I changed cultures in 2020. Up 'til then I was an artist. For 43 years. It was a sheltered life, culturally speaking. My co-artists were the same. Educated. Middle-to-upper class. Some of them were even trust fund kids. And the patrons we sold to were even, for the most part, more educated and cultured than we were. Our markets were university towns. And we were, for a brief time, the cultural leading edge if you were to slice off and exclude the ultra-rich coastal elites.
Yes, there were a few faux bohemians in our number, costuming the part to thrill the crowd. We were selling a bit of that too. Our lifestyles. We, the artists. Quiet, polite drug use. Pot around the campfire. But for the most part, we were entrepreneurs as much as artists. Our art fed our need for significance, yes, but our need for security was never far behind. Most of our number were responsible adults.
I never made more than a lower-middle class income, but the professionals who were my patrons sort of envied me. I was living their dream. Self-employed. Creative.
So I was spared the Walmart life. I was spared poorly spoken English. I never watched reality TV. Ever. I read. And I worked alone.
Add to that a Christian education. 16 years of it.
I knew of the world. I didn't know the world.
Then I jumped into blue collar wage work with both feet. My co-workers are damaged. They look it and they dress it. Their spouses (second, third, or fourth....or merely "life partners") are losers, in jail in some cases. Addiction is crazy wild. If 5 words are spoken, 6 of them will be the F-bomb.
You know what? I LOVE working with them. I've never had co-workers. And I can see how one person can ruin a day for everyone. But I love working with these tattooed, smoking, alcoholic, cussing, bad-dressing people. They're brilliant in their survival instincts. Purely logical? Sometimes. Often not. But brilliant. I could tell stories. And my shop happens to be a union situation wherein the Peter principle would be better than the status quo of rising to the top via tenure and not by merit.
All that to say that one day as I was looking out over the workroom floor, it dawned on me that if these people ever formed a church, they probably wouldn't change a damn thing about themselves. Certainly not the cultural trappings. Besides, so many of the cultural trappings have permanence never before seen in Western culture. It used to be that fad and fashion changed generationally. A change of clothes. A different haircut. No more. Now it doesn't really change so much as it doesn't really exist. But what does exist is permanent. Tattoos. Piercings. Body modifications.
And that doesn't even touch on the family circumstances that are so tangled now.
The churches I used to attend would be mortified. Or patronizing. We don't have any idea anymore what a Christian looks like. What church will look like.
I'm watching my nephew as closely as I can from my geographical distance. He's a priest outside of London. Thousands of miles away. We email. He's making his church as open as possible and continuing to preach the Gospel as best he can to a hodge-podge of stitched-together backgrounds, nationalities, denominations. His church is the very picture of the traditional church -- a few hundred years old, stone, country. But the people inside are anything but.
I don't know what the church will look like, but it will be peopled by far more severely damaged adults than ever before in Western history. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
There were two women named Mary at the foot of the cross that bore Jesus - one Mary was His mother and the other Mary was a former prostitute who he had saved from her sins and was the first person to encounter the risen Christ at daybreak on Easter Sunday.
The sins of the second Mary were not only washed clean by the blood of Christ but through the grace only He can offer and she accepted they were forgotten by Him forever.
You have a beautiful mind, Bethel! A godly man would be blessed to be your spouse. For the record, some of the best marriages I’ve seen happened when the wife was late 30s/early 40s.
DW reaction on this topic is disappointing. I used to admire and follow Klavan. He recently came out in full support of homosexuality, as his son is gay & proud. He had one of the most consulted biblical defenses I’ve ever encountered. Speculation, but he might be “piling on” here to avoid the gnawing compromise internally. Yet another glass house dweller grabbing a stone to pitch.
This is a really well-balanced perspective that I appreciate, pointing out the double standard quite clearly - if a woman's past matters, so does a man's - and you outline it well.
I think re: telling kids, it's really important for anyone with a past they've repented of to be extremely careful not of telling that they'd sinned in common or uncommon ways but to be very careful in how they present their past in ways that are wistful or that "I had my fun, as we all do" [encouraging the exact same sin pattern] or "I had my fun and you don't get to." [nasty hypocrisy]. Kids can handle fallen and sinful parents but they really can't abide hypocrisy.
I think the other thing in terms of testimonies and even sharing whether in an accountability setting, in a broader small group, or even to a larger group, it should NEVER be lurid. 5000x times that with your kids. Rosaria Butterfield's books and talks give a clear picture of her significant past but don't elicit images, thoughts, or details.
Walsh is definitely wrong and naive about whether something like this does or does not have ongoing consequences. Sin always leaves scars, whether visible or invisible.
Yeah, not to sound like a feminist, but there can very much be a spirit of "What's sauce for the goose is never sauce for the gander" (or maybe it should be the other way around?) And also a big "lose-lose" vibe around women. If you slept with a lot of men, you'll be mocked. If you're still single and a virgin, you'll also be mocked, or called a lesbian or something. Can't win.
