Flippant Thoughts on Forgiveness / Pain, Part 4

I recently applied for a writing joh. When they asked for a writing sample, I realized all my writing exists at an intensity level of roughly +487,000,000.

Here at the blog, it's all pain and suffering, all the time.

So, instead of titling this "Pain, Part 4," I'm calling it "Flippant Thoughts on Forgiveness." Let's dive headfirst into the shallow end, shall we?

Moo... Photo by bertknot

Forgiveness is hard, particularly when you can barely identify the source of the pain, particularly when you can't even bring yourself to write the words, "I'm hurt" or much, much worse, "I'm still hurt."

That's not how it's supposed to work, is it? I'm not supposed to still be hurt. Forgive and forget. Deal with it and move on. Positive mantra about moving confidently into the future. Hoorah.

This is the pain that never ends, it just goes on and on my friend...

I've found, unfortunately, that ignoring unresolved pain is a lot like ignoring all that C-4 you have buried in the backyard (analogy credit to labullets). It will explode in your face. You will wonder what happened. And then you'll be like, "Oh yeah, remember that time I buried all that C-4 in the backyard? Guess it wasn't as stable as I thought."

My buried pain usually turns into anger.

But why? Why am I so angry?

I'm standing outside the dorms on the second floor landing, watching his light blue pickup pull away from the office, and suddenly, I'm filled with uncontrollable rage. I kick at everything in sight, including a bright orange safety cone. Writing this, I still wonder if it is my fault. If I am a bomb waiting to explode.

I've written before about a traumatic experience that left with me with the kind of pain that doesn't get better. About how I blamed myself for hurting the person who had hurt me.

I actually apologized to him years later for using him as an emotional punching bag. At the time, it felt good to realize and acknowledge what I had done, to have a ready-made slot that I could comfortably slide the experience into, neat and snug.

I can see now how I reframed the experience, making him the victim, myself the perpetrator. I had blamed him unfairly for causing my pain. I projected my pain onto him. I hated him instead of hating my dad. I was angry at him without justification. I refused to forgive him—worse, I didn't want to.

I could label it, "That time I took all my worst inclinations out on an innocent person because I'm broken" and move on.

Telling the Truth

Except, that wasn't exactly the truth. But it made me feel better. I didn't have to alter any of my pre-existing ideas, particularly the one where there was something deeply and indelibly wrong with me.

I mean, what was the alternative? I needed someone or something to blame, and the only person available was me. Because the alternative was too dark to consider:

That what he had done to me was wrong.

That what he had done to me was wrong, though well-intentioned.

That what he had done to me was akin to spiritual, emotional "rape." 

That what he had done to me perpetuated for years the very shame that he sought to heal. 

And in the aftermath, I was left alone, emotionally shattered and unable to breathe.

This is what makes me feel a little sick to my stomach, now that years have passed. It's one thing to drag out someone's deepest shame by force—it's another to blame them for feeling wounded and angry after the fact.

You Need Witnesses

There's that famous passage in Matthew 18 about confronting someone who has sinned. About going back, again and again, trying to reason with the person, trying to get them to see your point of view.

This passage is often used to shame Christians who don't follow this exact procedure in every and any conflict with another believer, such as Christians who complain about Mark Driscoll on the internet, as if the correct thing to do were to show up on his doorstep tomorrow with a Bible and a stack of good intentions. 

But considering it now, I wonder about the part where you bring a friend or two with you as witness.

Because what if the other person refuses to see your point of view or denies that anything happened? ("No! I did not steal your oxen. These are my oxen. I've owned them for years, years I tell you!").

If this happens, you need other people who will stand with you in your truth, who will bear witness to your grievance: 

Yes, you were abused.

Yes, what happened was wrong. 

Yes, that is Buttercup and she is your cow.

Yes, I believe you. 

Yes, you are not imagining things. You are not crazy. 

You can't forgive someone for something that never happened—

I can't forgive him or anyone else if I don't acknowledge and accept the truth of what happened. And I need someone else to bear witness to that truth, someone else who can drown out the accusing voices that tell me that I'm crazy, I'm imagining things, I'm too sensitive, I'm making it all up to get attention, a unicorn gored me and I'm filing a formal complaint.

I've become convinced that forgiveness cannot happen without truth. Healing cannot happen without truth. You don't need the person who hurt you to say, "I was wrong. Please forgive me" but you do need someone in your life to say, "Yeah, I totally get it."

This happened for me last year. And in that moment, I could finally breathe.

Two Sides to Every Story

Like every other kid who grew up in evangelical Christianity, I loved the Focus on the Family radio drama Adventures in Odyssey, an inventive and often hilarious program that taught lessons about such diverse topics as, "Handling the power of media responsibly" and "Dealing with an alcoholic parent."

I can still remember the episode entitled Two Sides to Every Story. A brother and sister are home alone when, in a series of mishaps, their TV catches on fire. Each sibling tells his/her side of the story—each painting his/her own actions in the most saintly light possible, while basically blaming the other for the catastrophe.

My childhood, right here

The episode dramatizes the brother's story, then the sister's story, then what really happened. The lesson of the episode: "Considering another person's point of view."

 It's a good lesson.

I was reminded of this principle when I saw Franklin Graham's response to Naghmeh Abedini and her revelation that her husband, recently released hostage Saeed Abedini, has abused her throughout the marriage (I say "has abused," because the implication is that his abusive behavior is ongoing).

He says,

Other than God, no one knows the details and the truth of what has happened between Saeed and Naghmeh except them. There’s an old saying that there are at least two sides to every story. I can tell one thing for sure—not everything that has been reported in the media is true.

Oh. Okay.

