The Chelsea Handler Childless Woman Upset: Other Conservatives Wrongly Conflating Married Motherhood with Womanhood or Happiness, Meaning, Purpose

The Chelsea Handler Childless Woman Upset: Other Conservatives Wrongly Conflating Married Motherhood with Womanhood or with Happiness, Meaning, or Purpose

After entertainer Chelsea Handler uploaded (Link): a Tweet with a video of herself listing the numerous ways she enjoys life due to being childless – I didn’t see anything in the video mentioning abortion – a lot of other conservatives jumped to shame and scold Handler for being happy about being childless and publicly expressing that happiness.

Others have said that Handler had two or three abortions in the past. The fact that Handler previously had abortions does not change the substance of my problems with conservative reaction to Handler’s video.

I am pro-life, not pro-choice, so I don’t agree with Handler’s actions to terminate her pregnancies.

However, again, I don’t recall Handler’s “happy to be childless” video advocating abortion or mentioning anything about abortion.

I don’t think her video criticized or shamed women for being mothers or for wanting to be mothers.

The only possible, even remotely “anti motherhood” take away one can get from her video is that mothers – assuming they are good, non-abusive mothers – invest a lot of time in child-rearing, but Handler doesn’t frame it in an anti-motherhood way.

It’s Okay For Women to Be Childless at Any Age and to be Happy About Being Childless, Just Like It’s Okay For Mothers to Be Happy About Being Mothers

Handler was just showing ways she has more free time because she doesn’t have to participate in childcare – which is not the same thing as being “anti-motherhood,” or telling other women they are wrong to be mothers.

It’s perfectly fine for a woman to be single and childless and to be happy about it.

Women can and should find meaning and purpose apart from marriage and motherhood. It’s unhealthy for any person to wrap up all their happiness, meaning, or purpose into one identity, station of life, or role.

If you are a married mother, your children will grow up, move out, and seldom visit you once they’re gone. Your husband may develop dementia, abuse you, or cheat on you, so that you will be without emotional support or you will have to divorce him.
In all these situations, you will be left with yourself, by yourself, and god help you if you never forged purpose, identity, happiness, or meaning apart from a spouse and children.

There’s no reason to criticize or shame an adult, man or woman, for being single and childless and for being happy about it and posting about it.

My fellow conservatives often push motherhood (via podcasts, tweets, magazine articles, church sermons, blog posts, etc) to a loopy, creepy, fevered pitch, about how super awesome, fulfilling, and wonderful motherhood supposedly is – but goodness forbid a childless woman lists or publicizes the ways she’s happy with being childless – and do so without criticizing motherhood or mothers. That’s a huge double standard.

I also didn’t agree with Handler’s mockery of single women who choose to remain virgins until marriage or to remain chaste (I blogged about that (Link): here a few years ago).

Unfortunately, in the midst of criticizing Handler, a lot of conservatives today were conflating “womanhood” to married motherhood. 

However, a woman remains a woman regardless if she has a child or is infertile, childless, or childfree, or whether she wants to have children or not.

Why a Masculine Ministry Rose and Fell – Re: Christianity Today’s Podcast Episode of Mark Driscoll’s Sexism

Why a Masculine Ministry Rose and Fell – Re: Christianity Today’s Podcast Episode of Mark Driscoll’s Sexism

Huge disclaimer:
David French, author of the piece I am excerpting later in this post, claims to be a conservative, but he leans pretty liberal, and he is totally wrong about Critical Race Theory.
I do not endorse his acquiescence to the far left, on his acquiescence to the left to basically just lay back and permit CRT being allowed into public schools.

But I do think many of French’s points in his essay about Mark Driscoll (the sexist, crackpot, control freak pastor of The Trinity Church and formerly, Mars Hill), and the state of Christianity today (over stressing masculinity as much as they do) are correct.

Yes, complementarians often take sin and paint them as virtue, as French notes in his piece.

The Bible does not teach that men should rule over women, but that male rule over women would be a result of the Fall – and complementarians today twist that and insist sexism against women was all part of God’s original intent and design: complementarians are demonic in teaching vice as virtue.