Agree with you about the wisdom necessary in telling the story to kids, and about lurid detail. Though I do remember many years ago reading some blogs by a guy who came out of the gay scene that got pretty lurid. It felt like he was speaking some necessary harsh truths at the time, but looking back, and looking at how he obviously struggled with his mental health, I do wonder if it was good for him.
I did see a screenshot of a tweet Ashley made somewhere saying that she "feels sorry" for a man who won't marry a woman with a past, that this doesn't display the spirit of Christ or something. I do understand the frustration with that kind of mindset even though I think it's horrible for people to mock her testimony.
What a thoughtful, kind, wise perspective by Bethel. The fact Andrew K would be mocking and taunting this couple… as a confessed Christian? - I found this stunningly sad and unbiblical. (Did he also say something like: “ I can’t wait to get to heaven - where I’ll be without sin - so I can pick up the first stone”? I’m done with his podcast
Aha, good one. ;) Yes, I do occasionally tune in for his culture takes, which can be interesting, and probably this new show with Spencer will be good, but ayiyiyi.
A rousing Christian argument made with artfully constructed rigor. This precision and passion is what it sounds like when eloquent defenders of our faith speak the truth in love. It's one of your very best.
Does the resurrection of Jesus have any power? If so, are we willing to believe we can actually be made new?
Bethel, you mentioned the term evangelical. How do you define it? It is an intentionally nebulous term so I am not testing you for the right answer.🙂 But since it can mean so many things to so many people I was wondering what it means to you.
In discussions like this, I think it functions as a little bit of a catch-all term for devout low Protestant denominations--could include Baptist, charismatic, various Reformed denoms, or non-denom.
I struggle to understand the controversy. I grew up in a church movement where sharing your testimony was a rite of passage. The more sordid your past and the greater the transformation, the better.
I see your point though - perhaps not all details should be shared publicly. When you share your testimony on the internet, it has far bigger consequences than sharing the same with your local congregation.
In part the backlash is precisely a frustration with the mentality that's made such "sharing" a "rite of passage" in evangelical circles. Maybe this should be a little more limited, a little less normalized. I think if that point were made in isolation minus all the redpill garbage and psychoanalysis, a productive conversation might be had.
I changed cultures in 2020. Up 'til then I was an artist. For 43 years. It was a sheltered life, culturally speaking. My co-artists were the same. Educated. Middle-to-upper class. Some of them were even trust fund kids. And the patrons we sold to were even, for the most part, more educated and cultured than we were. Our markets were university towns. And we were, for a brief time, the cultural leading edge if you were to slice off and exclude the ultra-rich coastal elites.
Yes, there were a few faux bohemians in our number, costuming the part to thrill the crowd. We were selling a bit of that too. Our lifestyles. We, the artists. Quiet, polite drug use. Pot around the campfire. But for the most part, we were entrepreneurs as much as artists. Our art fed our need for significance, yes, but our need for security was never far behind. Most of our number were responsible adults.
I never made more than a lower-middle class income, but the professionals who were my patrons sort of envied me. I was living their dream. Self-employed. Creative.
So I was spared the Walmart life. I was spared poorly spoken English. I never watched reality TV. Ever. I read. And I worked alone.
Add to that a Christian education. 16 years of it.
I knew of the world. I didn't know the world.
Then I jumped into blue collar wage work with both feet. My co-workers are damaged. They look it and they dress it. Their spouses (second, third, or fourth....or merely "life partners") are losers, in jail in some cases. Addiction is crazy wild. If 5 words are spoken, 6 of them will be the F-bomb.
You know what? I LOVE working with them. I've never had co-workers. And I can see how one person can ruin a day for everyone. But I love working with these tattooed, smoking, alcoholic, cussing, bad-dressing people. They're brilliant in their survival instincts. Purely logical? Sometimes. Often not. But brilliant. I could tell stories. And my shop happens to be a union situation wherein the Peter principle would be better than the status quo of rising to the top via tenure and not by merit.
All that to say that one day as I was looking out over the workroom floor, it dawned on me that if these people ever formed a church, they probably wouldn't change a damn thing about themselves. Certainly not the cultural trappings. Besides, so many of the cultural trappings have permanence never before seen in Western culture. It used to be that fad and fashion changed generationally. A change of clothes. A different haircut. No more. Now it doesn't really change so much as it doesn't really exist. But what does exist is permanent. Tattoos. Piercings. Body modifications.
And that doesn't even touch on the family circumstances that are so tangled now.
The churches I used to attend would be mortified. Or patronizing. We don't have any idea anymore what a Christian looks like. What church will look like.
I'm watching my nephew as closely as I can from my geographical distance. He's a priest outside of London. Thousands of miles away. We email. He's making his church as open as possible and continuing to preach the Gospel as best he can to a hodge-podge of stitched-together backgrounds, nationalities, denominations. His church is the very picture of the traditional church -- a few hundred years old, stone, country. But the people inside are anything but.
