Elephant in the Dock: The White Male As Neutral and Objective

“I don’t know anything about truth but I know falsehood when I see it and it looks like this whole world you’ve made.” – “Elephant in the Dock”* by mewithoutYou

When I first registered for college classes, I declared a political science and communication studies double major. I had a dream of being a political pundit on CNN, which, for some reason, I thought was based out of Chicago. Then I went to church camp. During that time, I felt like God was calling me to do something different, to change lives not by becoming a pundit on CNN, but by delving into theology and learning all I could from it. I knew, then, that I should change my major to theology/philosophy.**

I called the school the Monday after I got home and switched my major.

Later that week, I was talking to a friend from high school – the son of the local Southern Baptist pastor (we only had one Southern Baptist church in the city at the time). He replied that I couldn’t go into ministry with that degree because I’m a woman.

As a woman inclined toward philosophy, theology, and social justice issues, I’ve had my share of being dismissed or questioned within those spheres. I’m expected to exist apart from and without my womanhood in order to participate in those abstract discussions.

Let me explain.

If I point out that we need to talk about Jesus’ maleness when we discuss theories of the Incarnation because his maleness has an impact on the time and place in which he became incarnate, I’m told that such theology is niche identity politics, too specialized to be applicable to general, abstract, objective discussions. By my very existence as a woman in theological studies, I insert gender into a discussion that has been previously dominated by a homogenous group of straight, white, cisgender men – men for whom questions of gender and patriarchy were not relevant or pressing in their lives. I, by the very act of being a woman existing in the theological realm, frequently bring to the table a different perspective that is colored by my gendered existence.

Unfortunately, by allowing this experience to play a part in how I approach theology, I am told that I am playing identity politics, that I am failing to participate in the abstract, that I am inserting subjectivity into a previously objective realm.

This is precisely what happened in the comment section of Jennifer Luitwieler’s post on male theology bloggers and the lack of women in their theology circles. The comments turned into a benevolently sexist discussion (and I quote the man, Alastair Roberts, directly here):

“…women just don’t participate as much in the sort of conversations that dominate male blogs, conversations that aren’t so firmly rooted in a particular context or identity. We don’t purposefully exclude women from our blog rolls at all: they just aren’t participating in the general conversation to the same degree. By not including them, we aren’t denying that they have value in their own place, just that they aren’t speaking into the conversations with which we are engaged.”

I don’t fault Alastair for repeating an argument that seems quite reasonable to him. But he is also blinded by his privilege as a white male person. Notice, first, his use of the word “we.” “We” is meant to be theology bloggers, but within the context, “we” quite clearly means white male theologians who speak about “abstractions.” There is no way for I, as a feminist theologian, to be included within his “we” because “abstract” here is a moving goal post. Inserting gendered ideas into a discussion means I am no longer functioning within the abstract. If I do not sublimate my womanhood so that I may talk as a man, I will forever be the Other in this discussion.

This is benevolent sexism. It is the sexism that says “it’s not that we don’t listen to women! It’s just that they don’t write the stuff we’re interested in!” It becomes dangerous when “the stuff we’re interested in” is labeled as “objective,” and “abstract” and that this objectivity and abstractness are held up as “good." We see this over and over again in media and in excuses given for why women aren't CEOs of more Fortune 500 companies or visibly participating in the sciences. Because minority groups are somehow, as a monolith, disinterested in "objectivity," white males pawn off the blame for lack of inclusiveness on the excluded groups.

We really like to think, especially in America, the country built on Enlightenment philosophy, that “objectivity” is a thing that can be grasped and held. But we do humanity a disservice when we believe that this means the discussions we have are rooted in some world of “abstract objectivity.”

Here’s the rub: “objectivity” isn’t a thing. It doesn’t exist.

No one – not even white men – can fully separate their identity from what they are talking about. So when a white man tells me that women are not participating in the “abstract” conversation that white men are having, what I hear is that women are not willing to set aside their womanliness in order to behave as men (and people say that’s what feminists want!).

Take this for an example: what does a heart attack look like?

If you said pain radiating in the left arm, constriction in the chest, rapid or irregular heartbeat, fainting, you’re basically right...if you're describing the symptoms for heart attacks in cis men. Women experience nausea, back and jaw pain, shortness of breath, and vomiting.

You would think heart attack symptoms would be an objective science. That’s the narrative we’ve received for years and years – because the narrative has been dominated by supposedly “objective” white men. And because women were kept out of the sciences for centuries, and only relatively recently started becoming specialized doctors, study of female heart attack symptoms never really mattered because the men in charge of the studying didn’t think of how it might be different.

This is the danger – literal and figurative – of equating a white, male dominated discourse with “objectivity” and “abstractness,” even if you’re not trying to set it up as a hierarchy. Because of the patriarchal strictures within which we live and move, equating maleness with objectivity (or implying so by saying that women simply aren’t “attracted” to these “objective” discussions) demands that minorities drop their identities at the door and learn how to converse and discuss as white men in order to participate in “objective” discussion.

It is not that white men are magically more interested in objectivity, but that white men seem interested in sharing ideas with those who look and act like them, with those who share the identifiers of “white” and “male.” If a woman refuses to drop her identification and take a new one upon herself, she is dismissed as “subjective” and “uninteresting” – because she doesn’t look, act, or talk like a white male.***

We are all speaking within cultural contexts. We are all speaking from specific life experiences. No one is capable of being “objective” or participating in the “abstract.” Not even white men. If you notice, white guys, that your “abstract, objective” discussion is lacking the opinions of women, it’s not because women are somehow uninterested or incapable of abstraction. It’s because women aren’t interested in hearing the dominating white male perspective again. Come to our table. Don’t ask us to lose our selves in order to join yours.

*This song is based on the story of Mary the Elephant, a circus elephant who was hanged after killing her trainer. Disturbing image at the link, just so you know.

**I realize for many of my readers think this is silly, and I don’t know that I believe God has such specific callings for people anymore, but at the time, this is what I was convinced of.

***Note that this is referring to cisgender men. Trans* people encounter this "burden" of proving objectivity as well.

On Entitlement, Privilege and Feeling Bad: The Importance of the Icky Feelings

[Last week was a lot, and I’m still recovering, so my apologies that posting is light this week. That said, let’s dive into the issue of the week.]

Creative Commons.

I want to talk to you about entitlement. No, not “entitlement programs” that are actually necessary social safety nets, but rather the sense of entitlement to another’s person space, time, breathing room, conversation. And specifically, male entitlement to female social spaces.

An example of this recently surfaced in my regular blog reading. Over on the Green State blog, Lauren explicated a Facebook discussion she had with a few men who objected to the idea of women’s only hours at a gym.

