Written by Suzanne Titkemeyer originally published at No Longer Quivering Patheos on February 1, 2018
Yesterday several of my friends were laughing over, or expressing outrage over the newest internet-driven teen fad – eating Tide Pods. I made the above meme based on a non-Tide eating serenity prayer one of my more witty friends came up with yesterday.
It’s a fad I just don’t get. The ice bucket challenge, the cinnamon challenge, coning and a host of other things seem dumb but innocent, well, at least they won’t usually harm you overmuch. Back in my teenage years in the Mesozoic era the fads were things like daring someone to chug a beer, or put a lit firecracker near the teacher’s desk. No one was risking possible organ failure and trashing their lungs.
Eating a package of harmful chemicals with known bad outcomes seems like the death of common sense to me, but after seeing this quote of Doug Wilson from Blog and Mablog I see that lack of all common sense is making a creeping inroads into the world of fundamentalism and evangelicalism too. Not that there hasn’t already been an element of that, all you have to do is read Nancy Campbell’s Encouragement For Women at her website Above Rubies daily to see how silly and nonsensical it’s all gotten.
I don’t know which of Doug Wilson’s post this very terrible advice comes from but it was shared by our friends at Spiritual Sounding Board and Lori Alexander Undeleted.
If you’re terribly unhappy with the way your spouse keeps the house just talk to them and come up with a mutual solution, like perhaps shared responsibilities, or having household help, or seeing if there is something you might do yourself to ease the burden. Real mature adults in marriage talk these things over, THEY DO NOT CALL IN A COMMITTEE TO SHAME THEIR PARTNER!!!!!!!!!!
Yes, so Doug’s advice should never be followed. This seems to me a good way to guarantee a divorce, or physical violence, or having Larry Solomon’s problems of never having sex with your spouse.
Evangelical men seem to be the weakest, most wimpy, childish, thin-skinned men on the planet if Doug and others like Tim Bayly and Steven Anderson are anything to go by.
This would have ended with a throw down to end all throw downs if this pious crew showed up on my doorstep trying to hector me into doing as they say in my marriage. Involving others in the process of dealing with disagreements and problems only adds a new level of toxicity to the process.
It’s just not that hard. It’s not complex. But you cannot solve problems in the marriage without actually talking together.