-by Kathi
***TRIGGER WARNING: This post contains descriptions of pornography, sex abuse, and child sex abuse.***
Part 1 of this Book Review series may be found here.
The last post focused on Chapters 1-6. I intended to only do two posts highlighting Bill’s book from 1989 on sex, however, I want to highlight Chapter 8 all on it’s own. This chapter is titled, The Pornography Problem. Pornography has been around for ages, but the way people accessed pornography began to change in the 80’s when DVD players started entering homes. So, it is not surprising to see a chapter devoted to pornography.
What was surprising was Pat Baranowski’s story published by The New York Times on August 5, 2018. In this article Ms. Baranowski reports:
In the late 1980s, crusading against pornography was a top priority for evangelicals. Mr. Hybels told Ms. Baranowski that he had been told to educate himself on the issue by James Dobson, founder of the ministry Focus on the Family, who had been appointed by President Ronald Reagan to an anti-pornography commission.
Calling it research, Mr. Hybels once instructed Ms. Baranowski to go out and rent several pornographic videos, she said, to her great embarrassment. He insisted on watching them with her, she said, while he was dressed in a bathrobe.
Keep this in mind while reading parts from Chapter 8. Bill states that he was not aware of the full extent of how pornography had changed during the 80’s. One day, after having lunch with James Dobson, Bill was asked what he was doing to address the pornography problem in the United States. Bill states the following conversation occurred:
“Well,” I (Hybels) said, “I’m intending to do a message on it in the fall.”
“How are you going to prepare for it?” he (Dobson) asked.
“Well, I haven’t really determined that yet.”
He looked me right in the eye and said, “Get yourself educated, young man, firsthand. Get educated and then just do as God leads from that point on.”
Dobson tells Hybels to “get educated firsthand” about pornography? Does Dobson actually mean to say, “Bill, get yourself some porn?” There is the implication behind the instruction. So, what does Bill do?
First, I got copies of pornographic magazines, and I found out that the kind I used to sneak peeks at in high school don’t exist anymore. I couldn’t locate one magazine with the partially clad women – the mild kind of pornography that was the standard fifteen years ago. Instead, I learned that today’s mild form of pornography – the stuff that we can buy in area convenience stores – contains photo layouts that almost defy the imagination, including pictures of women being bound and gagged, raped, whipped, and abused. Standard fare includes an array of multiple sex partners in heterosexual, homosexual, and lesbian photo poses. The underlying theme is usually domination or violence. The rougher magazines depict gang rape scenes, torture scenes, and bestiality. Some of the most popular magazines show men and women having sexual relationships with children ranging in age from three to eight years old.
Next, I had my assistants rent some videos. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I saw a steady stream of sexual perversion, including fathers having sex with daughters, sons with mothers, siblings with each other, adults with children, and children with children.
Let’s get this straight: 1) Focus on the Family’s James Dobson tells Bill he needs firsthand experience to understand the porn problem in the U.S., 2) Bill goes hunting for soft porn magazines that he used to “sneak peaks” at while in high school, 3) Bill is stunned that 80’s soft porn is not the porn he used to remember, and 4) Bill decides to fully immerse himself in the experience and requests those who work for him (Jan Baranowski?) to pick up pornographic videos.
Just how many porn videos did Bill need to watch to gain a full understand of the porn problem? Notice that Bill only describes the alarming accounts of child sex abuse. How many videos of child pornography did Bill watch? What led Bill to think it was okay for him to watch child pornography – multiple times?!
But it’s not the child pornography or raping of women that seems to be bother Bill the most.
But what I became much more concerned about during my research was pornography’s subtle assault on the nature and character of women. Pornography depicts women as having an insatiable appetite for sex. The magazines and the videos convince men that women everywhere are walking around twenty-four hours a day craving their next sexual encounter.
Yes, Bill, please be alarmed that women might actually enjoy sex.
As painful as it is to read this book, this chapter is by far the most disturbing. It is not disturbing solely because it is about pornography. It is disturbing because there are two Christian leaders who act inappropriately with pornography. First is Dobson. Here is the head of Focus on the Family telling someone that in order to understand pornography you have to experience it. Then there is Bill Hybels who is too chicken to obtain the materials for his own “research” and has his assistants pick up porn. He then describes in detail what type of porn he witnessed. Unless one movie had all the scenes that he describes, I’m left to believe he watched multiple movies.
Remind me again why at first the leaders at Willow Creek did not believe the women’s stories of sexually inappropriate behaviors by Bill Hybels. I’m really confused because his behavior sends wildly waving red flags.
Spiritual Sounding Board 
What little I’ve read about pornography, usually in news releases when someone is caught making or distributing, or seen on a news stand, has been more than sufficient to let me know it’s evil and destructive. I don’t need to experience it firsthand to know it’s bad for me. I almost wonder if Hybels was looking for an excuse to satisfy his curiosity, and he lost all self-control.
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Dobson’s not one of my favorite people these days, but I seriously doubt he meant it that way.
More likely Hybels interpreted Dobson’s advice very Conveniently; he wasn’t the first to use that workaround/justification and won’t be the last.
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Possibilities:
1) “TOUCH NOT MINE ANOINTED!”
