I guess my mind must be in the gutter because when I read that some Evangelicals were organizing "Purity Balls" for chastity it cracked me up as being ironic.
Though an article on this by a USA Today blogger has some quite silly rhetoric.
Yet there is something profoundly disturbing about these purity balls and all they represent. They reflect, and worse, they romanticize, several of the most pernicious aspects of patriarchal religion.
Yes looking at the current culture and the corruption of youth it is purity balls that are "profoundly disturbing." I did get a kick out of "pernicious aspects of patriarchal religion" and of course he goes on to say that religion sees sex as dirty. I guess the Song of Solomon and in fact pretty much most of the Bible must have slipped past him.
13 comments
Reall, Mr. Miller, you can’t require folks to actually READ what they complain about!
Yep, nothing like a bunch of chase kids gathering. What a bunch of sick-o’s. Why aren’t they out there bar hopping and having sex? I’ll even bet those ball goers wear dresses that cover their sholders, and cleavage.
What ever…..
“I guess the Song of Solomon and in fact pretty much most of the Bible must have slipped past him.”
Or JP’s Theology of the Body
“Purity Balls” . . . ?
For the sake of purity,
stay away from the “balls” . . . !
The headline “Purity Balls” conjured up an entirely different mental picture. Jeff, you owe me a new keyboard. 🙂
Sorry Joel,
If I provided keyboards for everyone that said I ruined theirs, I would be broke. I just hope I won’t be seeing a class action lawsuit.
“Purity balls” sounds to me like a laundry additive, something you toss into the washer when you do the cassocks and chausables. Maybe my mind’s too clean?
Cassocks and purity balls?
This is getting dirtier and dirtier….
As a hardcore patriarch–waiting for the Lord to make me leave my father’s country–I had the delight and pleasure of being with my daughter at a father-daughter dance when she was a girl scout in our parish. It was one of the loveliest times of our life together.
Now, she is twenty-three, and bright, funny, and hard-working; attributable, I hope in part, from being raised within the wonderfully patriarchal Church that was also filled with wonderful matriarchs who made sure that we patriarchs kept our crowns on straight.
I read the article. Seems to me what’s really missing is either the writer or the attendees (or both) miss the point that it’s not about abstinence. It’s about chastity – a commitment to a lifestyle, not just “giving up” sexuality. I’m glad I’ve gotten a Catholic perspective on that since I’ve been about 14.
Of course, if our religious heritage was truly against sex, there would have only one book in the Bible.
There are two things about the article that disturb me .
1. What’s the equivalent for males ? It does take two to tango, after all…
2. If that T-shirt she mentions is real, it’s either very misleading or a disgrace. “Hands Off This Property. My Father’s Watching” ? If that is referring to the human father, it’s blasphemous and a lie. I’m hoping that the T-shirt reference is actually to God, and the author missed it- in which case it is merely misleading.
I’m reminded of the article on the ‘quiverfull movement’ which made the blogosphere rounds recently, in which a dad is quoted as looking forward to ‘handing his daughter over to a godly man in marriage. ‘ I wanted to grab this guy through the computer screen and shake him. “Hand her over ? She’s your daughter, not a set of car keys, you twit !”
I ate a bourbon ball once. It ‘disturbed’ me greatly!
I suspect some folks got the idea that “religion sees sex as dirty” because they themselves only see it as an act of rec- and not pro-creation.
“Providing a stable home life? Raising children? That’s not sexy, therefore the religious are against sex, QED.”