{"id":7433,"date":"2012-06-24T16:06:41","date_gmt":"2012-06-24T16:06:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/?p=7433"},"modified":"2012-06-24T16:52:24","modified_gmt":"2012-06-24T16:52:24","slug":"smitten-by-god-or-something","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/smitten-by-god-or-something\/","title":{"rendered":"Smitten by God (or Something)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Here\u2019s <\/a>Sally Quinn in the Washington Post<\/em>:<\/p>\n

The mystics say you can find God anywhere. I believe many women have found him in \u201cFifty Shades of Grey.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trilogy has sold more than 10 million copies, mostly to women over 30 who can\u2019t put the books down. Publishing rights have been sold in 37 countries and movie rights have been secured by Universal.<\/p>\n

The books chronicle the relationship between a dominating male entrepreneur, Christian Grey, and a young female college graduate, the submissive Anastasia Steele. The series has been mulled by many writers who have debated whether or not this is a setback for women, to be attracted to a submissive relationship, or a breakthrough, to be able to openly read and discuss a book so sexually explicit that it is often referred to in the media as \u201cmommy porn.\u201d<\/p>\n

…I think the \u201cFifty Shades\u201d phenomenon is about religion.<\/p>\n

Not religion in the conventional sense of the word, but in how we are redefining faith practices today as more and more people–especially women–shun man-made traditions yet continue to yearn for religious experiences\u2026.<\/p>\n

\u2026 Grey starts out in the books intending to dominate (beat and cause pain to) Anastasia in his famous playroom dubbed \u201cThe Red Room of Pain,\u201d and ends up loving and not wanting (or rather willing) to hurt her. One could compare him to the God of some peoples\u2019 imagination.<\/p>\n

Christian is at times punishing, sadistic, angry, demanding, intolerant, fickle, bewildering, withholding, omnipotent, omniscient, awesome, abusive, kind, generous, wise and — above all — loving and cherishing.<\/p>\n

Just when Anastasia has had it and is about to give up on Christian for doing something absolutely appalling, just when she no longer believes in him, he redeems himself by doing something so outrageously wonderful that she cannot abandon him and is pulled back into the fold. Just when he is withholding his love from her and she is weeping and can no longer bear it, he embraces her with an overwhelming totality. Just when she is doubting herself for her submission, he turns the tables and offers himself to her.<\/p>\n

Sound familiar? These are some of the same emotional conflicts that I believe could be attributed to Mother Teresa and her lifetime struggle in her relationship with God.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Okey Dokey. <\/p>\n

But read the whole thing: it\u2019s interesting as an example of a certain type of vaguely “spiritual” mush passed off as thinking\u2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s Sally Quinn in the Washington Post: The mystics say you can find God anywhere. I believe many women have found him in \u201cFifty Shades of Grey.\u201d The trilogy has sold more than 10 million copies, mostly to women over … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[9,711],"tags":[926,927,928,334],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7433"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7450,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7433\/revisions\/7450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}