Sin of Empathy 🧵 incoming:

"Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen." 2 Tim 2:14

This dialogue is a prime example of why this warning is necessary. Allow me demonstrate why: Much of the dialogue around the so-called "sin of empathy" revolves around semantics, and yet the "sin of empathy" people refuse to be precise or consistent in how they use the words in question.

I see a lot of people responding to the Joel Webbon video saying, "Well, maybe rapists should be publicly executed!" Look, I get the sentiment but I need people to understand how perfectly okay these guys are with rape having whatever punishment you come up with, BECAUSE ... ... convictions would never happen. It's hard enough to get convictions to happen now, when rape can get you as little as 3 months (Brock Turner). The worse you make the punishment, the higher the burden of proof, meaning the more excuse to give the benefit of the doubt.

🧵One of the things I didn't like about Hulu's "Mrs. America" was that it didn't portray Phyllis Schlafly as a good debater. I've watched hours of old debate footage of her this week and actually she was an excellent debater. She was so good she taught other women how to debate. In fact, I think the fact that she was a debater at heart is pretty key to understanding who she was as a person and possibly what motivated her. Allow me to explain:

🧵Allow me to comment on this as a former stay-at-home daughter who was brought up to prioritize getting married over education and a career.

https://twitter.com/EddyEkofo/status/1845535574926491964

I didn't get married until I was 27. It wasn't because I prioritized school or a career; actually it was just the opposite.

🧵I have thoughts about the Bluey article.

I grew up in a household where pretty much every show, toy, movie etc that was cool among my peers was off-limits. Something about it was always "problematic," according to some religious leader with too much time on his hands.

https://twitter.com/theblaze/status/1842927933977154007

One very frequent complaint about popular media - one that the author of this article is apparently familiar with too - was the negative way that fathers were portrayed in the typical sit-com.

🧵 You're not a bad housekeeper, you just have an open-concept kitchen/living room. Don't get me wrong: I love open concept. You can see the TV while you do the dishes. It's great for hosting. But having one length of uninterrupted floor that spans the two largest, most used areas of the house is a total housework trap.

🧵Fiddler on the Roof is one of my favorite presentations of how things actually are in a patriarchal community. With "Tradition," you see how the community *thinks* things work: the Papa "has the final say at home," he decides who his daughters marry, as the spiritual leader of the family he must be "free to read the holy book."

Today is making me hot under the collar. After referencing Katharine Bushnell's work on Genesis 3:16 for my own research, I cannot BELIEVE that Susan Foh didn't feel it was necessary deal with her arguments on the woman's "desire" directly. Even if you don't agree with Bushnell's conclusions, the fact remains that in 1974 nobody had done as much work on Genesis 3:16 as she had. If you are interpreting Genesis 3:16, whether you're comp or egal, you should be interacting with Bushnell.

In the Scarlet Letter there's a part where it says the father of Hester Prynne's illegitimate child - a clergyman - would try to ease his guilty conscience by "confessing" his sin in exaggerated - but non-specific - terms, from the pulpit. Some things never change. "He had told his hearers that he was altogether vile ... the worst of sinners, an abominations ... that the only wonder was, that they did not see his wretched body shriveled up before they eyes, by the burning wrath of the Almighty!"

🧵 Today I saw one of those reels set in a vintage-y, aesthetically untidy kitchen, with a 20-something female influencer slicing just *enormous* amounts of cucumbers (presumably for canning pickles?), talking about reclaiming the lost domestic arts our generation wasn't taught. Now, I firmly believe that everyone should reach adulthood with basic life skills like knowing how to prepare nutritious meals, do laundry and a keep their environment reasonably clean.

I believe in male headship. I believe in male-exclusive ordination. But I will not identify myself as complementarian because the word itself suggests a rationale for those things that I reject: that the point of gender is complementary oppositeness. Everything in scripture contradicts this. The creation account highlights Eve's likeness to Adam. The church is supoosed to "grow up into the Head," (Eph 4) not "complement" the Head.