The idea behind women’s only hours is simple – it’s much like the women’s only cars on trains in Tokyo. Harassment while at the gym (or on the train) is so bad that the company offered women’s only spaces so as to make it impossible for men to harass women. While this solution is only a bandaid in a culture of entitlement leading to harassment, the marking out of a place that is safe for women and for women only is important.

The men didn’t see it that way. It’s “reverse sexism,” they cried. It’s “punishing all men for the actions of a few!” It “violates my right to use the gym when I want!”

The punishment line struck me.

What, exactly, is the punishment here? How, exactly, are men being punished by women creating a safe space that is only for women* to access?

The only way that creating a safe space is a punishment to those not allowed in the space is if those excluded people feel somehow entitled to it. If you feel that you necessarily have a right to be in women’s spaces and to have conversations with women regardless of women’s feelings or safety, then a space where you are cut off from that would, indeed, seem like punishment.

But it seeming like punishment and it actually being punishment are two different things.

What seems to be happening in the conversation here and in similar discussions when street harassment, creeper behavior and the like are brought up is the distress of the privileged.

Realizing that you are part of a group that participates in oppression sucks. I get it. It’s hard when you’ve spent your entire life feeling happily oblivious to ways you and your group have been quietly or not so quietly oppressing marginalized peoples. Waking up to that hurts.

Sometimes, people manifest their unnamed discomfort by blaming the marginalized group. These are the gym guys – the guys who, rather than asking their fellow men to knock it off with the harassment, cast women as the evil villains in their play, women who simply want to go to the gym without getting approached by strange, sweaty men (seriously, least romantic environment ever, second only to a visit to the gynecologist).

This unabashed entitlement to women’s spaces and to women’s bodies is a symptom of privilege. And it’s hard to talk some folks through that. Many will react poorly when you try to set a boundary around your space and around your body. This, of course, only reinforces that safe spaces are necessary and boundaries are important.

But, sometimes, you get through. They finally realize that “holy crap, [marginalized groups] live in a different world!” And you feel a tiny bit relieved. Finally, they’re trying to get it. They’re willing to listen to you as a human being! As a person! We’re real people! But that relief is often short-lived, as the next hiccup inevitably comes: “Now that I know my privilege, I feel bad about my privilege. Help me to feel better. Make this bad icky go away!”

And there’s the thing: my job as a marginalized person is not to coddle the privileged. Their job (and my job as an intersectionally privileged person) is to steer into the skid, lean in to the icky. Because discomfort over an awareness of the other person’s feelings and how I might make them feel? That’s what living an intersectional existence of privilege creates. I am going to feel bad. You are going to feel bad. We should feel bad.

We want to be coddled through. We want to be told that it’s okay that we accidentally did that racist/sexist/homophobic/cissexist thing, that we’re understood and we are okay!

But here’s the thing: we’re not supposed to feel okay because what we did was not okay.

If recognizing privilege and our own complicity in oppression was easy happy fluffy unicorns and kittens, the world would look way different. But as it is, it does create discomfort. It does create distress. It feels, sometimes, that you’re being punished merely for having these privileges, like you're being told you're a bad person for being male, middle class, and white. You’re supposed to feel bad when you hurt people because that’s what unchecked privilege does.

Keep in mind, I speak of this from experience. As a white, heterosexual, cisgender woman from a middle class background, I mess up a lot. I say/do things that are privileged. And it is my responsibility, when my privilege is called out, to own up to it, to recognize that what I did was Not Okay. And I must also own my feelings of feeling bad about it, because feeling bad when you hurt someone is what happens.

I can make things worse by feeling entitled to a person’s space and feelings and comfort. Requesting that a woman comfort you because realizing that you might make women uncomfortable? That’s still entitlement to our space and our feelings. Portraying attempts to fix the balance and to correct sexist behavior as women punishing men? That’s entitlement and unchecked privilege. Complaining that affirmative action is punishment to white students? Entitlement out the wazoo.

Feeling icky about your privilege is part of being privileged. It is up to us to own that, understand it, experience it. Then we help make things better.

__________

*I’m presuming that men and women here means cisgender men and women, and it’s worth remembering that, often, spaces that are created as safe for cis-men and women are often still unsafe for non-binary people.

Heavy Words and Co-opted Meanings

As I like to say, over and over, words mean things. Matt Appling of The Church of No People seems to have missed out on this lesson. With this post, his non-apologetic clarification, and then this guest post on a different site, he seems to be on some sort of crusade of pushing back against the progressive Christian world. The only problem is that he doesn’t seem to have taken the time to understand it before diving into critiques. And in doing so, he’s perpetuated a lot of harmful thinking and theology. Appling suffers from a common malady that afflicts a lot of white male evangelicals – not bothering to research the actual definition of the terms they’re using, and predicating entire ideas on a misunderstood definition. But, like Elora said earlier this week, words mean things. In fact, knowing and understanding what certain words mean and how they apply to one’s own life is vital for healing from abusive situations. Being able to say "I was abused," and "I suffered," gives those experiences meaning and weight and context.

Changing definitions of healing words to one’s own purpose and worldview – to complain about pastoral issues, for example  – can, itself, be abusive and oppressive behavior. One may not be intending to oppress or abuse, but intent isn’t magical. If your writing is predicated on terms that survivors and victims use to understand what happened to them, and you change the definitions to complain about something petty, you are appropriating a term that is not yours to use.

Take, for example, Appling’s guest post on spiritual abuse (linked above). In the post, he talks a bit about how spiritual abuse has become a buzzword, but that we forget a big victim of spiritual abuse – pastors.

Now, there is an angle here that could have worked – pastors can and do suffer spiritual abuse in terms of being held to what the person above them in the chain of command (or an elder board) wants. The main character in John Hassler’s North of Hope, for example, suffers from a version of this.

But that’s not Appling’s take. No, Appling says that congregants who expect too much of their pastors, who don’t parent their kids (???), who criticize the preaching style of the pastor are “spiritually abusing him” (and in Appling’s world, it’s only ever a him). Appling writes:

Too many times than I can count, I have heard friends and acquaintances complain or denigrate (read:abuse) their pastor over his oratorical abilities.  Not his ability to interpret scripture or his character, but just his ability to entertain them.  For one reason or another, a mere man is not able to live up to their sky-high standards of performance.

...

Likewise, I have heard so many people leave churches for the last time with the parting words, “I’m just not being fed.”

...

No?  Then how can you expect a church to spoon-feed you everything you need? You know how some couples fight over housework?  Some guys think that cooking meals equals “woman’s work?”  Well the same abusive attitude exists at church.  Keeping everyone spiritually fed somehow equals “pastor-work” while everyone else sits back and relaxes.  That’s not what church is about.

This is the part where I grab a megaphone and start yelling.

