Note from JA: Kathi is still working on her other book series, The Excellent Wife, by Martha Peace, but you know how it is when your interest is perked. That’s what happened, and she just couldn’t let this one go, so I told her, “have at it!” So, here she goes, juggling two book reviews at once! Go, Kathi! ~ja
-by Kathi
Not too long ago I learned of some questionable writing in Bill Hybels book, Christians in a Sex Crazed Culture. Now that we are aware of sexual misconduct allegations perpetrated by Bill Hybels, his resignation, and the affect upon Willow Creek, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at this 1989 book.
I’ll start with excerpts from the first six chapters and follow up with a second post on the last six chapters. I’m wondering if it took him long to write this book because it is a very quick read full of 80’s stereotypes and no supporting research whatsoever. After you read some of the ideas in this book, you may ask yourself, “exactly who is the sex-crazed one?”
Chapter One starts off with Bill talking about a time he went to a couple’s house at midnight to tell their children that they were getting a divorce. Who does this?
About two years after I became pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, a couple from the church called me to their house about midnight one night. They had both gotten involved in adulterous relationships, and they wanted me to sit down in their family room and explain to their two children, a six-year-old and a four-year-old, that their family was going to break up because Mom and Dad had found better partners. Intending to be both calm and professional, I picked up the children and started explaining to them what was going to happen. I continued talking while the surprise on their faces turned to tears, and then I too started crying. I wanted to look at those parents and say, “Look what’s going on. Is your pleasure worth this? What good is sexual pleasure that scars these precious kids for the rest of their lives? is it that good?”
Page 20
In Chapter Two, Bill talks about a time when he was a teenager at camp. He wanted to impress the other boys and decided to sneak a movie titled “Emergency Childbirth” from the camp mess hall into their cabin. He tells us that his “partner-in-crime” later became another staff member at Willow Creek. Bill explains how nearly everyone can recall early sexual memories. Yes, he sexualized childbirth.
Toward the end it showed an uncut, unedited view of a real woman giving birth. Half of the guys had their heads under their pillows; the other half were pleading with me to turn it off. But what a memory that was! That episode embedded itself in my mind. I can bring it all back as though it happened yesterday.
Page 25
Chapter Two continues with a situation in which Bill’s 3-year-old son commented on a woman’s breasts using a slang word. I wonder how his 3-year-old learned slang terms for breasts.
Our son gave me my first chance to teach sex education when he was three. Our family had stopped at a small, very quiet restaurant for breakfast. Two businessmen sitting at the next table were the only other people in our area of the dining room. The waitress brought our menus, asked if we wanted coffee, stayed just a few seconds, and left. As she was leaving, Todd said, without embarrassment, “Gee, Dad, she has big _____” and used a colloquialism for breasts that I didn’t even know he knew. The two businessmen almost fell out of their chairs. Lynne’s eyes told me it was my turn to handle the sex-ed matter.
Page 26
In Chapter Three Bill states that he and Lynne did not lack passion while they were dating. Bill sets the tone for the type of husband he will be during their honeymoon when Lynne accused him of being insensitive because he laughed at her for having a cold sore that went “from her lip to the middle of her neck.”
During a later anniversary celebration Bill and Lynne stayed in a hotel room described as:
Socially, it was positively scandalous; morally, it was absolutely decadent; theologically, it was totally depraved.
Page 32
Easy there, Bill. It’s only a hotel room. How bizarre! However, now I would like to repaint my bedroom the color that represents “totally depraved.”
Chapter Four is all about what causes affairs. Here is where the lack of research is evident.
Adultery is happening in record numbers. Statistics vary, but most experts now say that two thirds of all married men and half of all married women will commit adultery some time during their marriages. Women who enter the work force are more likely to have an affair than those who stay home. So many predict that it’s just a matter of time before both men and women will be at about the same level of unfaithfulness.
Page 44
In Chapter Five Bill tells us that Satan is the one who convinces people to have affairs. It’s so easy to blame the devil than to accept accountability for your actions.
The evil one leads slowly, subtly, and with uncanny ability to maneuver down the path of infidelity. He has to; he has a tough job. He has to convince people who pledged faithfulness to their spouses that it is better to follow him down the path of unfaithfulness than to stay true to their vows. He has to convince them that there is more excitement in the bedroom of another person than in keeping promises of unending love and commitment.
page 57
Bill’s idea of affair proofing your spouse is to ensure that the grass isn’t greener on the other side. I want to know what leads Bill to think that Lynne might be deceived and be unfaithful.
