John Stancil: Scripture, Sex, Success

John Stancil--IBLP Board Member

A little history

Curtis Hutson was a mailman who started preaching revivals in his free time. When he was just 22, he preached at Forest Hills Baptist Church near Decatur, GA.  The story goes that by the end of the week the pastor had resigned and the church had called the kid mailman with no formal training to replace him. Inspired by a message by Jack Hyles, Hutson eventually quit his post office job to focus on evangelism full-time.

Hutson pastored Forest Hills for twenty years, bringing the membership to nearly 8,000. (His lack of education did not prevent Hutson from serving as president of Baptist University of America from 1974-1980!)
  
John Stancil was 14 when he "trusted Christ as his personal savior" and joined Hutson's church. Young John worked his way up from janitor to director of the bus ministry, which brought in over 2,000 attendees on a given Sunday. He also married Brenda Cannon, with whom he had three children. The couple wrote a booklet on bus ministry (Busing--the Real Bring) which was published by Sword of the Lord in 1975.

1n 1978, Dr. John Rice invited Curtis Hutson to come to Murfreesboro, TN, to help edit "Sword of the Lord". Hutson edited the publication from 1980 until his death in 1995. Hutson also tapped his friend John Stancil to join him in Murfreesboro. The Stancils moved to Tennessee where John worked as Sword of the Lord's conference director and circulation manager for several years.

Scandal

In 1988, John and Brenda Stancil divorced. Five months later, Jack Hyles himself officiated at John's marriage to Yullie (Yuok) Chong, a Korean student at Hyles-Anderson College.

According to one source:

Brenda said she later learned that "he had been seeing Miss Chong in Indiana for quite a while before his divorce became final and that he had spent Christmas of 1987 with her and her family after telling our children he would be home alone. She was in Murfreesboro on at least four occasions . . . ." All this was while the Stancils were still married.

One of those visits calls attention to an even more unfortunate and unsavory matter. Since college regulations called for Miss Chong to stay with someone else while at Murfreesboro, arrangements were made for her to visit in the home of Mrs. Doris Roberts, a Sword employee of long standing and Stancil's secretary, business manager and close confidant. Conveniently, the latter was given a plane ticket to visit her son in Florida at that time, leaving Miss Chong without proper chaperone.

A lady who went to the house to meet her and get acquainted relates, "When I got to the door, I found she and John there alone making love on the sofa." (She defined "making love" as "lying fully prostrate, clothing in disarray, with movement, stroking, kissing, and bodies touching"; she said she could not "say for certain if sexual intercourse was occurring or had occurred," a matter that seems immaterial when considering the fact Stancil was still married to another woman.) The lady watched for a while, then left and went to a friend's house nearby and asked her to return as a witness, finding "the two were still on the sofa." The lady placed her business card on the window of Stancil's Mercedes-Benz and left.

The affair made waves in the wider Independent Fundamental Baptist community. John Stancil's career as a Baptist conference speaker was over.

Buses and Music

Months after their wedding, John and Yullie Stancil took stock of their their marketable skills. 
Buses. Religious publishing and marketing. Music. 

They bought their own bus and began conducting charters for schools and churches around Murfreesboro. They called their new company Anchor Trailways & Tours. By 1995, their fleet had grown to about ten buses and they were ready for the big-time. They moved their company to the Nashville area where it has grown to a fleet of more than sixty vehicles. 

Stancil is reported to have “a doctorate in transportation” and calls himself a “stickler for detail.”  Fort Campbell in Kentucky, home of the 101st Airborne Division, is Anchor Trailway’s largest account.

On the side, John Stancil also runs his own IFB publishing/evangelism company--Anchor Bible Concepts. ABC sells King James Bibles (including the Scofield Bible) and soprano Yullie Stancil's three musical recordings.  One of these albums was produced by IBLP's offshoot Principle Music in Indianapolis, with orchestration composed by Loren Elms and Tracy Ann (Collins) Biddle. The album was released in 2002. According to the IBLP website, Yullie Stancil "has a beautiful singing voice and uses it to promote Godly music." John Stancil currently serves on Bill Gothard's Board of Directors at IBLP. 

