Recently in Protestantism Category

Anyone familiar with the evangelical right's rhetoric about homosexuality has undoubtedly run across the work of Paul Cameron. As chairman of the Family Research Institute in Colorado Springs, Cameron has made a career out of publishing studies that supposedly offer scientific justification for antigay public policy, depicting gays as diseased perverts. Of course, his studies are so flawed and biased as to render them entirely meaningless; Cameron was even thrown out of the American Psychological Association for violating ethical principles and repudiated by the American Sociological Association for posing as a sociologist. Nevertheless his work is still frequently referenced by relatively "mainstream" opponents of LGBT rights. When William Bennett claims "the best available research suggests that the average lifespan of male homosexuals is around 43 years of age", he's talking about one of Cameron's bogus studies. When televangelist Rod Parsley stands next to Texas Governor Rick Perry, celebrating the passage of yet another anti-marriage amendment and says "Gay sex is a veritable breeding ground for disease", when the American Family Association claims gays are more likely than heteros to molest children, or some nutjob on the internet starts shrieking about how gays average somewhere between 106 and 1105 different partners a year, they're talking about Cameron's work. His research has even shown up in state supreme court opinions in Massachusetts and Florida, in service of arguments that discrimination can be justified for public health reasons.

So, no secret that dude doesn't like the gays. But here's what's news to me: Cameron actually tells parents to encourage their teenagers to engage in heterosexual sex play as a method of warding off homosexuality!

In a 1978 book called Sexual Gradualism, Paul Cameron offered a "solution to the sexual dilemma of teenagers and young adults." The man who would go on to become America's most vitriolic anti-gay researcher proposed that teenagers and unmarried adults be encouraged by their parents, church leaders and society in general to engage in sexual activity that gradually increases in intensity, but always stops short of "going all the way" before marriage. What follows are excerpts from the meandering, 70-page manual, which is part social theory, part how-to guide.

Gradualism is a process-oriented approach to learning the physical skills of sexuality in step with gaining maturity in the psychological aspects of sexual intimacy. Gradualism is anchored on set levels of sexuality activity. These levels are:

Level 1: Being near another.
Level 2: Holding hands, hugging and the like.
Level 3: Kissing.
Level 4: Breast fondling.
Level 5: Mutual hand exploration of the genitals.
Level 6: Total nudity, perhaps in a bathtub. Manual stimulation.
Level 7: Oral sex.
Level 8: The final level of sexual intimacy.

Level 5 is the break-off point. Only people who truly love can care enough to handle beyond Level 5. Level 5 provides 60 percent of the overall fun of sex.

Gradualism would best be practiced at home. A responsible set of parents might allot a room, privacy, access to a bathroom, a television, and snacks to their teen-agers to practice gradualism. Some parents may shudder at this prospect. But they should remember that the minute a teenager leaves in a car, he or she is able to do anything desired.

Another advantage of gradualism is the insulation value it provides against homosexuality. By gradually introducing a young person to the opposite sex, gradualism steers in a heterosexual direction. While no parent wants his child starting the sexual process "too young," better too young than homosexual. (Link)

To this, I say, huzzah! It's about time the Christian right came out in favor of teenage bathtub handjobs. And parents providing snacks would be such a thoughtful touch! What teenager hasn't found himself thinking, mid-breast-fondle, "Damn, what I wouldn't give for a can of Pringles and some Sunny D right about now!"

Further reading:
An overview of Cameron's career from the SPLC's Intelligence Report.
An extended discussion of Cameron's bogus methods.

iTunes is currently offering a free download of Dolly Parton's Oscar-nominated song "Travelin' Thru". It's not my favorite thing she's done--pretty well-worn territory lyrically--but significant because of its context in a movie about an MTF transsexual. Oddly enough, this is one of her more overtly religious songs, drawing a connection between the traditional born-again experience and the experience of claiming one's gender identity. Maybe a little cutesy, but very much in line with Dolly's history of using the language of her Baptist upbringing to talk about progressive Christian theology.

Questions I have many, answers but a few
But we're here to learn, the spirit burns to know the greater truth
We've all been crucified and they nailed Jesus to the tree
And when I'm born again, you're gonna see a change in me

God made me for a reason and nothing is in vain
Redemption comes in many shapes with many kinds of pain
Oh sweet Jesus if you're listening, keep me ever close to you
As I'm stumblin', tumblin', wonderin', as I'm travelin' thru

Download it while you can from

We might trace the history of RELEVANT and the Christian mass media in America back to the late eighteenth century, when technological advancements had made printed material cheaper to produce, bringing about rapid changes in the publishing industry and causing concern among religious leaders. Where bibles and devotional books had once dominated, non-religious titles now outnumbered religious texts. There was a growing market for materials that protestant clerics disapproved of, such as novels. Fiction was thought to corrupt morals because it departed from truth, appealed to the dangerous realm of the imagination, and was frequently sexually bawdy. Now that the citizenry had more choices about what sort of material they wished to read, protestant clerics were faced with the task of convincing readers to choose materials that would reinforce rather than threaten the nation’s religious and moral fiber. To retain its influence and stay relevant, religion would have to compete with other cultural products.

Mason Locke Weems, an Episcopal clergyman and entepreneur, was keenly aware of this dilemma. Weems worked as a traveling bookseller spreading the gospel through the circulation of “sound books that explained religion and right living.” Yet he found that sermons sold slowly. Devotional books like Little Stories for Little Folk of All Denominationswhich were more sentimental if less doctrinally substantial, were easier to sell. He had even more success with Onania, which warned both sexes against the “frightful consequences” of masturbation, though his distribution of the book brought him “a good deal of ridicule as well as serious blame.” Weems realized that the logic of the free market required an appeal to popular tastes and integration of a moral message into a salable format. He begged his publisher to stop “oppressing and crushing me to the earth by ten thousand puritanical books,” and instead send books that would sell: “novels, decent plays, elegant histories.” Weems also realized that visual style mattered too, he requested books “adorned with the graces of style and clothed in splendid binding.”

