A Challenge For My Detractors - Until Then I Will Remain Scandalous

Y’all might want to buckle in for this one. I am little steamed and I am afraid I might forget how to be proper – but it turns out it probably won’t be the first or last time I hear that allegation.

Twelve days ago, something magical happened. I had no idea at the time what a few clicks of a mouse would mean to my life, and even now, I am pretty sure that I am just barely starting to understand the magnitude of that act. You see, a few friends and I decided to start a discussion group inspired by a book I wrote a few years back. (You can purchase it here: Scandalous on Amazon) Within three hours it went from six people to over one hundred and fifty. In three days we had over three hundred and fifty women – all sharing their stories, all asking their questions, and all experiencing a freedom that is all too rare in Christian circles.

You would think that this would be a good thing, but it has gotten back to me that there are some folks out there who think that what we are doing is evil, wicked, and – gasp – improper. There are even a few women who have been chastised for daring to associate with us.

Good Christian girls don’t talk about things like molestation, rape, marital problems, porn addictions for him or her, feminine hygiene, spousal abuse, traumatic births, difficulties have sex with our spouses, sex toys, lubricants, oral sex, anal sex, or period sex. We are supposed sit back and act as if these things either never happened to us, the women we love, or voice a desire to know what the Bible really has to say beyond we should sit down, shut up, and accept what we have been given with proper blushing timidity.

Here is my problem with people who say stuff like that – not that they would actually say these words, they just want to act all appalled and self-righteous – none of them have offered up one scrap of a Bible verse to support their opinion. Let me repeat that: NONE of them have given any BIBLICAL REASON to support their OPINION that we should be silent on issues that make THEM uncomfortable. Criticism flies high and thick, laced with a lot of pious outrage and sanctimonious shock, but that is ALL they have ever offered me or anyone that they have confronted. Oh, sure there are lot of holy SOUNDING words, even a few random phrases from the Bible tossed about as if anyone with half a brain and the ability to read couldn’t tell they have been ripped from their proper context and application in a desperate attempt to vilify women who dared to be honest.

Allow to clarify a few things for you folks. The Bible isn’t proper. In fact, the Bible is rather scandalous itself. Don’t believe me? Try these on for size.

Yet she increased her whoring, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt and lusted after her lovers there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses. Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your bosom and pressed your young breasts.” Ezekiel 23:19-21 ESV

(In case you missed it, “member” means penises and “issues” means ejaculations.)

I myself will lift up your skirts over your face, and your shame will be seen. Jeremiah 13:26

(Oh, and “shame” there – well, it’s referring to genitals again!)

In that day the Lord will shave with a razor that is hired beyond the River—with the king of Assyria—the head and the hair of the feet, and it will sweep away the beard also. Isaiah 7:20 ESV

(Why in the world would anyone shave their enemy’s feet and cut off their beards? Unless, this means…gasp…genitals again!)

This is just a sampling of what the Bible offers in the way of scandalous verses, and I could go on. However, let’s just stop right here for a second and notice one tiny detail. In all three of these passages, the prophets were writing on the behalf of God himself. So it wasn’t really the prophets talking this way, it was God talking this way. Some of you need to stop and let that sink in for a moment.

And what about Song of Solomon? I don’t care you slice that puppy or try to dress it up as an allegory for Christ’s love for the Church. The book is sexual and sensual. To deny that shows that you are more concerned with defending your own delicate sensibilities than getting real about God, His Word, or our faith.

Finally, we should look to Titus 2. This verse is a favorite for women’s ministries, but y’all like to over spiritualize every cotton picking thing.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Titus 2:3-5 ESV

We are to teach what is good. We could spend hours, years even discussing what is good – things like freedom from bondage, how to be good stewards of our bodies and sexuality, how to heal from sexual trauma and abuse, what healthy marriage that celebrates sex can look like. We can spend years talking about how to be good wives and mothers, but you are fool if you think that means we can be silent about sex, the scars we carry from past relationships, dealing with sexual issues within a marriage, or how to train our children to live in a world where porn is one click away from us all. We can discuss what it means to be self-controlled but we aren’t talking about how to control our biology we are missing a major element of the conversation.

And when we get to that last point – “that the word of God may not be reviled” – every argument ever offered to me, claiming that I must be silent is shredded. Because do you know what happens to women who told to bury their past, to ignore the pain caused by the misuse and abuse of their sexuality, or to deny that they have questions? I do. They end up in marriages where their lives are endangered. They become invisible victims of abuse. They become disillusioned with the Church and think they are disillusioned with a God who is not great enough to deal with the complexities of female sexuality. They rebel against the restraints that the overly pious would place upon us, and they act in anger against God and his Word. I know this. I know because I lived it and because so many women tell me the same story – a story that begins with, “No one ever talked about this.”

So here is my challenge to all of my detractors – show me one verse in context that says I am wrong. Give me one place within the pages of God’s word that would convict me of leading women astray, and I will pull Scandalous from the sales, close down the discussion group, and never speak of these things again. That is how right I KNOW this is.