Do people critique pastors unfairly sometimes? Yes. Do pastors get unwarranted criticism because American Christianity has turned the church into a capitalistic enterprise where attendance coins get put in and we expect happy spirituality to fall out? Yes. Do people expect too much and does that factor into pastors suffering from burn out? Yes.

Does it fit the definition of spiritual abuse, though? Not really.

Even a cursory glance at the Wikipedia page for spiritual abuse would have informed Appling of the idea that “complaining about your pastor” or leaving a church because "you're not being fed" doesn’t fit the definition of spiritual abuse. Spiritual abuse, like other well-defined forms of abuse, has a definition, symptoms, and signs. One of those major signs is a controlling authoritarian structure in which people who complain or challenge the authority are punished and either forced to leave or forced to undergo steps for repentance and re-education. Authority is a huge factor in spiritual abuse. And congregants shopping around to different churches simply aren't authoritarian figures in the scenario Appling puts forth.

I understand, partially, where Appling is coming from. He wants to encourage people to treat their pastors well. I have a lot of friends who are pastors or who are in ministry who have been treated poorly by their church congregations. Whether or not those congregations have spiritually abused them must be taken on a case by case basis, however, and the incidences run much deeper than someone complaining about preaching style. I'm not here denying that pastors experience spiritual abuse (because they do), but to claim that congregants are abusing their pastor when they complain about him is a sweeping generalization I cannot get behind.

By using “spiritual abuse” to mean petty complaints about pastors, Matt Appling dilutes the powerful meaning the term has.

Maybe an analogy would help: we’ve all met the person who insists on having her pencils lined up neatly on her desk and jokes “I’m so OCD!” And we rightly find this person annoying.

Joking about having a serious disorder like OCD takes away from the real nature of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Correcting this joking is actually advisable, because it makes it easier for people with real, diagnosed OCD to feel more comfortable. It doesn’t dilute their mental illness down to a quirk.

I choose OCD because my oldest brother suffers from mild OCD as part of a spectrum of illnesses that often accompany Down Syndrome (which he has). Before he sits down in any chair, for example, he feels the need to reach down and “remove his shadow.” He does this anywhere and everywhere – in restaurants, getting into the car, in his own living room. People who are around him in daily life have grown used to it, recognizing that it’ll take him a little longer to settle things and to “feel right” in a new situation (he is on medication for it, as well).

So people joking about OCD because they like things to be tidy? Really bother me, because it makes it harder for people who have variations on the illness to feel “normal.” Changing the definition of a diagnosed illness or a defined and research form of abuse makes it harder for those who actually do experience these things to feel like they can claim them as part of their story. Calling a desire for neatness "OCD" co-opts and appropriates a legitimate term with a specific definition. It uses mental illness to define a "quirk."

Similarly, those of us not healing from or experienced in things like rape or abuse should not appropriate those terms to describe situations we happen to find unpleasant. Example: "That test raped me." Or "that debate round really abused me." You should never, ever use something horrific to describe something you simply don't like. Doing so cheapens the words and makes them lose force of meaning.

Words have to have certain, defined meanings because learning the vocabulary for what happened to you helps give those things weight, and place, and shape, and context within your life. When we use these heavy, weighty words to describe things that are not heavy and weighty, we rob people of the contexts they need to heal. And a person without context is a person lost.

__________

For coverage of Appling's other posts on equality, I recommend this post from my friend Sarah, about equality and humility (spoiler alert: Appling doesn't get what those mean, either!).

Photo by Lainey's Repoertoire on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons licensing.

An Unholy Evil: Ignorance, Silence, and Abuse

[Trigger warning: abuse apologism] I didn’t set out to become someone who blogs about abuse regularly. But in three years as a blogger, I’ve forged many friendships with people who have been marginalized and hurt by people in the church. The stories of survivors have wrecked me and enraged me and filled me what I think Paul might term a “holy and righteous anger.”

We live in a culture that demands victims of abuse must stay silent for the comfort of others, that tells them their hurt and anger is out of place, that privileges their abusers and demands that healing on a schedule.  Christianity, to me, must be about centering  the voices of the abused and marginalized: hearing, understanding, and magnifying them. It is within that airing of grievance, that anger at mistreatment, and the fight for justice that we find every element of Christian community and justice and love and mercy.

This isn’t about me; it’s about what Christian love means when it comes to listening to the abused. The first step in showing this love to is shut up and listen to what survivors of abuse have to say. The writing I’ve done about abuse has come out of a process of learning from survivors how to stand in solidarity with them as they demand to be heard, and amplify their words. We cannot love victims of abuse if we refuse to hear them. We cannot support them, understand how abuse and abusers work, or comprehend its effects without listening to those who have experienced it.

Tim Challies has apparently never opened his ears to the victims of the abused.  Tim Challies doesn’t appear to understand what abuse is.

Why else, then, would he produce this steaming pile of weaksauce?

According to what Challies wrote here, he believes it better to remain ignorant in cases of abuse, in order to let the alleged abusers and their victims work it out amongst themselves. It is destructive to Christian unity to challenge Christian brothers who are being accused of abuse, to speak out against their actions. No. Really. Read it (emphasis mine):

We, of all people, should be slow to put aside hope and belief. This means that I owe it to C.J. Mahaney, to SGM and to those who have levelled allegations to believe the best about them, to hope all things for them.

….

However, the majority of us are far on the outside with very little at stake. For this reason many of us simply do not need to have an opinion.

The farther we are from being stakeholders, the less the likelihood that we are equipped to helpfully evaluate the facts and that we can do anything helpful with the information we learn. The farther we are from being close to those involved, the greater the likelihood that we are drawn more to the scandal of it all than any noble purpose. Not all knowledge builds us up; not all knowledge helps us; not all knowledge helps us love God and love one another in deeper ways. The fact that today’s media allows us to have access to facts, does not necessarily give license to avail ourselves of them.

If it is true that I am called to love other Christians, that I am called to believe and hope all things, that I am far outside this situation, then I think I do well to learn less rather than more. I need to know only enough to understand that I don’t need to know anything more! For example, when the leaders of a church call a members’ meeting knowing that there may be someone there transcribing the meeting with a view to making it public, and when that church’s pastor specifically asks outsiders not to read the meeting’s proceedings, I, as an outside observer, do well to honor that request as a show of love and respect to a brother in Christ. When thousands of pages of documentation appear on web sites, I do not benefit from reading and studying every word.

For this reason I have deliberately avoided learning too much. I have had to question my motives, especially since I have repeatedly been on the receiving end of scathing criticism for not using my platform to speak out against Mahaney. I have chosen to read the news stories, to understand the basic facts, but conscience compels me to stop there. To do more may not be spiritually beneficial, it may not reflect good time management, and it may not be loving toward those who are involved.

