn't offer much in the way of vacation, then the amount of support she will be able to offer is limited.
On a personal level, we were glad to have parents show up to cook and clean when our babies were born, and equally glad when they left a few weeks later.
By "help", she meant take over looking after the baby so the mother could recover from the birth. Other members of the family pitched in with meals etc. Although others in my NCT group had help form parents / in-laws, it was nothing on the same scale and she assured me this was the culture within their community.
Tubbs
Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
I read that book … I’d be more convinced of his “repentance” if the book wasn't still in print … But I’m a cynic.
I suspect you will find he has no cohtrol over that. Hence my remarks about evil publishers.
He still appears to be taking the money. Maybe he could demonstrate his serious misgivings by donating further proceeds to charity?!
Tubbs
Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on
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Months??? Weeks??
I struggled to cope with my mother spending a few days with me after I had my babies.
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
quote:
Originally posted by Tubbs:
I read that book … I’d be more convinced of his “repentance” if the book wasn't still in print … But I’m a cynic.
I suspect you will find he has no cohtrol over that. Hence my remarks about evil publishers.
He still appears to be taking the money. Maybe he could demonstrate his serious misgivings by donating further proceeds to charity?!
Tubbs
And, there's a really easy way to make sure no more of his books are sold, if he's really serious about it. Make an announcement that further proceeds will be donated to Planned Parenthood. It will also probably result in a mass burning of copies that have beed sold over the years and stocking church libraries.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
First, do you know whether he actually has copyright in the book anymore? My first book was treated as "work for hire," and the publishing house is now entitled to reprint it from now till Kingdom Come, and I have no authority to stop it. They own the copyright.
Second, it's entirely possible that he has not imagined your creative solution and/or feels it would be an ethical violation to undermine the publisher that way, having accepted a contract. I would myself.
Third, you are assuming that there ARE proceeds coming in from the book. If it was treated as "work for hire," then he received a single lump sum (mine was a few hundred dollars) and will never see another penny forever. If it was on the standard advance/royalties system, we would have to know what the amount of the advance was--and he would be a most unusual person if he had not already spent every penny of that, whatever it was--AND whether the book had "earned out," that is, sold enough copies to make it legally necessary for the publisher to pay him additional royalties. We don't know that. Unless someone's privy to the contract details.
There's also the matter of already-printed stock sitting in warehouses etc. Even if he had full control over the copyright as of here and now, that stock would still belong to the publisher or to the distributors who had purchased it. To get rid of it, he would have to buy it back. I seriously doubt he has the money to do that.
Your pardon, but I hate to see a writer slammed for situations he has no control over.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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The people to address this are the publishers, who could and sometimes do pull a work at any point. (Even copies in warehouses cost money -- warehouse space is not free.) This is easily determined -- pop over to amazon.com and see if you can buy the book new. Remember that used copies are available forever, on ebay and Abe Books.
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
Months??? Weeks??
I struggled to cope with my mother spending a few days with me after I had my babies.
Yeah, I feel you. Your Mother May Vary.
However, I live in a neighborhood that has a Filipino population that is so large, Filipino people I met in England gave a shout of recognition when I mentioned its name. Extended family living situations are prevalient, to say the least.
Mom is not the only option for maternal support. Obviously there is the husband, and after that, there are aunts, uncles, cousins, older siblings...
That's one of the reasons I tend to prefer working in schools that serve Immigrant populations-- you are less likely to become the target of suburban guilt from people who are taught that childcare is a luxury option for Moms who don't want to do their proper job and stay at home like God intended. People who come from cultures that value extended family understand that raising a child is too big a job for one caregiver plus occasional backup, therefore they tend to absorb their child's professional caregiver into that dynamic-- to a certain extent.
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