Another of Yullie's albums was produced by The Crown College of the Bible in Powell, Tennesee. John Stancil is also chairman of the board of Crown College, which was founded by Temple Baptist Church's pastor Clarence Sexton.  Sexton, a speaker at Bob Jones University's Bible conference last year, has been criticized for praising Jack Schaap, who is now serving prison time for having sex with a minor.

On a happier note

John's ex-wife Brenda Cannon Stancil became a reporter for The Examiner in Beaumont, TX. As an award-winning journalist, she writes with compassion and grace. She has championed single parents, battered women, those treated unfairly by the justice system, and others--offering them hope. After years raising her three children alone, Brenda married Ted Henley in a shipboard ceremony.

Just for fun

I am personally amused by this photo of John Stancil donating a $10,000 check and bus services to a country music charity concert.  Apparently Anchor Trailways has a close relationship with the Nashville music scene, frequently shuttling artists to shows in Muscle Shoals, AL. This despite the strong stance taken by IBLP and Stancil's conservative church against music with a backbeat!

Ripples of Misogyny

The following intimate and insightful post is by Sean-Allen Parfitt and is reposted with his permission. Sean-Allen blogs at Of Pen and Heart, where this article first appeared on August 26,2013.

The reason I despise fundamental Christianity, as revealed to me in a dream

Recently there has been a series over at the Homeschoolers Anonymous blog, called “Voices of Sister-Moms”. I began reading the introductory post, but could not finish. My entire body was having a negative reaction. I mentioned this to some of my fellow LGBT Homeschooled friends, and they wisely suggested that I step away from the article till I could calm down. I was seriously angry, and had beginning symptoms of a minor panic/anxiety attack.

I was surprised at my reaction to the article.

After all, I am a male, the eldest in my family, who, in the patriarchal/quiverfull system, is in a position of privilege. It’s true that I was expected to do a lot of housework and helped homeschool the kids (see last Friday’s post), but I went to college, got a job, and was allowed to live my own life. (And by “my own life” I mean going to work and coming back home and going to church with the family and sometimes hanging out with friends.)

Well, in the last two years, I’ve come out of the closet, left the fundamentalism my family calls Christianity, meet many new kinds of people, and discovered that what I was taught isn’t necessarily the truth. I am in a relationship with another man, which is for me a clear illustration that the traditionally taught family dynamics are not the one true way. I have even begun to question Christianity itself.

But I couldn’t put my finger on either my anxiety when reading about the mistreatment of Christian girls or my strange negative reactions to other generic mentions of Christianity.

Why did I cringe when I saw a post on Twitter recommending a book about God’s love? Why do I skim past the tweets with Bible verses and references to good times at church?

I believe I got my answer in a dream I had Saturday night.

In my dream, I was visiting my father’s childhood church, which my family had begun re-attending. Mom was in a small-group discussion, and brother T was in the main sanctuary. I walked up to T, but he distinctly turned away without acknowledging me. Once Small Groups was over, Mom came back into the sanctuary. I began following her as she straightened the pews, talking to her. She was upset with me for living openly gay, and I was getting more and more angry with her as the conversation continued.

Then I exploded at her. This is very much out of character of me, as I have only raised my voice at her on a few occasions. I almost tremble is reverent fear of my mother, who has power to unleash unheard-of retribution. Or at least, that’s how I feel. So for me to yell at her actually took me by surprise in retrospect. But what I said to her showed me exactly what I had been feeling but had been unable to express before.

It was the very innermost turmoil that I had not been able to understand.

“Do you know what I hate about Christianity?” I shouted at my mother, standing in the very sanctum of the religion I was at that very moment criticizing. “Do you know what it is that makes you unable to accept the fact that ‘I’m gay, and it’s OK’?” My mother just stood there, not replying. And then I said the word. Just one word, a simple 8 letters that encompass the root of my dissatisfaction with the religion in which I was raised, and which has caused irreparable pain to so many people. I opened my mouth, and with conviction, the word thundered through the church:

“Misogyny.”