I don’t recommend hiring a private detective to tail suspicious spouses, and I know of no modern-day chastity belts. The only way I know to affair-proof my spouse is to keep my lawn so green that all others look brown. But I see many where the opposite is true. Some laws are so barren they make a patch of asphalt look healthy.
pages 61-62
We should have no fairy-tale illusions about out spouses. The evil one will tempt and seek to deceive every one of them. He is no respecter of persons. When he tries to interest my wife in other men, I want Lynne to say to herself, “This man may be better looking than Bill, and he is certainly richer, but will he be as concerned about my well-being as Bill has been? Will he challenge me and lead me spiritually like Bill has? Will he seek to build my self-image? Will he cheer me on and encourage me to expand by abilities? Will he push me to reach my potential? Will he be as good a father to our kids? Will he be as tender and as affectionate and as pleasing sexually?”
Bill set guidelines similar to the Billy Graham rule to avoid affairs. We know this didn’t work out so well for him.
First, I avoid having lunches alone in restaurants with a woman other than my wife, and I avoid riding alone in a car with another woman. Also, I avoid meeting alone with women in my office without one of my two assistants directly outside my glass-paneled office door. Finally, I avoid traveling without a companion (Lynne, the kids, or a male staff or board member) so that there cannot even be an accusation made pertaining to inappropriate behavior. I’m committed to being alert to any new danger areas and as I sniff them out, I will add appropriate measures to my list.
pages 63-64
We’ll end here with one of the more ironic excerpts in the book. Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy if you will. Remember, this book was written in 1989. I wonder if Bill recalls these words after walking away from a ministry without accepting any accountability.
If we do not set up guidelines to establish accountability, we are inviting trouble. Recently, a pastor of a major church was exposed in having multiple adulterous relationships. When I asked him how this could have happened, he replied that he had created an environment where he had to answer to no one. And now, after dragging Christ’s name through the mud and shattering a once vital ministry, he now realizes that he does have to answer to Someone. He understands, all too late, that God is not mocked.
Page 64
Spiritual Sounding Board 
This should be interesting!
Can I just say…what he’s saying here is that 1. Men commit more adultery, 2. Women who go into the workplace will commit as much adultery as men. Yet, he doesn’t condemn ‘men in the workplace’ does he? Since clearly, that’s what causes adultery eyeroll.
This is a gross way to look at it.
Also, I’m continually baffled at all these people who think traveling alone and riding in cars with women automatically lead to cheating. People who want to cheat find a way, ya’ll. It’s absolutely absurd the amount of rules they are making to try to protect themselves from…themselves? Do they not see the problem here?
This story sounds 100% made up, or at least 95%.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’d like to share this this excerpt I left out because the post was getting so long. Chapter Six is about singles and sex. A single person falls on the spectrum of “swinging” or chaste. Swinging singles is where the 80’s stereotype really stands out.
“We identify the swinging single males by their blown-dry hair, open shirt, hairy chest, sports car with a sunroof, an apartment or condo with a pool and a clubhouse, a water bed, cable TV with HBO, a fireplace, and mirrors. They walk with an air of confidence, wink at appropriate people at appropriate times, carry embossed business cards with home phone numbers on them, and they wine, dine, dance, and sleep with as many women as they can.
“Swinging single women have slender figures, wear Flashdance blouses, carry a copy of Jane Fonda’s workout book to work, and eat Dannon yogurt for lunch. They pursue careers, preferably in management, and decide not to have children. They join a health club or two, attend aerobics classes at least twice a week, and frequent tanning salons. They too walk with an air of confidence, live in an apartment or condo with a swimming pool, and drive sports cars. But most important, they know how to turn men’s heads with the way they dress, dine, and dance. And, if they intend to play the part very long, they learn to remain elusive and mysterious.”
Pages 66-67
LikeLike
Wow. It’s the human sexuality version of the Gary Smalley/love languages conference my wife and I attended about 22 years back, and after hearing Smalley spend a day and a half telling about all the ways he’d insulted his wife over the years, we were quite frankly both astounded the guy’s marriage had survived. Sometimes we need to pay attention to what authors are actually saying and be careful about what we learn. Suffice it to say that I did not learn much from Smalley because I saw him as a grade A jerk.
Good example for Hybels is that hotel room. If indeed the room was like the “Sybaris” whose ads plague Chicagoland (I grew up nearby), I would agree from what I saw watching TV as a kid that such places are creepy. (why again were the ads on during kids’ shows?) But you don’t just “stumble into” a place like that. Same thing with why his three year old knew slang words for breasts.
In short, there is a real question of whether the book qualifies as guidance, or a confession. I’m leaning towards the latter.
