"Deconstruction" is only dangerous to a spiritual abuser. Let me explain why:

For many, Christianity is not just a certain belief in specific doctrines: it is about this relationship you have with someone else "driving your car" & telling you what will get you saved. The No. 1 method of control in Christianity is to bind you to an institution & belief system because you are afraid. Anything else is hell. Therefore you cannot question the driver of the car (your life).

You cannot leave the abusive relationship with the driver.

@NeilShenvi It's helpful to think of power = force. The power to force.

In the Mediterranean world many positions held the right of sexual access. Masters had the right to sexually exploit slaves. Many kings enforced such rights as Abimelech & Pharaoh tried to do with Sarah. @NeilShenvi Sexual access was considered part of one's status, i.e. in the Roman world. The more access you theoretically had, the more masculine you were. Caesar was an impenetrable penetrator.

The more accessible you were, the less masculine (even as a male).

The problem with contemporary Christianity is that for centuries we have imbibed the message that the closer you are to power, the closer you are to God and to righteousness.

You are capable of greater virtue. The lower classes are criminal & unrestrained

This is very Roman! The person who wields the most authority and force is the person whom we look up to and idolize as the godliest figure, while at the same time excusing their immorality and sin that we would condemn in "social inferiors".

Here is the church,
Here is the steeple,
The women have left...
We don't treat them like people.

https://twitter.com/paulosophia/status/1848188485875716111

We want them to stay,
Just for their wombs and nice smiles,
They don't get a say,
They're to fill pews and aisles.

Post-Constantine, we see the development of Augustine's "concupiscence" model under which we have a certain hierarchices sin, under which sexual sin (and sexual desire) are deep sources of anxiety and "holiness" is construed as an inward, un-defiled, sexless state. Note that the Christian Right does not even follow this model, because they in fact have a dual model under which the sexual sins of some (masculine-type, dominant, exerting force) are coded as virtuous while "deviant" sexual sins of subordinates are the real punishable sins.

People think that when you identify predatory desires and sinful desires that have been normalized and sanctified even in Christian culture, you are attacking who they *naturally* are.

Because they can't separate the ideology from identity. That's social darwinism. This thread here is a really good start because I show how exposing "sanctified" aggression is not an attack on men and who they are as Imagio Dei.

https://twitter.com/MuiRebekah/status/1707245654181872089

So let's dive into this.

What is the common misunderstanding about sexuality and male sexuality in particular? As always, the story begins with the Roman Empire. All roads!

Vir (manliness) was seen as invested with courage, virility, and virtue. The last two come from the same root word.

🧵 Understanding the relationship between contemporary modesty culture and the Roman notions of class respectability vs. penetrability

A.k.a. rape culture. Let me introduce to you a very simple formula, the notion of purity vs. "whorish" dressing.

Dress A: Indicates to the world your moral standards, purity, value as a bride/mother, and value

Dress B: Harlotrous, tempting, invites lust/sin, low-worth.

Ever heard of this?

Both contemporary evangelicals and European Christianity have a root problem: they have consistently defined both sex and marriage in violation of Scripture. Using the Roman framework, they have defined marriage as ownership (coverture) and sex as a debt/right. By Scripture, I mean the foundational tenets of the Kingdom of God as Jesus describes and the definition of marriage and intimacy at creation. In intervening years, humans did create and practice marriages in violation of God's design at creation: polygyny, concubineship, etc.

That's the root difference between paedobaptist and baptism-by-profession. A paedobaptist view of parenting means that your goal for bearing children is to populate the church/heaven, and children who reject this predetermined life course you set out for them are considered dead.

https://twitter.com/RLStollar/status/1727410879027945685

This means that parental responsibility & affection can be withheld to manipulate the outcome YOU want from your child. If you have decided that they should be a piece of your household chattel, then any deviation (i.e. different religion, different ideology) warrants punishment.

Christianity is the world's largest religion that literally goosestepped with colonization & violence for hundreds of years. Dominant theologies reveal an addiction to power & investment in continued neo-imperialism.