Weems soon took up the pen himself and used his marketing knowledge to devise books that would sustain reader interest while promoting Christian morality. He penned a successful line of biographies telling of “the lives of great men.” Hagiographical in tone, these books chronicled the exploits of figures like George Washington, revolutionary war hero General Francis Marion, and Quaker colonist William Penn. To depict these men, the celebrities of their times, as paragons of Christian virtue required some creative license; Weems is today most widely remembered as the fabricator of the famous tale of young Washington and the cherry tree.

Another of Weems' ideas was to depict the wages of sin in a series of tracts included God’s Revenge Against Murder, God’s Revenge Against Gambling, God’s Revenge Against Adultery, and God’s Revenge Against Cruelty to Husbands. In these slim books, the first appearing in 1807, drunkards, killers, and sexually impure women all faced bloody consequences for their actions and their parents’ poor child-rearing. Their fates were depicted in exceedingly gory detail, accompanied by engraved illustrations which served as shocking frontispieces for each pamphlet. The sensationalism, thought Weems, was justifiable, since each characters were shown to be duly rewarded for their virtue or punished for their vice. In deference to the prevailing Christian attitude toward fiction, these tracts were marketed as non-fictional “true tales” despite being products of Weems’ imagination; for Weems “truth” had an unconventional meaning. Though critics feared that he was polluting the faith and dragging culture down to the lowest common denominator, Weems had invented a genre that had the ability to successfully compete with the much-despised novel. The gospel was spread, the readers were entertained, and money was made.

At a time when entertainment itself the was the subject of much religious controversy, Weems was willing to use entertaining cultural mediums and forms that many considered vulgar to carry his moral message. As R. Laurence Moore points out in Selling God, the success of Weems’ moral sensationalist tracts “convinced many American religious leaders to pay attention to popular taste as reflected in consumer choices.” Tract societies began publishing their own “true narratives”, some rife with sex and violence, some telling adventurous stories of brave Christians captured by Indians, but always bearing moral messages; these became the most popular form of religious literature in the first half of the nineteenth century. Moore argues that these true tales contributed at this time to changes in the cultural practice of reading itself, “People learned to read through a book quickly, less to savor its story or to pore over its wisdom again and again [as with a bible] than to get done with it”, thus feeding addictive buying habits and laying the groundwork for today’s consumer culture. This continued as through the 1800s clerics gradually eased their opposition to fiction and some started writing their own; if people were going to read novels anyway, Christian ministers might as well provide them with novels that promoted virtuous living.

My recent lack of posts can be attributed to the fact that i'm spending most of my time working on my senior thesis project, about RELEVANT magazine. It's going okay...I don't think i'm going to make my "complete draft by Monday" deadline but hopefully that will be alright. I'm very proud of sections of this project, especially the part about brand identification as expression of faith. Basic theme of the project: the evangelical church is embracing the language of mass cultural fake rebellion just as the mainstream culture which invented fake rebellion is embracing the evangelical church. It's not so much a question of co-optation or appropriation as much as a simple confluence of interest.

In my absence, some fellow UrHo bloggers have been covering the religion beat and offering some really fascinating posts.

I grew up in the United Methodist Church, and I've been feeling really bummed out by recent decisions made by the Judicial Council (sort of like the church's supreme court). Starr Ahrens, writing at her blog Updates cheered me up immensely with her sweet and funny post about teenage experiences with her hometown Methodist Church and the practice of keeping church doors unlocked at all times.

Isn't that the premise of Christianity; trusting your fellow man, providing him with sanctuary for faith, not just at the hours that are convenient for some. Isn't it the way of Christianity to reach out to all walks of life, no matter how downtrodden, and invite them all in to share their faith with each other or just with god? Christian churches, to my understanding, are not supposed to be members only social clubs, but instead community buildings, where people are welcome to come and worship together or separately. Regardless of the nature of my belief system today, I found that in my hometown, churches were accepting places where the community came together. The expectation was not one of conversion, but one of acceptance (read the rest)

Meanwhile Lucie at Overarching is spending time at a Buddhist monastery in Nepal (? at least I think it's Nepal). She finds that contrary to our American romanticized vision of Eastern religion, Buddhism is prone to the same problems that plague other religions–-institutional authoritarianism, scriptural literalism, suppression of criticism, etc--to the point that it feels like brainwashing.

Some of the people who have gone to speak to the nun in charge of the course have been told, upon saying they're not sure this is for them, that they're arrogant, superficial and negative minded, and that they'll never find happiness outside the gates of the monastery.

I guess it will work out well for some people, but I have to be honest with you: if it wasn't a Buddhist program, people would be calling it a cult. Seriously. The way things are presented, the way you're told it's all true, the way they cut you off from the outside world and deal with doubters... it's just kind of troubling. (read the rest)

Yikes. Stay safe over there, Lucie!

Via the reliably weird WFMU:
"Lil' Markie" is the creation of evangelist Mark Fox, who uses his ability to sing in a terrifying "childlike" falsetto to sing cautionary Christian tales.

Start with "Diary of an Unborn Child" (8.0 mb MP3). If you can handle that, go here to download the entire 17 song album. Don't miss the video clips; the voice is even more surreal when you see it being produced by a jolly mulleted man.

edit: Usually I avoid posting this sort of thing. Though often accurate, the whole "What did they do now? Gosh those evangelical christians sure are nutty!" trope is trite and not particularly productive. I made an exception because this was just too crazy to keep to myself.