Episode #14: Deadly Sexual Sin (According to the Church) #7: Don’t Ask Questions, with Jeremiah and Julia

We conclude our series on the Seven Deadly Sexual Sins (According to the Church) with reflections on the final sin: Don’t ask questions.

Not asking questions impacted our own sexual development, and ultimately the end of our marriages. We talk more about:

  • The conflation of faith with knowing about God (7:30). “We're big fans of the book of James in the Church of Christ. Faith without works is meaningless,” Jeremiah explains. He describes the youth program Leadership Training for Christ as the ultimate example of this; the mission statement involves “developing skills and leadership, bible knowledge, and Christian servanthood.” Questions were asked with the expectation that there was a right answer, and you were a good Christian if you knew said right answer.

  • The perfectionism of catechism (12:30). Julia’s experience of questions was through the Westminster Catechism, where she and her classmates were expected to recite the answers to three big questions. She reflects, “I would argue those aren't really even questions, right? If the answer is scripted, there is only one answer. And the level of perfection in answering the question is so high that my friends and I would obsess over an “a” instead of a “the”. A semicolon over a period. That produced high levels of anxiety for me.

  • Questions threaten a system (17:15). Jeremiah reminds us that “a system doesn't want to change, and the bigger a system, the harder it is for that change to happen. Answering questions that are curious questions invite new information, new considerations, and new variables.”

  • Questions threaten a theology (20:30). Evangelical Christianity espouses that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Moreso, the marriages that we have, which resemble God’s relationship with the church, are also supposed to be the same yesterday, today, and forever. Differences and evolution are both seen as threats according to this theology.

  • Celebrating questions (28:00). Jeremiah shares, “I love the way, Julia, that you said that there is an assumption moving into our relationship, for instance, that you're not gonna be the same person in five years and I'm not gonna be the same person in five years. There'll be some similarities, there may be a lot of similarities, but there's also gonna be some differences. And from my perspective, Julia, I'm really excited to get to know the Julia of five years. I think she's gonna be pretty amazing.”

  • Questions invite growth and self-reflection (38:30). Julia reflects, “I might be worth asking myself more questions. What if I am a queer woman? What if I don't want to be married? What happens if I keep asking myself these questions and actually answer them?” She describes the combination of fear and excitement that she faced while exploring these questions.

Not knowing is an extremely difficult skill to master, especially for those of us who grew up in contexts where knowing and believing were conflated. We’re excited to ask more questions of ourselves throughout our relationship, and on this podcast.

Let’s heal together!

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Episode #15: The Sex Education That We Wish We Had, with Doug Braun-Harvey, part 1

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Episode 13: Deadly Sexual Sin #6 (According to the Church): Don’t Say No, with Dr. Laura Anderson, part 2