Complementarians also spend more time trying to get men to act like masculine manly-men (and at that, usually patterned after Hollywood movie characters or historical tough guys), when the Bible tells men (and women) to pattern themselves after the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

(Link): Why a Masculine Ministry Rose and Fell – Learning the lessons of Mark Driscoll’s decline.  by David French

Excerpts:

….[The several part pod cast series] by Mike Cosper at Christianity Today [is remarkable, French says], and it chronicles the rise and fall of Mars Hill church in Seattle and the corresponding rise and fall of its celebrity pastor, Mark Driscoll.

The thing that’s remarkable about the podcast is that it spends as much time describing what worked about Mars Hill—why Driscoll and his church became a sensation—as it does describing why it failed.

… Driscoll resigned from Mars Hill in 2014, under fire for his harsh, “domineering” leadership and almost a year after Driscoll apologized for “mistakes” following plagiarism allegations. Mars Hill Church dissolved shortly thereafter.

American Christians, Liberals, Liberal Pet Groups, and Persecution

American Christians, Liberals, Liberal Pet Groups, and Persecution

(This post has been edited and updated, especially towards the bottom, to add more commentary or links)

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For about the past year, I have thinking about blogging about this topic but put it off until now.

I have seen liberal Christians, ex-Christians, left wing Non-Christians, and moderately conservative Christians complain or mock American Christians who claim that American Christians are being persecuted in the United States due to being  Christian.

In the past, I’ve seen liberal Christian blogger RHE (Rachel Held Evans) comment on this subject on her blog, on her Twitter account, as well as the Liberal, quasi- Christian, Stephanie Drury bring this up on her (Link): “Stuff Christian Culture Likes” Facebook group from time to time (edit: see updated post about the hideous “Stuff Christian Culture Likes” Facebook group (link): here).

I’ve also seen moderately conservative Christians I am acquainted with discuss this in Tweets or on their blogs.

To reiterate a point I’ve made before, I do sometimes agree with SCCL’s Drury on some issues, and I even periodically Tweet her links to news stories I think she may want to share on her Twitter account or on her SCCL Facebook group.

However, I totally part ways with Drury on some topics – like this one.

The view of liberal Christians, ex-Christians, liberal Non-Christians, and even some moderately conservative Christians, is that American Christians are not under persecution in the U.S.A. for being Christian, or for practicing Christian beliefs.

I am not sure if the liberal or moderate conservative disagreement on this issue pertains to semantics (the terminology involved), or if they are actually blind and oblivious to the harassment that Christians, especially conservative, or traditional valued, Christians, face in American culture.

It is my position that American Christians do in fact face harassment – especially from the left wing – in the United States for being Christian, for wanting to practice their faith and carry it out in public, and for defending it in public.

If you are a liberal who objects to the term “persecution,” how about, instead, the words or phrases, “harassment,” “bullying,” “picking on,” “hounding,” or other terms?

I do not see American Christians getting a free pass in the United States to hold certain views or to practice their beliefs.

The left (and I’d include severe anti-theist atheists here, on this point, regardless of their political standing) insist that Christians keep their Christian faith walled off, private, and separate from all other areas of their lives.

Five Things Every (Christian) Married Man Should Stop Obsessing Over Around Single Women by J. Kamps

Five Things Every Married Man Should Stop Obsessing Over Around Single Women by J. Kamps

Thank you, Jean Kamps! Kamps is one of the very few married (Christian) women I’ve seen who comprehends how terribly Christianity, especially married Christian men, treat single women – the way most to all married, Christian men ASSUME (wrongly!) that all single women are minxes out to bed any and every married man we come across.

(These married Christian men must have some ego to assume I find them attractive enough to  want to boink. I don’t. Women are visual too and have sexual desire, but we don’t want to sleep with any and every man we come across.)

Often times some of the assumptions Kamps is addressing here in an article by a married Christian man, are taught under the BGR “Billy Graham Rule.” I have blogged on this topic many times before. I will put links to some of those posts at the bottom of my post, under “Related Posts.”