2) The stories were coming from WOMEN (i.e. Jezebels)?
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That quote sounds like more than “actually enjoy sex”; more like “women are obsessed with sex” to the point of 24/7 nymphomania. This IS one of the tropes of pornography, that women want (and are good for) one thing and one thing only, always hot to trot.
In many ways, this expression of the core trope of porn (“There is Nothing — NOTHING –Except Sex Sex Sex”) carries some really destructive corollaries and baggage.
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That also jumped out at me. Is he really saying he was ‘much more concerned’ about that then the children/incest/rape porn he seemed to be watching a ton more than sounds legal?
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Also this sounded more like grooming to me than being too chicken, although he may also have been watching his reputation…
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Regarding the comment about women being “insatiable”, what’s being said there is not simply that many women enjoy sex. The assumption in pornography is that the average woman on the street is insatiable for sex and therefore will hop into bed at the drop of a hat with anyone, often having a desire for a great degree of brutality.
Regarding Hybels’ need to see these things for himself, it’s really pretty stunning that he didn’t simply infer what could be out there from Scripture–exactly what would be “off the table”, given that Scripture describes infant sacrifice to Moloch and ritual sex to honor Asherah, Aphrodite, and Artemis?
But that said, fundagelicals often don’t define their terms, and hence “pornography” in effect is everything from the lingerie section at Target to child and brutality porn and God knows what else. Differentiating immodesty, nudity, sexualized nudity, portrayals of sex, and the like in terms of their impact isn’t done well. So what a tragedy that Hybels thought he “had to” (wanted to, possibly) look at various kinds of porn to define it, when he could simply have addressed the matter in terms of Scripture and logic.
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One other note; Hybels apparently got this past a team of editors, followed by a legion of readers. Yikes. Does no one think about these things anymore?
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Whether Dobson did or did not say that, it seems like Hybels is trying to make him the scapegoat for obviously questionable behavior.
Also, completely agree with Linn. What other sin would pastors say, “I had to experience it firsthand to understand it.” Adultery? Rape? Theft? I think it would be completely valid for Dobson to say that Hybels should make sure he’s read the research and accounts of people struggling with porn addiction, and see where God is leading him in terms of preaching about it.
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Remember that Dobson was on Reagan’s Commission on Pornography (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meese_Report), and that’s exactly what the commission did. They viewed pornography, went to adult video stores and more old-time establishments with coin-op porn video machines, etc. I remember Dobson writing about it at the time.
So it doesn’t surprise me that’s what Dobson told Hybels to do too. But how many of these “spiritual leaders” really need to see all that first-hand? Seems like a convenient excuse; “hey, it was just ‘research’…”. Let alone asking a woman on your staff to procure it and then insist she watch it with you… ugh. This was not some noble venture.
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I think that’s the problem…most people don’t think.
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BB said: “One other note; Hybels apparently got this past a team of editors, followed by a legion of readers. Yikes. Does no one think about these things anymore?”
Yes, that was my thought. How many eyes read this garbage before it got published. Did anyone say anything or question the value of putting something like this in the book? That he unashamedly wrote about child sex abuse floors me. Is it any wonder why there are decades of clergy sexual misconduct? It must have been normal for him.
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Having been active in the porn shops of my town in the 80’s, I never once saw any porn involving actual incest or children. I wouldn’t have known how to secure access to that. I just find in difficult to believe that his assistant just stumbled upon it on her first foray into this darkness. Or did Bill and Jim know where to get the really bad stuff?
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If in fact, James Dobson is such a great psychologist and spiritual guru to many, why did he not clarify the instructions he gave to Bill Hybels; another words, why did he not elaborate and give him specific instructions to combat the sin of pornography? Why was he so vague in leaving the door wide open for Hybels to assume the appropriate methods necessary to in presenting his case from the pulpit?
Used to listen to Dobson on the radio years ago and he had absolutely no problem back then in telling/instructing the rest of us how to live “godly?” lives, so why in the world would he not give Hybels a list of bullet points instead of leaving the “education” up to assumptions?
Something doesn’t sound right here.
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Why didn’t Hybels’ staff woman tell him “NO! You go out and get that junk yourself! I’m not doing your dirty work!”
The power of the word “no” as instructed by the main pastor Himself; Jesus.
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“Some of the most popular magazines show men and women having sexual relationships with children ranging in age from three to eight years old.”
OK, this is creepy. I don’t know what the laws were like in the 1980s concerning production of child pornography, but in recent years that will get you 15 years minimum in federal prison, no parole. Merely viewing it may get you at least a few years in a state prison.
Unless congress was asleep at the wheel in the 80s, there is no way “the most popular magazines” would sell images of child rape from the news stands. That sounds like Bill was into the black market stuff. Or, that he didn’t know what he’s talking about and was shooting from the hip like Pat Robertson.
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Ted, at this time, punishment of child porn was at the state level and was protected by a 1982 Supreme Court decision, NY v. Ferber. The first federal law was in 1996, so yes, Congress was asleep at the wheel.