LikeLiked by 2 people
LOL!!!! So….pretty much everyone who lives in an apartment that is not in a major, expensive city where land is at a premium is a ‘swingin’ single? Ha. Wonder what he thinks of a woman who owns their own house. Is it cool if there isn’t a pool??
I bet the entire singles chapter is a riot.
LikeLike
I’m picturing the type of super cheesy hotel room I’ve only seen on tv sitcoms.
However, I stayed in a hotel once with a hot tub in the living room which I thought was hilarious.
LikeLike
I am thinking Bill “Hyperbole” Hybels, at the same time I’m thinking that his writing seems to be both self-prophetic and lurid. I’m an always single, not naive at all about sex/language/etc, but it doesn’t mean I need to invite certain stuff into my life. I’ve done casual dating, but I don’t invite men into the bedroom of my apartment (which happened to be in a complex with a swimming pool!). I’m very respectful of boundaries with both single male friends and my female friends’ husbands. It’s just common sense, as well as Scriptural. I’m always suspicious of preachers who share all the lurid details while preaching against sex. I wonder what they’re up to when they’re not in the pulpit.
As for always single, that’s who I am in my early 60s. I’m very blessed in all that God has done in my life, and I choose to be content-and avoid creepy people like Hybels!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reading Kathi’s description of “swingers”, it strikes me that if I take that seriously, I would see any reasonably attractive young person of Mediterranean descent as a sexual predator. Sad to say, it’s not just Hybels who peddles such horse manure, and I spend a certain amount of time countering that sort of view.
LikeLike
Regarding the “swinging” 1980’s: I was already losing my hair. I drove an old Chevy, eventually selling that and buying an old Ford. I rented a room from a couple after leaving home, later sharing a house with several other bachelors after a job change brought me to the area where I now live. We had cable TV only because we lived far enough out of town that TV reception was poor, and we didn’t have HBO. That was the decade I also encountered the Shepherding Movement in its dying throes and a church singles group which was beyond dysfunctional. A “swinging” life indeed – not!
LikeLike
Kathi and I message each other probably every day – sometimes several times a day, and I’m sure my eyes are in much better shape now than they were before she started reading the book because of all the eye rolling I’ve done when she has sent me excerpts. Thanks, Kathi.
The phrase that comes to mind when I think of Bill now is: “perv.” He seemed to enjoy writing titillating sexual scenarios, and then wrote ridiculous standards that we now now he violated. What a fraud. It’s very sad because at a place that prided itself on elevating and valuing women, we find out that the head pastor devalued them by only using them for his own sexual pleasure. Disgusting!
LikeLiked by 1 person
As for my dating life in the 1980’s, I got my first kiss in 1981 at the ripe old age of 21. That’s as far as it went; my girlfriend dumped me soon afterward and later married a stereotypical “bad boy.” Sadly, she died four years after we broke up. My next relationship, with a woman I met at a Christian group, ended in circumstances stranger than fiction. The rest of the decade was quite painful from a dating standpoint. Where were these “swinging singles” about whom Bill Hybels wrote? I sure didn’t encounter them.
LikeLike
Singleman: I was the only adult single woman in my church not living at home with her parents from ’82-84. I did not attend the singles group after one meeting!
LikeLike
I came across this quote yesterday and it seemed apropos
“The proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.” JRR Tolkien
The average person lives a MUCH better life than the folks who go around writing long books about how other people should live. Idea for Hybels and the folks like him: stop telling other people how to live. The human experience is so diverse and varied, there is no way you can account for it all. The people who were going to do bad things will still do bad things. Good people who were going to do their best anyway just get tied up in guilt and anxiety. Plus, telling other people how to live is not very good for the soul.
LikeLike
There’s always chastity belts, locked & guarded harems, and honor killings…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Looks like they were behind the pulpits, denouncing the Other Guy’s sexual sins.
LikeLike
All that’s missing is the coke spoon dangling from a chain against that hairy chest (hair dyed, of cource) and the disco ball hanging from the ceiling sparkling like Edward Cullen.
I mean, this is straight out of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
Except the makers of GTA:VC KNEW it was an over-the-top parody.
(And anyway, the big heyday of “swinging singles” was in the SEVENTIES, between the Sexual Revolution hitting critical mass and the emergence of AIDS and drug-resistant STDs.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
I just realized he is describing magnum pi 😉
I was a kid in the 80’s, although I did kiss the little boy who lived next door to my grandmother. Don’t know if that counts.
LikeLiked by 2 people
No, no, no, not Tom Selleck. He was cool. Please find someone else. haha
LikeLike
Something is weird here. Like Hybels, and most sensible people (j/k), I remember the late 1970s and the leisure suit/disco/singles bar era with horror, but at the same time, it strikes me as odd that in 1989, Hybels was still fixated on that, and apparently creepy hotels favored by lounge lizards. It wasn’t like he–chaplain to the 1985 Bears–was living under a rock or something. He knew about Fonda’s 1981 book and Flashdance from 1983.
