Josh Harris Announced "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" Was Discontinued

[dripcurl]

2 hours ago, refugee said:

Not sure I want to give them an email address. Is anyone willing to give a recap?

thanks in advance 

I am going to watch it now, and I just gave it a throw away email that I use for such things.

[hoipolloi]

Watched/listened to it earlier today while multi-tasking so this is more of an impressionistic summary of highlights than a recap. Apologies in advance for the lack of detail & inability to remember word for word.

It seemed to me to be mostly about Josh Harris trying to find out why IKDG made [Christian] people sad, upset, or didn't work for them. Gosh, he had no idea. He decides the best way to find out is to retrace the major steps of his professional life. [Lots of trite filmmaking stuff in this documentary start right around here: packing a suitcase; going out the door of his home; pulling his wheelie bag in airports; driving along highways & streets. The only thing missing is an image of turning calendar pages.]

There's a clip of him at first talking to his wife who reminisces on how she felt about their courtship and what she thought of him. He then goes back to the D.C. area to talk to (former?) church members who were attending Sovereign Grace's Covenant Life Church when he was a pastor there*. He goes to PA -- I think to visit Dannah Gresh (a purity pusher & author, motivational speaker, etc) . He then goes to California and talks to Elizabeth Esther, who'd responded to his initial tweeting about the IKDG controversy with this tweet:

Josh tells her he's sorry again. She rather eloquently explains what the problems were with IKDG & the whole purity culture movement. She acknowledges that he was very young when he wrote IKDG and he wasn't entirely responsible for the way it was (mis)used. He talks to Washington Post columnist Lisa Bonos who writes a lot about being single, dating & how people find spouses. Then he goes to a comedy club to find out about how well Tinder is working (as opposed to old-fashioned dating, I guess, or courtship -- the comedy club stuff seemed kind of stupid). Then he talks to various "experts," all of whom are fundie or fundie-lite, like Dale Kuehne (on sexuality), or Debra Fileta (a Christian marriage counselor), or Debra Hirsch (a social worker-sex therapist & pastor). You can see a longer list of the various experts at the FB page for the film. The film ends with Josh talking about the importance of grace and love in a voiceover while we see him & a bunch of people at a big feast -- Jesus welcomes everyone to the table, no one is perfect, everyone has sinned, we need to love one another & extend grace.

*He mentions early on that he left the CLC church in 2015 in order to enroll in graduate school in theology, in Vancouver, BC. This pissed me off because -- big surprise -- he says jack shit about the sexual abuse scandals that rocked that particular SGM church as well as a number of others, while he was actually a pastor at CLC within the SGM organization. Those scandals, of course, were the reason CLC & SGM largely imploded. I was NOT impressed by the disingenuous tone here and elsewhere, and of course none of the so-called experts connected the dots between an authoritarian, dogmatic approach like IKDG + courtship, with the abusive control of women & children that was/is a hallmark of SGM, and how that contributed to abuse situation at CLC. Needless to say, there was also no mention of CJ Mahaney, to whose pant leg Josh seemed to be attached for a number of years while he was at CLC. 

 

 

[refugee]

Thanks for that summary. Whew. It was plenty detailed enough to tell me it’s worthless. To me, at least.

Sounds like he’s learned little, if anything at all.

[hoipolloi]

32 minutes ago, refugee said:

Thanks for that summary. Whew. It was plenty detailed enough to tell me it’s worthless. To me, at least.

Sounds like he’s learned little, if anything at all.

I will admit that I am biased and the gliding over CLC/SGM without mention really pissed me off.

Once I heard that disingenuous bullshit, I was not inclined to give Josh Harris or anyone else in this "documentary" the benefit of the doubt.

[Anonymousguest]

1 hour ago, hoipolloi said:

I will admit that I am biased and the gliding over CLC/SGM without mention really pissed me off.

Once I heard that disingenuous bullshit, I was not inclined to give Josh Harris or anyone else in this "documentary" the benefit of the doubt.

While I would love for him to address the SGM stuff, I don't think this particular documentary is the place. It's not supposed to be about Josh Harris and his Awakening, it's a project specifically about IKDG. I think a rabbit trail of another controversy would detract from that. 

[Denim Jumper]

I think he was entirely too easy on himself, and deliberately stopped short of examining the damage caused by fast-tracked marriages between incompatible people. 

[Anonymousguest]

14 minutes ago, Denim Jumper said:

I think he was entirely too easy on himself, and deliberately stopped short of examining the damage caused by fast-tracked marriages between incompatible people. 

I haven't watched it, but that is disappointing. That's what I was hoping to hear about.

[Briefly]

50 minutes ago, Denim Jumper said:

I think he was entirely too easy on himself, and deliberately stopped short of examining the damage caused by fast-tracked marriages between incompatible people. 

That really isn't surprising, that he would not be hard on himself.  He doesn't sound like he's taking responsibility for any thing that might have happened, nothing negative, etc.

