Not Your Momma's Sunday School Bible

[arisbe]

"The story is that she had oral sex with a guy friend of ours last week. Just for fun. They're not dating, although they've always flirted with each other a lot. Emma took one look at my face this morning, and she knew I knew."

Comments

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

I thought at first it would be horrible, but now? Dunno.

Maybe I don't like it, but maybe as a parent, I'll need it? (as just one of many tools.)

It didn't bug me as much as the Message bible (I think that's the name).

I am constantly re-evalutating what is and isnt ok for kids, because they always throw me for a loop. Mine, at least.

[llhinkle.livejournal.com]

This is SO interesting. THe Bible IS full of sex and violence, its true...but I think my sensibility is more offended by the authoritarian way in which this book seems to manage these issues. I dunno.

[mendaxveritas.livejournal.com]

The grotesque thing is that these new "teen-oriented" articles seem to be written on the level of the usual patronizing "educational" crap that I remember encountering back in junior high. Any kid who isn't a complete idiot recognizes this rubbish immediately and writes it off. To insert such material into the Bible degrades the whole book by association. I'm not even a Christian (of the conventional type, anyway) and I find this highly offensive.

[yechezkiel.livejournal.com]

"Having seven daughters myself, I am deeply grieved that parents would encourage their young daughters to read such graphic narratives. I would not give this 'Bible' to my 20-year-old virgin daughter to read – much less a 13-year-old. Why should she have images of oral sex, lesbianism and rape in her mind?"

Am I the only that found this creepy-sounding?

[scottso.livejournal.com]

So, um... do you have Emma's number?

[novak.livejournal.com]

All this regarding a book that just calmly accepts the two-day gang-rape of Lot by his daughters!

I'm rather ambivalent about the articles, I guess. It seems President Clinton re-arranged America's sexual map by putting oral sex on the congnitive map of our Jr. High-schoolers, and now we deal with the consequences. If my teenage daughter read a brief narrative that made her consider the issue in a moral mode--consider it at a level that she might be unwilling to hear from me at the time--then I suppose it's actually all to the good, even if I'd prefer that she live in a world where she didn't have to ask herself questions about such topics quite yet. I would assume that the parent stay an active conversation-partner to the child and not abdicate all responsibility to the Bible or these introductions, and I think that being willing (and able!) to talk about sexuality in a de-mystified, human, and even entertaining way would go a long way to providing the kind of guidance that augments and authenticates such a piece as this narrative. Well, I guess I'm not so ambivalent after all....

[present-mirth.livejournal.com]

Not to my taste, but not wicked either.