Eugene, the 56 Year Old Man, Tells Christian Show Host He’s Tired of Being Single

Eugene, the 56 Year Old Man, Tells Christian Show Host He’s Tired of Being Single

On today’s “The 700 Club,” host Pat Robertson got a question from a guy who says he’s 56 year old and tired of being alone. (The guy is single and would like a girlfriend, or to marry.)

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again – single adults of America (but especially women!) please (Link): stop asking Pat Robertson for relationship advice.

I’ve watched his “700 Club” show for many years, and Robertson always gives the same 3 to 4 answers to single adults who write him asking him why hasn’t God sent them a spouse, or how do they get a spouse?

And Pat Robertson always tells lovelorn single adults to “go fishing where the fish are,” (i.e, visit locales where you are sure to find single adults), and, he will tell you that “God puts the lonely in families,” which is a load of sh*t – no, God does not always put single adults who may be lonely “into families.”

For women who write in, especially if they are age 40 or older and single and want a spouse, Pat will insultingly tell them that they “sound desperate.” (Seriously; he has done this in the past, see the links below under “Related Posts” for links to examples of this atrocious behavior.)

(I’ve noticed that Robertson never tells the older single MEN who write in saying they are lonely and want a spouse that the MEN “sound desperate.” Robertson only tosses that sexist, insulting comment at single WOMEN.)

Pat Robertson also wrongly believes (and many Christians are like this as well, not just him), that (Link): if you want a spouse and pray for one, that God will of course send you one – which also a bunch of garbage.

So, here is what Eugene wrote in to Pat:

What do I have to do to find that special woman in my life? I’m tired of living alone in life. It’s been 56 years. Please help me, Pat. I read the Bible, but it never seems to help. I love all you guys and enjoy your show.

[Signed] Eugene

You can view / listen to Eugene’s question in this video on You Tube, and it’s around 44.25 into the video.

You can also listen to Pat Robertson’s unhelpful advice in that video to Eugene.

But… Eugene… should you read this, I have this to say to you:

Can We Stop Saying Singleness is God’s Will? by Anonymous via Sheila Wray Gregoire

Can We Stop Saying Singleness is God’s Will? by Anonymous via Sheila Wray Gregoire

A few weeks ago, Sheila Wray Gregorie, who maintains a Christian martial advice blog, shared (Link): this on twitter.

A woman who runs yet another blog (called (Link): “True Love Dates”) featured a post by a single adult woman who I guess posted under a pen name, or as anonymous.

This single woman explained in her comment that, no, it’s not God’s will for all single women to be single, and for so many Christians to keep mouthing this assumption or repeating it in their sermons, books, or blogs is hurtful and discouraging to some single women who’d like to be married but who have not met the right person.

I too have done several posts over the years attempting to correct some of the wrong, hurtful, or insensitive teachings and attitudes that a lot of Christians have about singleness –
– such as, (Link): God told you to marry your spouse;
or, it’s (Link): God’s will for most to marry;
or that (Link): single adults exist only to serve married couples;
or that (Link): unwanted and protracted singleness is a “gift” God bestows upon some. (There are so many Christian fallacies about singleness.)

Here is the featured content for this post, and I agree that Christians need to stop saying that singleness (especially unwanted protracted singleness) is “God’s will.”

(Link): Can We Stop Saying Singleness is God’s Will?

Excerpts:

[by Sheila Wray Gregoire]

If you’ve never been married, does that mean that it was always God’s will that you would be single?

I think we talk about that a lot–that people are “called to singleness”, as if God decides before you were born, “Oh, I’m going to make sure that Jennifer doesn’t get married,” or “I’d prefer Stacey never meet the man of her dreams.”

Now, I do believe that God puts on some people’s hearts to be single, and to dedicate their life to a singular purpose to serve Him, in which singleness is necessary.

But I don’t think that’s the majority of people who are single.

Celibate Christian Woman Asks Christian Host Why God Will Not Send Her a Husband

Celibate Christian Woman Asks Christian Host Why God Will Not Send Her a Husband

A couple of days ago, I saw this episode of The 700 Club.

A celibate Christian woman wrote Pat Robertson this question –

And her question is one all Christians avoid: they just scream at a 20 year old today to MARRY NOW NOW NOW!

They have no advice and no encouragement to give any adult over 35 who wants to be married but still finds him or herself single.

The usual Christian response is just to shame this lady for supposedly not having done enough to marry when younger, in spite of not knowing her background, or what she did to try to marry – Christians just arrogantly ASSUME if you are not married past a certain age, it is all your fault, and there were no mitigating circumstances.

