Ann Voskamp is the sultry evangelical writer who speaks seductively and theoerotically about God. Theoerosism is the heresy of speaking or thinking romantically about God, and Voskamp’s popular devotional, One Thousand Gifts, repeatedly speaks of God in “hot and steamy” terms, including using the expression “make love to God.” When she speaks of “intimacy” with God, it’s of a different variety than what you might expect. Voskamp has a nack at looking alluringly at the camera and blathering nonsense in the form of prose, and having it come across as profound. Desperate housewives who have been catechized by Beth Moore or Priscilla Shirer eat it up as something other than vain drivel. She is the equivalent of Danielle Steel mixed with Christine Caine, and for this reason, she’s popular among the harem of female celebrity preachers whose imaginary Jesus looks something more like Fabio, and whose desire for “intimacy” with God is driven more by apparent daddy issues than a quest to see the immeasurable glory of His righteousness.

Voskamp stared broodingly into the camera for her video, “The Broken Way,” which was a promotional trailer for her small group Bible study by the same name, and spoke in her characteristically sing-songy, spoken-wordish style. You can watch the video below.

You might want to pay attention to the 2.10 to 2.34 mark.

Voskamp says:

My daddy told me this once; for a seed to come into its own, it must become wholly undone. The shell must break open, he said, its insides must come out. And everything, everything must change. If you didn’t know what growth looks like, you might mistake it for complete destruction.

Voskamp’s daddy must have been quoting Cynthia Occelli, because he didn’t make that up. Occelli is the author of the feminist book,

 

 

 

Resurrecting Venus: Embrace Your Feminine Power. It’s doubtful that Voskamp’s father was reading a book on feminism, but it makes total sense that she would be.

Occelli wrote:

For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would like like complete destruction.

You can find the quotation here.

The similarity – with just a few words changed for effect – is striking. The likelihood that Voskamp wasn’t directly quoting Oscelli is incredibly small, and this wouldn’t pass a plagiarism review at any university campus.

Oscelli is a feminist, life coach, and motivational speaker, whose website you can find here. We suppose quoting her daddy rather than a feminist might go over better with the evangelical women who are snuggled away at night reading Voskamp’s theoerotic literature.

[Editor’s Note: HT Chris Stutts]