According to Graham, there are certain truths that are simply unknowable—it's a classic, he said, she said, would-you-do-it-if-Jesus-were-in-the-room type of situation.

Unlike God, we were never in the room when Saeed abused his wife, so we can never say for certain that he did—and should therefore withhold judgment.

Graham, however, fails at his own test. Let's break it down, shall we?

"There's an old saying" (older than God?) - Start with a cliche

"...that there are at least two sides to every story." - Transition into irrelevant but profound sounding idiom

"I can tell one thing for sure—" - Wait a minute—you know the truth? You just said it was unknowable. What happened to "Other than God"? Are you God?

"...not everything that has been reported in the media is true" - Aggressive use of the passive voice that sounds like a denial, but actually comes out as an admission: "not everything" means some of it is true, but you refuse to reveal what exactly. Why? What do you have against truth, Franklin Graham, especially since you are apparently in a special position to know it.

The original idiom and the Adventures in Odyssey episode of the same title both teach that there are two sides to every story, and that the truth lies somewhere in between.

However, when it comes to facts, there is only one side to the story. I'm going to put it in the active voice, because I can:

He abused her.
He did not abuse her.

It's that simple. They can't both be true. Abusers and those who defend them use confusing language to divert attention from this True/False binary. It's either/or, not both/and.

Potentially, Graham actually means:

• He abused her, but it wasn't that bad.
• He abused her, but there were extenuating circumstances that either justify or excuse his actions. 
• He abused her, but she deserved it. 
• He abused her, but only emotionally and mentally, not physically. 
• He abused her, but he suffered too, so it's all good.

Alternatively, he is indirectly asserting that:

• He did not abuse her, therefore she is lying.

But he never comes right and out and says that. Because that would make his meaning clear. And nothing is worse than the precise and transparent use of the English language.

Graham asks us to withhold judgment (what with the whole not being God thing), but he himself passes judgment—he goes from "no one knows . . . the truth" to "I can tell one thing for sure—not everything that has been reported in the media is true" or in other words, I know the truth, but I'm not going to say it here.

There's this false sense of balance in "There are two sides to every story," as if you are setting yourself up as the impartial judge waiting to hear both sides of a case. When in reality, Graham means that there is one side to the story, and that is his side, Saeed's side, the abuser's side.

It would be so much more honest to say some version of, "She's a lying, crazy b***."

Now that's a story I've definitely heard before.

Why is Church Cliquey? Part 5

Forgive all the exposition in this post, it feels necessary to set up the stunning conclusion—I made this part of my Why is Church Cliquey? series because this series has turned into the story of my relationship with church. The good. The bad. The heartbreaking.

This is where we're going to get specific. Are you ready? I'm not.

Exposition

Some background: I left my church in 2014 because my ex-boyfriend (who was abusive) went there and also held a leadership position. This wasn't a political statement of any kind—I walked in—I saw him—I walked out. Once I realized he still attended and was also apparently on the same volunteering schedule as me, I never went back.

His presence made a safe place unsafe.

Later that same year, I reached out via email to the leadership at my church. I objected to my ex-boyfriend being in any kind of leadership position, and I said so in my email. I never heard anything back, not even to acknowledge that it was received. 

So there you go. There's not much to it—just my moral opposition to someone that I knew to be abusive serving in a leadership role at my former church. I don't know what I expected, exactly. I have no basis for believing that he ever went on to abuse anyone else at the church, partially because I cut off all contact. 

That was in 2014—fast forward to last year. My old church got a new pastor. I've never met the guy, but I have many friends who still attend the church—let's just say we have a lot of mutual fb friends.

So I was stalking his fb page (like I apparently do) and I saw that he had recommended the book "Love and Respect."

Reader, I got angry.

I know, I know, anger bad. But seriously, I saw red—or more accurately the red and white color scheme of the Love & Respect franchise.

I had never read the book, but I was familiar with its ideas. I had written about how its precepts disproportionately place burdens of shame and fear on women.

Rightly or wrongly, I was angry that the new pastor of my old church was recommending this as a "good Christian book" about marriage, knowing how it skewed toward the subjugation of women.

Then, it got worse.

I talked to my friends about this and they brought up that not only had the pastor recommended the book on his fb page, he had also preached about Love and Respect from the pulpit and AND—he was leading a premarital group that used Love and Respect as the focus.

Clearly, this guy was not just a fan (Love and Respect "liked" his post on fb, so I guess Love and Respect is a fan of him)—he was an acolyte, an evangelist for this particular ideology.

This felt too personal to ignore, like someone bursting into my living room and launching into a diatribe about how all half Asian half white women recklessly abuse semicolons, so I finally read the book. Insert ALL THE SWEAR WORDS here.

It was too perfect, too much of a cosmic coincidence—the church I had left because of an abusive relationship had hired a pastor who preached an abusive ideology.

Why?

On the one hand, I mean, it kind of makes sense. The Christian church has long had a misogyny problem and Christian men are probably just as likely to be abusive as anyone else. I realize, counter-intuitively, that not even my ex-boyfriend's misogyny was "personal"—he likely views all women the same way, not just me—I wasn't the only "bitch," after all.

On the other hand, it makes no sense at all because this is f***ing 2016 and I live in Los Angeles, California. This is the same church that regularly had a woman—yes, someone with ovaries—preaching from the pulpit (much to the chagrin of some members of the congregation). This is the young, hip, hipster church filled with artists, musicians, actors, writers. This is MY church...was my church. How could this happen?

Think about it: this pastor is leading couples who are dating or engaged through the book "Love and Respect." Dating—they're just dating and already they're being inculcated into these ideas of "what marriage should be" and "what male/female relationships should look like" and "how wives should appropriately (and unconditionally!) respect their husbands."