So here’s her question to Pat, host of The 700 Club:

Dear Pat,

The Bible says that it’s better to marry than to burn with lust, but what about someone like me who can’t find someone to marry?

I’m Not Pining for a Long-Lost Love. I’m Single by Circumstance by S. Reed

I’m Not Pining for a Long-Lost Love. I’m Single by Circumstance by S. Reed

I wish more articles addressed the “single by circumstance” situation as the one I am linking to in this post does.

Unfortunately, I don’t see too many articles about that topic, and in the meantime, a lot of conservative Christians who rail against delayed marriage, or declining marriage rates, assume that most or many single women are intentionally avoiding marriage.

So, these conservative Christians (and sometimes secular conservative groups or people) scold women for being single, and they engage in fear mongering, where they do things like tell women they will supposedly die sooner or live miserable lives if they don’t have a husband (Bella DePaulo has refuted many of these types of claims, and I have a few posts about her work on my blog).

Many single women – such as myself – wanted to get married and still want to – and I find it either hurtful, frustrating, or absolutely insulting and infuriating to see these articles (usually by conservatives) who assume I’ve remained single by choice, so they then shame or scold single women such as myself, or they feel they must argue me into getting, or convince me to, get married. However, I don’t need to be “sold” on marriage.

I don’t need to be convinced that marriage is nice. I’m already sold on the idea or marriage.

However, the fact remains that wanting something like marriage does not magically make it come to pass.

Then, you have conservative authors (such as (Link): this one), assume I could easily get a boyfriend or husband if only I made myself weak and stupid to attract a man (or dropped a hell of a lot of standards).

You see, it’s supposedly that pesky feminism or that stubborn insistence that I have self-confidence, or be independent, (or that a guy feel like a good match for me), that is keeping me from landing a man (*roll eyes* at all the backwards thinking and sexism in those assumptions).

The simple truth is, you can be a great person – smart, funny, attractive, and have a host of other great qualities – and just not be able to meet a comparable person you would like to partner with. Nor should you dumb yourself down and become clingy and needy in the hopes doing so will attract a partner.

Speaking of all that, like the author of this article does, I too tire of societal assumptions that if you are single, or have not married past a certain age, it must necessarily mean you are horribly flawed in some way. You can be a good person and a good catch but simply never run into anyone decent, or not anyone who is compatible with you.

(Link): I’m Not Pining for a Long-lost Love. I’m Single by Circumstance by S. Reed

Excerpts:

• ….Countless movies, books, televisions shows, musicals and operas teach us to believe there’s someone out there for everyone: Just wish on a star, or get a makeover, or take a chance and boom! True love will find you. So if you haven’t found that person — or lost him somehow — people have trouble understanding why.
• ….For some, that glaring absence can be explained only by some horrible flaw I must possess or a love gone wrong in my past. Although I have many faults, I’ve never noticed that folks who are in relationships are perfect. And when I look back at my romantic history, I think: “That’s a lot of bullets dodged.”

Complementarian Churches and the Single Adult Woman by J. Dyer

Complementarian Churches and the Single Adult Woman by J. Dyer

This is a page by a woman in her mid 30s who thought she would have been married by now but still finds herself single. She describes how the gender complementarian churches she has attended don’t minister to adult single women properly.

She also notes in this page how following all the usual Christian dating advice has not worked – she’s tried it all and is still single; this is a phenomenon I’ve blogged about before.

(Link): Complementarian Churches and the Single Adult Woman by J. Dyer

Excerpts:

• …But it [meeting a spouse at church] didn’t [happen]. Well-meaning friends told me all manner of things about how God must be teaching me something (it appears I’m a slow learner). Or–my favorite–if I could just delight in the Lord, when I least expected it, God would bring “the man” into my life.
• Churches often try to tell women how to be women without considering the whole range of God-inspired possibilities. There will always be outliers to the model they create.

Pedophiles Seeking Christian Wives in Churches – Another Reason to be Leery of the “Equally Yoked” Idea and Reconsider Church as a Place to Meet Singles

Pedophiles Seeking Christian Wives in Churches – Another Reason to be Leery of the “Equally Yoked” Idea and Reconsider Church as a Place to Meet Singles

I skimmed over this really long blog post, on Brent Detwiler’s site (link much farther below), about a guy, Caffery, who was jailed for pedophilia. Caffery has more than one victim, if I remember right.

