Author Laurie Cole: another ‘early marriage’ supporter
Sometimes this blog writes itself. There are times when I don’t go looking for content, it finds me.
After writing two blog posts today, I had no intention of writing another, but I caught the last few moments of an interview with Chr. (Christian) author Laurie Cole, who was a guest on the Chr. television show “Life Today.”
Cole has written a book telling young Chr ladies how they can be women of virtue, or some such.
Cole was saying how females as young as age 12 or 13 today are having sex, and unlike even 20 to 30 years ago, where a horn-dog teen-ager guy had to at least pretend to love the girl and lie to the girl and say, “Of course I love you, baby” to get into her pants, that today, a girl will fall into bed even if the guy doesn’t claim to love her, because these girls feel it’s what everyone is doing, so they might as well too.
Cole at one point got into a discussion about Ruth and Boaz, two characters mentioned in the book of Ruth in the Old Testament of the Bible.
Cole said Boaz was a godly man who saw something godly about Ruth’s character. She seems to think that teaching young girls this view will help them to steer clear of sex outside of marriage, or of being used sexually by males.
—SIDE RANT—
Cole’s comments about Boaz’s character and Ruth’s character reminds me – there’s content for another post right there…
Most male Chr.s who comment on Ruth and Boaz never mention Ruth’s “godly” character or her inner qualities. Male Chr bloggers or pastors always make observations such as, “Boaz must have noticed what a looker Ruth was!”
Some of the more skeezy male pastors all seem to get off on how Ruth later approaches Boaz at night and puts the edge of his cloak over her feet, or whatever… male pastors have this disgusting tendency to sexualize EVERY male-female interaction, and make it all sound tawdry. It’s very unsavory, and it makes me wonder about these male pastors.
(Side note within a side rant: not that I’m a prude or “anti-sex.” What annoys me is where male pastors see sex where there is none, or where they harp on a woman’s looks, and a woman’s appearance is not central to the biblical narrative being discussed.)
I don’t even think the Bible mentions Ruth’s physical appearance (or does it)? I’ve been meaning to write another post about this – the sexist, obnoxious tendency of male Chrs. to always obsess over or comment upon female Bible character physical looks.
You never hear male Christians comment on what the Bible men looked like, such as, “That King David must have been a handsome, muscular man.”
Nope, male pastors, authors, and bloggers reserve all the observations about Bible characters looks to females only.
These Christian males may want to examine their weird pre-occupation with female beauty and sexuality – such pre-occupation is not biblical, it’s sexist, crude, and it’s uncomfortable for women to have to listen to or read.
More on this topic in a future post.
—END SIDE RANT—
At one stage of the interview, Cole said often that Chr. mothers and grandmas encourage their daughters to finish college first, get a career, then get married.
Cole said pushing young ladies towards excellence is fine, but they need to be taught that getting married is fine too (she seemed to be implying if a woman wants to get married before or during college, her parents should support that).
Given her Ruth and Boaz commentary in the televised interview, and perhaps I am wrong about this, but Cole seemed to be suggesting that if a Chr woman is pure and godly, she will be guaranteed (by God?) a godly spouse.
And that is a bunch of horse pucky.
I was little Miss Goody Two Shoes Christian gal my whole life – never had sex, didn’t smoke, no drinking, was a sweet, pretty, thin thing, most devout Christian – but my “Boaz” never came along.
I’m still unmarried at age 40+. And I’m not alone. There are ranks of unmarried, pure, sincere, devout Chr. women age 35+ who have never married.
To all the Chr authors, bloggers, preachers:
Stop making false promises and unfounded assurances to unmarried women.
Stop telling Christian women if they just do “X” enough (e.g., pray enough, wait enough, be godly enough, hope enough, serve enough, stay skinny enough, be pretty enough) that they WILL get a husband – because it is simply NOT TRUE. You are misleading every Chr. female out there with this false hope.
I think it may be less damaging to Christian ladies in the long run to be fully honest and up right tell them as young as age ten, 15, 20, that they may never get married, no matter how badly they want it, no matter how hard and often they pray for it.
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Please see my recent previous posts on this issue, or ones close to it:
A Response by Colon to Regnerus Re: Misguided Early Marriage Propaganda
Christian Pundit 