The Boundless blog: Steve and Candice Watters - what do you think you are doing?
Captain Sensible writes: Ok, I think Boundless have finally reached the pits of irresponsibility.
They have now posted a comment by a Christian man saying that God will bring about the desires of our hearts (ie. marriage) through "no effort on our part".
Of course, we wouldn't expect Ted Slater to step in and challenge that -- he is after all just a male version of Carolyn McCulley, pre her new "both/and" stance.
But Steve and Candice Watters, do you not read your own blog?
I believe you care about this issue; you care about the wrong messages singles receive; and you have done some sterling work to encourage men to be more proactive.
So why do you allow your blog to reinforce wrong teaching?
I am washing my hands of Boundless.
I simply do not have the time to firefight continually, when you are the ones choosing to post unhelpful comments and leave them sitting there unchallenged; muddling and confusing people.
One day I believe we will all be held to account for our contribution to the blogosphere.
Every word we have written ourselves and every word we have provided a platform for and left unchallenged, will be examined. (And this is a wider warning than just Boundless of course.)
I firmly believe it's time to step up our level of personal responsibility with regard to blogs.
It's a new medium and we're all just learning as we go along.
But it's time to grow-up now.
They have now posted a comment by a Christian man saying that God will bring about the desires of our hearts (ie. marriage) through "no effort on our part".
Of course, we wouldn't expect Ted Slater to step in and challenge that -- he is after all just a male version of Carolyn McCulley, pre her new "both/and" stance.
But Steve and Candice Watters, do you not read your own blog?
I believe you care about this issue; you care about the wrong messages singles receive; and you have done some sterling work to encourage men to be more proactive.
So why do you allow your blog to reinforce wrong teaching?
I am washing my hands of Boundless.
I simply do not have the time to firefight continually, when you are the ones choosing to post unhelpful comments and leave them sitting there unchallenged; muddling and confusing people.
One day I believe we will all be held to account for our contribution to the blogosphere.
Every word we have written ourselves and every word we have provided a platform for and left unchallenged, will be examined. (And this is a wider warning than just Boundless of course.)
I firmly believe it's time to step up our level of personal responsibility with regard to blogs.
It's a new medium and we're all just learning as we go along.
But it's time to grow-up now.
posted by Captain Sensible at 12:59 AM
5 Comments:
Okay, as if proof were needed of the damage Boundless is doing with its mixed messages, here is a comment posted by "Sarah", offering her thanks to the blog for showing her that marriage happens in God's timing and, in effect, Christian men and women shouldn't do anything in that direction themselves, as if to do so would be to try and somehow get ahead of God's timing.
So thanks Boundless for giving Christian women (and MEN!!!) the idea that they should do nothing to bring marriage about and just wait on God's timing.
Now hang on! What thinking did Candice Watters criticise just a matter of a couple of weeks' ago? Wasn't it this: "If God wants you married, He'll make it happen. If you try to make it happen, you'll risk upsetting God's will for your life. Be the best single you can be and leave the rest to Him."
Why can't Candice Watters see that her blog is CONTRIBUTING to this kind of thinking? No matter how helpful the opening post may be (and frankly, unless it is written by Steve or Candice Watters, even that is dubious), then by the time people have read through a string of unhelpful comments, with no intervention from the Boundless staff, any possible benefit is completely lost anyway! Yes, as Candice points out, such thinking as the above is highly prevalant. Hence, the majority of the comment posters are simply repeating what they have been told elsewhere. That's why it would be a full-time job to put all of these comments right. THAT'S WHY BOUNDLESS SHOULD BE DOING THIS THEMSELVES, OR IF THEY DON'T HAVE THE TIME/STAFF TO DO THIS, THEN THEY SHOULD NOT BE POSTING THESE COMMENTS IN THE FIRST PLACE! Oh the irony of their comments policy where they caution against sloppy punctuation and spelling! Talk about worrying over a splinter when there is a bloomin' great plank in front of their eyes!
Am I missing something here? Am I being incredibly stupid? Or are they?
"Thanks once again for 'hitting the nail on the head' in this blog.
As we grow closer to God I think the desires that He has placed within us sometimes intensify, not weaken. It is simply allowing Him to be the author (of) the timing and way that He wants to fulfil those desires. A quote I read recently summed this up: "Because God matters infinitely, everything else matters MUCH MORE in the light of Him." (Simon Guillebaud)"
(I have added the bold in the above comment)
Rant now over ;)
As far as the quote from your response: "As we grow closer to God I think the desires that He has placed within us sometimes intensify, not weaken."
That echoes my statement of some time ago where closer you get to a relationship with God, the more it is possible that you will WANT marriage because you get closer and closer to the entity that CREATED marriage in the first place so naturally the stronger your relationship is to God, the more you will want the very thing He created.
I don't mean to repeat the same thing but I couldn't help but notice that this other person posted something so similar in thought.
Yes, I agree. It reminded me of your comment when I read it. That's not the part I take issue with, of course! It's the wait on the Lord's timing bit I have a problem with!
And now, with the latest comment on Boundless from "Jessi", I am beyond exasperation with them!
This is me officially dusting the sand off my sandals and leaving them to it!
Somebody please tell people who believe in 'God's perfect timing' to grow up and listen to their sex-drive! It's obnoxious credulous childish RUBBISH!
I've actually come across Christians - very holier-than-thou types - who believe that God will show unmarried couples when the timing is right for them to have sex in a premarital relationship. This is self-serving selfish nonsense, which logically follows from putting the idea of 'God's timing for ME and MY life' above the more ordinary truth that God means for men to find wives, and for women to look for husbands.
The truth of the matter is that belief in 'God's perfect timing' and the fact that it is linked to precise sexual instructions betrays that Christians who believein this suffer from an abnormal degree of anxiety and have serious difficulties making adult decisions. This is a serious psychological problem, arguably a sign of mental illness. It shouldn't be spiritualised at all.
As for Candice Watters, what she says about praying for a spouse and that this is within God's will is of course good advice, but I don't see evidence of her actively contributing to narrowing the Christian sex-ratio.
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