According to Wikipedia, “Misogyny /mɪˈsɒdʒɪni/ is the hatred or dislike of women or girls.” When used in a religious context, it usually refers to the belief that women are the “weaker sex” (see I Peter 3:7) and are under the authority of men (see I Corintians 11:3and I Timothy 2:12). In practice, this means that women and girls are to be humble servants to men. Girls are groomed to become wives and mothers, and should not aspire to be successful on their own. They are to submit, never questioning their fathers, husbands, or pastors.

When I awoke from my dream, I was surprised at what my mind had expressed while I slept. However, upon reflection, I realized how so very true it is. Misogyny is at the heart of much of the pain I have experienced in my life.

It is the root of the pain that countless other women and gay men have felt.

Wait, sure, you can see how misogyny has caused incredible pain and discrimination for women, but how dare I include myself and other gay men in that category? This is the question I asked myself. But even though I did not express it verbally in my dream, I knew what the answer was.

One major argument used against unions between two men is the call to remember God’s biblical definition of marriage. Thus, marriage is commonly interpreted as a union between one man and one woman. Traditionalists maintain that the proper balance of power places the man in the position of leader and the woman in a submissive position. Women are expected to take care of the home, cleaning, cooking, shopping, teaching, raising children, making life easier for men, and providing sex on demand. Men are expected to go to work, provide money and housing, spiritually lead the family, and lead the family into ministry work.

With this in mind, it’s not hard to extrapolate the effects of misogyny onto gay men. If two men are in a relationship, who has what duty? Men aren’t supposed to do the women’s work. Who leads the family and makes the decision? Which one goes to work and which one cleans the house? In short, which one is the man and which one is the woman?

So many straight fundamentalists can’t grasp the idea that gay men are still men.

A flamboyant gay man is called effeminate and looked down on. When I came out to my mother over the phone, she prayed for me. In that prayer, she cried, saying that she didn’t want me to be her daughter; she wanted me to be her son. I have had several people ask me who is the man in Paul’s and my relationship.

Besides being entirely misguided, such notions and comments are very hurtful. I have been completely cut off from my family. My old friends have told me that we cannot fellowship anymore. They see me as a deviant from the natural order and desires. Because I don’t want to be with a woman. Because I don’t want to exercise headship over my partner. Because I like to engage in “feminine” pursuits such as sewing. Because I care what I look like and plan my outfits to coordinate. Because I wear earrings. Because I am “acting like a woman”, when I am really a man.

I admit I am not sure where I stand on the issue of Christianity. The pain and hurt I have received from the church has made me very wary of the religion of the Bible. When I see others facing the same discrimination I have, I become enraged. It is hard not to be bitter against the very religion that brought me up.

It’s a world of pain, hurt, and rejection, all because of one word: misogyny.

Voiceless Women: Susanna Wesley's Daughters (Part 1)

Were it not for the fame of her evangelist sons, she would be unknown today. But history has made her a paragon, second only to the Proverbs 31 woman as the ideal to which American Christian mothers aspire.
I cannot remember a Mother's Day sermon that failed to mention Susanna Wesley. And yet, the men who hail the mother of John and Charles Wesley from their pulpits never mention Susanna's daughters. If those seven women were to hear their dysfunctional home held up as a model for others, I wonder what would they say?

The Susanna Wesley of legend was a minister's daughter, the youngest of her father's twenty-five children, a pastor's wife, the mother of 19 children-- including John (founder of the Methodists) and Charles (poet and author of nearly 9,000 hymns), a pastor's wife, and homeschooling mom extraordinaire. Almost the Protestant equivalent of Mary, Susanna's piety is for tossing her apron over her head to find privacy for prayer. What would she say if she knew she had inspired an Internet prayer apron giveaway three hundred years later?

Prayer did not shield the real Susanna from life's heartaches. Her marriage was difficult, her daughter crippled, her neighbors cruel. Twice her home burned to the ground. She pushed nineteen babies out of her body and buried nine (including all three sets of twins). She always struggled to afford necessities for her family--let alone furniture, was once abandoned by her husband, lost him to debtor's prison another time, and watched in agony as most of her daughters were abused by their husbands or died in childbirth. Her husband antagonized many of his parishioners and spent out his health laboring over his poetry, or his magnum opus, Dissertations on the Book of Job, a Bible commentary no one wanted to read. 