The images in mainstream magazines are generally cartoons. For example, Hustler had a feature called “Chester the Molester” which showed a creepy old man being a voyeur and assaulting underage women. Dr. Judith Reisman did a survey of Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler, and other publications from 1954 (when Playboy started) to about 1983, and found thousands of cartoons featuring characters that appeared to be below 17. Also some borderline photographs of juveniles. Reisman was fiercely decried by the industry and academia, but what do you call a cartoon called “Chester the Molester” except for very, very sick? I remember high school friends joking about this, especially after “Chester’s” creator was convicted of molesting his daughter in 1984.
So Hybels isn’t wrong about that–you can google what I’ve told you without getting a nasty show, BTW. Where he went wrong, IMO, is in how he went about learning, and especially in how he failed to apply what he should have known from Scripture and other reputable sources.
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Screenshots of the books pages under discussion, here: https://twitter.com/tripleoxymoron/status/1091946085180833793
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Regarding the good question of why people didn’t tell Hybels how to learn without looking, why the assistant didn’t tell him to take a long walk off a short pier, and the like, I think it’s a general over-deference to authority and a culture that over-emphasizes measurements (like “how much porn is out there” ) and under-emphasizes logic and Scripture. “Oh, this is our leader, he should be able to look at this without harm.” Maybe not.
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Why did Hybel’s assistant view porn videos
with him in her bathrobe and where was his wife? Or maybe I misread that part.
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Cindy, this sure does not sound like typical pastoral activities. It sounds more like a raunchy soap opera, doesn’t it?
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Cindy – According to the NY Times article, Pat Baranowski was invited to live with the Hybels in 1985. She stated that he started inappropriate contact in 1986 that lasted for 2 years. She stated that he asked her to pick up the pornography for “research.” The book was published in 1989, so it fits the time period.
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Regarding my comment, “Yes, Bill, please be alarmed that women might actually enjoy sex,” I interpreted it as Bill being more concerned about women wanting/enjoying sex than pornography’s portrayal of women as sex objects. This paragraph came after his descriptions of child sex abuse. He does discuss in this chapter that pornography dehumanizes women. It fall is the section of the chapter titled: Pornography Assaults the Dignity of Women. I would hope that he would be more appalled by images of child sex abuse and dehumanization of women than women wanting or enjoying sex.
If I am misinterpreting his statement, then I’ll acknowledge that. Perhaps his meaning was solely on the portrayal of women as sex objects. There has been underlying thought throughout evangelical culture that women should not enjoy sex. Sex is meant for procreation and fulfilling the husband’s needs.
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“One other note; Hybels apparently got this past a team of editors, followed by a legion of readers. Yikes. Does no one think about these things anymore?”
Bike Bubba & Julie Anne – Imagine someone reading this in 1989. They wouldn’t be able to get past the thought that images of children having sex with adults. That alone probably stopped someone in their tracks. That probably kept people appalled enough to even stop and think that Bill watched these images. Why question it? He was a well-known religious leader trying to help people and deal with a societal problem.
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A comment was left on the FB page stating disbelief that Dobson informed Hybels to get some porn. I think it’s within the realm of possibility.
I found a 1986 Washington Post article in which Dobson is quoted about his participation in the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography. Here are some quotes which state that the Commission did view print and film pornography.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1986/06/07/descent-into-the-world-of-porn/f1b783a9-93cc-4911-89b4-3e367748b4b8/?fbclid=IwAR0rrnZiYgzzcnQMoLsFI6byrM0A9K7ogA98-y1xGAfoeKkGHgetp2soeQo&noredirect=on&utm_term=.c816decf9fd7
“The 11 commissioners devoted hundreds of hours to scrutinizing the unwatchable and listening to the unspeakable, descriptions of which are unprintable.”
“The hefty final report — replete with more than 5,000 titles of X-rated materials and scene-by-scene accounts of such films as “Biker Slave Girls” — will be formally delivered to Attorney General Edwin Meese in early July and published by the Government Printing Office.”
“It was the first time I had ever experienced through sight and sound the actual content of these materials,” says Cusack. “It’s one thing to hear about it and quite another to see it firsthand. There was a point at which I said, ‘My God! There can’t possibly be any worse than this.’ And of course, the next meeting we had, there was.”
“Given their concern that pornography is hazardous to public health, did the commissioners and staff suffer from all that exposure? ‘I was worried it might,’ says Dobson, ‘but it didn’t.'”
“It didn’t affect my attitudes toward sex,” says Tilton. “It didn’t change my behavior or intrude on my personal life. If you were, for instance, alone and vulnerable emotionally, then the impact of that the material is very much different from sitting in public with a task before you. Watching this material for a year did not create deviant behavior on the part of the commissioners. At least I don’t know of any of the commissioners being arrested for sex crimes. I certainly haven’t been.”
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Kathi, perhaps the resolution to the question is that both are true. I’m no big expert on porn–saw a video about porn’s abuses as a freshman in college, I remember soft porn I saw and my high school friends used, and I’ve learned a tiny bit by looking things up–but it strikes me that if one believes women are generally not interested in sex, one would be even more alarmed at the reality that pornography does portray women as being willing to have sex “at the drop of a hat” with just about anybody. One would be afraid of being “cuckolded”, no?
