Hännah Ettinger blogs, tweets, is the founding publisher of The Swan Children Magazine, and dishes feminist critique of YA novels over at The YA Wallpaper.
The trailer for Fifty Shades of Grey is out, and at my day job as a bookseller (all opinions are mine, not my employer’s, etc), I’ve seen more copies of that book go across the checkout desks this past week than I’d like to admit. It’s having a surge in popularity and people are eagerly anticipating the Valentine’s Day 2015 release of the film. I tried to read the series when it first came out and made waves, but I couldn’t get past the first half of the first book, in which logic and consent disappear in favor of all manner of impossible things before breakfast and abuse grooming techniques. There is very little in the plot’s setup that makes sense, and there is even less that is representative of a safe, ethical, average BDSM relationship. But there are better places to go for reviews of the controversial series. I’m here to review a book that takes on the idea of erotica from a mainstream evangelical Christian perspective. Pulling Back the Shades is written by Secret Keeper Girl founder and purity culture expert Dannah Gresh and Dr. Juli Slattery, a Christian psychologist with close ties to Focus on the Family. It’s the Christian purity thought leaders’ response to mommy porn, and they have a lot to say. Read more
More stories of abuses of power by church leadership are coming out of Pastor Mark Driscoll’s church on the We Love Mars Hill blog. This latest one tells of a man who wanted to become a youth pastor despite allegations of voyeurism. Even though his alleged crimes were known, he was protected by the staff from the legal consequences and allowed to remain in leadership. From the testimony of “Phillip C”: Read more
Teen Mania’s Honor Academy is suspending operations for this year, based on dwindling attendance and funding. The Christian youth bootcamp, which has been accused of being a hotbed of abuse and financial scandal, has been struggling since the headquarters in Texas was foreclosed on earlier this year. Read more
It’s really hard for me to get caught up on the details of the invasion of Gaza by Israel over the last couple of weeks. Growing up in conservative Christianity, we had a myopic, distanced, and deliberately ignorant understanding of politics in the Middle East, and so now, I find myself at a loss for where to start in understanding news reports like this one: Over 350 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s ongoing operation to root out Hamas fighters it says are hiding in Gaza tunnels. Meanwhile, tens of thousands came out to protest the victims of the invasion, almost 80 percent of whom are civilians. The United Nations mission in Gaza says that more than 60,000 people have been displaced as a result of the escalating conflict. Israel has warned Palestinians living in over half of the country that they may come under fire either from the ground, air or sea. Together with the mounting death toll, the Palestinian health authorities say that over 2,000 people have been injured. Around a quarter of the reported victims have been children. The bloodshed is grievous and I wish I understood more of what was going on. The understanding I grew up with was a primitive and ahistorical one that went like this: Read more