Benevolent Sexism in the Christian Bedroom (Christian Stereotypes About Female Sexuality) by J. Kamps

Benevolent Sexism in the Christian Bedroom (Christian Stereotypes About Female Sexuality) by J. Kamps

Some parts of these posts tackle subjects I’ve mentioned before on my blog in the past.

(Link):  It’s my orgasm, not his [part 1] by J. Kamps

(Link): It’s my orgasm, not his [part 2] by J. Kamps

Excerpts from (Link):  It’s my orgasm, not his [part 1] by J. Kamps

Jasmine’s story is an example of Benevolent Sexism. Hostile Sexism is fairly easy to recognise. Benevolent Sexism is sneaky and far more socially pervasive. It parades around wearing a facade of chivalry, making out women to be weaker, lesser, diminished, objectified, by using what are perceived as good manners, male consideration, and role definition.

Benevolent Sexism operates on the fundamental belief that, whether observed in practice or not, there IS a gender hierarchy.

….Benevolent Sexism even uses compliments and praise to disarm and disempower women. “Women are kinder, gentler, naturally more loving. Women are not as strong as men, so they require protection. Women are not as naturally competitive.”

Love-Sick Teenager Who Won’t Take No For an Answer is Finally Shut Down by his Ex-Girlfriend’s FATHER in an Epic Text Exchange – Men of All Ages Need To Learn to Handle Rejection and to Respect Other People’s Boundaries in Dating

Love-Sick Teenager Who Won’t Take No For an Answer is Finally Shut Down by his Ex-Girlfriend’s FATHER in an Epic Text Exchange – Men of All Ages Need To Learn to Handle Rejection and to Respect Other People’s Boundaries in Dating

If there are any MEN reading this – especially men over the age of 21 – you need to realize that some of you are just as bad in your online behavior, especially on dating sites and apps, as this 15 year old kid is.

See how obnoxiously persistent this teen kid is, how he keeps dragging this exchange on and on with the teen girl’s father? This is how 90% of you men over the age of 21 behave towards grown women online, especially on dating sites.

You men refuse to take “no” from women for an answer, or to choose to view a woman turning you down as the ultimate insult.

You men take rejection by women far too personally, and send negative, nasty, insulting comments to some women, all for merely politely turning you down on a site, for refusing to give you their number, or going on a date with you.

Women you don’t know (single women) don’t owe you squat in life – women don’t owe you a smile, flirtation, chit chat, their phone numbers, sex, emotional support, or dates.

You will be turned down as you go through life by various women you flirt with or ask on dates – it’s a reality. Get over it. Learn to let go, accept defeat graciously, and stop taking it so damn personally.

Learn to respect other people’s boundaries. If a woman or girl tells you “no” or “not interested,” just let it go. Don’t send the girl or woman nasty, insulting messages if or when she turns you down. Just move along.

On Not Filtering Every Choice Through the Bible

On Not Filtering Every Choice Through the Bible

This is one of those topics I’m working my way through right now. Maybe a year from now, my opinion will flip on it. But here is where I am now.

I was first made aware of this post from John Piper’s “Desiring God” web site via someone posting to SCCL Facebook group.

Here it is:

(Link):  How to Drink Orange Juice to the Glory of God by John Piper

Excerpts:

• I said that one of my reasons for believing this comes from 1 Corinthians 10:31. “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” I asked, “Is it sin to disobey this Biblical commandment?” Yes.
• …Some of you then asked the practical question: Well, how do you “eat and drink” to the glory of God? Say, orange juice for breakfast?
• ….Orange juice was “created to be received with thanksgiving by those whobelieve the truth.” Therefore, unbelievers cannot use orange juice for the purpose God intended—namely, as an occasion for heartfelt gratitude to God from a truth heart of faith.
• But believers can, and this is how they glorify God. Their drinking orange juice is “sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.”

Yes, it’s an entire post explaining why and how Christians may drink Orange Juice to the glory of God.

This is a part of Christianity that I am glad to leave behind. In my faith crisis of the last few years, there have been some advantages to ceasing turning to the Bible as an authority in decision-making in life in every area.

