holy discipline!

edmontonsun.com - World - Hubby charged in minister's beating

so. bishop thomas w. weeks (the 3rd) put the beat down on his wife, gospel singer/televangelist, juanita bynum in a hotel parking lot. he chokes her, 'stomps' on her, flees the scene, she ends up in the hospital, he's arrested and released on $40,000 bail, and then he goes to church.

his supporters, instead of fleeing a so-called spiritual leader who has poor impulse control, have instead chosen to circle their wagons and say totally sheeplistic, insane things like:
"There are three sides to every story. Nobody has the right to judge anybody. God is in the midst of that and will work it out."
"We all make mistakes. He deserves another opportunity."
"Let's love and pray they stay together! It may be a blessing to us all!"

and then there's this love letter from a commenter on an aol board:
"He might have a short fuse. He was obviously tryna walk away from the situation and SHE followed him. A man can only take so much from a nagging ass wife."

ah, yes. the 'nagging ass wife.'
in my community she's the mouthy, back-talking, sassy, 'don't know her place' emasculating jezebel that all men must beware.

according to church folk, here's the lesson for all us single church gals out there:
if our man has a 'short fuse,' it's no one's fault but our own nagging ass self for making him stomp us so hard in the face a parking lot attendant has to pull him off us.

i hate ignorance. i really really really do. and ignorance crossed with self-hatred and misogyny? even worse.

it's making me flashback to my old church where attitudes like this grew like rotten fruit on a tree.
...
more than slightly related to holy folks smacking around women, this morning i came across a piece discussing Christian Domestic Discipline!

it made me a little mad. i really can't take the church's fascination with disciplining women. the official CDD site is apparently not open to the public anymore thanks to all the attention it's been getting lately; but there are plenty of other blogs talking about, including feministing.

i love how the CDD folks make a point of saying this activity is consensual but i think there is a huge difference between consent and acquiescence. one implies enthusiastic participation, the other implies more than a hint of coercion.

let's repeat that: consent = enthusiastic participation

it's a useful distinction that could shed light on all sorts of situations, don't you think?