Caffery wrote a book at one point claiming that belief in Christ changed his life for the better, and so on and so forth (amazingly, he was molesting kids while writing this book – during the same time frame).

Caffery also wrote (in a book or a letter to his church elders, I forget which) that he was afraid if his wife gave birth to a daughter, he would molest his own daughter, so he prayed and asked God for sons. His wife went on to give birth to all sons. (I think the blog post says he later had a daughter by his second wife.)

Let me pause here to say: if I were dating or engaged to a guy who told me this upfront, that he is afraid he might molest any kids we had together, I would take him at his word and dump his ass.

(I don’t know if the woman this guy married knew beforehand or not, I’m just saying if this happened to me, I would NOT stay with a guy who confessed such a thing to me.

Never, ever stay with a guy out of pity or a sense of duty – don’t feel sorry for Mr. “I might molest our kids if we have kids together” Pervert. Helping him or redeeming such a deviant is not your responsibility. Part of the reason I got sucked into my last disaster of an engagement was that I felt sorry for the guy.)

The part that really stood out to me in this blog post by DeWiler was when Caffery said after one wife divorced him, he went looking for a new wife at a large Christian church. I found this alarming and creepy.

Women Are Still Being Told To Lower Their Standards / Stupid Sh*t People Say to Singles by S. H. Weiss

Women Are Still Being Told To Lower Their Standards / Stupid Sh*t People Say to Singles by S. H. Weiss

One thing the author of this page brings up is something I have as well: women are just as visually oriented as men are and do care about what men look like. However, women are conditioned by secular society and religious groups to think they should not care about a man’s physical attractiveness.

Women are conditioned to look past a man’s ugliness to consider his other traits – is he smart, financially stable, and so on.

Now, I do think some people are in fact way too judgmental or picky regarding physical appearance in dating or whom to marry.

But, on the other hand, there is absolutely nothing wrong in wanting to date or marry someone you consider attractive. I don’t think people of either gender should be super picky about looks, but it’s okay to have some preferences or standards.

The woman who wrote this says she caught some guy she knew lying in his dating site profile – he was 35 years old but claimed on his dating profile he is 25 or 30 years old. She asked him why he lied about his age.

He claims it’s because he wants to start a family and a woman in her 20s is guaranteed to be fertile.

First of all, women in their 40s (and 30s) still menstruate and get pregnant, so you don’t need to marry a 20 something to have babies. Some women in their 20s are childfree or infertile.

Secondly, as I noted before, I advised single women who read this blog to lie on their dating site profiles about their ages, to make themselves younger than they are.

As so many men are this very shallow and particular about age in a woman (many of them have a cut off age of 29, while for others, it’s about 35), go ahead and cite yourself as being 20 or 30 something on your profile if you are over 40 and want dates.

The worst thing that will happen once the guy gets to know you after he meets you via a dating site is that he will decide to stop dating you. Big whoop.

I have seen or read about a lot of men ages 45 and older who lie about their ages on dating sites. I’ve had guys who are obviously 65 or older (they have all white hair) who contact me on dating sites, who claim to be 41 or 42 years old. Men lie out the ass about their ages (and their height, according to other women) all the time on these sites.

(Link):  Liberated Shmiberated!: Women are Still Being Told to Lower Their Standards (& it’s messed up!) by S. H. Weiss

Excerpts:

February 2016

…It is Traister’s message that I would like to share with the women I have spoken with lately, women who feel they need to defend themselves to others about why they are not married, why they are not “just settling down already” and why they are “being too picky.”

The women I speak of range from early 30s to early 40s. Some of them have never been married, while others were married briefly. A third of them are divorced and have children. The one thing these friends have in common is that they all say that are not “single by choice.” They express the desire to find their perfect life partner.

..However, there are Yentas everywhere, some well-intentioned and others questionably motivated. This is especially true for those who are part of a tight-knit or religious community (ranging from the Mormons to the Modern Orthodox Jewish).

Scary Single Ladies: Rebecca Traister Explains Why Single Women Frighten The Hell Out Of The GOP

Scary Single Ladies: Rebecca Traister Explains Why Single Women Frighten The  Hell Out Of The GOP

Sometimes some of these reviews of Traister’s book, or interviews with her, bring up how so many Republicans often demonize or criticize single motherhood.

I happen to be a Republican myself, someone who was raised in a traditional Christian home.

One thing I don’t get is how so many other Republicans and Christians do in fact constantly bad-mouth single motherhood, but out of the other side of their mouths, they frequently complain that not enough women are having babies.

