07.03.07
The Ring’s The Thing
Apparently chastity rings are now required symbols of the Christian faith. At least, that’s the only thing I can surmise from this post at Michelle Malkin’s blog. Rant after the jump.
There’s a part of me that is getting very tired of hearing the same rhetoric over and over again: “If I can’t do this thing, I’m being persecuted”. I’ve heard it from high-school “Wiccans” who demand to be able to carry their wands or athames to class; I’ve heard it from atheists who demand to be allowed to tell their religious contemporaries that their religions are all lies; and I’ve heard it far too often from Christians claiming that any outward display of faith that is quashed equates to persecution. Technically, that “part” is all of me.
Have you read Malkin’s post? Really, I can’t call it an article, since she quotes other stories for the majority of her content and gives but a few quips in reply. If not, please go read it now. Let’s see what we have so far in the first block quoted.
- Girl wears Chastity Ring.
- Girl is told she cannot wear the ring because it violates school uniform and jewelry restrictions.
- Girl compares her Chastity Ring to the Muslim niqab and Sikh kirpan.
What’s wrong with point 3? How about the fact that Muslim girls who wear niqab and Sikhs who carry the kirpan do so because their religion demands it of them. There is no similar precedent in Christianity; in fact, there’s nothing that demands that a Christian even wear a crucifix (never mind that many sects discourage wearing or even displaying the crucifix to alleviate the potential for idolatry). To compare wearing a ring that says “I have said I won’t get laid before I’m married” to items that are required by their respective faiths is on a level of intellectual dishonesty that leaves me thinking there may be some intent to it. Even worse, she disrespects other faiths further by simply referring to the niqab and kirpan as “distinctive dress to show their religious identity”. The fact of the matter is, Ms. Playfoot is horribly uneducated about what other religions demands of their followers; perhaps she should be spending more time learning things in school and less time proclaiming her faith with a tiny little silver ring.
Moving on to the second block of text, something should be hitting you in the face. In fact, Michelle mentions it before moving on to the second block herself. The girl’s family works for the company that makes the rings. Can you say “vested interest”, boys and girls? Of course this is going to be played up as “Christian persecution” - if the schools won’t let the children wear their proud badges of virginity, how is this girl’s family going to sell the damn things?
I could go on for pages about the problems with the passage quoted (1 Thessalonians 4:3-4). Instead, I’ll point out a couple issues.
- First and foremost, a mistranslation. The Koine Greek “porneia” does not mean “pre-marital sex”. What’s interesting is that, while the word can be used to refer to idolatry or eating sacrifices offered to other gods, it is almost never referred to as such in modern Christianity. It is nearly solely translated as a sexual reference. In fact, look for yourself. Find a verse where “porneia” is used that is explicit that it is being used as a sexual reference.
- Second, we have some selective quoting. Given full context and the Koine Greek, one sees that verses 3, 4, and 5 are responses to three points, not an answer to one all-encompassing question.
- Third, there are questions of message; frighteningly, verse 4 is translated in some versions (New American Bible, for example) to include referring to taking a wife. While the Koine “ktaomai” can be translated to mean marrying a wife, translating verse 4 to mean taking a wife disregards the following two words, which specifically refer to one’s own body. The only reason for translating verse 4 to refer to marriage is to bolster the claim that verse 3, translated with sexual references, must be the correct translation.
So what we have here is a group that makes rings for kids to wear to proclaim chastity (or, if they’ve already shagged, to embrace their “second virginity” - I want to see the Scriptural backing for that one!), that quotes a passage of the Bible that is controversial even among Biblical scholars, and whose message focuses solely on showing and embracing one’s faith by not screwing. And yet a girl claims “discrimination” when told to take the ring off because it violates her school’s uniform rules. So Christians should be able to disregard rules as long as they’re displaying their faith. I suppose life-size crucifixes are going to be “in” next.
Malkin, of course, drags out the specter of the flight attendant who was taken off flights to Saudi Arabia because she would not stop wearing her crucifix, and the one who was banned from flying to SA because she would not stop carrying her Bible. Of course, I disagree with the laws in Saudi Arabia that say that a person is not allowed to bring articles from other faiths into the country. But this does not mean that I think a company is “persecuting” their employees by asking them to follow the laws of a country into which the employee will be traveling.
Where did this verse go? Whose face is on that coin, again?
Check the comments on Malkin’s article while you’re still here. Specifically, take a look at this comment and the reply. The remaining Islam-centric comments aside, these two comments seem to encapsulate the issue at hand. More specifically, I’m not opening comments on this story because I don’t believe I’m going to get anything new or relevant here. You want to reply to me, give me a trackback.