Young women are already learning that they should continue to "respect" the men who abuse or betray them, that they should lower their expectations for intimacy and equality, that they are especially culpable for any current or future problems in the relationship—and all this presented as the biblical secret to a good marriage.

Meanwhile, young men are taught that they are entitled to unconditional respect from their girlfriends.*

Yeah, I would say that makes me pretty angry.

Love and Respect is a Religion

And it's like, of course—of course this pastor doesn't just like the book "Love and Respect," he lives and breathes it—because that's how these kinds of ideologies function. You don't just read the book and go, "Hmm, that was good."

You buy the DVD teaching series. You infuse an unsettling power dynamic with casually sexist yet charming jokes and anecdotes from your own marriage. You lead seminars on its principles. You directly quote its ideas and concepts in your sermons without citing your source, implying that this is straight from scripture. You lead multiple book studies. You are one step away from buying special underwear with the Love and Respect logo.*

That's the thing about "Love and Respect." It's counter-intuitive—it has the quality of a "special revelation" given straight to prophet Emerson Eggerichs—this "truth hidden in plain sight" that God chose to reveal, but only to him!

Joy Eggerich (daughter of Emerson) writes in her blog about the concept of unconditional respect: "This was something I struggled with for years as my father was unpacking the powerful truth of respect for me."

"Struggled with"

"for YEARS" (emphasis mine)

And she's HIS DAUGHTER

If you read Joy's blog, you can tell that she's a fairly intelligent person—and yet she struggled with this concept for years? Bullsh**.

This is just one example of women twisting themselves into painful hermeneutical, political, and emotional positions in order to obey God's "command" to demonstrate "respect."

I can certainly understand how someone like Joy might end up in this position—she would have to basically renounce her entire family, risking their disapproval and rejection, in order to break out of the system. So she buys in, 100%—at one point even dating a man who uses her own father's concept of "respect" to cow her into submission.

Love and Respect takes the questionably biblical prescription for female subjugation and male dominance and places it on par with the gospel of Christianity.

Biking My Way to Freedom

I don't know how other people find the strength to leave an abusive relationship, but my moment happened on my bike, pedaling through the streets of Los Angeles on my way home.

I was crying, a total and complete mess. But as my entire body strained against the resistance of the pedals, something broke through the pain and the grief, overwhelming me—

It was a single word: No

That's what I feel now when I think about misogyny and the church. My church. My former church.

No. Just no.

This is not a polite, "No thank you, I would not like any misogyny with my Christianity." This is a declaration, a boundary line, a scream.

No.











*You could argue that the gender roles within Love and Respect are only meant to apply to heterosexual married couples, but in Christian culture, dating is meant as preparation for marriage, so dating relationships should mirror the eventual marriage relationship. Furthermore, you are communicating that in the most significant and central relationship of her life, a woman must always operate in a one-down position. Tell me this doesn't influence her other relationships with men. 

*Things that I know happened and are not just hypothetical: No. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. No.

Evil, And What to Do With It

Little known fact: When I started blogging here, it was mostly extremely brief reflections on books I'd listen to during my day job.

Well, it's back! Not the day job, but the brief reflections on books—I plan to call them "Book Bites," because alliteration is my jam.

First up. Michael Finkel's True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa (apparently alliteration is his jam as well).

via amazon.com

I found Finkel's book by searching for "memoir" (subject keyword) and "e-audiobook" (media type) in the LA public library database, so I had little background information to go on when I started listening.

Background

In short, just as the author is fired from The New York Times for falsifying a character in an investigative news article, he finds himself in an odd friendship with Christian Longo, a man accused of murdering his wife and three children.

Their lives intersect after Finkel learns that Longo impersonated him while on the lam in Mexico—telling everyone who asked that he was a New York Times journalist. The two become avid pen pals and even friends.

Finkel weaves his downfall as a reporter with Longo's account of how he came to murder his wife and children. Although Longo's crimes are exceptional, Finkel comes to identify with Longo, seeing them as in some ways very much alike.

Reflection (spoilers!)

What would it be like to come face to face with evil? And what if you kind of liked the guy anyway? Finkel leaves no doubt in the reader's mind that Christian Longo is an evil person, even as he describes him as charming, witty, and likable.

At the end of his trial, Longo takes the stand to give his account of the murders. It's chilling—not because he's telling the truth (he seems incapable of this), but because of the nature of his lies (as Finkel points out).

I feel like this gets to the heart of a certain something about evil: it gets the details wrong—although internally consistent, Longo's account rings a false ethical note. Longo cannot paint himself in anything less than a favorable light, even as he describes killing his own two year old daughter. He is always the real victim. When he sheds tears over the death of his family (which he caused for no discernible reason), you get the sense that he is actually crying for himself—his loss, his nightmares, his pain. When he remembers hearing his daughter's screams, he feels sorry for himself for having to relive such a painful memory.

I felt conflicted about the character of Michael Finkel, the author. I have a difficult time sympathizing with writers who commit the kind of journalistic crimes that cost him his job. He admits to being an egoist—He was infatuated with "Michel Finkel, New York Times journalist." He admits that he's always had a problem with lying. And when he first brings up his crimes, he gives several superficial rationalizations (deadline pressure, not wanting to let his editor down) which smacks of denying full responsibility.

Ultimately, he comes clean, to his editors and to us. It's harrowing.

But I couldn't shake the sense that Finkel somewhat gleefully capitalized on his special connection with a murderer to revive his own career—I don't know whether this blind spot in the narration is deliberate or not. I don't think we needed a good deal of handwringing over how horrible the death of a women and three young children is—the despicable nature of the crime speaks for itself.