I don't know what the church will look like, but it will be peopled by far more severely damaged adults than ever before in Western history. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
There were two women named Mary at the foot of the cross that bore Jesus - one Mary was His mother and the other Mary was a former prostitute who he had saved from her sins and was the first person to encounter the risen Christ at daybreak on Easter Sunday.
The sins of the second Mary were not only washed clean by the blood of Christ but through the grace only He can offer and she accepted they were forgotten by Him forever.
Isn't Mary Madgalene being a prostitute just a tradition/speculation?
You have a beautiful mind, Bethel! A godly man would be blessed to be your spouse. For the record, some of the best marriages I’ve seen happened when the wife was late 30s/early 40s.
DW reaction on this topic is disappointing. I used to admire and follow Klavan. He recently came out in full support of homosexuality, as his son is gay & proud. He had one of the most consulted biblical defenses I’ve ever encountered. Speculation, but he might be “piling on” here to avoid the gnawing compromise internally. Yet another glass house dweller grabbing a stone to pitch.
This is a really well-balanced perspective that I appreciate, pointing out the double standard quite clearly - if a woman's past matters, so does a man's - and you outline it well.
I think re: telling kids, it's really important for anyone with a past they've repented of to be extremely careful not of telling that they'd sinned in common or uncommon ways but to be very careful in how they present their past in ways that are wistful or that "I had my fun, as we all do" [encouraging the exact same sin pattern] or "I had my fun and you don't get to." [nasty hypocrisy]. Kids can handle fallen and sinful parents but they really can't abide hypocrisy.
I think the other thing in terms of testimonies and even sharing whether in an accountability setting, in a broader small group, or even to a larger group, it should NEVER be lurid. 5000x times that with your kids. Rosaria Butterfield's books and talks give a clear picture of her significant past but don't elicit images, thoughts, or details.
Walsh is definitely wrong and naive about whether something like this does or does not have ongoing consequences. Sin always leaves scars, whether visible or invisible.
Yeah, not to sound like a feminist, but there can very much be a spirit of "What's sauce for the goose is never sauce for the gander" (or maybe it should be the other way around?) And also a big "lose-lose" vibe around women. If you slept with a lot of men, you'll be mocked. If you're still single and a virgin, you'll also be mocked, or called a lesbian or something. Can't win.
Agree with you about the wisdom necessary in telling the story to kids, and about lurid detail. Though I do remember many years ago reading some blogs by a guy who came out of the gay scene that got pretty lurid. It felt like he was speaking some necessary harsh truths at the time, but looking back, and looking at how he obviously struggled with his mental health, I do wonder if it was good for him.
I did see a screenshot of a tweet Ashley made somewhere saying that she "feels sorry" for a man who won't marry a woman with a past, that this doesn't display the spirit of Christ or something. I do understand the frustration with that kind of mindset even though I think it's horrible for people to mock her testimony.
What a thoughtful, kind, wise perspective by Bethel. The fact Andrew K would be mocking and taunting this couple… as a confessed Christian? - I found this stunningly sad and unbiblical. (Did he also say something like: “ I can’t wait to get to heaven - where I’ll be without sin - so I can pick up the first stone”? I’m done with his podcast
That was me joking 😉but my disappointment/ disgust is genuine . Keep up the amazing work. We are grateful!
Aha, good one. ;) Yes, I do occasionally tune in for his culture takes, which can be interesting, and probably this new show with Spencer will be good, but ayiyiyi.
Thank YOU for reading.
I didn't see that line, maybe it was in a bit I missed, but I was shocked enough! He needs to apologize.
A rousing Christian argument made with artfully constructed rigor. This precision and passion is what it sounds like when eloquent defenders of our faith speak the truth in love. It's one of your very best.
Does the resurrection of Jesus have any power? If so, are we willing to believe we can actually be made new?
Bethel, you mentioned the term evangelical. How do you define it? It is an intentionally nebulous term so I am not testing you for the right answer.🙂 But since it can mean so many things to so many people I was wondering what it means to you.
In discussions like this, I think it functions as a little bit of a catch-all term for devout low Protestant denominations--could include Baptist, charismatic, various Reformed denoms, or non-denom.
I struggle to understand the controversy. I grew up in a church movement where sharing your testimony was a rite of passage. The more sordid your past and the greater the transformation, the better.
I see your point though - perhaps not all details should be shared publicly. When you share your testimony on the internet, it has far bigger consequences than sharing the same with your local congregation.
In part the backlash is precisely a frustration with the mentality that's made such "sharing" a "rite of passage" in evangelical circles. Maybe this should be a little more limited, a little less normalized. I think if that point were made in isolation minus all the redpill garbage and psychoanalysis, a productive conversation might be had.