I almost can’t write this. My hands are shaking and I keep reaching over to my water bottle, hoping that the icy liquid will cool the searing pain from the bile rising in my throat.

Challies is writing as though no one in his audience is privy to an abusive situation. As though Christians are merely outsiders to an anomaly. As though abusers don’t sit happily in the pulpits and in the congregations of churches across America. If your congregation is a decent sized cross section of America (as most are), there is an abuse victim in your audience, probably sitting next to their abuser, every Sunday. Challies’ assumption that one can simply be ignorant of abuse, that one can avoid getting their hands messy on the topic, is an exemplar of privilege run amok.

Sure, he’s talking about one specific case. But he’s also making declarative statements throughout his piece about what Christian actions in cases of abuse should be – and those instructions are horrifying. We should be careful to listen to both sides, we should withhold judgment, we should actively make efforts to learn no more.

Challies failed in his responsibility as a pastor and as a man of God the second he hit publish on that post. His instructions go far beyond the specifics of SGM (which has not, as Challies says, been “slow or hesitant to release information” but rather has actively sought to prevent any information from being disseminated and actively fought investigations). And in that action, he silences victims and gives bulwarks of support to their abusers.

You see, victims – especially victims in evangelical environments – are told that their allegations of abuse are private matters, that opening their mouths and saying that things are not okay is “divisive” and “against Christian unity.” It is no small matter for victims to bring forth accusations and to go to court against their abusers. It is no small feat for them to stand up for themselves and continue to speak.

Challies’ rhetoric would have those victims remain silent. And it would have their Christian brothers and sisters remain willfully ignorant. Challies here abandons victims of abuse the very second he proposes that we are enacting a Biblical model by remaining uncritical of an abusive church situation.

It is horrific. It is beyond the pale. And it is the farthest thing from “Christian” one could possibly be.

Jesus was an ally to the marginalized. Jesus did not hesitate to call out those abusers of men – brood of vipers, whitewashed tombs. If we are to model Jesus, ignorance and silence in the face of abuse is the last thing we should be doing.

________

Photo by fotologic. Used under Creative Commons licenses.

For more responses to Challies, I recommend this post on Wine and Marble and this post by Rachel Held Evans.

Purity Culture is Rape Culture: A Case Study

[Trigger warning: rape, intimate partner violence] A few months ago, the feminist Christian blogging world had a collective shaking of the heads over Secret Keepers, a modesty movement aimed at girls 8-12 years old. The movement is founded by speaker and author Dannah Gresh. Those of you involved in the complementarian world will recognize her as a “moderate, mainstream” complementarian name – usually pointed to in order to balance out the extreme examples of Driscoll and Piper or even Debi and Michael Pearl.

I have to admire Gresh’s heart for young girls and people. She is really, truly passionate about what she does, and is clearly a good, strong woman, who has benefited from feminism in many ways.

But, I cannot see her work as benign, mainstream complementarian. Because if this is what mainstream looks like, complementarianism and purity culture have a real problem on their hands.

Dannah Gresh’s chastity movement is designed so that it can take a person all the way from childhood to puberty to adulthood firmly ensconced in purity teachings. Her Secret Keepers foundation speaks to girls as young as eight and explains to them the virtues of being modest. On their website (and, according to this video, at conferences on tour), the girls are instructed to conduct a “Truth or Bare” Modesty Test.

The test is framed in such a way as to make young girls hyper-aware of the masculine sexual drive years before they even know what sex is. Granted, the FAQ on the Secret Keepers website states that sex is never directly mentioned from the stage on the tour and though you can’t find a mention of actual sex on the website, this is a technicality. One doesn’t need to talk about intercourse in order to frame the discussion in a way that enforces and supports the male sexual gaze as prime.

Take, for example, these instructions from the Truth or Bare test:

Bellies are very intoxicating and we need to save that for our husbands!

Lean forward a little bit. Can you see too much chest or future cleavage? Your shirt is too low.

It all depends on whether God has chosen to bless you with breasts or not.

The Secret Keeper movement doesn’t even have to mention sex for it to be clear to these young girls that they do not have say over their bodies – at eight years old, these girls are already being told that they do not belong to themselves, that they are a threat merely by existing, and that their private parts belong to a future man. The language and framing within this set function to disempower these young women before they can even understand what bodily autonomy might mean.

As I said last week, the ownership of one’s body, one’s bodily autonomy, is vital to developing a healthy sexual ethic. By telling these children that their bodies are not their own and should be hidden, Secret Keepers – and Gresh, as founder – are reinforcing the idea that women’s bodies are provocative, seductive, things that are threatening (and “intoxicating!”) to men. They literally say they should hide themselves.

The implied consequence of this, as has been discussed ad nauseum in the feminist world (and will continue to be discussed until people get it) is that sexual violence is then, quite possibly, the fault of the woman assaulted.

Think that’s too big of a leap? Consider, then, Gresh’s sermon (audio file) to college students at Grove City College in Grove City, PA, this past Valentine’s Day (yes, Valentine’s Day).

First, she discusses the Hebrew “ahava” – slightly misinterpreted as dangerous, lustful, love-at-first-sight kind of love, though still close the original meaning of romantic love. She seems to be setting up romantic, sexually-tinged love as a dangerous type of love that should be avoided. She has this to say about the story of Dinah in Genesis:

We find in the Bible several instances in-where there are stories where people fell in love. See if some of these are familiar to you. Um, there’s Hamor the Hivite who fell in love with Dinah. The Bible says he was deeply attracted to her and he loved – ahava – her. Well if you know how that story ends, he ended up raping her, which promoted her brothers to seek revenge and started a terrible war.

[Editor’s note: Dinah was raped by Schechem, son of Hamor. And love – ahava – is spoken about after the rape occurs in Genesis, which is sketchy. You can find her story here.]

Within Gresh’s framing, sexual violence is a natural consequence of awakened lust. While she does not blame Dinah, it is not a hard leap to victim blaming here, as Gresh later cautions in her sermon that women are needy and looking for love and will often settle for ahava when they really need agape.

She sets up ahava and agape in contrast, even though in Proverbs 10:12, we see ahava used in a way that is similar to agape. But that’s a minor point, because the illustration Gresh uses to demonstrate agape love – ie, the type of love she wants men to have for women, the type of self-sacrificing love she believes God has for us – is violently abusive (forgive the long quote):

And here’s the thing, as I was looking over my dating years with my husband, as we were college students. I remember one very distinct time. I was thinking ‘when were the times that he expressed agape love to me?’ I could think of a lot of really neat ones, but I thought of one that was probably harder for him than all the rest. You see, we had recently gotten engaged and I was living in an apartment and going to summer school so I could finish up a little early – not that I was in a hurry to get married or anything. And he came to see me. And we hadn’t seen each other for months and we missed each other very much. And it probably took one fifth of a second when he was inside of that apartment for us to realize we were really in love. And we found ourselves horizontal on the sofa. And it really wasn’t okay. You get the picture. But it  lasted about a second and before I knew it, my fiancé picked me up off the sofa, threw me against the wall, and ran outside of my apartment.

