She/Her丨Author of #ChurchToo | Poet | MTS @vudivinity | 🌈丨I do political & repro comms so views & swears are super duper my own | Find me on Navy Firmament
Sep 19, 2023 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
Okay, time to talk about just one example of corruption and projection within faith-based "anti human tr@fficking" organizations rooted in #purityculture and their deep connections #churchtoo and sexual violence! (content note for… a variety of horrible stuff)
First read this article (the guy that Sound of Freedom movie this summer was about, founder of anti-tr@fficking org "Operation Underground Railroad" aka OUR sexually coerced/harassed a minimum of seven women involved in the org, as it turns out)
It has been a little wild to me to watch the "parents' rights" conversation evolve because when I was being homeschooled in the 90s/early 00s it was a smaller but more specific concern about the United Nations and opposition to its promotion of "children's rights"
Aug 21, 2023 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Okay the How To Watch Oppenheimer with Your P0rn Addicted Husband lady is Twitter's main character of the day, but I keep tabs on the religious anti-p0rn anti-m@sturbation community for purity culture research reasons and the weird lingo she's using is the intracommunity lingo
"What if he gets triggered" "What if I get triggered" isn't just a Christian way of saying "turned on," it refers to a very specific lexicon where the man's use of p0rn (any p0rn, ever, even once) is referred to as "betrayal trauma" and "cheating" and sometimes a "relapse"
Jun 14, 2023 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
Now, the "why" question here always haunts me. Like yeah power is a hell of a drug & men throughout history have done horrifying shit to hold onto it but in the SBC the power is so closely tied to being able to abuse women & children & protect those that do #ChurchToo#SBC23
I don't think that every denomination where anyone has ever been sexually abused is like this, but the more I study the SBC specifically the more that it looks less like a conglomeration of churches to me and more like a coverup ring for sexually violent men #ChurchToo#SBC23
Jun 14, 2023 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
There will be some that call the #sbc23 decision to "disfellowship" a church for having women in pastoral leadership "hypocritical" given their rampant #churchtoo sexual abuse crisis perpetrated mainly by men in pastoral leadership against women & children, BUT. Here's the thing:
It's actually not hypocritical at all, and I think calling it hypocritical is generous and gives the vile, queerphobic, white supremacist, p*dophilia protecting leadership of the SBC WAYYY too much credit, as if it's simply a problem of ideological consistency. #SBC23#ChurchToo
Jun 13, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
If the words "purity culture" came out of Bart Barbers mouth I will yeet myself in to the sun lol 😂 #ChurchToo#SBCtoo#SBC23
I'm actually interested in this though because some moderate/conserv Christian spaces have started being like "we are NOT promoting purity culture, we're just teaching the biblical view that sex is for marriage between a cishet man & cishet woman" which is, ahem, purity culture
May 10, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
You know, shitty sex education is bad. Purity culture is bad. Lack of access to condoms/birth control/plan B is bad. Anti-choice laws are bad. Pressure to stay in abusive relationships is bad. Treating children like they don’t have rights is bad. But abortion? Abortion isn’t bad.
I see a lot of [progressive/moderate] Christians on here being like ABORTION IS BAD I WANT TO REDUCE IT AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE THAT’S WHY I’M IN FAVOR OF X LAW/POLICY and I get it I used to do that too but all that does is further stigmatize abortions & those that get them.
Aug 30, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
As the sun's coming up where some of our family lives in New Orleans this morning the only thing I can think about is the weekend after the tornado hit me & Caitlin's house in March 2020. A team of 20-25 of our friends had assembled to quickly move us out of our unlivable house.
There were volunteer crews from every corner of TN going around helping people saw down tree branches & move heavy things out of their house & giving out food. Some of it was helpful. Some of it was ridiculous like coming home to tupperwares full of unsolicited soup on the porch.
Aug 12, 2021 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
Hi all. This is a thread about what is commonly referred to as "deconstruction," Joshua Harris' new "course," and the grifters of the post-evangelical internet. Buckle up. #purityculture#churchtoo#deconstruction
I've been holding my tongue and biding my time on the "deconstruction" movement for a while now. Language evolves and we needed a useful term for the process many of us have gone through that involves unlearning, deconverting, and/or reconfiguring the toxic faith we once had.