Samuel and Susanna's children:

1. Samuel, b. 1690
2. Emilia, b. 1692
3. Annesley, b. 1694 (died)
4. Jedediah, b. 1694 (died)
5. Susanna, b. 1695
6. Mary, b. 1696
7. Mehetabel, b. 1697
8. Infant 1, b. 1698 (stillborn)
9. Infant 2, b. 1698 (stillborn)
10. John, b. 1699 (died)
11. Benjamin, b. 1700 (died)
12. Infant 3, b. 1701 (died)
13. Infant 4, b. 1701 (died)
14. Anne, b. 1702
15. John Benjamin, b. 1703
16. Infant 5 (male), b. 1705 (accidentally smothered) 
17. Martha, b. 1706
18. Charles, b. 1707
19. Kezzia, b. 1709

Discipline in the Wesley Household

With her hands full and her husband not much help, Susanna ran a disciplined household of necessity. She later reflected on her principles of discipline and child training, which sound remarkably similar to those taught in the American church today:

"When they turned a year old (and some before) they were taught to fear the rod, and to cry softly. By this means they escaped abundance of correction they might otherwise have had. That most odious noise of the crying of children, was rarely heard in the house. The family usually lived in as much quietness, as if there had not been a child among them.

"As soon as they were grown pretty strong, they were confined to three meals a day. At dinner their little table, and chairs were placed by ours, where they could be viewed. They were allowed to eat and drink as much as they wanted, but not to ask for any thing. If they wanted something, they used to whisper to the maid which attended them, who came and spoke to me. As soon as they could handle a knife and fork, they were seated at our table. They were never allowed to choose their food, but always made to eat such things as were provided for the family.

"Mornings they had always spoon food and sometimes at nights. But whatever they had, they were never permitted to eat at those meals, of more than one thing, and of that very sparingly. Drinking or eating between meals was never allowed, unless in case of sickness, which seldom happened. Nor were they allowed to go into the kitchen to ask anything of the servants when they were eating. If it was known they did, they were certainly punished with the rod and the servants severely reprimanded.

"They were so constantly used to eat and drink what was given them, that when any of them was ill, there was no difficulty in making them take the most unpleasant medicine, for they dared not refuse it. However some of them would presently throw it up. This I mention to show that a person may be taught to take anything, though it is ever so unpleasant in his stomach.  

"In order to shape the minds of children, the first thing to be done is to conquer their will and bring them to an obedient spirit. To inform the understanding is a work of time, and must with children, proceed by slow degrees, as they are able to bear it. But the subjecting the will, is a thing which must be done at once and the sooner the better. For by neglecting timely correction they will be overcome with stubbornness, and obstinacy. This is hardly ever conquered later and never without using such severity as would be as painful to me as to the child. In the esteem of the world they pass for kind and indulgent, whom I call cruel parents, who permit their children to get habits, which they know must be later broken. Indeed, some are so stupidly fond, as in fun to teach their children to do things, which a while later they have severely beaten them for doing. When a child is corrected it must be conquered. This will not be hard to do if he is not grown headstrong by too much indulgence.

"When the will of a child is totally subdued, and it is brought to revere and stand in awe of the parents, then a great many childish follies, and faults may be past over. Some should be overlooked and taken no notice of, and others mildly reproved.

"I insist upon conquering the will of children early because this is the only strong and rational foundation of a religious education. Without this both precept and example will be ineffectual. But when this is thoroughly done, then a child is capable of being governed by the reason and piety of its parents until his own understanding comes to maturity and the principles of religion have taken root in the mind.

"They were quickly made to understand, they might have nothing they cried for, and instructed to speak handsomely for what they wanted. They were not allowed to ask, even the lowest servant for anything, without saying "Please give me such a thing;" and the servant was chided, if she ever let them omit that word. Taking God’s name in vain, cursing and swearing, profaneness, obscenity, rude, ill-bred names, were never heard among them. Nor were they ever permitted to call each other by their proper names without the addition of brother or sister.

"For some years we went on very well. Never were children in better disposed to piety, or in more subjection to their parents until that scattering of them after the fire into several families. In those families, they were left at full liberty to converse with the servants, which before they had always been restrained from, and to run abroad and play with any children, good or bad."