[laughter]

Yes, I felt horribly rejected.

[more laughter]

But I brushed myself off and I walked outside and I said “What was that?”

And he said, opening the car door, “Get in, we need a chaperone. I can’t be alone with you. We’re going to Professor Haffy’s house.”

[more laughter]

and we spent the weekend in one of our professor’s homes.

That’s agape.

Taken as a whole, from Secret Keepers up to what she tells college students, the violent, abusive, disempowering vision of love that Gresh presents is truly frightening. It is a culture wherein women are told that their bodies do not belong to themselves, and that sexual and physical violence are both their own fault and part and parcel of romantic, sacrificial love.

This is deeply, deeply problematic. This type of speech - from little girls to college students - is evidence of a rape and abuse culture. It is the kind of culture where women feel like they cannot escape, where they feel like taking abuse is their duty. It is the kind of culture that promotes abuse and rape by telling women that they must think of themselves only in relationship to men, and not as autonomous beings who own their bodies.

Gresh is not some fringe. Gresh is frequently pointed to as an example of a moderate, mainstream complementarian. It appears that even mainstream, moderate complementarians cannot avoid the inherent problems in much complementarian thought – when you disempower women, love starts to look an awful lot like abuse.

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Note: you should read this Grove City alum's take at Wine and Marble. I also recommend this post by Shaney.

Guest Post: God in Reeboks

Through the Account and Countenance Series, I'll be featuring (via guest posts) the stories of various people and the images of God their churches left with them. Today's post comes from Sarah Moon. Sarah is a Women's and Gender Studies student and she blogs at Sarah Over The Moon. ___________

[Trigger warning: domestic violence, verbal abuse]

I’ve heard Christians say before that Jesus was just “God with sandals.” If this is true, then Jesus, for me in 2006, was an 18 year old, 6’4” football player who could bench press about 250. The Jesus of the Bible didn’t exactly line up with the God I had been raised to worship in my fundamentalist churches. Don (not his real name), on the other hand, did.

Don loved me, and he loved me like God did.

In God’s eyes, I was a worthless sinner. Any good I might do was nothing more than filthy rags to God. God’s spokesmen (Baptist church pastors, of course) were constantly reminding me of this. If I were truly humble, I’d realize the wickedness of my own heart and stop trusting myself, my emotions, my thoughts. I’d stop trying to be independent and I’d put my future in God’s loving hands.

But that God was so great, He loved me despite my worthlessness. As long as I stayed close to Him, I could have value—not in who I was, but in who He was.

Don thought the same of me. Much like God, Don saw all my sin as alike, so my tiny sins like taking a shower when Don asked me not to, or accidently drawing the attention of other men to myself were enough to make him want to spew me out of his mouth. He told me so, constantly. He told me what a whore I was, how stupid I was, how worthless, how helpless…

But Don was great. He loved me anyway. He reminded me of how grateful I should be for that—how I should never question his goodness because I deserved far worse. But if I stayed with him, I could have value.

Both had ultimate control over my life. If God (through his spokesmen) told me to do or not to do something, I didn’t get to ask why. My money, my property, my time and even my life belonged to Him. The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away.

Don too. He took the little bit of money that I made teaching piano lessons because I was his property and therefore it was his money too. He threw my makeup bag out of his car window when I told him I didn’t want to stop wearing the eyeliner that he thought made me look “too sexy.” He kept me on the phone for hours, even when I begged him to let me go so I could do my homework. I was his property and anything I had was his, too.

The wrath of one could send horrible diseases, car wrecks, natural disasters, and school shootings. The wrath of the other just a storm of angry words and hand-shaped bruises in places where clothes would always cover them.

One told me “Love me, or I’ll send you to be tortured for all of eternity.” The other told me “Love me, or I’ll blackmail you, yell at you, hurt you, kill you.”

This was my God and Don was just God in Reeboks.

Don was abusive. It took me several months to break up with him and several more years to fully admit the extent of the abuse.

Why was it so hard for me to admit that such an obvious case of domestic terrorism was abuse and not love?

Maybe it’s because admitting that Don was abusive and unloving meant admitting that the God I worshipped was abusive too.

I look around me, years later, and I see a Church that is terrified to look its theology in the face. I see a Church that is somehow okay with having two drastically different definitions of love—one for humans and one for God. I see a Church that holds God to a different standard than they hold human beings.

I see a Church that thinks it can do this and still speak out against abuse and to me, it will never make sense. I can no longer listen to a pastor call abusers evil and then turn around and sing a hymn to the wrathful, jealous God who can save even a helpless, hopeless, worthless wretch like me.

These dueling definitions of love have to end. God doesn’t get God’s own definition. God doesn’t get to do whatever God wants and call it love.

Reading All About Love by bell hooks has helped me expose the lie of a God (or a human) that can be both loving and abusive. In this book, hooks states that “love and abuse cannot coexist. Abuse and neglect are, by definition, the opposites of [love].” Hooks goes on to say that many of us are afraid to embrace a definition of love that does not allow abusive behavior, because confronting lovelessness is too painful.

Is that why the Church is afraid to examine the ways that our theologies let God get away with abuse? Have we so entwined love and abuse that we cannot imagine the implications of separating them? Are we afraid that holding God to the same standard of love that we would hold a human partner to will kill our faith?

Coming to a place where I admitted that the God I worshiped wasn’t a loving God was painful. Maybe even more painful than coming to a place where I admitted to myself that Don never loved me, either.

But in admitting the absence of love I’ve learned (and am still learning) to recognize true love wherever it exists.

If the Church wants to know a God who is love, the Church cannot continue to worship a God who abuses. An image of God that looks just like the Dons of the world can never teach us to love, can never be love.

Let us echo the words of bell hooks over, and over, and over as we seek the God of love.

“Love and abuse cannot coexist.”

The Case For Early Marriage?: Confusing Is and Ought

In doing some research this past week, I came across an old article from Christianity Today. I remember reading it when it came out and being frustrated by the poor argument – and that was before I had my feminist framework in place. Reading it again as a nearly 27 year old still single person with years of research into feminist ideology and theory under my belt, I’m even more incensed by the proposals and ideas within the article. I thought it might be good to examine some of the ideas which undergird the framework for this piece. The piece is "The Case for Early Marriage," written by Mark Regnerus, for a 2009 issue of Christianity Today. It’s the cover story for that particular issue, and therefore is quite long.