[formergothardite]

16 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

packing a suitcase; going out the door of his home; pulling his wheelie bag in airports; driving along highways & streets. The only thing missing is an image of turning calendar pages.]

You are not kidding. They could probably shave 30 min off this documentary if they cut out all the parts of him gazing wistfully, skate boarding, packing and traveling. 

His excuse that he got married and wasn't involved in the world of singles so he didn't really know what was going on with his book seems a bit on the disingenuous side. So far he is going very, very easy on himself. 

I'm still watching it but I really wish they would have shown more of him having to sit and watch people say how much his advice messed up their lives. They sort of skimmed through that section and didn't always show his face. The times they did he didn't look like he was very understanding of what they were saying, he looked more annoyed. Then there was a part where he was supposed to be walking out from having sat for hours talking to these people, showing how it visible upset him, but clearly that was not filmed on the same day. They pointed out that it was a cold rainy day the day they were doing this but everything is dry as a bone during his reaction.  It didn't come off as a genuine reaction of sadness after having listened to others about the damage done by the movement he started. 

Anyway, back to watching. 

ETA: they are showing more of him having to listen to people explain how screwed up his advice is. 

Edited November 25, 2018 by formergothardite

[formergothardite]

3 hours ago, Denim Jumper said:

I think he was entirely too easy on himself, and deliberately stopped short of examining the damage caused by fast-tracked marriages between incompatible people. 

Yes. He did. I feel like he was purposely keeping this as shallow as possible. He never really went into the wider culture of patriarchy that created this 21 year old guy who thought he was an expert on love and marriage. He touched on True Love Waits and other groups like that and how some of the methods of showing purity were screwed up, but didn't really go into the deep damage caused by that mindset. 

I personally found this extremely boring. I think it would have been better if instead of him saying "these are the problems with my book let me nod thoughtfully while others explain why what I said was problematic", he would have done this himself. He should have been saying, this is what I got wrong, this is what caused me to think this way and this is why what I said was completely wrong. 

I didn't get the point of going to the comedy club. If this was a documentary about how he acknowledges how he taught harmful things, then having a random bit where he shows 'worldly" dating hurts people too is out of place. 

I also didn't see why they devoted so much time to him directing actors on how to act out the opening of IKDG where the groom shows up at the altar with all the women he has ever dated. That seemed like just filler to make the documentary longer. 

And unless I missed it, he seemed to completely skip what happens when two people who barely know each other get married fairly fast and it ends up that they aren't compatible. We know some of his courtship "success" stories ended in divorce and I understand that the couple might not want to be a part of this, but he could have addressed that courtship led to people who shouldn't have gotten married getting married. 

He was completely easy on himself. He is acting like there is no way he could have known that in the very church he was pastor there were such strict rules about men and women talking all based on his books. It felt like he didn't want to admit that yes he knew all along people were taking his books as the gospel truth and being very legalistic about it, and that he watched this happening and did nothing. 

[Denim Jumper]

Yeah, I too thought the comedy club scene was a weird juxtaposition. Like the only alternative to courtship is Tinder.

[formergothardite]

I also found it odd when he was saying something about how not all paths to marriage are going to be like his, he out of the blue threw in a line about how some people mind find they are attracted to the same sex and they would have to deal with that before God. It came off in a very pray away the gay before marriage sort of way, at least to me. 

7 minutes ago, Denim Jumper said:

Like the only alternative to courtship is Tinder.

I couldn't figure out if he was trying to say that while his teachings caused harm so does the "worldly" way or what. It was just a very strange section that didn't seem to add anything to the discussion of his books. 

[erunerune]

It was a really shallow take after all of the build-up. It was like seeing a picture of a tip of an iceberg coated in crowd-funded glitter. Dumb kid Josh Harris wasn’t responsible for whatever courtship/purity evangelical shitshow elected him spokesmodel 20 years ago, but adult Josh wimped out on a deep, nuanced analysis (he’s potentially incapable of this, though). Not even 90 minutes, really? Skateboarding and numbly nodding are no substitutes for substance.

[formergothardite]

7 minutes ago, erunerune said:

numbly nodding 

This seems to be the perfect description of what he did most of the documentary. He just nodded along with whoever was talking. 

I might have missed it, but I don't remember him saying what HE found wrong with the book while looking at it now, it was issues other's had. If people were wanting him to analyze his teachings and explain where he thinks he went wrong, this is not the documentary for that. 

[hoipolloi]

Thank you, @formergothardite. Your comments are spot on.

Yes, the comedy club scenes were just pointless and stupid. It's ridiculous to compare the IKDG spiel, with its emphasis on daddy-centered courtship & control, with something like Tinder or Bumble (or Grindr or Christian Mingle, for that matter).  Just a bogus comparison. 