At a certain point, I can’t quite decide what to make of it. Part of me wants to be gracious and say it’s just the evangelical habit of blaming things for causing us to sin–wine, dancing, rock & roll, etc.. Or it could be just a fixation on his part with that culture–it came about just as he was founding the church that became WillowCreek.
Or, more darkly, sometimes I wonder if pointing at certain subcultures as being “uniquely sinful” this way almost functions to throw people off track so they don’t recognize the signs that “non-lounge lizards” (like pastors) are hitting on them. I’ve got no data to prove this–the credible allegations found by WillowCreek don’t seem to date back to the 1980s–but it’s a very troubling thought.
At the very least, what I can say for sure is that since 1989, I’ve been “hit on” a few times, and I ended up recognizing this by signs very different from yogurt, aerobics, ripped sweaters, and sporty cars. Hybels’ advice here is just plain terrible.
LikeLiked by 1 person
(part 1)
Hybels:
— start Hybels quote —
“Swinging single women have slender figures, wear Flashdance blouses, carry a copy of Jane Fonda’s workout book to work, and eat Dannon yogurt for lunch. They pursue careers, preferably in management, and decide not to have children. They join a health club or two, attend aerobics classes at least twice a week, and frequent tanning salons. They too walk with an air of confidence, live in an apartment or condo with a swimming pool, and drive sports cars. But most important, they know how to turn men’s heads with the way they dress, dine, and dance. And, if they intend to play the part very long, they learn to remain elusive and mysterious.”
— end quote —
I’m a single woman, not a “swinging” single woman.
Are there no non-swinging women in Hybels’ world?
We only come in one flavor (trampy)?
Having said that, I’ll address a couple of his points:
Yes, I have a slender figure, It’s not AS slender as my high school days, but I do jog, walk, and bike ride five days a week, in addition to keeping daily caloric intake low, thank you.
As for my “Flashdance” top.
It’s a normal V-neck t-shirt I picked up at a Wal-Mart about three years ago without trying it on before buying it.
Brought it home, tried it on, and realized it was like two sizes too big.
I had already removed tags, so I wasn’t going to return it.
Because the blouse is too big on me, the “V” shape slides over and down, revealing one of my shoulders, looking very Jennifer “What A Feeling” Beal-ish.
I only wear this shirt around my home, not out in public.
I didn’t realize that a woman eating yogurt, dancing, watching exercise videos, gaining membership to an exercise club, dining out, “walking with an air of confidence,” using a tanning salon or having a career made her so dang smutty.
LikeLike
(part 2)
Re (Hybels quote):
“They [single women] pursue careers, preferably in management, and decide not to have children.”
Oh lawd, say it ain’t so! Women holding careers, and horror of horrors, especially not in management!
And not having children, gasp!
I never cared if I had children or not, but in my case, I’d say the “not having kids” thing mostly came down to “childless by circumstance” not totally “by choice.”
Most Christians do wrongly assume if a woman makes it past the age of 40 sans kids, it’s always gotta be because she deliberately chose not to have children.
But even if that is the case, it’s not this guy’s (or anyone else’s) business to judge or condemn that choice.
(The Bible is fine with women being single and childless, see 1 Corinthians 7, where the Apostle says it is better to remain single than to marry.)
That Hybels quote was written in the 1980s?
Sounds more like it was written in the the 1950s or 1880s.
LikeLike
Linn said,
“..but I don’t invite men into the bedroom of my apartment (which happened to be in a complex with a swimming pool!).”
– sharp intake of breath – Umm!
Why you hussy you, living in a complex that has a Hybels-disapproved swimming pool!
(Joking here, I don’t seriously think you are a hussy.
I’m mocking Hybels’ weird views about single women and swimming pools)
I wonder, if a single woman lives in a complex that has a pool, but the pool is empty and inoperable (the complex management doesn’t keep it up), does that count or not?
How does Hybels feel about single women and hot tubs, or having those huge tubs in their bathrooms with the jets in them?
Is an unmarried woman a harlot if she uses her spa bath in her apartment or home?
Or do only married women get to use hot tubs and spa tubs?
LikeLike
Hybels quote:
—- start —
“We identify the swinging single males by their blown-dry hair, open shirt, hairy chest, sports car with a sunroof, an apartment or condo with a pool and a clubhouse, a water bed, cable TV with HBO, a fireplace, and mirrors. They walk with an air of confidence, wink at appropriate people at appropriate times, carry embossed business cards with home phone numbers on them, and they wine, dine, dance, and sleep with as many women as they can.