It ticks these types of Republicans and Christians off that baby-making rates have declined a bit in the last decade or whatever (see this link for example).

So, on the one hand, my fellow Republicans complain about women having babies (women who happen to be single), but then turn around and complain and gripe about women NOT having babies.

Christians and Republicans are somewhat inconsistent on this point. They might argue that women should marry first, and then make a baby with their spouse, but this is part of the problem: plenty of women WANT to marry, but there are no eligible males for them to marry (see this link or this link for more).

And, of course, there are married women who cannot have babies because they are infertile, or some may choose to forgo motherhood – and their choices should be respected, not condemned.

Another thing that bothers me about this conservative demonizing of single motherhood is that I suspect one view that undergirds it is that they believe that marriage or parenthood supposedly makes adults more mature, responsible or godly, which is simply (Link): not true (and see this link and this link).

(There are a lot of conservative Christians who have taught or said that people only become mature or responsible when they marry or have a kid.)

The Bible does not teach that marriage or parenthood are necessary to make a person more godly, loving, responsible, or mature.

And even every day common sense and observation bears that out: we’ve all known, or heard of, married parents who are immature, greedy, or immoral swine.

Disclaimer:

• I am right wing and have been a Republican for years. However, I don’t always agree with Republicans on everything.
  I do occasionally agree with some of the left wing’s criticism of right wingers, and concerning how dismally right wingers treat singles, I agree with them on that.

The link I give you here is from a left wing site, by Amanda Marcotte, a liberal feminist who is (Link): sometimes hypocritical about women’s sexual issues.

Even though I completely disagree with Marcotte on some topics, I did find myself agreeing with some of the content of this interview she had with this book author:

(Link):  Scary single ladies: Rebecca Traister explains why single women frighten the hell out of the GOP by Amanda Marcotte

Excerpts:

• Author Rebecca Traister’s new book on single women looks at how this growing population is reshaping America
• Author Rebecca Traister’s last book, “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” took a comprehensive look at how the 2008 elections changed everything for American women.
• Now she’s back with a similarly pop music-themed title, “All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation,” an examination of the role single women have played in American culture, both in our history and in our current times.
• (Link): Single women are a potent political force in a way that they never have been before, making up nearly a quarter of the electorate and leaning to the left of both men and their married counterparts.
• This, along with a whole host of inchoate fears about what happens when women are left to their own devices without male supervision, has led to a rash of conservative pundits and politicians denouncing the ladies who aren’t married. I interviewed Traister about this moral panic over single women and what it means for the culture at large.
• [Question to the book author]: In your book, you detail how obsessed the conservative media has become with single women, who clearly anger right-wing pundits. The most hilarious quote you pull is Rush Limbaugh whining, “What is it with all these young, single, white women?” What is it with these conservative pundits focusing on single women?
• It was just a couple of weeks (Link): after his tirade of Sandra Fluke that he made those comments about another woman who had written a book.
• The fact that he said “white,” well, there are these versions of single womanhood that we are presented and the version that threatens most, is the white, privileged women.
• Sandra Fluke testifying in front of Congress, women who are writing books, Murphy Brown, and Anita Hill, even though she’s not white, a lawyer appeared for Clarence Thomas.
• There is a kind of woman who is economically powerful, professionally powerful who threatens a white male grip on power that has a long historic precedent in the country. Independent women living outside of marriage threaten all kinds of things about the way power is supposed to work.
• What if reproduction is taken outside that version of male control? What if women are competing?

Critique of: Why Single Men May Not Be Having the Most Fun by W. B. Wilcox (who tends to be a marriage idolater and anti-singles bigot)

Critique of: Why Single Men May Not Be Having the Most Fun by W. B. Wilcox (who tends to be a marriage idolater and anti-singles bigot)

I would encourage you to take anything this Wilcox guy says with a huge grain of salt, especially if it pertains to singleness. 

Wilcox is a huge marriage idolater and is anti-singleness. He has the tendency to write anti-singles editorials in a push to elevate marriage. I’ve written of his anti-singless, singleness fear mongering before (Link): here.

Wilcox seems to feel that if he can scare singles about being single – such as telling us that being single will increase our odds of being raped or getting toe nail fungus or growing a third hand out of our heads – that this will motivate all us singles to run out and marry right away.

Of course, one problem with that view is that there are plenty of singles who do want to marry but are unable to find a partner (see this link as one example, see this link for additional commentary).

These anti-singles marriage idolaters (like Wilcox) just ASSUME all or most singles HATE marriage and are intentionally avoiding it, when such is not the case for all singles.