We might also note that in the pages that Benjamin linked, Hybels describes “heavy sexual demands”, “divorce threats”, and the like from what Hybels sees as his overactive libido. So that would argue that Hybels did see his wife as something of a cold fish, at least at that point in time.
That might also explain why Hybels apparently thought it was OK to send his assistant to smut shops to buy the stuff. If he believed she was fairly “asexual”, it would follow that no harm would be done by her visiting those shops and viewing that material.
Obviously BS, but that would be the logic.
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@JulieAnne:
I assume the rules of CELEBRITY were in effect.
NOBODY tells the CELEBRITY anything the CELEBRITY doesn’t want to hear.
And enough flattery can make you the CELEBRITY’s next Court Favorite.
@CindyBrunson:
<blockquote.Why did Hybel’s assistant view porn videos
with him in her bathrobe and where was his wife? Or maybe I misread that part.
@JulieAnne:
Or a Predator/Playa setting up his Prey/Next Conquest.
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Kathi – I am no admirer of Hybels, but I think he views porn as degarding to women and giving the impression ‘they are all after it’ and therefore fair game. It didn’t read to me as though he thought enjoyment was off limits.
I’m afraid I am not surprised at the revelations about Hybels and by extension Willow Creek. For all the good it might have set out to do in the beginning, the word I associate with it is worldliness. It long since left the bible behind and supplemented it with modern management techniques (more a business than a church and Hybles acted as a CEO bahaving as so many CEO’s do in the corporate world), and pseudo-christian mysticism veering into occultism, garnished with modern pop psychology. Masses and masses of deception within it – although I don’t particularly want to read and think about all that all over again!
Somebody once came up with the phrase ‘we want Bibles instead of Hybels’, and that just about sums it up for me!
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@KAS stated, “I’m afraid I am not surprised at the revelations about Hybels and by extension Willow Creek. For all the good it might have set out to do in the beginning, the word I associate with it is worldliness. It long since left the bible behind and supplemented it with modern management techniques (more a business than a church and Hybels acted as a CEO behaving as so many CEO’s do in the corporate world), and pseudo-Christian mysticism veering into occultism, garnished with modern pop psychology.”
These 501c. 3 c’hurches, KAS, are modeled after the Peter Drucker business model which was implemented ever so slowly and secretly into the apostate evangelical (?) c’hurch. The “Leadership Network” was created to cleverly “plant” c’hurches specifically designed after the business model in addressing people’s “felt need.” Rick Warren and other “big time” c’hurch leaders are products of the Robert Schueller paradigm which embraces universalism (mysticism, occultism, and twisting the Holy Words of Jesus Christ into a communistic global control system.) Jesus specifically spoke about “lording it over others” and He wasn’t speaking to His lower laity sheep when powerfully speaking the truth, He was speaking to the religious folks of His day who loved to lord it over others and loved to be “first and foremost” in everything, especially being seen as “religious.” And yet these religious leaders’ hearts were far from Jesus Christ, they were in fact anti-Christ, desiring worship, praise and glory for themselves in place of our Savior. A “replacement” theology if you will, that is alive and well within every c’hurch that worships its “pastor, reverend, pope, bishop, elder, deacon or deaconess, cardinal, priest, nun, or any other “title” they give themselves, as they are the embodiment of the “religious entitled elite.”
For the life of me, I can’t imagine a so called “titled pastor, priest, or pope, etc.,” actually DOING what the Apostle Paul did, in having a legitimate job of working with his hands in making tents (can imagine his hands got pretty bloody and were calloused to the bone) from that kind of work back in his day) as he did not want to burden the early ecclesia – called out ones of Jesus Christ as most of those folks didn’t have large bank accounts. And for certain, the religious leader imposters didn’t suck up to those folks as they knew they couldn’t scam must mammon/money out of them for their lavish lifestyles……..same as today, the hearts and minds of the “leadership paradigm/business model” are still just as wicked and evil, but their apparel costumes have changed significantly.
Peter Drucker did his job very well, infiltrating the visible c’hurch with his hatred for our LORD Jesus Christ. I grieve for all of those innocent sheep who have been abused, whether spiritually, verbally and emotionally, and in some cases, physically, by the evangelical c’hurch business model, and know for certain, their rewards are elsewhere in the Presence of our Living Savior, Jesus. This is what gives those of us who are survivors and overcomers of abusive c’hurch leaders, their spineless and mindless minions who do their dirty work, and those who are not lovers of the truth.
Want to make a c’hurch leader bitter and angry……just speak about Jesus being your pastor as He never ever lies, and also about the freedom and liberty found only in Him as guided by His Holy Spirit. And if you are a woman in a complementarian business (Peter Drucker) model c’hurch, then watch your back, as these worldly institutions love operating their apostate c’hurches like boot camp for the marines……manipulative, controlling, and indoctrinating using cult/occult methodology.
Still can’t imagine any c’hurch leader bending over and washing the lower laity’s feet, as Jesus did in the upper room before his crucifixion, they are just too darn good for that messy business, let alone have compassion and empathy for the hurting, the poor, and the lost souls. Perhaps this is why only Jesus, the Living Christ, is called the “Good Shepherd” Who lays down His life for those who trust and believe in Him only…….not the golden calf of “man worship” which is literally what the visible c’hurch has done since Jesus’ physical departure from this earth.