Apr 30, 2021 • 13 tweets • 6 min read
Sigh. So all I've really been focusing on the last couple of days is finishing up my semester & I'm fucking EXHAUSTED but the work of #ChurchToo does not care how many pages I had to write this week. I'm gonna tweet about Josh Duggar and Moody Bible Institute so buckle up & TW ⬇️
First of all, the news about Josh Duggar is traumatizing af for a lot of us especially those of us who come from fundamentalist homeschooling backgrounds (hi 🖐️) and one thing I'm gonna need every media outlet to stop doing immediately is treating purity culture like it's *cute.*
Jan 13, 2021 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Y’all I am driving right now but have I got a good story for you when I get home
OKAY so I was in a Zoom meeting when my old landlord from the tornado house called me, which I immediately assumed was a butt dial because we haven’t lived there since March and he is a middle aged dad
Jan 12, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
What's fascinating/horrifying/important to note is how the evangelical Christianity of my youth not only encourages but requires its adherents to do just this. Beyond just the standard and obvious "the heart is deceitful," "beat your body" etc. shit, the distrust piece is key.
We were taught that the world calls what is good, evil and what is evil, good. We were taught people don't know what's best for themselves without the gospel, and that it was our job to show them. We were taught that outsiders' desires were the product of their sinful humanity.
Oct 20, 2020 • 30 tweets • 14 min read
If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times. The sun is setting on the days where you could get away with the evil these people have perpetrated with a slap on the wrist and an office switch. #ChurchToo#MoodyToo
For clarity Moody Bible Institute announced this in their weekly President's Chapel this morning, which is available for viewing (at least currently) here: facebook.com/watch/?v=98169… I'm going to watch the relevant parts and tweet quotes in case it gets taken down. #ChurchToo
Okay I'm supposed to be writing a paper right now so I have time
Oct 9, 2019 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
All this Ellen talk has got me thinking about the other day when I was being interviewed by someone who was coming from a more conservative theological viewpoint and they asked me what it would take for me to be in community with people I disagreed with theologically.
And I said to them listen, I am constantly in community with people I disagree with theologically. In both directions. I’m close friends with atheists and I’m close friends with people who take the whole fucking nicene creed extremely seriously.
Jul 16, 2019 • 28 tweets • 12 min read
Okay #BachelorNation. My name is Emily Joy, I'm a lesbian with an unhealthy obsession with this show, I have a degree in philosophical theology & apologetics from Moody Bible Institute, and if you're wondering what the fuck is going on I'm here to break it down. #TheBachelorette
In last night's episode @AlabamaHannah referenced the biblical story of the woman caught in adultery & the words of Jesus when he said, "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." The story she's referring to can be found here in the gospel of John: biblegateway.com/passage/?searc…
Mar 15, 2019 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
So I see that thanks to some high profile shares another article about p*rnography is making its way around the #ChurchToo tag and I just want to take a moment and state that for the most part, right now, I am deeply unconcerned about the “role” of p*rn.
First off, people, mostly men, with power have been grooming, abusing and assaulting people with less power since long before the invention of internet p*rnography and second off, p*rn tends to function as something of a scapegoat for conservative Christians. #churchtoo
Dec 7, 2018 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
I like to think that the fact that evangelical Christians assume that the opposite of purity culture is a 24/7 lascivious sexual smorgasbord says more about them than it does about any of us lol
I have THINGS TO SAY about this and about the idea of pleasure as a useful moral guide but I just got home and I am very hungry so I need to make soup first
Joshua Harris is apparently discontinuing publication of I Kissed Dating Goodbye & its followups (including Boy Meets Girl which I would argue is maybe worse). Great. Eventually maybe I won't have to keep buying every copy I find in a thrift store so no one else does.
Sep 11, 2018 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
IDK who it was at @vicenews that greenlit whatever the hell I just watched but this is one of the most simultaneously laughable and dangerous things I've seen lately. This is evangelical ego-stroking at its finest.
First off, Matt Chandler was a "rising star" ten years ago and he's done nothing since then but put out a handful of shitty books regurgitating standard evangelical theology for people who already believe it
Jan 27, 2018 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
I’m always suspicious when I hear people say that they “love God” more than they love their spouse or children. More often than not that means they love their idea of God more than they are willing to do anything that translates as ACTUALLY loving if it threatens that idea.
When I hear someone saying they love God more than they love their spouse or children, I hear someone saying they’re willing to throw me and their loved ones under the bus for the sake of their notions of what the divine “wants.”
