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Tuesday, July 31st, 2018

To Betroth or Not to Betroth: When Courtship Took the Homeschool World by Storm

Author:     LIBBY ANNE
Source:     patheos
Publication Date:     JULY 30, 2018
 Link: To Betroth or Not to Betroth: When Courtship Took the Homeschool World by Storm
Stephan:   I have been following the development of the christofascist movement for over 30 years, and I have to confess the willful ignorance, the fear, the resentment and the racism often leave me gobsmacked. It is very weird to see people in the 21st century living a life based on early Iron-Age thinking. But even by those low standards I found this jaw-dropping. As I have said many times, the four characteristics of all fundamentalist movements -- Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, it doesn't matter -- are: 1) A sense of being special superior and chosen by God; 2)  an aggrieved sense of persecution; 3) an obsessive emphasis on male dominance; and, 4) a desperate need to control all humans with vaginas. You can see this clearly in this article.

Christian fundamentalists
Credit: Alamy

In looking for a specific article on the No Greater Joy website, I stumbled upon an article from 2000 titled “To Betroth or Not to Betroth? That is the Question.” In it, Michael Pearl, a fundamentalist Christian homeschool speaker and guru, made a case againstbetrothal. Here is what I find fascinating: by 2000, betrothal had become a common enough idea in his circles that Pearl felt the need to write against it.

Several years ago I attended a lecture on betrothal. Since then I have heard quite a few testimonies from those involved in it. Many of you have sent me your favorite book or tape on “betrothal.” I have read or listened to all of them and studied the Scripture carefully. We asked for testimonies concerning betrothal, whether good or bad. We received quite a few letters from people that had sour experiences through betrothal, some of them now married. As of the writing of this article, two months after publishing the request, we have not received […]

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