But the article can be summed up in a few points:

1. Good family structure is good for society. Family, in the Biblical sense, consists of a mother, father, and kids (multiple, of course).
2. Secular society is delaying marriage further in people’s twenties, which turns the abstinence only dictate from evangelicalism into hogwash.
3. The problem, however, is not that abstinence only is a fundamentally bad idea, but that we haven’t done enough to promote marriage at younger ages – ages which would skirt that troublesome mid-20s sex drive and fertility push.
4. Delayed marriage is bad because people are having sex before marriage because of it (why this is bad is never fully explained). Delayed marriage also, evidently, encourages extended adolescence in men, resulting in women having to “marry down” if they want to marry at all.
5. Solution: we encourage people to marry young and work out their problems within a marriage relationship, rather than dating around. This way we can encourage the family structure as well, keep people from having premarital sex, and bolster society because … family’s the cornerstone and stuff.

There are several premises that go unquestioned throughout this piece. The first is that a family structure consists of man, woman, kids. The second is that extramarital or premarital sex is a society-destroying problem. The third is that marriage is less about right people than about right practices and hard work. And the fourth is that marriage is, of course, for the sole purpose of procreation.

All of these are tied up in a concept of marriage as a salvation tool, as The Thing that the church needs to be relevant and helpful to a dying society.

There’s a lot of hoopla that Regnerus makes here about women waiting to marry until they are past their prime years of fertility. Technically, prime years of fertility are a woman’s teens, but since that’s not socially acceptable (despite its undisputed place as the Biblical model), Regnerus has given a little ground and now advises that a good age for marriage is in the early 20s. 20-22, that range.

Now, before I get angry comments about how “I married at 20 and we’re 11 years strong!” (good for you!), I am not talking about your marriages or the marriages of those who decided to marry young and it’s still working. What I am discussing is the harmful teaching from the church that says people should marry at that age. It’s the universal rule that I’m challenging, not the individual cases.

Regnerus’ advice is harmful precisely because he imposes an “ought” onto a “maybe.” He makes the mistake of moving from the specific (in many examples, his own young marriage) into the general. This is an incredibly common error in logic, and unbelievably common when it comes to church relationship/dating teachings. I see people who made mistakes in their dating relationships – having sex before they were ready for it, to take one very common example – take that personal error and turn it into a rule, a black and white comment about when other people should or ought to do something.

This is most clear when he discusses objections to early marriage. He says of the idea of poor matches in early marriages:

There is no right answer to such questions, because successful marriages are less about the right personalities than about the right practices, like persistent communication and conflict resolution, along with the ability to handle the cyclical nature of so much about marriage, and a bedrock commitment to its sacred unity. Indeed, marriage research confirms that couples who view their marriages as sacred covenants are far better off than those who don't. [emphasis mine]

Oof.

While it’s true that couples who view their marriage in a way that takes divorce off the table will probably not get divorced, I hesitate to use the language the author does in calling this “better off," because that's an unquantifiable, vague idea. However, that’s small potatoes compared to the idea that a marriage is less about “right personalities” and more about “right practices.”

This is legalism. This is rules-based Christianity. This is blaming the problem not on the actual causes but on the victims of those problems. You’re encouraged by the church to marry your first boyfriend and to do so quickly and you discover the relationship was a bad idea because of fundamental personality clashes? You’re just not doing marriage right – there’s nothing wrong with the institution or with the push to marry early – it’s all on YOU, the person on the ground, for not performing it right.

It’s a version of the No True Scotsman logical fallacy – it conveniently pushes off the failure of numerous early marriages on those who divorced, conveniently implying that they just didn’t have the right practices for their marriage, rather than admitting a fault in the doctrine of early marriage itself. It's the "if your [x thing you were praying for] didn't work, you're just not right with God" approach.

But "right" practices mean nothing if you don’t have a person you’re willing to invest time and energy in. And while day to day feelings change and fade, there’s always a basis of love for the other person. If you don’t have the right person in your match, all of your "right" practices are going to mean diddly squat.

And this is the ultimate problem – Regnerus refuses to recognize the diversity of human beings and human relationships and seems to think that if a couple is having problems in their marriage because they married before realizing fundamental personality differences (differences that may only arise after both people have had chances and time to discover who they really are, which happens at different ages for literally everyone), then the problem is with them simply not trying hard enough. He doesn’t realize that it’s like trying to shove an elephant into a sweater meant for a cat – sometimes there is no right solution and no right way to fix a marriage that shouldn’t have happened in the first place. But instead of acknowledging that, yeah, people need time to mature and know themselves outside of a relationship and on their own, he proposes that people simply need to work harder – as though pushing really hard will somehow make the elephant's head fit into the sweater's neck.

Life doesn’t work that way. There is no one-size-fits-all solution for marriage. Marrying at 20 works for some people. Marrying at 40 works for others. We all mature in different ways and the opening up of choices for women in terms of careers and who they have the ability to say “yes” to has shifted the demographics and that is not de facto bad.

This doesn’t even touch on the extremely utilitarian view of marriage that Regnerus is pushing – early marriage is necessary because of fertility and Christians marrying earlier gives them the chance to have more kids, giving them a demographic advantage. This view, in fact, devalues marriage (and women) because it turns marriage into a means by which the next generation of (hopefully Christian conservatives!) is produced, rather than a glorious celebration of love and hope for renewal and desire to dedicate a life to working with a partner.

Perhaps it is not society’s view that is dishonoring marriage, but Regnerus’ utilitarian, baby factory one that erases the beautiful bright diversity of love within humanity in favor of brutal, cold demographic sustenance. I’d rather never get married than experience a marriage that has all the right practices but none of the right person.

Women's Bodies as Public Domain: What Jezebel and Is This Modest Have in Common

Last Tuesday, my twitter friend Emily Maynard asked me if I’d seen a site – “Is This Modest?” This is a fairly typical thing for me, and usually I look at a site, get angry for a few minutes at the ridiculous thing, maybe write a few tweets, and move on. This routine has helped me deal with a lot of jerks-on-the-internet things in recent years, and is a good way to keep from burning out. This site, however, was different. When I ventured onto the site - titled "Is This Modest?" - I discovered a wealth of senior photos of teenagers, coupled with short critiques of their modesty, saying things like:

I have no idea what she's wearing under the blanket, but the heels aren't high.  The top is a bit concerning.  First, it's rather tight.  Second, the fact that the outer layer is so opened up means that it looks like we're getting a peak at her underthings-and they aren't very high.

I believe this is a piece that's trying to show a contrast between childhood and adulthood-I get that.  I also think that you don't have to show yourself like this to convey womanhood.

Scrolling down revealed that the poster is a 36-year-old married man.

I had to do something.