One day, Jesus will return for His Second Coming; can only imagine tears for what man has done to His ecclesia.
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KAS – I hear you (and everyone else too!). Thanks, for your feedback. I understand what everyone is saying and I hope that was Bill’s intent behind the words.
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There are women who love to have sex with many different men. These women have decided it is not Christian men’s or Muslim men’s business. These men are not welcome in their lives.
There are women who never want to have sex, hate for men to look at them, or talk to them. After growing up in compementarian world I am happiest when men stay away from me.
What so many Christian men are incapable of understanding is that all women are not just alike or have to be just alike.
If Amy has sex with Jake on Friday that does not mean she ever wants to have sex with him again. Maybe that is Jake’s fault and not Amy’s.
So many Christian men hate for women to like sex, hate for women to have sex with attractive men, and hate for women to have the right to tell them no to sex.
So many Christian men hate for women to know anything about sex. Maybe she will know he is a selfish sexually sadistic sicko in the bedroom and she should wash her hands of him.
So many Christian men want it arranged so every man no matter how vile he is he has the right to have at least one trapped sex slave. In other words a Christian wife.
As someone who grew up in the conservative Christian homeschooling movement, I find it totally offensive when conservative Christian men try to pretend they care about any woman or hate child rape.
We are taught we have to get married against our will.
We are taught we have to get pregnant against our will.
We are taught that once married we can never refuse our incel husbands sex.
We are taught that if our husbands rape us it is not RAPE.
We are taught that if our husbands rape us we can not divorce them for raping us.
We are taught that we have to be submissive to men.
We are taught that we were created to serve and pleasure men.
This is the same arrangement Phillip Garrido arranged for himself.
I knew d*wm well my whole childhood that biblegod and his sicko men did not love, respect, or care about me. I learned this from the misogynistic culture that is conservative Christianity. James Dobson’s preferred world.
I do not believe for one minute that James Dobson or Bill Hybels gives a tiny d*mn about how women feel or how women are treated. Most Christian men want one thing, for women to be submissive to them.
I also do not believe either one of these creepy men care about sexually exploited children. James Dobson’s culter created my repeated childhood sexual abuse and enabled it.
Bikebubba do you still believe a woman should stay married to the man who sexually abuses her?
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Dear Christianity Hurts,
Your words are filled to overflowing with wisdom, far beyond your years.
Out of all of the folks who add to these comment threads, your testimony and your posts minister to me the most for you do not walk in the counsel of the wicked (Psalm 1:1) You literally and figuratively walk in the counsel of Jesus for your life, experience, and overcoming bear witness to the power of Jesus Christ, not to the ways of man.
Jesus never abused children, nor did He abuse women while walking this earth. It seems as though Jesus was constantly correcting “man” for not allowing the children to come to Him, or speaking to a Samaritan woman, which were both considered far and above the religious elitists of His day. Our evangelical “society” is no different Christianity Hurts.
If you have wealth, then you are sucked up to by the pastor (which is not scriptural) of a c’hurch and the leadership board, because you are the money leech for the congregation and made to feel guilty for not giving it all away to their worldly expenditures. But if your are lower middle class to poor, then your are to suck up to the leadership team and the wealthy (worship them) so that you may hopefully be the recipient of a “scholarship to church camp.”
As far as sex goes, the rapist in a Baptist congregation is given more protection, compassion, empathy, and encouragement, than the female victim who was beaten, hair pulled out, and forced to have sex against her will (saying No, No, No during the crime/sin), and eventually shunned by the Baptist congregation for being a slut, a whore, and “drinking alcohol-which means she deserved the rape 😦 ).
My answer to you as a child of the Living LORD, is NO, NO, NO, women do not deserve to be sexually abused in any way, shape or form………whether the name of a false god, jesus, or any other pagan lord is used to coerce the innocent into a sexual encounter.
The main reason I quit listening to James Dobson years ago, which was a wise decision and a life saving one, was because he focused on the worship of man, instead of addressing women’s ministry equally. His whole indoctrination involves the importance of man with his psycho-babble, and does very little to encourage and build up women who are as equally important to the ministry of Jesus Christ.
I think of you often Christianity Hurts as your words are powerful. You are important to Jesus and His Body as you minister to those of us who have no idea of the evil that lurks out there.
Your voice is heard and I thank-you for your courage and bravery in speaking here.
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CH, having never said what you accuse me of, the answer is “no”. There are, no doubt, some people for whom most or all of your comment applies, and this conservative Christian joins you in encouraging them to take a long walk off a short pier. Large portions of what you describe are simply not what Scripture prescribes by any reasonable interpretation.
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BB
Did you not consistently promote a wife staying married to her rapist husband?
I remember asking over and over again if you thought a wife should stay married to her sexually abusive husband and you kept saying yes.
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CH, that’s absolutely not true. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever specifically addressed the question of rape in marriage.
But since you’re interested, my take is that since rape is a capital crime in the Old Testament, the victim has the choice of confronting the sin via Matthew 18 or proceeding directly to divorce. Whether the victim chooses divorce or not, I definitely counsel separation in any case where safety, or even financial security, is at stake. And, ahem, have.
