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# Avoidance is not Purity: An Ode on the Pence Rule | Mere Orthodoxy
- URL: https://mereorthodoxy.com/avoidance-not-purity-ode-pence-rule/
- Published: 2018-05-07T06:00:43.000Z
- Updated: 2026-05-18T16:19:24.000Z
- Description: We should be friends, quoth Potiphar's wife.
- Author: Mere Orthodoxy
- Tags: E. J. Hutchinson, Featured, Evangelicalism

*By Eric Hutchinson*

*“Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?”–King Solomon*

“We should be friends,” quoth Potiphar’s wife;  
but Joseph turned, and ran for his life.  
“Avoidance is not purity!,”  
she cried; but he ignored her plea.

King Solomon, on the other hand,  
was less obsessed with his wedding band.  
“Self-centered codes are deeply flawed–  
Thy commandment’s, um, exceeding broad!”

Now: which of them is more in line  
with the spirit of our urbane time?  
Old Joseph the neanderthal,  
Or Solomon (around nightfall)?

Joseph, he’s so dull and boring;  
Solomon is clearly soaring.  
Joseph, self-protecting–tired;  
Solomon, enlightened–wired.

Joseph, writing Pence fan fiction;  
Solomon, anti-restriction:  
“Time to join the modern age!  
Increase the minimum wage!

Down with the patriarchy!  
Its manners are indeed beastly!  
My advice: make lots of pals,  
a polyphonic friend chorale!”

And so, dear readers, you can see  
the choice in front of you and me.  
To be like Joseph? That’s a shame.  
But Solomon? Well, he’s got game–

his dad was rich, sent him to Yale,  
while rustic Joseph went to jail.

*Eric Hutchinson is Assistant Professor of Classics at Hillsdale College.*

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