You've hit on what really irked me about this documentary, apart from what I've already called out. Josh did not seriously consider or explore the problems people tried to bring up to him, and it became clear that he really wasn't interested in hearing what they had to say. The hand-picked "experts" just provided Josh with PhD-approved echo chambers for what he already thought anyway, and did not cause him to think or have new insights.

And, yes, I realize that this "documentary" was not about the SGM sexual abuse scandal nor could it include any serious overview, but the total silence on that very significant set of events in Josh's professional career was disgusting. If he is really planning a comeback in Christian ministry and wants to be more than another Mark Driscoll, Josh Harris needs to come to terms with all of this, and in a public way. While he probably does not bear the level of responsibility for the ongoing sexual abuse that CJ Mahaney or some others in the SGM hierarchy have, Josh is not blameless. He was there as a pastor and as such had power and likely some knowledge. He needs to come clean and quit pretending that it's nothing to do with him.

 

[hoipolloi]

Well, this FB entry makes it clear that we won't be seeing Josh Harris come to terms with SGM anytime soon, if ever.

Probably also explains why the IKDG "documentary" is such a dud -- Josh Harris is neither capable of nor willing to engage in any self-examination.

 

[Spinosaurus]

 

Quote

So many chances for us all to point fingers and blame.

Yes...  Actually, I think pointing fingers at and blaming people who've committed sexual abuse is not necessarily a bad thing.

 

[formergothardite]

8 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

Josh did not seriously consider or explore the problems people tried to bring up to him, and it became clear that he really wasn't interested in hearing what they had to say.

At the end of the documentary I was left wondering what exactly the point of making it was. Earlier I said I wondered if the book is the elephant in the room that he can't rebrand himself without at least pretending to address, and that is what I think this was really about. This documentary is basically a big show trying to make it appear like he is acknowledging the flaws in his early teachings and examining why he was wrong how he hurt people, but in reality it was just him getting super close to doing that but not actually going through with it. It was all "this is what other people say are problems with my book and here are other people discussing these problems while I sit here and mostly stay quiet." 

[Palimpsest]

Thanks for the lengthy recaps @hoipolloi and @formergothardite.   I haven't watched it yet, so perhaps I shouldn't comment, but it all confirmed my suspicions that this was not going to be a good documentary.  It sounds more like Joshua still patting himself on the back for admitting that he *may* have been wrong about IKDG.  Again.

He needs to stand up and admit responsibility for being wrong about IKDG and a whole lot of other stuff before I give him the time of day.

As for this:

9 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

 

 

Go fornicate yourself, Joshua Harris.

 

[formergothardite]

1 hour ago, Palimpsest said:

It sounds more like Joshua still patting himself on the back for admitting that he *may* have been wrong about IKDG.  Again.

It was very much all about him. At one point he finally admits that the book put a lot of pressure on people to conform to rigid rules, but he turns it right back to himself and says something like "well I've felt pressure too." He doesn't go any deeper into that, though, just that he dealt with pressure to conform. 

[formergothardite]

The documentary hasn't seemed to have attracted a ton of attention. In searching for discussions on it I found this quote from him which I think explains why he did this half-hearted attempt at reflection. 

Quote

I’ve wanted to move on from this book for some time

He couldn't rebrand until he dealt with this. Of course, he didn't actually deal with it, he put on a show of dealing with it. 

[erunerune]

If Harris showed up here for Fundie Friday that would be awesome. I’m trying to practice magical thinking more often to offset all of the 2+2=5 I’ve been dealing with lately.

[VVV]

On 11/25/2018 at 12:13 AM, hoipolloi said:

Well, this FB entry makes it clear that we won't be seeing Josh Harris come to terms with SGM anytime soon, if ever.

Probably also explains why the IKDG "documentary" is such a dud -- Josh Harris is neither capable of nor willing to engage in any self-examination.

 

Wait, what? What church in Gaithersburg? That's my hometown. My family left in the 1980s so maybe this was after our time there, but that caught me off guard. 

Edit: never mind. Way, way, way after my time.

Edited December 2, 2018 by VVV
Google was my friend.

[hoipolloi]

1 hour ago, VVV said:

What church in Gaithersburg?

Pretty sure he's referring to Covenant Life Church.

[Howl]

On 11/25/2018 at 12:13 AM, hoipolloi said:

Well, this FB entry makes it clear that we won't be seeing Josh Harris come to terms with SGM anytime soon, if ever.

Probably also explains why the IKDG "documentary" is such a dud -- Josh Harris is neither capable of nor willing to engage in any self-examination.

The archetypal "why can't we all just get along?" post.  "So many sides. So many stories. So many disappointments."  Conveniently omitting that so many  lives were destroyed by your crazy patriarchal beliefs, and not just IKDG. 

The "hipster shaved head and beard, hoodie, sippin' a grande in a hipster coffee shop and thinking about life" vibe gets right under my skin and not in a good way. That guy better not be rocking tats.