Josh Harris rethinks his approach to courtship

[louisa05]

27 minutes ago, Terrie said:

If he was serious, he would pull the book. By continuing to make money off it, he is trying to have it both ways and please everyone, but especially his bottom line. Seems like this latest is nothing more than publicity for him.

It depends on the contract he had with the publishing company. It might not be that easy for him to just pull it. It was a bestseller and, as I understand it, continues to sell well. If the publisher has long term rights, it could be a legal battle for him to get it off the shelves. 

[EmiGirl]

This book along with Gothard has made my marriage incredibly difficult.

[Othello]

A couple of tweets I saw recently on the subject that made me laugh:

 

 

[CyborgKin]

The general courtship/dating topic came up in conversation in my home a few days back.  My dad basically said that while having some kind of set process may work out for some people in some circumstances, it's more important for us to be 'practical' about it.  (In other words, being super picky about procedure is a luxury for those who are overwhelmed with choices.)  It was a pretty decent discussion, though highly hypothetical

Living out of town and attending a small church with no young adults outside our family isn't helping much.

[nausicaa]

2 hours ago, CyborgKin said:

The general courtship/dating topic came up in conversation in my home a few days back.  My dad basically said that while having some kind of set process may work out for some people in some circumstances, it's more important for us to be 'practical' about it.  (In other words, being super picky about procedure is a luxury for those who are overwhelmed with choices.)  It was a pretty decent discussion, though highly hypothetical

Living out of town and attending a small church with no young adults outside our family isn't helping much.

Not that you asked for suggestions, but are there any other nearby churches with more young adults? Or a multichurch 20s and 30s group or Christian MeetUp group? (You're in Australia right? Not sure how big MeetUp is there.)

[CyborgKin]

10 hours ago, nausicaa said:

Not that you asked for suggestions, but are there any other nearby churches with more young adults? Or a multichurch 20s and 30s group or Christian MeetUp group? (You're in Australia right? Not sure how big MeetUp is there.)

i'm not familiar with MeetUp.

There's dozens of different churches around but I'm nit comfortable going solo church-hopping to meet singles in my area

[Palimpsest]

21 hours ago, SpeakNow said:

 

Joshua Harris admits that the advice in his book isn't perfect, and he wants feedback. People have been giving him some super honest feedback and using the hashtag #ikissedshamegoodbye. There's a slate article about it.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/faithbased/2016/08/i_kissed_dating_goodbye_author_is_maybe_kind_of_sorry.html

 

Good article.  

Apparently he is publishing the feedback - even the blistering comments - but I also agree with this part because I don't trust Josh Harris as far as I could throw him.  

Quote

After Harris posted his call for reader reactions, a group of critics started soliciting responses at “Life After I Kissed Dating Goodbye” to “keep the power of the stories in the hands of those they belong to.” In June, the Toast hosted a roundtable discussion on the book’s impact headlined “Recovering From I Kissed Dating Goodbye.” “The idea that is so insidious in IKDG is the idea that our bodies are our power—that as a woman the best gift you can give to a man is your virginity,” writer Lyz Lenz lamented. Last month the hashtag #KissShameBye became another place for people to share their stories about how the book affected them:

[My bolding, above.]

20 hours ago, Terrie said:

If he was serious, he would pull the book. By continuing to make money off it, he is trying to have it both ways and please everyone, but especially his bottom line. Seems like this latest is nothing more than publicity for him.

He may not be able to pull the book completely, depending on the contract with the publishers) but he could do a damn sight better job of apologizing and repudiating it than he has done so far.  It is a small step in the right direction, that is all.

To me, what he's saying so far more resembles, "Oopsie, perhaps I may have been little bit wrong.  Sorry if people got hurt by my teensy mistakes.  I'm rethinking parts of it so give me feedback." 

As you say, it feels like a publicity drive not really repudiating the book.

[louisa05]

19 hours ago, Othello said:

A couple of tweets I saw recently on the subject that made me laugh:

 

 

The second tweet is sad because it is true. The older people around Josh who no doubt encouraged him to put himself in that position and the older people who pushed the book onto young adults and teens hold a lot of responsibility here as well. A lot of us arrogantly think we have everything figured out at 21, but most of us don't get book contracts to tell everyone what we (don't) know.

[Jasmar]

He's preaching at the local mega this weekend. I partly really want to go to see for myself not only what he says and does, but how the church staff presents him, introduces, him, etc. But I don't know if I can sit through an evangelical church service at this point - too many triggers for comfort.

[Rhetorica]

23 hours ago, Jasmar said:

He's preaching at the local mega this weekend. I partly really want to go to see for myself not only what he says and does, but how the church staff presents him, introduces, him, etc. But I don't know if I can sit through an evangelical church service at this point - too many triggers for comfort.

That would really be taking one for the team, but I'd be so curious to know what you find if you do decide to go!

[Terrie]

What baffles me is the whole bit about "giving away pieces of your heart." Last I checked, love is not a finite resource. 

[Rhetorica]

26 minutes ago, Terrie said:

What baffles me is the whole bit about "giving away pieces of your heart." Last I checked, love is not a finite resource. 

Right, and then you have the Duggars' book titled, "A love that multiplies." So is love finite or isn't it??

[bashfulpixie]

1 hour ago, Rhetorica said:

Right, and then you have the Duggars' book titled, "A love that multiplies." So is love finite or isn't it??

It only multiplies when it's making them money. 

[nokidsmom]

I doing research for my nephew who is starting college next year, I recently learned that the nonsense principles being put forth in this book as well as purity culture has taken hold at my college alma mater.   All I can say that I am glad this book wasn't around back when I was going.  I was one of the non evangelical student population attending but I watched the evangelical students twist themselves in knots over dating, marriage, sex and "being Biblical".  Of course, there were those who didn't care and did whatever, but I can't imagine even more "requirements" being put on the students there today.