But that said, CH, the case we’re discussing here, that of Bill Hybels, is not that of a hyper-patriarchalist (what you’re describing), a “run of the mill” patriarchalist, or even a complementarian. He’s an egalitarian, and that’s reflected in Willow Creek’s statements on marriage and spiritual gifts, not to mention Willow Creek’s hiring of his successor, Heather Larson.
This case has a lot to do with many things, but patriarchal theology is not one of them.
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BB
“Immediate resort to divorce is, IMO, the relational equivalent of the President reaching for the nuclear “football” instead of talking to ambassadors when crises arise.”
You equated a woman divorcing her husband for sexually abusing her to the president inciting nuclear war.
https://spiritualsoundingboard.com/2018/04/30/analysis-paige-pattersons-teachings-on-domestic-violence-put-victims-in-harms-way/
It seems the discussing is Christian men talking as if they know or have authority on women and sex. James Dobson is complementarian.
“this conservative Christian joins you in encouraging them to take a long walk off a short pier”
BB
You have been called out by women here who have been abused. Out of all the people who have ever posted here you remind me the most of the Christian men I grew up with. You do not join me in anything. I have saved your misogynistic selfish post. As someone who grew up in misogyny, child rape, female slavery, and wife beating I know who my enemies are. And you are one of them.
You have promoted Doug Wilson. A man who has protected and defended child rapist and pedophiles. Doug Wilson is also pure concentrated misogyny.
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Thank you Katy.
Your empathy and critical thinking is so refreshing and shocking. You are one of the few women I respect.
I have read were men have looked at porn got aroused and went and molested or raped the children in the other room. I believe porn causes children to be raped and molested. If these women cared enough about children to stop engaging in porn children would be better off.
Two porn stars named Traci Lords and Jenna Jameson said they were sexually abused as underage girls. I read a book by a 70s supermodel and her psychiatrist told her we keep creating painful experiences trying to fix them.
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What encourages me here is that women confessing that they like sex. I find that encouraging. It is easy to think that the only women who like sex are all on porn and to think sex is always wrong. Things like this can affect marriage so it is important to get the balance. Pornography and sex outside marriage are obviously wrong and the proper place for the fire is within a faithful marriage where it belongs. Take it away from there and obviously it becomes perverted. Some of the things that are done in porn can be legitimate within marriage. Just because they have perverted it doesn’t mean that there is also the true. A wrong guilt can affect the bedroom in a negative way.
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Kathi – thank you for hearing – I’m glad you didn’t feel got at, that was not the intention!
Katy – I still remember the whole church run as a business that infected Willow Creek – not just Peter Drucker, Ken Blanchard as well. In terms of numbers, the model looks on the surface as though it works. And because of this it has been spread all over the world, not just English-speaking countries but others as well. I’ve heard in my time verbatim Hybels’ quotations in German, in turn originating with Rober Schuller!
The attraction of Willow Creek is that in countries where the church has been in stark decline there is a desperation to try to stem and possibly reverse this. And WC were right in that too many churches are inward looking and don’t know how to make outsiders welcome, or have too little idea of how they come across to those not initiated into Christianese jargon and lifestyles. Those I have known who were fanatical Creek devotees are unlikely, I fear, to reconsider the whole approach because of the allegations made against Hybels. All they can see are glittering evangelistic success stories (‘the way they evanglise is better than the way you don’t).
The evangelical church is subject to spiritual warfare, the principalities and powers, and WC is a classic case of infiltration on the inside by doctrines of demons and more than dubious religious practices, moral failure, and a not very subtle turning of the spotlight away from Christ and what he did and Man being put in the centre, with his needs and wants becoming paramount.
No amount of human organisation can ever substitute for the Holy Spirit and his gifts and ministries given to the body. When He is absent, He has to be replaced by something else, techniques, and in the case of WC I think this is sanctification by pop psychology. An attempt to reform the old man (or self) rather than put him to death and become a new man!
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Kathi, I find if very interesting that the men seem to be reading this so differently. I’m more inclined towards your interpretation, although I’m sure porn does show women as ‘insatiable’ in some way…even if that were true it would not be a bigger issue than child abuse.
I’m not really inclined to give Bill any benefit of the doubt regardless, but I think it was probably a little bit of both. There is an odd thing in Christian patriarchal circles that blames women for wanting sex, that dismisses their sexual drives, and that blames young girls even for ‘taking advantage’ of grown men, that blames the ‘other woman’ when a man has had an affair. We see it so often I think your interpretation is at least equally valid.
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Christianity Hurts, I complete agree with you. This is a huge part of the problem within the complementarian framework, but also in the wider world.
Women are people. People are different. That is ok. This should not be complicated.
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CH popping in with the receipts!
From BB in the discussion referenced:
This is a super bad take.
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Well who told you they didn’t? I’m going to guess it’s men who had no interest in making it good for their partners or alternately women who had experience with such men. Or women who have been told all their lives that good girls don’t and feel the need to keep the fact that they do on the QT.