But Finkel seems far more interested in drawing connections between himself and Longo and their mutual manipulation than forthrightly examining the ethics of giving a murderer such free grace to tell his own story. Finkel's self-examination feels surface level at best.

After Longo is convicted on all counts and sentenced to death, he begins dangling the carrot of "What Really Happened" for Finkel—telling, retelling, and revising the story he told in court.

If you've ever dealt with a manipulative person who is trying to maintain a connection with you at all costs, you know exactly what is going on, although Finkel surprisingly seems unaware and initially falls for the gambit (tell me more...)

And there's another connection between Finkel and Longo: neither of them really consider the harm that they've done to other people. Finkel is sorry that he lied, yes, but he never examines (or even mentions) the consequences of his lies for anyone but himself—for example, by considering what it means for a white American male to impersonate a west African child laborer, or how he may have harmed the very humanitarian cause he was trying to support, or, to parallel Longo, how he inadvertently abbreviated or circumvented someone else's story.

In the end, I can't help but feel that as Longo tells and retells "his" story to his devoted audience (Finkel, in this case), he is killing his wife and children over and over and over and over again.

It makes me want to scream at the injustice of it—Longo can revise his life, distorting the truth, changing this or that detail at will, painting himself as the victim, deciding that the murders don't matter anymore and that he's moving on—meanwhile, he put a period on the lives of his family and forever wrested away their ability to write or revise or retell.

After reading this book, I have no interest in reading another word about or by Christian Longo. I don't want to hear his side of the story. Again. I don't care what happens to him. The best I can do is indifference.

Finkel describes having this same experience—wanting nothing to do with Longo—before being sucked back into his web of manipulation and deception. It never ends.

Crossover Recommendations

I was reminded of M. Scott Peck's People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil. There are definite echoes of Christian Longo in Peck's account of evil. I highly recommend this book.

via amazon.com

For more on writers who play fast and loose with the truth, Jon Ronson's book So You've Been Publicly Shamed spends a lot of time on famed fibber Jonah Lehrer. Interestingly enough, Lehrer is also an opaque character—there's never a plausible explanation for why he did what he did, perhaps because the only explanation is that he thought he could get away with it.

Netflix's show Making a Murderer is an obvious companion piece to "True Story"—whether or not you think Steven Avery might still be guilty could be a litmus test of whether you believe in evil or not.

The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists by Eleanor Payson is one of the best books about narcissism that I've read. Longo was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, and although most narcissists are not killers, a book about dealing with them might still be helpful.

2016 Bucket List

"The right time is any time that one is still so lucky as to have..."- Henry James

So, this is going to be a grab bag of personal goals and fun things to do this year, in no particular order of importance and subject to future updates and revisions as my wanton, womanly whims waft me. Luckily, Los Angeles is full of restaurants to sample, bizarre workouts to try, museums to visit, and guinea pigs to cuddle. Here's to a great 2016.

1. Volunteer at Los Angeles Guinea Pig Rescue

SO FLUFFY!!! Photo via LA Guinea Pig Rescue

Why haven't I done this yet. Why am I not hanging out with dozens of guinea pigs right now. SO FREAKING CUTE. TEARS. CANNOT EVEN RIGHT NOW.

2. Go hammock camping

Ever since my sister bought me a $5 hammock at Five Below, I have been dreaming about sipping wine in my hammock before a blazing fire while watching Netflix (that's what people do when they're camping...right?) As far as I can tell, all you need to go hammock camping is a hammock, tree straps, and two appropriately spaced trees. Living the dream!

3. Host a clothing swap (or three)

Leftover shoes from the last swap

When I told my sister that this was on my bucket list, she observed that, "Saying you're going to host a clothing swap this year is like saying, 'This year, I'm going to take a poop." She's not wrong. I'm taking one right now.

4. Start a local Artist's Way group

I participated in an Artist's Way group last year and it kind of sort of changed my life. This is one of those books that makes an evangelist out of you—the kind you give to your friends and strangers on the metro. Due to my continuing commitment to drive only when necessary, I would like to start a group close to my house. Like, walking/biking distance.

5. Ride my bike during CicLAvia

This is one of my favorite LA events. They shut down miles of public streets just for bikes/pedestrians/rollerbladers/skateboarders/scooters. I may have moved out of the valley but that doesn't mean I'm not going to haul/public-transpo my bike up there for this event.

6. Be in my brother's wedding

My brother is getting married!!! Not only is he all grown up (real job and everything), he's also an amazing person to talk to and hang out with. Sibling lottery on lock.

7. Make my own Bloody Mary mix from scratch.

I tried this once with fresh-squeezed tomato juice and the results were just "meh." Moral of the story: keep your tomatoes canned and your pepper gratuitous.

8. Take up weight lifting

9. Ride my bike to the beach


10. Visit the Broad

11. Learn to sew

I may or may not have taken a free sewing class at Mood LA two years ago. I may or may not have only gotten to the part where we pinned the pieces of a tote bag together. I may or may not still have those pinned together pieces sitting in my car. *Hangs head in shame*

12. Get a new job

13. Find a spiritual community or group that doesn't cause spontaneous feminist combustion

14. Be an extra in a web series as "Hipster Party Goer"

CHECK AND CHECK

15. Try acroyoga

16. Get health insurance

17. Learn how to [ice] skate backwards

So, this one time, I tried out for the hockey team at Cambridge when I was studying abroad. I put on all the gear, I went through all the drills, and though I wasn't the worst skater of the bunch, I could not for the life of me skate backwards. More than one person, including one really cute guy, tried to show me but I could—not—get—it. Goals.

18. Be an extra in a music video as "Skater Girl."

CHECK AND CHECK

My Top Five Posts of 2015

2015 may have been the year I spent recovering from everything that happened in 2014, mostly a horrible relationship that managed to hit the traumatic trifecta of my personal life, professional life, and spiritual life.