And yet, people take this kind of self-awareness as an attack. When I talk about the last of self-awareness and the constant cultural need to see oneself as heroes and benefactors, people response with anger.

Pointing out all of this is not dehumanization or oppression.

I'm just going to say this bluntly: I was shocked to realize in the last few weeks that especially evangelical Christians have no knowledge about how their beliefs are intertwined with anti-semitism. They see themselves purely as heroes/benefactors. I follow an orthodox Jewish lady on Facebook who posted about getting hateful, threatening messages from Christians during this ongoing conflict. Condemning her for not converting to Christianity and believing in Jesus when she's already undergoing tremendous stress.

Thinking today about how many (me included) accepted the ideologies inherent in many facets of evangelical teaching because we thought they were Christian. That's all we wanted: to learn from other Christians. Homeschooling, for example, is filled with "Christian" curricula that teach far more than just Christianity. They teach political evangelicalism, racial segregation, nationalism, and more.

Most people didn't ask for that.

"You claim that it is all cultural but I choose to believe that it is biological."

So let's talk about the history of ideologies of gender difference. First of all, every idea comes from somewhere. Where does that conscious and unconscious list of biologically male or female attributes come from? Are babies born with a manual telling you exactly what each gender is driven to do and how each will behave?

What modest fashion influencers on Instagram fail to realize is that they are marketing their bodies too, what they mock & shame other women for doing. Their specific brand caters to those who salivate over virgin youthfulness & long to possess & devour. @ineedanothernap The primary definition of modesty among evangelicals has become what conveys a certain message that they claim the first from that of women who are "asking" to be assaulted. Modesty is taught as protection when in reality it is exploitation.

Putting aside the shaming/coercion aspect for a moment, I've seen many Christian women choose to embrace "modesty culture" because there is an appealing sense of wholeness & rejection of overt sexualization that feels good & beautiful.

BUT there's still the root issue. The issue is the church culture. If that doesn't change, this progresses into judgment & arrogance. What is initially beautiful becomes ugly.

Because if we reject some OUTWARD markers of a pornographic culture but not its basic beliefs/suppositions, we're just whitewashing.

Jacob Taubes notes that there is evidence for remaining Judeo-Christian groups on the outskirts of Christendom up until the 10th century, even.

Digging into Nicene Orthodoxy, Andrew Jacob's research shows the deliberate marginalization of and violence against Judeo-Christianity. What peaks my interest is that different groups would have co-existed in the NT church (& were the reason behind many of the letters). But it's honestly interesting that empire's elimination of difference meant snuffing out Judeo-Christianity as a distinct tradition.

What do Christians do with Ephesians 5:21-35?

It's a passage with a clear historical context, showing how 1st century Christians could navigate the legal and social system of the Greco-Roman household codes while being true to the Kingdom of God. 1) This passage is about application, relating to the world's system while not holding to its beliefs.

This is because the Roman Empire was itself a households, and the household order is a reflecting of the civic/political order of Caesar.

Here's something well recognized: empirical data presents itself as objective, but it is historically tied to colonial/racial/social Darwinist social theories. Quantitative social data is NEVER objective. It is alarming when it attempts to be and the author constructs a narrative and hides behind "facts".

Data is only as trustworthy as the author/interpreter is clear about their social theories and WHAT they are trying to do.

The interesting thing about the question of paternalism and benevolence w regard to child is that children are not legally seen as having the full capability to act and to be held responsible for their actions (laywoman summary).

But the thing about paternalism with regards to adults is that we want a fully legally responsible adult to surrender their decision-making autonomy to another (wife, church member, etc.) WHILE being recognized as being fully mature, cognizant, etc.

As long as love is your motive, you don’t have to worry about legalism and unhealthiness, right?

Wrong.

The legalism found in devout evangelicalism is fueled by love.

medium.com/@rebekahmui/go… "The kind of surrender that evangelicalism fetishizes is emotional death... We believe that we don’t love God, until we are willing to smite and destroy the things we love and hold dearest to prove our devotion."