I do not know what your purpose is in saying this, but I find it a little off…
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Lea – Women commented the same thing on the FB page of this post. I can see both interpretations of the statement. And, given that after reading the book I got an uneasy feeling about Bill and his view of women and sex, I am not giving up my first thought. So, in no way am I giving Bill the benefit of the doubt in this statement. Bill talked about his long history with how he viewed sex. From sexualizing a childbirth video to “sneaking peaks” at porn magazines to passing down slang terms for female body parts to his children. And, women seem to write him letters about their problems with sex and he goes to middle of the night counseling sessions with women and families about their sex problems? I don’t buy it.
KAS – Thanks again. I didn’t feel “got at” at all. I’m open to hearing other’s perspectives and will dig my heels in when I think it’s appropriate. 🙂
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Thank you, Lea.
After having long conversations with men online about sexual abuse I have found out that they are fans and defenders of Roman Polanski, Michael Jackson, and Woody Allen. It upset me that I showed them respect and had conversations with them as if maybe they are good people.
If you are pro Roman Polanski you are not a good person and your opinions on sexual abuse are not respectable. I have talked to people who said since he drugged the girl it was not really rape.
I like to warn people of the kind of person they are talking too.
If someone is protecting and looking out for wife beaters, wife rapist, and pedophiles everyone should know that is the kind of person they are talking with.
The reason I talk most about conservatives is that is all I have ever known. The first time I ever saw Bill Clinton talk on TV I was a young teen and he creeped me out insistently. To this day I would not want to be within five miles of the man.
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“From sexualizing a childbirth video”
My father told me the pain I caused my mother when she was having me pleasured him. I talked to a woman at No Longer Quivering and she said she has know of men getting turned on by their wives pain in childbirth also. I have read that some homeschoolers think if a boy changes a baby’s diaper he will get turned on. Two things most people would not think is sexy.
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True. As you read the actual book, I think your interpretation of the shading is most likely to be correct. Of course there is a wealth of messed up thinking about women and sex floating around out there! It all feeds on itself, imo. Perhaps men should pipe down and listen to women on this topic in general? Porn is not a good representation of what women actually think, of course, it is generally made for and by men.
Interesting I hadn’t read the facebook posts.
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Here is Bike Bubba’s comment:
Have you changed your beliefs now, BB? Do you think it’s okay for abused wives to divorce?
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@ChristianityHurts:
Your father was the classic definition of “Sadist”.
The pain of others gave him (erotic?) Pleasure.
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@ChristianityHurts:
Rapist mentality.
Like the photo-meme showing a scuzzy fat guy smirking with the caption “I WAS HORNY, SO SHE WAS WILLING”. (AKA “Because I Wanna”.)
And with Polanski and the others you mentioned, you have the added dynamic of “CELEBRITY Artiste”. Remember the Bohemian/Romantic meme that “Artistes are not bound by Bourgeois Morality”? (Most blatantly used by Ayn Rand gushing over a serial child killer like Harley Quinn over The Joker.)
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@CH “We are taught we have to get married against our will.
We are taught we have to get pregnant against our will.”
And what is worse is that when “bad things” happen in Christian marriages, the church turns around and says, “but you CHOSE…to!”
I think there is going to be a constant tension in the 501c3 church, if not in all churches, where the good of the organization supercedes the good of the individuals in the organization. I was on an educational board and we were all handed a copy of a non-profit board manual as if to say that this organization should be run just like every other non-profit. But, in this institution, there was an administration, a separate faculty, and paying students. Much different from the local soup kitchen, but we always got forced into these really awkward decisions because everything had to be done “by the book”. The administration used “the book” as justification for squelching any lines of communication through non-official channels (the president).
There is definitely ‘worldly’ wisdom about how organizations should be run that the church can use – for example, implementing the sorts of safety protocols schools have when it comes to children’s and youth ministries, having clear communication and accountability at all levels. But, there is definitely a disconnect when it comes to managing a church to extract as much money from people as possible.
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Dear Christianity Hurts,
Appreciate your kind words. Apart from the trauma you experienced throughout your life, you still inspire me with your big heart and passion towards justice of the innocent. And also, you nailed it with BB in pointing out his comment thread pertaining to wife abuse/crime and divorce. You have a very good memory and excellent research skills.
I have heard it said by many a c’hurched man, that the word “abuse” is not in the Bible. My ESV version of the Scriptures does actually use the word “abusers” in a very long list of sinners who will not inherit the kingdom of our LORD, so evidently, it depends on which version folks choose to read and study.
I disagree with Bike Bubba as well.
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Sorry if I offended you Lea. I found it encouraging that women said they liked sex. I suppose my wife is never verbal about it and sometimes I wonder about it. I don’t watch pornography but the point I was trying to mention was that even stuff one might do in marriage is filmed somewhere in porn. This does not invalidate what we might do in the marriage just because someone made porn out of it. Sorry if it doesn’t make sense to you.
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Yeah, I’m still a little unclear but it’s ok. Obviously sex is in porn and (hopefully) marriage. But I do understand that porn has a lot of violence and degrading of women that really shouldn’t be in a healthy marriage.
