Anonymous wrote:You want to talk about “church abuse”, Jen?

Let’s talk about how ANC treated Dale Lear.

Anonymous wrote:Read the small excerpt on her IG and I don't think I can read any more. She is trying so hard to write her own Handmaid's Tale.

I don't want to hear a word about bodies from a woman who publicly shames an overweight person on a plane.

I am a couple of years older than Jen, and spent plenty of time in Southern Baptist youth group (Nashville, no less.) Purity culture was about sex being important enough, and special enough, to wait until marriage. It had plenty of flaws, but I think this was its main message- that sex was a gift from God, who made our bodies wonderfully.

I was raised in a mostly non-churchgoing household, but went to youth group on Wednesdays with a friend and her family. The church message was a relief from everything else that I was reading and watching at home, which was Cosmo and HBO and Cinemax. I just get frustrated with Jen so much because she just maligns everything to do with her church background (that her father was a big, positive part of).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A tell all about the supposed horrors of purity culture would have been interesting and fresh about 15 years ago.

But a 50 year old woman writing about it in 2024-2025?

If Jen was so scarred by purity culture is she going to put her own beloved father/pastor on blast or will he somehow totally get a pass?

Exactly! Wasn't her father her pastor? And apparently he can do no wrong? And neither can her mother, who I imagine had a lot to do with how sex was presented to her. How does she reconcile the two? I also have an evangelical background (from one of the largest megachurches in the nation, but not Baptist). I'm almost two years older than Jen but "purity culture" wasn't really a thing. We mostly just talked about saving sex for marriage. There was a little bit about dressing modestly (girls AND boys), acting modestly, and not living in sin. But it wasn't constantly drummed in our heads. And nothing about it made me feel shame about my body. I probably could have used more information about sex, but I wasn't taught that it made me dirty. My parents (mostly mom) supplemented that by telling me that there is nothing to be ashamed about by sex itself and it's great when shared between two loving, married, people. And that if I ever did get pregnant while unmarried, to please come to them and not hide. Just because SHE had a bad experience doesn't mean all evangelicals did.

And hasn't this topic been rehashed by many other authors?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I agree about Jen. She has such warmth about her and was a great story teller. She also seemed much more humble and self-aware. I recall she had friends then too, but there wasn't this obsessive need to brag about all her friends and post girlie photos like a middle school girl who wants you to know she's popular.

In her earlier books, she wrote about her friends being very supportive to her in various, normal ways, and how they would band together and pool resources to help folks in their community, like single moms who were quietly having food insecurity or general needs, like dishes, etc. No fanfare, but just friends doing good work in the name of Jesus. Even her anecdotes about Tray and his pager were actually funny. But these were Interrupted and 7 stories- so I wonder if she changed editors after them?
What bits I read of subsequent books were just family stories and increasing braggy content, without much warmth or relatability or much of a point, really.

Except even that was BS. I posted this before but I had an ANC Meal Train when my family really needed support and surprise surprise I was ghosted by Jen. No call, no sorry I forgot. Nothing. She signed up because it looked good and left us high and dry.

She had no problem dropping her kids with any of us at any time or taking our tithes and our book sales.

After the whole affirming LGBT incident at church they even had the congregation (what was left) hand make them greeting cards because their lives were so hard.

If I read this forum because I’m still mad it’s because I am.

No doubt you're mad. And delusional.

She’s lucky she never had to experience it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A tell all about the supposed horrors of purity culture would have been interesting and fresh about 15 years ago.

But a 50 year old woman writing about it in 2024-2025?

If Jen was so scarred by purity culture is she going to put her own beloved father/pastor on blast or will he somehow totally get a pass?

Exactly! Wasn't her father her pastor? And apparently he can do no wrong? And neither can her mother, who I imagine had a lot to do with how sex was presented to her. How does she reconcile the two? I also have an evangelical background (from one of the largest megachurches in the nation, but not Baptist). I'm almost two years older than Jen but "purity culture" wasn't really a thing. We mostly just talked about saving sex for marriage. There was a little bit about dressing modestly (girls AND boys), acting modestly, and not living in sin. But it wasn't constantly drummed in our heads. And nothing about it made me feel shame about my body. I probably could have used more information about sex, but I wasn't taught that it made me dirty. My parents (mostly mom) supplemented that by telling me that there is nothing to be ashamed about by sex itself and it's great when shared between two loving, married, people. And that if I ever did get pregnant while unmarried, to please come to them and not hide. Just because SHE had a bad experience doesn't mean all evangelicals did.

And hasn't this topic been rehashed by many other authors?

Exactly! Wasn't her father her pastor? And apparently he can do no wrong? And neither can her mother, who I imagine had a lot to do with how sex was presented to her. How does she reconcile the two?