"When the house was rebuilt [after the fire in 1709] and the children all brought home, we entered upon a strict reform. It was then begun the custom of singing psalms at beginning and leaving school, morning and evening. Then also that of a general retirement at five o’clock was entered upon, when the oldest took the youngest that could speak, and the second the next, to whom they read the psalms for the day, and a chapter in the New Testament. In the morning they were directed to read the psalms and a chapter in the Old Testament, after which they went to their private prayers, before they got their breakfast, or came into the family. I thank God, the custom is still preserved among us."

Son John remarked in a sermon years later, "My own mother had ten children, each of whom had spirit enough; yet not one of them was ever heard to cry aloud after it was a year old." Still, harsh discipline was but one of the traumas experienced by the young Wesley daughters.

Childhood Trauma

Susanna and Samuel could not be said to model marital harmony. Emilia once lamented her father's "unaccountable love of discord", and Susanna admitted that she and her husband "never thought alike". Samuel Jr. wished that his parents were as comfortable together and he and his wife were. The children must all have been traumatized in 1701 when their father moved out over a political disagreement with his wife that arose during family prayer. Emily was nine; her sisters four, five, and six. Their parents had buried six dead infants in the past three years.

Samuel had moved back in by July of 1702. He was visiting a sick parishioner when the parsonage caught fire, destroying two-thirds of it. One of the girls got left behind in the burning house, but a sister began calling for her and neighbors were able to rescue her. Someone even thought to save Samuel's books from his study.

In 1705, when little Anne was three and Jack was two, the older Wesley sisters welcomed a new baby brother. Susanna being too exhausted to nurse the child, the newborn was sent next door to be cared for by a neighbor. The baby never came home. He was about three weeks old when the weary woman overlaid him one night, accidentally suffocating him.

Just weeks later, Samuel was hauled off to debtor's prison. Susanna, desperate to settle the debt, sent him her rings to sell, but Samuel sent them back, preferring to trust that God would provide. "A jail is a paradise in comparison of the life I led before I came hither," he wrote.

Neighbors Samuel had antagonized with his politics had no sympathy for the rector's family. They burned the Wesley's flax fields, viciously stabbed their milk cows and called the Wesley children "little devils". The family struggled for three miserable months before Samuel's friends came up with the money to pay his debts. Susanna later confided, "Strictly speaking, I never did want bread. But then I had so much care to get it before it was eat, and to pay for it after, as has often made it very unpleasant to me; and, I think, to have bread on such terms is the next degree of wretchedness to having none at all."

Baby Charles was born premature and did not open his eyes or cry for weeks. He was still the youngest when the Rectory Fire broke out in 1709. Little Jacky (John), his sisters' pet, barely escaped; the family could see him crying, "Help me!" from an upstairs window, standing on a chair, framed by flames against the midnight. Samuel wrote that he gathered some of the children in a circle in the garden to pray for their brother's soul; thankfully, other men were more interested in saving the boy's flesh. Molly and Hetty had been tossed to safety through a broken window. They lost everything but what they were wearing. Their mother was burned as she waded through flames to escape the house. Her first impulse had been to grab what gold and silver coin they had at the time, but her husband pushed her out the door toward safety.

After the fire, the children were dispersed to friends and relatives until the rectory could be rebuilt. Samuel's brother Matthew, a surgeon in London with no children of his own, took in Sukey and Hetty. Matthew was not particularly religious, but he took an interest in improving the prospects of his nieces. Samuel could not afford furniture for the new rectory. Visiting Epworth thirteen years later, Uncle Matthew observed that the house was only half-furnished, Susanna and the girls only "half-clothed". Matthew wondered what his brother had done with his income.

Samuel's daughters struggled to have presentable clothes to get jobs. Dresses that would grant them entrance to the world of literary culture were out of the question, though those circles would have allowed them to engage with men and women of their intellectual caliber. Meanwhile, Samuel spent large sums on books or travel not strictly necessary for his ministry and dreamed of going abroad as a missionary to China or the East Indies. The sisters complained about the "scandalous want of necessaries" and blamed poverty for Susanna's many health problems.