I tweeted about it late Tuesday and spoke to a few friends, including Rachel Held Evans, who noticed that it was likely the photos were in violation of US copyright law. We spoke to copyright experts, and I emailed one of the photographers, who told me, in no uncertain terms, that he had not given permission for the site to use his photos. Maynard, my friend who had sent me the site, tweeted at one of the other photographers, and this photographer also hadn’t given her permission.

We began to build a two pronged campaign: a negative reaction via Twitter and other social media, letting this guy know that what he was doing was exploitative and creepy. And we contacted photographers, letting them know that this site was violating their copyright and the privacy of the subjects of the photos.

The copyright law case was a conduit toward a more idealistic endeavor: letting the people who run this site know that women are not public property. Women are not open for comment merely by existing, despite that being the heart and life of every modesty code – that women are open season because they are objects upon which cis-hetero-men cast their lusts and aspersions. This is the mindset against which I fight every single day, and the mindset which was on wide open display on the Is This Modest website.

If women are not seen as merely property by this modesty movement, why then, did a 36-year-old man feel it was okay to comment on them?

That’s what makes it creepy: it is objectification, plain and simple – an analysis that breaks a woman into parts and examines them in relation to an arbitrary standard.

But here, too, is where this narrative takes a frustrating turn.

After I tweeted about it through the morning on Wednesday, feminist writer and co-founder of Feministing, Jessica Valenti, picked it up that afternoon and tweeted it to her followers, crediting me in the process. By Thursday morning, Gawker Media offshoot, Jezebel, had posted an article on it.

One would think I’d be cheering that large feminist websites were picking up on this thing my friends and I brought to light. Unfortunately, Jezebel’s article bungled the campaign we were working on and short-circuited any legal action the girls could have taken – not to mention continued the exploitation of these young women.

It is this last that most concerns me.

You see, Jezebel’s article reproduced a couple of the very same photos that were problematic in the first place. Though they pointed out the creepy nature of the site and drew attention to that part of it, they also continued and engaged in the creepy exploitation by reproducing these photos. Now some poor unsuspecting girl has her senior photo blasted across Gawker Media’s networks, open for public comment by any of Gawker’s readers, not all of which (or even, not many of which) are going to realize the creepiness of the situation.

In doing an article on the Is This Modest? Site, Jezebel brought the site down permanently – the site, their twitter, and their FB page no longer exist. But in reproducing the very photos that led the site to be creepy in the first place, Jezebel is re-engaging the exploitation – this time for many more clicks and advertising dollars because it’s “salacious” and “provocative.”

If you can’t do feminist writing without exploiting women, you’re doing it wrong.

Of course, this sort of exploitative “journalism” is par for the course for Jezebel – last year, they posted screenshots from a video in which a woman was being raped, and didn’t blur out her face or get her permission to post the video. So I don’t hold out much hope that Jezebel will take any heed of the fact that they just violated the privacy of yet another woman.

Caring for the people who are being hurt needs to be a larger part of modern feminism. We cannot say that we care for the marginalized and the weak, and then exploit their images and their life stories for page clicks and advertising.*

If we willingly engage in the exploitation and public comment of women ourselves, we are no better than the “creepers” we criticize.

In the end, I’m glad the site has been taken down, but I wish it had happened in a different way. I don’t believe that the ends justify the means and I think we make ourselves hypocrites when we exploit the marginalized in the name of justice. We can all do better than that.

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*This is the main reason my site has a tip-jar instead of advertising. I want you to make the decision yourself about whether or not to give me money, not be forced to make money for me by giving me clicks.

Notes from my...: Further Thoughts on Modesty

This last Saturday, Rachel Held Evans tweeted out a link to an older blog post of mine, and quoted the line “Lust is not about sexuality, but about power and control.” Evidently, this struck a chord with a whole lot of cisgendered, heterosexual men in her audience, because no fewer than six of them decided to explain to me what lust ACTUALLY is about. Three of them even wrote blog posts (one of which called me a Mrs. and said in no uncertain terms that I want men to burn in hell, which was fun). Needless to say, since this one sentence is getting me called an apostate, repulsive, and proselytized to (evidently one’s doctrine on lust is salvation issue, who knew?), I’m guessing it needs a little clarification.

It's important to remember context here. The line about lust came from my friend Emily Maynard's article about modesty, which prompted the whole discussion. Maynard says:

Don’t get me wrong. Lust is serious, and lust is a sin. But lust is about control, not just sex.

Lust dehumanizes a person in your own heart and mind.

It is the ritual taking, obsessing and using someone else for your own benefit rather than valuing that person as an equal image-bearer of God.

Lust is forming people in your own image, for your own purposes, whether for sexual pleasure, emotional security or moral superiority.

In lusting, you are creating a world where every other person exists for your approval or dismissal. Lust reduces the complexity of each individual and their story to something you get to manage.

Lust – sexual lust, financial lust, emotional lust, whatever kind of lust one has – is about the desire to use and control other people for your own benefit. That is what I meant, plain and simple. When you make someone else an unwilling participant in your ongoing fantasies, that’s much more about using another person so you can get off than it is about “unbridled sexual attraction.”

The problem – and this is where modesty codes and church teaching enter the conversation – is when men view the world as a minefield in which a bodily reaction to an attractive person is mistaken for lust, rather than the normal biological reaction it is.

Are you taking the memory of that fleeting glimpse and filing it away for a spank bank later? That’s lust.

Are you just getting a boner when you see an attractive lady? That’s a biological reaction.

Lust is a deliberate act, a deliberate desire to use another person for one’s own benefit, to dehumanize them so that – even if in your fantasies they are consenting - they are still existing for your pleasure, to, yes, overpower and control them for your own satisfaction. It is this desire that Jesus is speaking to, not your boner.

No matter the source of this desire to dehumanize through sexual lust – whether it’s social conditioning or cultural training or “sex sells” advertising – the sin is still fundamentally your responsibility. And it is your responsibility because no one else can control or speak to your thought life.

This is why we say that modesty codes objectify in the same way hyper sexualization does – it is the mindset that says “other people exist for me” that is the problem. Is the fight a bit harder because of cultural norms? Yes, but that’s no excuse for it. And the fight isn’t a struggle only men have, and it isn’t a solely sexual desire. We are a culture of users, yes, but that doesn’t mean we lack the ability to see each other as human.

And this is why modesty codes don’t work. Because asking me to cover up so you don’t make me a player in your sexual fantasy doesn’t even begin to get the root of the issue, which is that you don’t view me as fully human.

I’m going to get real with you: lust isn’t a solely male issue and the idea that men struggle with it more because they’re more “visually stimulated” (or “prone to polygamy,” which is apparently a thing now) is utter, complete bollocks. Male fantasy is both expected and sanctioned in culture – it’s also called “the male gaze” in feminist theory.