— end quote—
That sounds like Hybels watched one too many John Hughes 1980s teen movies in the day. “Pretty in Pink,” “The Breakfast Club,” “Weird Science,” and “Sixteen Candles.”
He only left out the one truly douchey ’80s male fashion trend:
The popped collar. The popped collar on the Izod or Polo shirt.
See also: the 2000 movie “American Psycho” starring Christian Bale, the movie is set in the 1980s.
Maybe Hybels is basing his 1980s era, trampy man-whore caricature on that character Bale was playing in that movie?
This:
“… [they] wink at appropriate people at appropriate times”
What the what?
Re:
“an apartment or condo with a pool and a clubhouse”
Okay, so singles, male or female, who have a pool somewhere in their vicinity are smutty.
What if you’re a single adult who just enjoys swimming or sunbathing by a pool?
Re:
“…by their blown-dry hair,”
Only married men can use hair dryers and not be male-harlots? What?
Re:
“cable TV with HBO”
Having cable TV, especially with HBO, is smutty?
I have basic cable myself, no HBO – does that pass muster, or is this anti-cable TV thing only for men?
LikeLike
Re, from my last post:
“Maybe Hybels is basing his 1980s era, trampy man-whore caricature on that character Bale was playing in that movie?”
Oh sorry, I got my times mixed up.
Hybels wrote that weird book IN the 1980s, prior to the Bale movie(?)
LikeLike
Re:
“I just realized he is describing magnum pi”
Oh yeah, he had the Ferrari.
I always thought Tom Selleck looked weird without his mustache.
(He’s played a few TV or movie roles where he was clean-shaven, and I found it distracting.)
I think the actor who played Higgins on that show died a few years ago.
OK yeah, just checked that on Wiki:
“John Benedict Hillerman (December 20, 1932 – November 9, 2017) was an American actor best known for his starring role as Jonathan Quayle Higgins III on the television show Magnum, P.I. that aired from 1980 to 1988.”
LikeLike
LOL. Right? What does that even…
We should write an updated for now definition of a swinging single. I think breweries might be involved.
LikeLike
My thought when I read that quotation: This thinking is probably what Hybels uses as an excuse for himself. Lynne wasn’t kind enough, or understanding enough, or let her looks go, or something like that. So it’s her fault that the other grass looked so much greener, Hybels just couldn’t help but cheat on her and abuse women in his congregation.
In fact, I’m a little surprised that he framed it in terms of Lynne potential infidelity in his book. Projection, perhaps? Or just keeping up the facade of the sympathetic, egalitarian husband?
LikeLike
Because she’s a WOMAN?
LikeLike
Maybe he’s freaking out over Game of Thrones?
“The blogs remember, and Winter has come to House Hybels.”
LikeLike
My very unfortunate experience with two pastors has been that those who talk too much about explicit sex from the pulpit are usually mixed up in something “extra-marital.”
It happened in two churches I attended.
LikeLike
A lot of the quotes sound like he’s trying to persuade himself out of those sorts of temptations: “But most important, they know how to turn men’s heads with the way they dress, dine, and dance. And, if they intend to play the part very long, they learn to remain elusive and mysterious.”
Seems like he’s struggling with objectifying these women and so it’s ironic that this is focusing mainly on his wife’s potential infidelity and not his own: “The only way I know to affair-proof my spouse is to keep my lawn so green that all others look brown.” And, as others mentioned… this sets up the defense that his wife didn’t keep HER lawn green and that’s why he strayed.
LikeLike
Serving Kids – My sense is that the whole book is one big projection project.
LikeLike
As far as the east is from the west, I have always believed that Bill Hybels is another religious wolf wack-a-doo, earning a substantial “living” by using Jesus’ Name in vain, for personal fame, glory, and monetary gain, which goes against every fiber of our Savior’s teachings.
These individuals become “giants” within the apostate c’hurch industrial complex and the pew sitters cry out for a “king” to worship and glorify in the name of a person, because folks cannot literally see the Living Christ, so they bow down to the so called ” visible leaders” within the visible c’hurch. The state of worship has not changed much since the OT, when the people cried out for a human king because they could not see nor accept the Almighty LORD to lead them.
Hybels view of women makes me sick to my stomach, and it is no wonder his mind, body and soul have been given over to sinister depravity, as if seared with a branding iron. These “giants” within the “evangelical c’hurch” just keep tumbling down, brick by brick, mortar by mortar, and yet Jesus Christ’s Words still remain true and unbreakable.
LikeLike