Patriarchy Never Sleeps

This Thanksgiving turned out to be a unique occasion, for two reasons. You probably heard about the first one, which is that Thanksgiving and the first day of Hanukkah coincided for the first time since 1888, and won’t do so again for the next 70,000 years (so here’s hoping you got your hands on a menurkey). The second one, however, seems to have been kept relatively quiet so far – probably due to the large amount of cooking and eating that’s been going on for the past day or so – but is nonetheless extremely pertinent to the mission of this blog.

Women and Children First! (TBB)

The “TBB” in the name of this post means that it is part of The Big Box series. If you’re new to Scarlet Letters, read the introductory post to see what the Big Box is all about.

Remember way back in March, when I promised we’d take a closer look at Doug Phillips’ views on Titanic? Well, that day has finally arrived. Unfortunately, we won’t actually get to talk much about Titanic, for two reasons. First, Phillips took the first forty minutes of his fifty-three minute lecture to actually get around to a direct discussion of the sinking, so we don’t have that much more information about his views than we did before. Second, given the sea change of the past week, there are much more important matters to discuss. So that being the case, let’s get the small potatoes out of the way now.

How to Evaluate a Suitor (TBB)

The “TBB” in the name of this post means that it is part of The Big Box series. If you’re new to Scarlet Letters, read the introductory post to see what The Big Box is all about.

This post is a first for Scarlet Letters. Not because there’s anything particularly special about the post itself, but because it will be the first Big Box post to analyze a lecture by Doug Phillips since the rather…erm…exciting events that have transpired at Vision Forum over the past week and a half. But never fear, dear readers: romantic indiscretions, no matter how lengthy or inappropriate they may have been, will never stop the Big Box. And so we press on, this time into the nebulous, but also strangely familiar, waters of How to Evaluate a Suitor.

The Proof Is in the…Chalice?

Remember what I said about “patriolatry” two weeks ago? Well, it’s about to get a whole lot worse. Because unfortunately for anyone who still doesn’t believe me about patriocentric men acting as mediators between their wives and Jesus, I’m sorry to say hard proof of my theory has just arrived. On a communion tray, of all things.

Strength and Dignity for Daughters, Part 2: Emotional Purity and Other Sundries (TBB)

The “TBB” in the name of this post means that it is part of The Big Box series. If you’re new to Scarlet Letters, read the introductory post to see what The Big Box is all about.

I might as well begin this post with a confession. Every time I have to read, listen to, or write about the Botkin sisters, sooner or later I always end up listening to and singing this song (any hardcore ballad nerds in my audience will recognize it as Child #10):

The reason I end up at Two Sisters whenever I write about the Botkins should be obvious by now: irony. The sisters in the ballad could not be more unlike Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin if they tried. First, I’m sure Elizabeth would never be caught dead accepting a gay gold ring and a beaver hat from a suitor without her father’s permission (in fact, perhaps Two Sisters is really about the perils of unsupervised courtship 😀 ). Second, Anna and Elizabeth would certainly never get into such hysterics over a boy. They are, after all, important purveyors of the idea of “emotional purity,” which I touched on before in my response to S. M. Davis’ lecture Seven Bible Truths Violated by Christian Dating.