The question of 2014 was, "How will I ever heal from this?"

The answer of 2015 was, "Through writing. And by the grace of God."

Writing has been one of the most healing practices in my life—and I'm beyond grateful to be able to do that here.

On that note, here are my five favorite posts from 2015, in the order they were written:

Photo by Matthias Ripp

1. Why is Church Cliquey? Part 4

"There's that familiar narrative we tell each other after a breakup: Time to move on. You can do better. There are plenty of denominations in this diocese, or something like that. And I feel a bit silly. Like I'm all torn up over a breakup where the guy was never really that into me in the first place."

I don't know if I would describe this as a personal favorite, but as the latest in my "Why is Church Cliquey?" series it feels significant to my journey as a Christian and (post) Evangelical. Looking back, I can see how even though I left my church for personal reasons, the exodus was both a long time coming and to a certain point, inevitable. I can feel part 5 coming on like a case of norovirus. You're welcome in advance.

2. The INTP & Giving Zero Fucks, Parts 1, 2 & 3

"You don't care," is also emotionally coercive: "You should care. Shame on you for not caring. If you were a good person, a good Christian, a good girlfriend, a good employee, you would give a f*** about what I want you to give a f*** about."

This series was so much fun to write (not least because who doesn't like to drop the F bomb every third sentence, amiright?) Numerous people (two) told me that they also found it amusing, so mission accomplished. Apparently, there is a huge (in the 100s) blog market out there for INTP-related content, so expect to see more in the future. One of my most googled posts is "INTP = Asshole?" and I laugh every single time it comes up in the search keywords.

3. The Church & Mental Health: Interview with a Therapist

"There's an old saying one of my bosses likes, it goes: 'Feelings buried alive never die.' And what happens is they come out in other very nasty ways."

Addressing the intersection of Christianity and mental health, the interviews in this series brought healing when I least expected it. I can't emphasize enough how thankful I am—how God used conversation, and questions, and writing to bring healing and resolution to some traumatic things that happened in 2014 around the issue of mental health, and even more inexplicably, to a trauma that I have struggled to make sense of for over 10 years (I haven't published that interview yet. Bring it on 2016!) I don't know what to make of it. It's a miracle in its own right. And for me, it was one of the most grace-filled moments of 2015.

4. Undateable: Why Single Christian Guys Are All Dented Cans - Entitlement

"It's not anger. Because anger doesn't cause abuse. It's not pain. Because there are many, many men (and women) who experience intense, searing, heart-rending pain and yet fail to abuse anyone. It's not that they rage--it's that they feel justified in their cruelty."

Wow, talk about raw pain. The "Undateable" series might be the most popular series I've ever written—and some of the most appreciative readers have been men, which is awesome. I've used the series in part to process one of the most traumatic relationships of my life, and I think this post gets at the heart of why dating men like this can make you question your spiritual and religious beliefs. Because unfortunately, Christian men and men in the church are no less entitled (some would say they are more entitled because of historical Christian misogyny) than non-Christian men. What happens when you would no longer like a side of misogyny and sexism with your Christianity (thank you, but I don't like mushrooms). Do you give it up altogether?

5. Jessica Jones, Sex Robots for Jesus, and the Love/Respect Binary

"So I'm going to call 'Love and Respect' what it is: a false doctrine. Idolatry. A dangerous, misogynistic, and abusive ideology masquerading as the biblical, magic pill solution to all male/female relationships."

Hello misogyny, my old friend. Speaking of misogyny and the church—I've always had something of a personal vendetta against "Love and Respect" the franchise. But I had never actually read the book. HOLY BLANKETY BLANK. It was so much worse than I thought it would be, and that's saying something. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this book is evil. And if even one person questions 1/100th of its assumptions about men, women, gender roles, and marriage, I will consider that a success. I see more writing about complementarianism and "Love and Respect" in my future, God help us all.

Runners up:

Why I kept Quiet About Being Sexually Harassed
Should I Stay or Should I go?
"Give Me Sex Jesus"

Jessica Jones, Sex Robots for Jesus, and the Love/Respect Binary

I. SEX ROBOTS FOR JESUS

What causes someone to voluntarily become a sex robot for Jesus?

I once listened in horror to a podcast subtitled A Good Woman's View of Sex on the Love and Respect Podcast that appeared to answer just this question. 

She doesn't need your respect. Photo via collider.com

If you're not familiar with Love and Respect, it is a popular Christian marriage book written by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs. The book purports to rescue and redeem marriages through the universal application of a simple gender binary: 

Women need love; Men need respect ("desperately"—his word, not mine). It's all based on this verse:

However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. (Ephesians 5:33)

Although Eggerichs repeatedly says in the book and throughout the "Love and Respect" franchise that both men and women need both love and respect, his application of these two concepts proves otherwise.

Essentially, he places any need or desire women have for respect and puts it under the heading "love." He places any need or desire men have for love and puts it under the heading "respect." A woman's core need is love. A man's core need is respect. If you put a gun to a man's head and asked him to choose, he would choose respect; if you put a gun to a woman's head and...you get the idea. If I just keep saying this over and over again, you'll eventually buy into it, right?

The truly "revolutionary" concept in "Love and Respect" is not the idea that husbands should love their wives (which as Eggerichs points out, is old hat by this point), but the idea the wives should unconditionally respect their husbands (109). 

Yeah, you heard that right. Husbands deserve unconditional respect, especially when they are undeserving. 

It's important to emphasize here that in this context respect has everything to do with power. The key to respect is for the wife to consistently demonstrate by word, deed, and tone of voice (or even better, silence) that her husband is in a hierarchically superior position within the marriage. 

