Jesus Christ was not afraid to meet alone with known Prostitutes / Steven Furtick and Elevation Church Perpetuating Anti Singles Bias – ie, Single Women are Supposedly Sexual Temptresses, All Males Can’t Control Their Sex Drives – (but this view conflicts with evangelical propaganda that married sex is great and frequent)
Christians believe that all single women are sexual temptresses and that all males, single and married, Christian and non Christian, are all rapists if given the right opportunity (ie, being left alone with a single woman).
These stereotypes are isolating to single females who get lonely for platonic companionship and fellowship, and create sexual hang ups in single males.
What I find so strange is that Jesus Christ is recorded in the New Testament as meeting alone (or sometimes in groups) with KNOWN prostitutes, or with women of known sexual histories, shall we say, such as the woman at the well who everyone in town knew had five live in boyfriends – that did not stop Jesus from talking to her, yet married evangelical, Neo Reformed, fundamentalist and Baptist preachers today, and even male lay persons, are afraid to be alone with a single woman in an office for a chat or for a cup of coffee.
Or, how about this example (Luke 7:36-50), here are excerpts:
- When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”
40 Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”
“Tell me, teacher,” he said.
41 “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42 Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
43 Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.
44 Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.
45 You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47 Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
48 Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
49 The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
Jesus was not afraid to talk to female sexual sinners or have them touch his feet, so why on earth are so many conservative Christian males and females hung up about males being alone with single Christian females, or paranoid about “how it might look” to other people?
Jesus did not care how his hanging out with people who were considered to be sleazy in his day might look to the religious types, observe (from Matthew 11):
- 18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’
- 19 The Son of Man [Jesus] came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”
Because Jesus was not paranoid about how meeting with prostitutes, women with disease, single women, or whatever, might look to the religious, neither should Christians use this as an excuse to neglect meeting the needs or fellowshipping with single women.
Furtick and his church also dabble in another gender / marital status stereotype I’ve been meaning to call out in its own post for months now: that of assuming all single women are harlots who bang every man in sight, but all married women are totally dis-interested in sex and have to be cajoled into having sex with their spouses.
Here are the excerpts from (Link): On God’s Stage: Elevation Church:
- by EMILY HARRIS, page 2
The fun times and start-up spirit have led some to think Elevation is socially liberal, which it’s not.
The church, following the belief that God reserves sex for a husband and wife, has strict protocols.
Married staff members “should not be alone with members of the opposite sex,” the staff handbook states; riding in a car or visiting someone’s home qualify.
Pastors cannot provide pastoral care to the opposite sex alone at the office or anywhere else, and follow-up sessions with a married person must include the person’s spouse.
All Elevation pastors are male. Furtick brought in Ted Haggard, a onetime megachurch pastor who lost his position after a gay prostitute scandal, to speak about his intensive Christian therapy that helped him identify with heterosexual feelings.
Furtick said the “real hero” of the story was Ted’s wife, Gayle Haggard, who also spoke. He praised her for standing by her husband, inviting her to explain how she did it.
In September 2008, as part of a series called Visionary Love, Dream Sex, Furtick, then 28 years old with bleached-blond highlights, encouraged men not to keep sexual secrets from their wives and for wives to give their husbands “consistent sexual access.”
Wearing a shirt bearing the word Savage, Furtick told couples not to wait but to invest in their marriages that moment with date nights, discussion, and regular sex.
(Single women were also addressed: “You’re worth the wait. Keep your spring on lockdown.”)
Acknowledging that the recession, then fresh and full-force, was keeping many couples from indulging in an evening out, Furtick made his giveaway reveal.
And all that protocol of how and when singles of the opposite genders may meet or talk is doing is further marginalizing and stigmatizing single females and singlehood itself. It is NOT noble, cautious, or wise, it is discrimination, and it is rude.
These sorts of assumptions about the genders – that all single females are sluts and are easy (and that the married ones are prone to stray) and that all men are sex obsessed, rapey rapers actually plays a role in why evangelical Christians either don’t get married until much later in life or not at all – because these teachings make the genders scared of each other and keeps them apart.
I also find this “keep married men away from single ladies” teaching somewhat amusing (in a twisted way) because it works against another trope in evangelical fairy tale land: that if you stay a virgin until marriage, then marital sex will be regular and teriffic.
If married sex is so great, if married people are supposedly getting their sexual needs met and face no temptation to fornicate, why the hell bother with this other teaching that tells Christian males to stay away from un-married Christian females? If you’re getting regular, hot sex from your Christian hot wife, you should not be the least tempted if a single woman who looks the spitting image of model Cindy Crawford prostrates before you naked.
So which is it, evangelicals, which stereotype do you wish to keep, because they don’t both work.
Either it is:
1. single women are tempting enough to make you, a married man, cheat on your wife, so stay away from single ladies (which is the line you need to tell married men so they won’t have extra marital affairs)
~ or ~
2. married sex with your wife is so hot you won’t feel the need to stray with an unmarried woman ever (this is the line you need to tell teenagers so they they will want to stay virgins until marriage)
Regarding this comment by Furtick:
- (Single women were also addressed: “You’re worth the wait. Keep your spring on lockdown.”)
That was what I used to believe. I wanted to get married and have sex. I’m over 40 and still a virgin. If you’re a 20 something virgin, just remember, if you follow that ‘trust Jesus and just wait’ rhetoric, you may end up in my situation: not married and no sex past 40. (No, it wasn’t worth it.)
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Additional posts about this subject on this blog:
(Link): The Islamic Billy Graham Rule – Unmarried Muslim People Are Punished For Being Alone Together
(Link): Affairs Don’t Start with Texts – via guest authors at Tim’s blog
(Link): Discipling Healthy Male/Female Relationships in the Church Part 1 by Wendy Alsup
(Link): Non-Romantic Nearness, The Billy Graham Rule, and Pope John Paul’s Friendship With a Married Woman
(Link): When Women Wanted Sex Much More Than Men – and how the stereotype flipped
(Link): No Christians and Churches Do Not Idolize Virginity and Sexual Purity (they attack both)
(Link): Marriage Doesn’t Necessarily Guarantee Great Sex or Any At All
(Link): How Christians Keep Christians Single (part 3) – Restrictive Gender Roles Taught as Biblical
Regarding this next link:
And the article above says Furtick went to this guy’s church precisely to support him in the aftermath of the wife’s affair!!!!
(Link): Christian Wife of Kinda Famous TV Preacher Guy Committed Multiple Affairs – He tells congregation at church service
(Link): New Study Released: Cheaters: More American Married Women Admit to Adultery (links)
(Link): Married Christian Couples and Sexual Sin, More Examples – and Women and Porn
(Link): Married Women Engage in Sexual Sin – and most men in denial particularly Christian conservatives
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