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BIKE BUBBA November 6, 2018 at 9:48 AM
“My major difference with many on this thread–really many very significant activists in the area of protecting women–is that I think before one goes to divorce court, one ought to attempt a rebuke and corrective action first because divorce is a very real trauma on both sides of the courtroom that can tend to “harden” people who otherwise might have repented.”
https://spiritualsoundingboard.com/2018/11/01/spiritual-abuse-when-people-tell-you-no-church-is-perfect/comment-page-1/#comments
I kept asking BIKE BUBBA if a wife can and should divorce her husband for beating and sexually abusing her. BIKE BUBBA’s excuse for wanting the raped women to stay married to her rapist is because the woman needs to suffer so rapist doesn’t sin anymore.
It sounds like BIKE BUBBA has positioned himself to influence women who are married to abusive men. Saw that coming.
BIKE BUBBA said,
“Regarding “support” of Doug Wilson, no, never have and never will give him unequivocal support. There are things he has done very well, and things he has done very poorly, and quite frankly if you want to make him a demon from whom one must utterly separate or be demonized, you’re doing the same kind of secondary/tertiary separation nonsense that the fringe of fundamentalists indulge. People are more complicated than that.”
Should we make Keith Raniere to be a demon?
Should we separate from Keith Raniere?
As if Doug Wilson is any better.
This is not the first time BIKE BUBBA has been caught being deceitful.
“Darlene
JUNE 23, 2017 @ 1:34 PM
Bike Bubba: Are you the same guest Bike Bubba that comments over at Blog and Mablog? The same Bike Bubba that has a blog named BikeBubba’s Boulangerie in which you have Blog & Mablog, The Pyromaniacs and the Bayly Brothers recommended on your Blog List? Are you the same Bike Bubba that said in a blog article entitled “Manly Monday: Now Lead Already” – “…and one can point out that a lot of the greatest failures in marriage occur when the husband has been sidelined from his proper role“? Are you the same Bike Bubba that defended Doug Wilson’s blog article “Christian Women are Prettier” in a blog article entitled “Sigh”?
If your answer is ‘yes,’ then I think you need to come clean and tell us what you really think about Patriarchy. You know, the kind Doug Wilson and The Bayly Brothers promote. If your answer is ‘yes,’ I’m pretty sure I know what you think about women and their role in marriage, church and society. ”
https://spiritualsoundingboard.com/2017/06/20/taking-marriage-seriously-what-does-that-mean-for-a-christian/#comments
Barbara Roberts
JUNE 23, 2017 @ 1:42 PM
“Thanks SO much Darlene for putting Bike Bubba on the carpet. I’ve always felt there was something NQR about him.”
Men like BIKE BUBBA have to demean, degrade, and disrespect women to help themselves get an ego boost.
BIKE BUBBA June 22, 2017 at 1:35 PM
“A man ought to lead his wife, train her in Scripture”
https://spiritualsoundingboard.com/2017/06/20/taking-marriage-seriously-what-does-that-mean-for-a-christian/comment-page-1/#comments
My mother and I do not need to be lead or trained like a dog by any man. To say the sex that has a monopoly on raping children should be training and leading the sex that gives birth to those children is total male selfishness, male insecurity, male perversion, and male ignorance.
I would be so hurt If my husband went online and talked like he trained me. How demeaning and disrespectful. Women who have been raped as little girls and grew up with men who beat their mothers need to train self-important, misogynistic, pretend to know everything BIKE BUBBA.
It is men like BIKE BUBBA that convinced me when I was a young teen that Christianity is not real, that bible god is no better than a pimp, and Christianity was created by men who are scared of women having the right and power to tell them to hit the road. BIKE BUBBA is an enemy of women and girls. Espiacliely abused women and abused girls. It does sound like he tries to insert himself in their lives. Seen that creepy show before.
Real man/manly man BIKE BUBBA always runs off when people start questioning him about his Christian Taliban preferences and opinions. This looks like the third time he has done it.
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http://thewartburgwatch.com/ reported that a policewoman saw child pornography as a victimless crime.
People who look at child pornography are looking at pictures of children who have just been raped.
People who look at child pornography are looking at pictures of children who are going to be raped when the camera is sat down.
Half of these children never see the sunlight, they do not have a mother to hold them, and they never get to play with a puppy.
When someone is looking at child porn they are looking at pictures of child sex slaves.
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And the money paid for that through purchases and ad revenue is covering the salaries of the people perpetuating the cycle, so even viewing child porn online is not a victimless crime.
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Of course.
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“Treatment, Ricky, treatment.”
From the “I Love Lucy” episode wherein Ricky hires a psychiatrist to come to his apartment and snap Lucy out of her inferiority complex. The doctor commences flattering Lucy, who welcomes and enjoys the attention.
Meanwhile, Ricky, feeling jealous and left out, mildly protests, but the good doctor reassures him it’s all in the interest of “treatment, Ricky, treatment.”
Finally, when the doc and Lucy start dancing, Ricky becomes more vocal in his objections. This time it is Lucy who assuages her husband’s misgivings, replying, “Treatment, Ricky, treatment.”
We’re sure that when Bill Hybels sent his assistant to rent the pornographic videos and, subsequently, instruct her to participate in viewing them with him, he pulled the same stunt: “Treatment, Ms. Baranowski, treatment.”
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