The Conservative, Christian Case for Working Women by J. Merritt

The Conservative, Christian Case for Working Women by J. Merritt 

Some of the few complementarian Christians I follow on social media did not like this article at all. They seem to find any criticism of their position, or any suggestion of other options for women, to be a great affront to complementarianism itself, or to God or the Bible. Why do they feel their movement is so fragile?

Christian women who reject complementarianism – some of them may go by various labels, such as “Jesus feminists,” or “egalitarians,” or “mutualists,” don’t seek to limit women the way complementarians do. Non-complementarian men and women do not mind if a woman chooses to be a stay at home wife and mother.

However, complementarians do not truly afford all women, and especially not non-complementarian, women this same courtesy.

Much complementarian content will pay “lip service” to respect a woman’s right to choose to work outside the home and so on, but often times, from what I’ve seen, that very same site, or authors on some other complementarian site, will cry and clutch their pearls in sorrow or grief that more and more Christian women are choosing to stay single, not have children, and/or to work outside the home.

Notice that in this article, at one point, complementarian Owen Strachan, who is a spokes-head for complementarian group CBMW, comes right out and says egalitarianism, or any departure from complementarianism, is supposedly a sin.

Egalitarians are all about giving women more choices, telling them to go after their dreams, and doing whatever they feel God has led them to do.

Complementarians really chaff at that. Complementarians want women in boxes. I wrote a much older post saying that (Link): this is one reason of several I really have been struggling with holding on to the Christian faith. I was raised in a Christian family that bought into many of these complementarian ideas, and it’s not something that worked out well for me in my life.

(Link): The Conservative, Christian Case for Working Women by J. Merritt

Excerpts:

An evangelical Christian and avowed feminist argues that God intends every woman to work.

The final episode of Leave it To Beaver aired in June of 1963, but many conservative Christians still promote a vision of womanhood reminiscent of June Cleaver.  When Tobin Grant, political-science professor at Southern Illinois University, analyzed General Social Survey data from 2006, he found that nearly half of evangelical Christians agreed with this statement: “It is much better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family.”

Forty-one percent agreed that “a preschool child is likely to suffer if his or her mother works.” For these evangelicals, a woman’s place in the world is to get married, bear children, and support her breadwinning husband.

Katelyn Beaty—the managing editor of Christianity Today,America’s largest evangelical Christian publication—has set out to change this notion of gender. Her new book, A Woman’s Place, claims to reveal “the surprising truth about why God intends every woman to work.”

This declaration may surprise many of her magazine’s 80,000 print subscribers and 5 million monthly website visitors. And it may also rouse many of her fellow evangelicals who believe her ideas defy the Bible’s clear teaching, if not qualifying as outright heresy. While Beaty knows criticism may be coming her way, she is making a conservative Christian case for working women.

Remarried couples should abstain from sex, Philadelphia Catholic church says

Remarried couples should abstain from sex, Philadelphia Catholic church says

Are they serious? Are they on crack cocaine?

(Link): Remarried couples should abstain from sex, Philadelphia Catholic church says

(Link):

• Archbishop Charles Chaput also stated that gay Catholics should also ‘live chastely’ in new rules issued after Pope Francis urged more acceptance of others
• Catholics in Philadelphia who are divorced and civilly remarried will be welcome to accept Holy Communion – as long as they abstain from sex and live out their relationships like “brother and sister”.

Dad Buys Full-Page $900 Newspaper Ad Seeking a Wife for His 48 Year Old, Never Married Son

Dad Buys Full-Page $900 Newspaper Ad Seeking a Wife for His 48 Year Old, Never Married Son

I hope this father realizes that men over 40 who father kids are more likely to father a kid with various diseases, see link 1, link 2, link 3.

(Link): Dad places newspaper ad to find wife for son

(Link):  Dad seeks ‘wife’ for 48-year-old son with full-page newspaper ad

(Link):  Wife wanted: Dad places spouse-needed ad in Idaho newspaper

The ad gives a brief description of Brooks, including a photo with the disclaimer, “I look just like my picture, except I now have grey hair.” The “About You” section states applicants “Will be attractive being height and weight proportional.” It also goes on to say that applicants should be prepared to have children with Brooks and also be a stay-at- home mom.

