Monday, February 05, 2007

sidenote: on epidural evangelism



one more thing. last week i was reminded of how much i hate manipulative evangelism when we watched a video entitled, epidurals are evil at our bradley method class.* now, i must confess that i love our bradley teacher and i think the aforementioned method of coached childbirth is quite helpful. however, sometimes the bradley content either implies or flat out asserts that non-natural childbirth methods are, well, pretty much of the devil.

for instance, two weeks ago we watched a video that made the following assertions - by which i mean literally, they were pasted across the screen in times new roman font while playing "watch out big breasted teenager, freddy is going to get you music:"

"500,000 women in america undergo cesarean sections every year. 300,000 of these cesarean sections are medically unnecessary."

"obstetricians hate women!"

"if we want peace in the middle east, the first step is natural childbirth.**"

after the video was over, our instructor asked us what we thought of the video and i bit my lip and resisted the impulse to respond with "hello? any of yous ever heard of marshall mcluhan?!" now that i've had a couple of weeks to reflect on the video i still think that it sucked.

in sum, this video convinced me of two things:

1) christians are not the only ones who participate in manipulative proselytism***

and

2) however and whenever i invite people to follow the way of Jesus, i should not do so in a way that either demeans or clearly misrepresents other options

i'm telling you, as far as manipulative tripe, the thief in the night had nothing on this video. if the video wasn't shot in 1976, i'd swear it was produced by rudolph hess dick cheney.**** in all seriousness, i'm sure that a number of people who have chosen not to walk in the way of Jesus have been as offended by "gospel presentations" as i was by that video. that thought makes me sick.

* as the pixie pointed out, i should probably mention that i, and i would suspect the majority of the other members of the class, chose the bradley method because we already think that natural childbirth is a good thing and perhaps even a preferential option. thus, as the pixie also said, the video did smack of "preaching to the choir."
** okay, i might be sprinkling the last two statements with a dash of hyperbole, but in my defense the main speaker on the video did say that "for many years obstetricians have kept women from knowing their bodies" and the last screen shot was a revolutionary question that started thus: "how can we expect peace in our world, if individuals are brought into the world in a violent way?"
*** i'm threatened to add a rant about soy loving, jamba drinking chi omegas here, but, ummm, i won't.
**** yeah, i know that comedic references to nazis are almost always in bad taste. quick, can anyone name an american propagandist? thank you dr. james.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here I was envisioning a post about evangelists who dull the senses of those to whom they're trying to convert...

As a side note to the side note- We found the Bradley method very helpful in our childbirth experience. I hope you and Kellie have a good experience with it.

Agent B said...

Yeah, natural childbirth advocates can take things a little too far.

But the flip side is like when we were asked by our OBGYN how we wanted this birth to go, or something. And we used the "n" word (natural). We were pretty much blackballed from that point on.

But we found a different doc the 2nd time around.

Good comparison to evangelism...

g13 said...

pix, i am not a big man, but i gotta lot of love to give.

Kellie said...

Just to get the conversation going....

I think that the picture has to be of a child or baby's butt.

Jeff swears it is a full grown woman's butt.

Any thought?

ahbahsean said...

Either way, I know I don't want to look at it.

leanne said...

It has to be a baby or child. Otherwise, that's the biggest set of hands ever.

And Kel, you are a far better wife than I could ever be. The thought of natural childbirth makes me queasy.

Tyler said...

Hey Jeff, what happened to Happy Haiku Fridays?

-Ty

oh, and gross pic btw.

Before Girl said...

What a godawful nonwork picture to see first thing in the morning. If those are man hands, that guy should be playing basketball or towing cars by hand.

Jeff-what's the deal with needles? Don't you have a tattoo?

The whole idea of childbirth in general makes me queasy.

Mike Murrow said...

hey where is that pic of my ass we took when i was in boston? bummer you took it down. on my dating profiles i list my butt as my "best feature"

i still have the tissue...

Mike Murrow said...

send letter too mikemurrowis@gmail.com

g13 said...

agent b, one can only take so much epi-ass. i took that pic down because i didn't want anyone to stumble.