Guys like Wilcox have this terribly biased view that married life is the only way to go for anyone, that to improve a society or culture, everyone should marry (and marry in their 20s), and live out the 1950s nuclear family Ward and June Cleaver lifestyle, and he (like a lot of my fellow conservatives) is very put off that so many people are opting out of marriage, or just staying single whatever the reason.

So, these marriage idolaters do everything they can to write pages claiming that being single is not as safe, healthy, fun, or wise for individuals or culture as marriage supposedly is.

Articles like this also fail to take into account the “equally yoked” teaching which exists among Christians, a rule which prohibits Christian singles from marrying Non-Christian persons.

The problem with this is that for every single Christian man, there are 55 million single Christian women (no, that’s not an exact figure – it’s my way of saying… There are not enough single males for the single religious ladies who want to marry).

At one point in his article, Wilcox goes on and on about how lonely some single guy is who he discusses as an example of how crummy single life can be for some men.

True, being single can be or feel lonely at times – but so too can being in a marriage.

I was in a long term, serious relationship, and there were times that although I was sitting in the same room as my fiance, I still felt all alone, because the ass hat (my fiance) was not meeting my emotional needs; he did not care to, he was terribly self absorbed. I blogged more about that (Link): here, in this older post if you’d like to read that.

I did a blog post about (Link): women whose husbands developed early dementia – once their husband’s minds “went,” the husbands ceased being being friends and companions to their wives and became large, dependent children.

Having a romantic partner is no guarantee you won’t experience loneliness.

Articles like this one I am linking to you here in this post just perpetuate the notion that there is something “wrong” with being single, or that being single is not “as good” as being married.

I’m not sure if Wilcox is a Christian or not, but I do know that there is nothing in the Bible that says that being married is better than being single, or that everyone being married “cures” society of its problems.

I would not be surprised if singles advocate Bella DePaulo doesn’t, in the future, refute this page by Wilcox in (Link): her column over at Psychology Today – or, you know, it looks like (Link, off site): she’s already refuted the Wilcox page, in a fashion.

Edit (Feb 15, 2016). Ms. DePaulo dropped by and left a comment below. I wanted to edit this post to add a link she left in her comment, and one other one:

• (Link, off site): Single in America: 6 Cutting Edge Perspectives, 2 Others (mentions the Wilcox anti-singles essay in passing)
• (Link, off site): Single Men Are Too Often Marginalized, But Not – I Hope – By Me

This Wilcox piece is singles shaming at its finest – painting singleness as though it’s some mental or physical health problem that needs the cure of marriage. Or, you could say it is a form of ‘singles concern trolling,’ I guess.

Views such as Wilcox’s also suggest that a person cannot or does not become a “whole” person or a mature person unless or until he or she marries – something which the Bible does not endorse at all. A person does not have to marry or become a parent in order to reach maturity or wholeness.

Also note how often Wilcox seems to be stressing people marry in their 20s in his essay – marriage idolaters such as this show no consideration for anyone over 30 or 40 or older who would like to marry but who find themselves single. Marriage-pushers such as Wilcox come across as being very ageist.

(Link): Why Single Men May Not Be Having the Most Fun By W. Bradford Wilcox

Excerpts:

Bradford Wilcox is the (Link): director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and a senior fellow of the (Link): Institute for Family Studies. He is the coauthor of “Soul Mates: Religion, Sex, Love, and Marriage Among African Americans and Latinos.”

———————–

…Oh, the life of the young single man. Pop culture’s depiction of young men’s single years as impossibly fun, footloose and fancy-free has a certain purchase in our culture. It’s one reason why plenty of young men look at marriage as a “ball and chain,” but that mind-set can have a number of downsides.

Eight Pieces of Christian Dating Advice that are Keeping Me Single. by Nina Borum – from Stuff Christians Like.net

Eight Pieces of Christian Dating Advice that are Keeping Me Single. – from Stuff Christians Like.net

(Link):  Eight 8 pieces of Christian dating advice that is keeping me single. by Nina Borum

Excerpts:

….but I have taken all the advice below and find that I am still single.

4. God’s timing is perfect.

Is it? According to abcnews.com women lose 90% of their eggs by age 30.
Chop Chop Jesus. Chop Chop.

Stop Believing God Told You to Marry Your Spouse by G. Thomas

Stop Believing God Told You to Marry Your Spouse by G. Thomas

(Link): Stop Believing God Told You to Marry Your Spouse by G. Thomas

Excerpts:

There is nothing in Scripture that suggests there is just one person we’re ‘supposed’ to marry.