A man's power is his God-given right. A woman's power lies in respecting her husband—she gives power away (unconditionally) in order to get it back. Make sense? I didn't think so. 

Now, back to A Good Woman's View of Sex, which is, now that I think of it, demonstrably the worst possible title for this podcast. 

In the podcast, a good woman writes in (we'll call her "Martha") to describe a painful marriage. Martha believed that in order to honor God and be a good Christian wife, she needed to make every effort to meet her husband's sexual needs.

Therefore, she went from "never saying no to sex," because that would be sinful, to initiating sex with her husband every third day, without fail, although he continued to treat her poorly. Basically, he came to expect regular sex. He refused to ever initiate, but would subtly punish her if she didn't offer herself up to him every third day.

In her letter, Martha describes weeping uncontrollably in the shower, knowing that sex would be expected of her that day—knowing that if she did not initiate as expected, her husband would treat her with even more coldness and contempt than usual.

This story is upsetting—this wasn't just a woman submitting to unwanted sex with a selfish and emotionally distant husband because "that's what Jesus would want," but a woman who took it a step further and became the only person in the marriage to initiate sex—emotionally (possibly physically) painful sex that she did not want, but believed God required of her.

In essence, she became a sex slave within her own marriage.

Okay, now we get to the good part. How do Eggerichs and his son Jonathan Eggerichs respond to this letter? Do they mention the concept of self-respect? Do they tell Martha that no, Jesus does not require her to die emotionally every third day in order to meet her husband's sexual needs? Do they perhaps suggest that Martha's husband might want to be married to and have sex with a fully realized, equal human being with thoughts, feelings, inclinations, or a will of her own? And if that doesn't interest him, she should think about getting out of what sounds like an abusive marriage?

No. No, they do not.

Instead, Emerson Eggerichs says stuff like, "I honor you for your obedience to Christ" and "If you worship Christ in the sexually intimate area, [. . .] you are touching Christ's heart" and "this is a good-hearted woman" (refer back to the title of the podcast). At one point, he calls a wife like Martha a "goldmine" for sexually starved husbands everywhere. Most husbands would kill for such regular sexual activity. Who cares that she has to shut down every other aspect of her humanity?

"Love and Respect" the book devotes an entire chapter to "Sexuality—Appreciate His Desire for Sexual Intimacy." Because everything in this book is drawn along a gender binary, men have sexual needs and women have emotional needs. For men, "sex is symbolic of his deeper need—respect" (250). Eggerichs equates respect with sex, and let us not forget the oft-repeated phrase "unconditional respect."

Although Martha's story might seem like an outlier, it's hard not to see it instead as the logical conclusion of "unconditional respect": unconditional sex, or "Sex Robots for Jesus."

Now, let's talk about Jessica Jones.

Watching the new Netflix series was as bracing as the Atlantic ocean in December. I've never seen the issue of abuse tackled like this before—somehow it takes a woman with superhuman powers to show the effects of mental, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. Jessica is nobody's fool, but even her superhuman abilities and dour wit don't save her from the harrowing trauma of an abusive relationship.

What the show makes plain is that mental and emotional coercion can be just as powerful as the threat of actual physical violence.

Kilgrave abuses Jessica through the use of mind control. He wines and dines her as his perfect, ideal woman, going on and on about how much he "loves" her even as he turns her into his sex slave. As the show demonstrates, the worst kind of emotional and mental abuse eventually destroys a person's will. It breaks down their humanity. Over time, they have no willpower left to resist the abuse, no ability to say, "No."

Christian marriage advice, on the other hand, uses spiritual coercion to guilt women into unwanted sex. It's essentially a form of mind control—the woman submits her will to the "will of God," losing some of her own humanity in the process.

If you tell a devout Christian woman, "This is what God requires," you don't need to put a knife to her throat.

So when you encourage a woman to treat herself as less than human—when you praise her for making herself into a sex robot whose only purpose is to "respect" her husband by meeting his sexual needs—when you tell her that Jesus is pleased—then yes, you are encouraging and enabling abuse.

II. RESPECTING YOUR ABUSER

Ending an abusive relationship (that I initially didn't recognize as abusive) has caused me to more carefully examine words like "love" and "respect."

I've learned that if someone does not respect you as a human being, they cannot love you. Lack of respect, not lack of affection or care (often confused with love) is the cause of abuse. And as bell hooks puts it, "Love and abuse cannot coexist."

In "Love and Respect," Eggerichs addresses the question of whether his conception of "respect" will cause abuse:

Will the concept of biblical hierarchy lead to abuse? [...] Yes, this is possible, but because it is possible does not mean a woman should refuse to allow her husband to be the head. If a husband is evil-willed, the abuse will happen anyway, no matter what the family structure is. Any hierarchical role given to him has nothing to do with the abuse. The evil-willed man always treats those around him abusively (207).

I absolutely disagree. Shrugging and saying "Evil be evil" or "Abusers gonna abuse" is both misleading and f***ing irresponsible. 

Eggerichs fails to admit that he is putting powerful, ready-made, "biblical" (his word) tools into the hands of the abuser. Will reading "Love and Respect" turn an ordinary man into an abusive jerk? Doubtful. But an abusive man would have a field day with the concepts presented, and could easily use them to further control and manipulate his wife or girlfriend.

Here's why:

The words "love" and "respect" are deliberate. They are words favored by abusers.

I can't stop hearing Kilgrave's voice in my head:

"Jessica! Jessica! I love you!"

Nightmares for days

My abuser said the same thing (minus the Jessica part). He told me, "I still love you." And then he indirectly threatened me (but only because he was trying to help me and he didn't want to see me suffer!)