[foreign fundie]

On 7/28/2016 at 2:39 AM, formergothardite said:

Yeah, it seems to me that he wants to spin this into another money making venture, not admit that his book was a pile of crap. 

I briefly had a crush on Josh Harris when his book first came out. 

Admitting this on a fundie snark forum makes you one of the bravest people I have met on-line.

By the way, all your comments are really useful in helping me think through how I want to educate my growing daughter on relationships. I realise that many aspects of purity culture (though rationally softened) have filtered through in the way I was raised. And although I do believe they can protect from unnecessary heart ache, I still want to teach my child to do the right things for the right reasons.

[seraaa]

He's gone off to Seminary or a religious studies course now, hasn't he?

Perhaps in a few years we'll get the follow-up to "Why I kissed dating goodbye " in which he abjures the things he wrote in that book.

[smittykins]

2 hours ago, bashfulpixie said:

It only multiplies when it's making them money. 

It divides if you date.  It multiplies if you have gazillionty kids.

[CyborgKin]

10 hours ago, seraaa said:

He's gone off to Seminary or a religious studies course now, hasn't he?

Perhaps in a few years we'll get the follow-up to "Why I kissed dating goodbye " in which he abjures the things he wrote in that book.

I thought he already wrote a follow-up, so he'll have to write a backflip from both.

 

I found a book called The Way of a Man with a Maid by a Robin Philips, which is a response to the courtship movement.  What I've read so far is clearly down on Gothard and Lindvall but it keeps favourably quoting Doug Wilson, which is very uncomfortable.

[hoipolloi]

This is about MJLG -- make Josh look good. As the saying goes, the only bad publicity is no publicity at all.

Maybe I've missed it but has Josh explicitly renounced his twisted & perverse "theology" anywhere? All I've seen are weasel words at his website & in the various interviews, etc. he's done recently.

 

[seraaa]

He hasn't really spoken about it in theological detail or formally apologised properly, as far as I've seen. What he has said is that he's prepared to "make a study and look at the culture and the effects of the book".

The optimistic part of me would like to think he'll use the time to properly reflect and understand the damage caused, but who knows. He hasn't denounced any of the teachings definitively thus far.

[Palimpsest]

14 minutes ago, seraaa said:

He hasn't really spoken about it in theological detail or formally apologised properly, as far as I've seen.

Agreed. The Slate article that called it an ongoing not-quite-apology (IIRC) was about right.  The most he has said so far is - perhaps it was a mistake and maybe he should have said some things differently.

Not exactly taking back anything yet.

 

[formergothardite]

On 8/28/2016 at 10:54 AM, foreign fundie said:

Admitting this on a fundie snark forum makes you one of the bravest people I have met on-line.

He was sort of hot back in the 90's.  I'm sure I was not the only fundie teen girl who wanted to help Josh Harris kiss dating goodbye. 

[Anonymousguest]

He hasn't said anything to indicate he's retracting anything. He tweeted that he would be interested in hearing from people who were negatively impacted. I don't expect he's had a full change anything over it. But he was a teen when he wrote it and has a teen of his own now, I'm sure that he has matured in some way that might change how he would present the material now. 

But in his defense, as others have said, why was he chosen as the spokes person for not dating? His book was part of a movement, part of a subculture that had many influences. It seems a bit grandiose to give him all the credit. How many people only read his book and applied it to their lives without any other influence of the subculture?

[GenerationCedarchip]

1 minute ago, Anonymousguest said:

He hasn't said anything to indicate he's retracting anything. He tweeted that he would be interested in hearing from people who were negatively impacted. I don't expect he's had a full change anything over it. But he was a teen when he wrote it and has a teen of his own now, I'm sure that he has matured in some way that might change how he would present the material now. 

But in his defense, as others have said, why was he chosen as the spokes person for not dating? His book was part of a movement, part of a subculture that had many influences. It seems a bit grandiose to give him all the credit. How many people only read his book and applied it to their lives without any other influence of the subculture?

Very true. I was being taught a lot of the ideas in that book even before the book came out. And frankly, some of what was being taught in youth group in the late 90s/early 2000s went way beyond what Josh Harris said in his book.

[Palimpsest]

1 hour ago, Anonymousguest said:

But in his defense, as others have said, why was he chosen as the spokes person for not dating? His book was part of a movement, part of a subculture that had many influences. It seems a bit grandiose to give him all the credit. How many people only read his book and applied it to their lives without any other influence of the subculture?

Yes, it was part of a movement.  I'm not keen on excusing him because he's built his success on this stuff - and so did his younger twin brothers with their Rebelution crap.   http://therebelution.com/about/alex-brett-harris/

Josh was chronologically 21 when IKDG was published.  Probably pushed by the paternal unit and possibly young for his age.  He was the poster boy for the movement and  took the fame and ran with it.  Rejoiced in it.  He also wrote Boy Meets Girl: Say Hello to Courtship , Not Even a Hint: Guarding Your Heart Against Lust and Sex Is Not the Problem (Lust Is): Sexual Purity in a Lust-Saturated World.   He wasn't 21 when he published those.

So 20 odd years later Josh Harris reconsiders. Or says he is reconsidering. It may have to do with the scandal at Covenant Life Church (CLC) and he is desperately trying to distance himself from that.  And he really should want to repudiate that.

At the moment he seems to be trying to excuse his life work without apologizing for it and to paint himself as a victim to boot.

I'm not buying it.  

If Josh Harris wants to reinvent himself then I want to see proof in the pudding.  A decent apology would be a start.  He is no longer 21 and he needs to take responsibility for what he has preached for 20 years -and earned a whole lot of cash for preaching and writing about over 20 years.

He is not a kid any more.