Proverbs 31 urges young men to be guided by a woman’s faith and character in making their choice—there is no mention of second guessing some divine destiny.

In 1 Corinthians 7, the apostle Paul tells women (widows, in particular) to seriously consider singleness, but assures them the choice of whether to get married is up to them, and then specifically says women can marry “whomever they wish” as long as their potential husband is ‘in the Lord.’ (v. 39)

If the Bible explicitly says, ‘it’s your call whether or not to get married’ (a sentiment Jesus echoes when he says some “choose” to become eunuchs—celibate—in Matthew 19:12, with emphasis on the word “choose”) and it’s entirely your choice as to who to marry, why should your subjective feelings and reasoning override living by the truth of Scripture?

There is, quite frankly, nothing in Scripture that ever tells us it is our sworn duty to marry one particular person. Whether we marry, and who we marry, are spoken of in Scripture as part of God’s “permissive will,” something he allows us to choose.

Mark Driscoll’s Hypocrisy About Single Men – and other Driscoll stuff

Mark Driscoll’s Hypocrisy About Single Men – and other Driscoll stuff

This is sort of a part 2, or a follow up to this post on my blog:
(Link): Adult Singleness and Virginity Ridiculed by Preacher Mark Driscoll from 2000 – and anti Homosexual and Sexist Rhetoric

The WenatcheeTheHatchet blog has been covering Driscoll and Driscoll’s Mars Hill church in depth now for a few years.

He has many posts about Driscoll that are eye opening. The main one I wanted to discuss was the page pertaining to Driscoll’s hypocrisy about single men.

First, the other links – ones demonstrating that Driscoll is freaky, has some issues, hates women, and is obsessed with sex:

(Link): Mark Driscoll on the naked virgin Catholic model Adriana Lima at the Resurgence in 2006

(Link): From Mark Driscoll’s 2008 Spiritual Warfare series, on womens’ ministry, ” … you have to be very careful, it’s like juggling knives. … The wrong women tend to want it.”

(Link): Mark Driscoll in 2008 on the efforts he took to protect his wife

(Link): Mark Driscoll, “If you get the young men you win the war. … You don’t get the young men you get nothing. Nothing.”

(Link): Mark Driscoll’s October 9, 2006 Resurgence post ruminating on Jenna Jameson [the pornography movie actress]

In the “if you get the young men you win” commentary, Driscoll writes:

Most churches are built to cater to 40-something-year-old women and their children and the guys are nowhere to be found.
— end Driscoll quote —

No, let me assure you, as a 40-something woman, most evangelical and Baptist churches most certainly do not cater to me or to women in general, regardless of age.

Most churches either cater to married men (women and singles of either gender are not permitted to serve in meaningful capacities), or churches are built to support married couples who have two or three young children still living at home.

One reason of many I no longer attend church, and may never return, is precisely that churches do nothing for 40 something, single, childless women such as myself. Mark Driscoll is once again spouting off about a bunch of crap he knows nothing about.

Here is the main reason I am making this blog post – these posts:

(Link): a little clarification on the recent posts–a case for keeping Driscoll’s contribution to public discussion within public access (even if Mars Hill would wish otherwise)

(Link): Pussified Nation in the context of Driscollian real estate in 2000

(Link): The historical and social setting for Mark Driscoll’s development of William Wallace II as a pen name, a kind of postlude/preface to “Pussified Nation”

The point of those posts is that Driscoll, particuarly about ten years ago, ranted and railed against young, single men in books, forum posts, and sermons. He accused them of being lazy, homosexual, wussies, and clowns because they were not self-supporting, did not own their own homes and cars, etc.

What the post goes on to explain is that at the height of his single-man bashing, Driscoll himself was strapped for money. He had to take in young single men as roomies to help him make payments on his home.

Here are some excerpts (from WTH blog, the first link):

What problem needs to be fixed? The young men need to be yelled at so that they shape up and fly right. They need to get real jobs, find women, marry them, make babies and do all this for Jesus’ fame.

The possibility that many of those 20-something men won’t find “real jobs” because of changes in the economy in a post-industrial context where “we” exported a lot of our unskilled labor overseas or a lot of unskilled labor is unglamorous drudgery “real Americans” don’t want to do may not be on the Driscoll radar.

That neo-Calvinists lament the median age of first marriage has soared up to the highest levels we’ve seen in the last forty years may need to be offset by the observation that the last time that number got so high was during the Great Depression.