But, your friendly neighborhood Christian feminist struggles with it too, and is hella visually stimulated. And you know how I stop myself? I remind myself that that person is a human being, not an object for my consumption. And I recognize that some reactions are perfectly normal biological process.

That’s why we need to shift the conversation about lust away from solely sexual behavior and attraction, because it blurs the bright line between unhealthy dehumanization and healthy sexual attraction.

The discussion about the commodification of women’s bodies in culture is an important one to have, but we need to recognize the nature of what lust is and why it is important before we can tackle that problem. Until we do that – until we recognize that lust is about the desire to use another person and that modesty codes actually reinforce this commodification of female bodies – we will forever be treading the waters of a rape culture in which a man can rail against the porn industry and then ask women not to wear spaghetti straps in his presence. They are two parts of the same objectification standard, and it is the objectification that causes us to see other people as things rather than human beings that is the problem.

Thus, making lust about a problem that is sexual in nature is intensely problematic and cannot begin to cover the issue. The issue is not the sex. The issue is the commodification of bodies for our own uses – the issue is power and control.

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Admin Note: The Account and Countenance series will begin next Monday and run every other Monday through the year. If you're interested in being interviewed/guest posting, there is still room on the schedule. Send me an email!

John Piper, Spousal Abuse, and Empowerment

[trigger warning: abuse, abuse apology] Four years ago, John Piper was asked a question in a video series about husbands abusing their wives and what the response should be to that. His infamous reply was taken down from the Desiring God website, though it is – of course – still widely available elsewhere on the internet, thanks to people making copies and transcripts. In this original post, he said that wives should “endure abuse for a season” and compared their abuse to Christ’s sacrifice for the husband’s well-being.

Three and a half years later, Piper has offered some “clarification” for those remarks. I’m guessing that suggesting a wife who gets beat up by her drunk husband is a martyr for Christ hasn’t gone over too well with a lot of people, and he felt explaining himself would put that discussion to rest.

Sorry, Rev. There’s no way I’m dropping this one, especially since your clarification still left a lot of things to be desired.

Piper’s clarification goes over multiple points as to how and why a woman can seek outside help on an abusive relationship. The last three have to do with seeking help through the church, and the first few have to do with whether or not a woman is disobeying the authority of the husband by seeking outside help. [Note that he never actually says a woman may divorce her husband, but one could generously read that sentiment between the lines of his point on “fleeing.”]

But the meat of the discussion happens in his point about civil authorities. In order to keep his conception of headship intact – because if a man is the authority of the home, then bringing in outside sources would be usurping that authority and therefore sinning. Piper sees this logical end, and instead of saying that a husband has given up his “rightful” authority (though he slightly nods toward that direction), he says that, in a case of abuse, a woman can, “with a heavy and humble heart,” seek the rightful authority of government figures, as that is also a correct obedience to authority.

But recourse to civil authorities may be the right thing for an abused wife to do. Threatening or intentionally inflicting bodily harm against a spouse (or other family members) is a misdemeanor in Minnesota, punishable by fines, short-term imprisonment, or both. Which means that a husband who threatens and intentionally injures his wife is not only breaking God’s moral law, but also the state’s civil law. In expecting his wife to quietly accept his threats and injuries, he is asking her to participate in his breaking of both God’s moral law and the state’s civil law.

God himself has put law enforcement officers in place for the protection of the innocent. “If you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:4). A wife’s submission to the authority of civil law, for Christ’s sake, may, therefore, overrule her submission to a husband’s demand that she endure his injuries. This legitimate recourse to civil protection may be done in a spirit that does not contradict the spirit of love and submission to her husband, for a wife may take this recourse with a heavy and humble heart that longs for her husband’s repentance and the restoration of his nurturing leadership. [emphasis mine]

Nowhere, in Piper’s entire clarification, is the abused woman given the room or space to be a victim and to own the disenfranchisement and damage that abuse entails. Even when he is beating her, a woman’s heart and mind must be working toward the well-being of her husband, not herself. She must seek civil authorities (ie, the police) in a case of domestic abuse not because the abuse is prima facie wrong and she needs to escape, but because her husband is failing to correctly use his authority and seeking outside help is a last resort for the woman who cannot help her husband to be put back on the straight and narrow.

[It should be noted here that Piper's reliance on civil authorities such as the police is dependent upon them being trustworthy, which is quite often not the case for many women.]

Even in cases of abuse, according to what Piper has told us here, a woman must place her husband’s heart and needs above her own.

Why else, if not because the man is the priority, would he counsel that women should return to their abusers once they have a “restored” heart? Why else would divorce not be an option?

The pain of the woman and the nature of the abusive relationship matter naught to Piper.

Piper’s theology here still centers the abuser. A woman must merely transfer her obedience to a separate authority – on a temporary basis – in the hopes that her abuser will see the light. But that simply opens the door for abusers to revictimize, as abusers are quite savvy at making it look like they’ve changed while still engaging in abusive behavior (cf. Hugo Schwyzer, who claims to be redeemed but engages in boundary-crossing tactics in his internet correspondence with abuse survivors).

One need only look at Piper’s section on “breaking the law” to see how much he centers the abuser: “In expecting his wife to quietly accept his threats and injuries, he is asking her to participate in his breaking of both God’s moral law and the state’s civil law" [emphasis mine].

“Asking to participate.” As though an abuser calmly requests his victim be his co-conspirator over tea and crumpets. Abusers do not ask, and it is impossible for an abuse victim to be complicit in the abuser’s actions. And yet Piper’s phrasing here implies that silence and cooperation with the abuser is, in itself, sin. Because complying with his desire to break the law by beating you means that you are also complicit. Sure. In case it isn't clear: this is victim-blaming.

There is no knowledge here of the power dynamics that go into an abusive relationship, no concept of empowerment of the victim to take back control of her own life, and zero taking away of power from the abuser. Indeed, Piper is adamantly and quite obviously refusing to examine the power structures that create such inequities, because it means he would have to turn a very harsh lens on his own theological precepts. And his utter reluctance to offer divorce as an option, instead suggesting that abuse victims should do everything in their power to make sure the abuser is set on a restorative path, reveal deep-seated antipathy toward anything that might challenge his gendered power structure. Piper's centering of the abuser, in a church life that should, always, center the abused, is anathema to healing grace and love. We cannot care for the marginalized and the abused if we continue to put the needs of their abuser above them.

His unwillingness to examine his own privilege and power structures means that he will continue to center the abuser, and women will continue to be harmed in the name of God.

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Note: Abuse happens in all kinds of relationships, not just husband abusing wife. Piper’s response (both in 2009 and now) was about a husband beating a wife, and that is why I have framed the discussion in those terms because Piper’s rudimentary understanding of abuse is tied intimately to his understanding of gender roles within a marriage relationship. This, however, only serves to erase male victims of abuse on an even larger scale.