Hearing "I love you" from an abuser creates a huge amount of cognitive dissonance: "But he told me he loved me! Over and over again with tears in his eyes!"

Only when I began to see that the "love" itself was abuse did the fog start to lift.

And then there's that other word: respect. I've written about how another abusive man in my life used to repeatedly say, "You don't respect me!" By "respect" he meant exactly what Eggerichs means in "Love and Respect". He meant, "You don't submit your will to me. You don't treat me as being above you. You won't give in to me."

You see, respect as Eggerichs conceives of it—that is, the respect men "desperately need"—is always a hierarchical value. Men need this kind of respect in order to feel like men. It's an odd setup, where men are the more powerful entities (by God's design), but without a woman following them around all the time telling them how much they respect them, men collapse emotionally, spiritually, and probably sexually (Eggerichs writes that "respect beats a dose of Viagra any day!"). It's a spiritual variation on a common theme: men need women to prop up their fragile egos.

I can still remember the time I told my ex-boyfriend that I respected him. He lit up like a Christmas tree. I don't even know why I said it—maybe the love/respect doctrine had trickled down to me somehow. I had just confronted him with some things that he had said and done that troubled me—so perhaps this was my way of restoring equilibrium in the relationship.

I wonder whether I used "respect" like Trish Walker does with Kilgrave in "Jessica Jones"—to prevent him from turning, and tearing me to pieces. Now, this is a type of respect that I can relate to—the kind of respect that I pretend with men so that they will stop hating me, stop abusing me, stop treating me with contempt, or just simply leave me alone. Did my "respect" keep my ex-boyfriend from treating me abusively later on? No. It didn't.

Joy Eggerichs, the daughter of Emerson and Sarah Eggerichs, talks candidly on her website (billed as "Love and Respect" for the current generation) about being in an abusive dating relationship where the guy would tell her she was being disrespectful in order to manipulate her. By her own account, she went to her parents and asked them if she was really being disrespectful.

Luckily, she got out of that relationship. But here's my question: Why would Joy (as an adult, presumably) need the outside validation of her parents to confirm that she was being manipulated? Why would the progeny of the love/respect dynasty fall prey to a common tactic of abusive men?

Perhaps because the only guidance that "Love and Respect" gives about abuse is that we need to somehow discern between "good-willed" people and evil people, without giving any real guidance on how to tell the difference.

III. LOVE AND RESPECT AND ABUSE

Eggerichs grants that at times, women might need to submit to God instead of to their husbands, for example, in cases of physical abuse.

Later on, however, he relates the story of one woman who went back to her previously abusive husband (he repented), but was still struggling to show him respect. She writes:

My heart's desire is to win my husband to the Lord through my respectful behavior. I must admit I have to "mull over" some of your teaching, but it IS biblically based, and the Holy Spirit keeps revealing my rebellion, contempt, disobedience, etc. I keep asking the Lord for strength to implement your suggestions, and He is so faithful!

This letter creeps me out.

Basically, the husband abused his wife, but she is the one who needs to work on her rebellion, contempt, and disobedience. This reeks of Stockholm syndrome. Any time a thought arises within this woman's mind that even hints at self-respect, anger, or, I don't know, boundaries around being abused, she beats it down as a sign of rebellion—against God!

And this is not the first abused wife in the book jonesing for more ways to unconditionally respect her husband. In another story, a woman emails Eggerichs wanting more resources and guidance about respect, but fails to mention how her husband once threw a dish at her, cutting her face.

Eggerichs' response to her selective account of her marriage: "What a woman!"

I'm not kidding. Her husband threw a plate at her face and she needed to learn more about how to respect him (he apparently repented while sitting in jail).

The connection between "Love and Respect" and abuse is not a coincidence. The false binary between love and respect is textbook spiritual abuse—"scriptural" mind control.

IV. CONTEMPT IS FOR WOMEN

Eggerichs deliberately uses the word "contempt" only in the context of a wife having or showing contempt for her husband—as if contempt, the opposite of respect, were a gendered phenomenon.

Women treat men with "contempt" (the word or its variations appears a total of 48 times in the book, always gendered female), while men are "harsh" (20 times, gendered male). Notice that women are described as contemptuous more than twice as often as men are described as harsh.

Men are never described as having or showing contempt for their wives. Why is that? My theory: It is impossible to show contempt for someone who is already beneath you, see also the phrase "beneath contempt." Eggerichs encodes his own misogynistic attitudes into his use of language.

It goes further: women are overwhelmingly portrayed as the ones responsible for marital problems and strife. I believe this is also deliberately gendered: women are the ones expected to buy the marriage books. They are the ones who should shoulder the emotional burden of improving a troubled marriage—see the previous two stories from women who were abused. 

Eggerichs' overwhelmingly gendered use of the word "contempt" sends women a clear message: It's your fault; it's your responsibility.

On the Love and Respect Now blog, writer and former missionary Alece Ronzino writes about her husband at the time literally throwing the book "Love and Respect" at her and saying, "Maybe this will teach you how to respect me like you should instead of accusing me of having an affair."

What do you know. He was having an affair.

Mindblowingly, Alece concludes this story by affirming her own ongoing struggle to respect her ex-husband despite his manipulation, abuse, and infidelity.

Yes. The moral of the story is: How do I continue to show respect to a man who has betrayed me and treated me with overwhelming contempt?

In a way, I appreciate the incredible effort Joy and Alece make to shoehorn even this traumatic story into the love/respect binary.

But on the other hand, someone throwing a book titled "Love and Respect" at you is the equivalent of a gigantic, neon, glowing sign that reads, "GET THE F*** OUT OF THIS ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP", not a gentle suggestion that maybe you need to learn some respect.