(Link):  MEDDLING BEVERLY HILLS DAD PUTS OUT FULL-PAGE AD TO FIND 48-YEAR-OLD SON A WIFE

He said his father has been ill and wants a grandson to carry on the family name.Brooks compared his father to Larry David’s character in the TV series “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” saying he “thinks he does the right thing, and then it all blows up in his face.”He said he’d never buy an ad like this himself, but “it’s worth a shot. Can’t hurt.”

(Link):  Full-page newspaper ad seeking wife

(Link): Dad Buys Full-Page $900 Newspaper Ad Seeking a Wife for His 48 Year Old, Never Married Son

One father in Beverly Hills is trying to find his son a wife the old-fashioned way.

Arthur Brooks, 78, spent $900 on a full-page ad in Idaho’s Coeur d’Alene Press newspaper using the headline “Looking For a Wife.”

Exploding the Myth of the Traditional Family by E. Hines

Exploding the Myth of the Traditional Family

(Link): Exploding the Myth of the Traditional Family by E. Hines

Excerpts

• ….But today, most families hardly fit that [nuclear family] mold. Fifty percent of American adults are unmarried and 41 percent of children in America are born to unmarried parents.
• That is an indication that the very concept of family is evolving, as more and more people realize that there are any number of ways to build good and functioning familial units.

Preacher Says in Sermon that Single Men Who Play Video Games Are Losers Who Have Retarded Spirits and This Creates Dating Problems for Women

Preacher Says in Sermon that Single Men Who Play Video Games Are Losers Who Have Retarded Spirits and This Creates Dating Problems for Women

According to this preacher, if you are an unmarried man who plays video games, you have a “retarded spirit.”

If you are a hetero single man, would you say that is a step up or a step down from being assumed to be homosexual, as far as assumptions, insults, and stereotypes about unmarried men go (especially ones by Christians)?

I do believe pastor Mark Driscoll (who is very sexist against women) has also said similar things about unmarried men, back when he was heading Mars Hill church.

I’m pretty sure that (Link): this is the church’s home page.

(Link):  Pastor: Men Who Play Video Games Are Losers

(Link):  Christian Pastor Says Men Who Play Video Games Are Losers Possessed by a “Retarded Spirit”

(Link):  Texas preacher tries — and fails — to scrub rant about video games giving men ‘retarded spirit’

• The pastor for an Arlington, Texas church tried to hide video of a sermon in which he blamed video games for dating problems within his congregation, (Link): the Friendly Atheist reported.
• The Faith Christian Center had originally posted Pastor Gene Lingerfelt’s remarks on its Vimeo account. But the video was taken down after the sermon began to attract attention online, as seen below.
• [The preacher in the video said:] “There are young gals in this church. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful young gals, and you know why they can’t get a date? ‘Cause that retarded spirit got onto young men.”
• Despite the pastor’s criticism, (Link): the Entertainment Software Review Board found that the average age of a gamer is 34, while the average video game buyer is 39 years old.

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Related Posts:

(Link): Theme Park Bans Single Adults For Fear They Are All Pedophiles

(Link):  Stigmas and Stereotypes of Single Unmarried Men Over 25 or 30 Years of Age – They’re Supposedly All Homosexual or Pedophiles

(Link): The Study of Why Men Stay Single: What No One Is Telling You by B. DePaulo

(Link):  Christian Blogger About Divorce, Pastor Andrew Webb, Thinks All To Most Mid-Life Never – Married or Single – Again Adults Are Mal-Adjusted, Ugly Losers Who Have Too Much Baggage

(Link): Church Allows Pedophile To Lead Bible Studies, Hails Pedo as a “Hero” – Meanwhile, Many Churches  Refuse to Allow Celibate, Single Adults to Hold Any Sort of Leadership Positions

  (Link):  “You’re not a real man until you have children” by G. Proops – women should be able to relate to this too

(Link):  Mark Driscoll’s Hypocrisy About Single Men – and other Driscoll stuff

(Link): Adult Singleness and Virginity Ridiculed by Preacher Mark Driscoll from 2000 – and anti Homosexual and Sexist Rhetoric

(Link): Aged Out of Church by M Van Loon (For Christians over the Age of 35 – 40)