🧵I often see people using "Did God really say ...?" as a shorthand for questioning God's rules and pretending He didn't *really* say you can't do something that you'd really like to. I'm not denying that we have to affirm God's rules. But we may be missing the lesson about how Satan's temptation devices work. When Satan approached Eve and said, "Did God really say ..." he followed it up with something God DIDN'T say.

I was reading this article from @sheilagregoire today and it occurred to me: what if the thought that's really in back of "men are inherently more lustful than women" is the belief that "female bodies are made to be objectified more than male bodies"?
tolovehonorandvacuum.com/2022/03/the-po… @sheilagregoire The reason this thought was prompted was because of Sheila's example of women commenting on Capt America's good looks, vs men commenting on the Black Widow's good looks. We assume the guy must be lusting, but not vice versa.

The thing that probably punched me in the gut the hardest in all this was how *familiar* the response to women's sexual harassment complaints feels.

https://twitter.com/CTmagazine/status/1503818233832423426

It's as predictable as the script of a movie you've seen too many times to count. Woman says, "That's inappropriate," "that makes me uncomfortable," and that's the cue, not to investigate, but to start a debate about whether SHE is "too sensitive."

🧵There is definitely an alternate universe where I could have been a complementarian fangirl, making all the easy pot shots at feminism and waxing eloquent about the beauty and mystique of female subordination. Seven years ago when I first started writing, I was a bored stay-at-home wife (soon-to-be not-so-bored stay-at-home-mom) with no college degree, trying to "make something of myself" while coloring within the lines.

🧵There is a world of difference between interpreting 1 Tim 2 in a way that reserves the formal office of pastor for qualified men, and this kind of pointedly exclusionary protocol.

https://twitter.com/sassiterian/status/1502005274210562057

I'll never forget the year that shep con started recording the conference speakers and posting the video online. The ladies at our church were *so* excited that the teaching was now accessible to them. I think a few of them even got together and listened to them in a group.

Once again, Christian institutions demonstrate their unflagging commitment to protecting - *checks notes* - their own reputation. Where in the Bible are we ever told that it's a good idea to compare our conduct with that of outsiders? christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/decemb… I have so many problems with this article that it's difficult to know where to start. The sub title implies that there are hoards of rabid anti-abuse advocates claiming that Christian men are more abusive than non-Christian men. But -

🧵I keep seeing this definition - "hatred based on race/ethnicity" - touted as the "classic" definition of racism. It isn't. I looked the word up in 3 sources to make sure I'm right:

https://twitter.com/William_E_Wolfe/status/1498325365902778368

Now full disclosure, these are just the sources that I had immediately on hand either easily accessible online or in my house. Still, if the "hatred" definition were truly the classical definition I would expect to see it in at least one of these. Here's what I found:

Thread: My sister posted this hymn this morning and I wanted to share it here. This is one that my family sang a lot when I was growing up: Stephen Bilak, the Ukrainian missions coordinator who translated it to English, was supported by our church and a regular visitor. My family has a lot of ties to Ukraine, not only because my childhood church supported them, but because my oldest brother accompanied Mr. Bilak back to Ukraine for several mission trips, ultimately moving there to pastor a church in Ternopil after their pastor died of cancer.

Thread: yesterday I tweeted that I hope Anna Duggar knows that she would have help and support if she leaves Josh. For this, I & others were accused by one person of being judgmental and patronizing of her, for staying. As I said in another post, I refuse to engage arguments that there is any gray area about whether or not Anna should divorce her husband. But, I thought this was a good opportunity to point out how Christian patriarchy turns to feminist/egalitarian talking points when convenient.

Feeling cute, might live-tweet about problematic Christian books on femininity later. So, I have both this and "Wild at Heart" on my research shelf. The thing that jumps out at me first just from the books' covers, is that Captivating (about the essence of womanhood) is co-authored by John and Stasi Eldridge, but WaH (about the essence of manhood) is just by John.