Trying to demonstrate unconditional respect to a person who is only interested in manipulating and abusing you is, needless to say, a very, very bad idea. Telling an abuser or a controlling person, "I respect you," doesn't tend to make them less abusive or controlling. Instead, as I found in my own personal experience, they are more likely to escalate the abuse.

If you are in an abusive relationship, the last question on your mind should be, "How do I respect my abuser?" That's hyperbolically equivalent to asking during an attempted murder, "How do I show my murderer that I genuinely admire his skill with a knife? Perhaps a mid-stab compliment is in order."

Notice that I used the "C" word to describe how a man treated a woman. I think my use is perfectly valid, and anyone who tries to convince you that it is impossible for a man to have or show contempt for a woman is either delusional or has a deeper agenda at stake.

Going back to Martha's story, I can't imagine a greater expression of contempt for another human being than to use her body but reject everything else about her.

What Eggerichs and Eggerichs fail to acknowledge in their podcast is that this woman's supposedly godly and praiseworthy behavior only caused her husband to treat her even more like a sexual object and less like a human being.

V. SEX ROBOTS AGAIN

As far as I can tell from reading Joy's comment on Alece's post, women can potentially save "disobedient" men by showing them respect. But it doesn't always work. Sometimes people are just evil (there's that helpful advice again).

Wives saving their disobedient husbands through unconditional respect is a huge theme in "Love and Respect," based on these verses:

In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior. (NASB, 1 Peter 3:1-2)

Which Eggerichs shortens to:

The apostle Peter reveals that husbands who "are disobedient to the word" (meaning they are undeserving of respect) "may be won . . . by . . . respectful behavior."

Notice that the burden is on the wife to save her husband. And how does one save a husband? By having sex with him as often as possible—um, I mean, by respecting him.

Eggerichs' comments in the "Good Woman" podcast make so much more sense now—Martha is literally worshipping God by having sex with her husband. She may be dying on the inside, but all that matters is that her vagina is winning him to the Lord.

Eggerichs claims that it's not like she's being "tortured" or "crucified" or anything. I feel like the fact that he even uses these words implies the opposite. She is crucifying her own will. She is crucifying her emotions. She is crucifying her body. She is emotionally tortured every three days over a two year period.

And to be consistent here, isn't that what women are supposed to do? Be Jesus for their husbands? Die a little more each day so that he might "live"?*

Sex Robot = Sex Martyr

VI. LOVE AND RESPECT AND JESUS

I have yet to read a single story in the entire love/respect canon that describes a woman standing up for herself and saying, "No." No, I will not abused. No, I will not stay in a situation that puts my life at risk. No, I will not stay in a marriage in which I am emotionally and sexually degraded.

Women are being counseled to trust the love/respect doctrine over their own self-preservation instincts—and I'm not just talking about life-threatening situations, though of course those exist.

I'm talking about preserving your life—your emotional, spiritual, rational self—precisely the self that abuse seeks to destroy. Precisely the self that, according to Christianity, Jesus died to save.

And that's probably the primary reason that "Love and Respect" the franchise makes me so f***ing angry, and what makes it so spiritually abusive at its core:

"Love and Respect" uses the gospel of Christianity to keep women enslaved in hierarchical, if not abusive, relationships, where they are told to subjugate their anger, their intuition, their analytical abilities, their desire for meaningful work and a career, their sexuality, their bodies, their voices, and their facial expressions* to the overriding goal of "respecting" their husbands.

So I'm going to call "Love and Respect" what it is: a false doctrine. Idolatry. A dangerous, misogynistic, and abusive ideology masquerading as the biblical, magic pill solution to all male/female relationships.

VII. LOVE WITHOUT RESPECT IS ABUSE

It feels ironic to read a book about how much men need respect when I've been writing about how disrespected I've felt in relationships with Christian men.

Usually, love or romantic feelings are used to justify or gloss over disrespectful behavior—so that the men who have treated me the most abusively or disrespectfully are also the ones who have expressed the most love, affection, and attraction.

When a man tells me that he "respects" me, it's usually after he has treated me in an incredibly disrespectful way—this seems to indicate that men understand how manipulative the words "I respect you" can be.

I've struggled with how to characterize this lack of respect for women in the Christian world. It's more than a simple lack of respect. It's not even contempt, because "contempt" implies that you actually see the other person.

I think it really comes down to the idea that women are less human or not fully human. This is the only way I can explain the abuse, especially as it coexists with "love." It's the only way I can describe a man who violates my boundaries even as he sheds crocodile tears over the depth of his love for me.

"Jessica Jones" captures just how terrifying it is to have such a man tell you he loves you.

Give me respect any day.









*Eggerichs makes a huge meal out of the fact that men are willing to die for their wives. He uses this willingness to die to justify a man's inherently superior station in the marital hierarchy. I once watched a baffling video clip of him telling women something like, "Remember that your husband would die for you. He may never open up to you emotionally, but he would die for you" as if this were somehow sufficient consolation for having an emotionally distant husband. I just picture lonely women rocking themselves to sleep every night saying over and over again, "He would die for me, he would die for me, he would die for me..."

Given the statistical probability of a man ever having to die for his wife, what about the slow death of living in an abusive or unloving relationship? What was that saying again: "Death by 1,000 Cuts."

*"A simple application is that a wife is to display a respectful facial expression and tone when he fails to be the man she wants" (43)

*"Right or wrong, men interpret their world through the respect grid, and a wife's softened tone and facial expressions can do more for her marriage than she can imagine."

*"Love and Respect" includes two letters from wives who have learned how to control their facial expressions (191, 302) and the glowing effect it has had on their marriages.

All pages numbers are from the Kindle edition of "Love and Respect."