Home Education

Susanna had been educated by her father far beyond what was typical for a female of her time. At the age of 13, Susanna had the confidence to leave her Dissenter father's church altogether and join the Church of England. She grew into a learned and independent-minded woman. She was about twenty when she married the 28-year-old Anglican minister and poet Samuel Wesley. And she did a tremendous job of educating their children at home.

Like other large families, there were inside alliances. Sukey and Hetty were very close. Emilia was fond of her mother and quite attached to her baby brother John. Hetty adored Molly. John and Patty were the most alike; the others believed Patty was Susanna's favorite. (Charles wondered that his mother, for all her wisdom, did not better conceal her favoritism.) But Susanna did try to schedule equal time for the many individuals who made up her brood, and kept in touch by correspondence when they left her nest.

Not surprisingly, the Wesley kids all developed "a strong method of expressing themselves, especially in Poetry". Literature ruled in their home and for the rest of their lives they were always writing and sending poems to one another, for every occasion: comfort, congratulation, grief, encouragement, advice, or rebuke. Their upbringing taught them to fight with their wits, and, with the exception of gentler Patty, the siblings shared a taste for sarcasm and rapier-sharp satire.

All three Wesley brothers followed in their father's footsteps and were ordained. But alas, though Susanna educated her daughters on a level equal to their brothers and far beyond what was expected of their peers, she could not equip them to survive in a culture and family controlled, by divine order, by men. As successful as she was in developing their minds and teaching them the value of language and of learning, she never could offer them the kind of autonomy she had once claimed for herself. Nor could she prepare them to demand respect, to protect and provide for themselves, or to choose healthy relationships.

In many ways, motherhood was a sorrow and a burden to Susanna. To her brother-in-law, she wrote:"

[H]appy, thrice happy are you, happy is my sister, that buried your children in infancy, secure from temptation, secure from guilt, secure from want or shame, or loss of friends! They are safe beyond the reach of pain or sense of misery; being gone hence, nothing can touch them further. Believe me, Sir, it is better to mourn ten children dead than one living, and I have buried many."

Read what happened to the seven Wesley daughters in Voiceless Women: Lives of the Wesley Sisters (Part 2)

Voiceless Women: Elizabeth Zwecker Sheffey

BJU's 1977 film "Sheffey" leaps lightly across the protagonist's marriage to Elizabeth Zwecker, a union which spanned more than a decade, allowing her just five nameless seconds of the two-hour movie: "I did have a wife," the Sheffey character allows, "but she died ten years ago."

That lonely sentence piqued my curiosity. But when I got my hands on the biographical novel on which the "Sheffey" screenplay was based, I was soon so disillusioned I had to put the book aside for many months--a rarity for me. Not only did the movie version omit the first Elizabeth Sheffey, it showed Sheffey as father to only one devoted son--passing silently over the six children he fathered with his first wife.

As a Quiverful "sister-mom", I found myself identifying with Sheffey's wife, with his children, with his sisters-in-law. I was repulsed by the callous way this "saint of the wilderness" treated his wife and family. I wondered why Unusual Films chose to leave out that--to me, significant--part of the story. By then, though, I was realizing how frequently Christian biographers painted their subjects only in bright, cheery colors.

Here, then, is the story of that wife that Robert Sheffey "did have", drawn largely from Jess Carr's now out-of-print book The Saint of the Wilderness.

* * * * * * * * *

Elizabeth Zwecker was born in 1817 and spent her entire life near Cripple Creek in Wythe County, Virginia. Elizabeth had little education. She was apparently introverted and sensitive, probably illiterate, a melancholy temperament, perhaps? Life wasn't easy in Cripple Creek, but the Zweckers were a large family (four girls, five boys) and Lizzie was especially close to sisters Leah--an "old maid" in her thirties--and Sarah, who was just two years older than Lizzie. After being abandoned by her first fiance, Elizabeth was in her mid-twenties and gun-shy when Robert Sheffey proposed marriage. She turned him down at first, then reconsidered his offer.

Who was this generous schoolteacher who was so taken with her? Robert Sheffey had been raised by a well-to-do uncle and aunt, who brought him up in a mild Presbyterian tradition in Abingdon, VA. After his uncle's death, the young Sheffey fell in with a different crowd, which indirectly led to a religious conversion at a lower-class revival meeting. As a result of this and other tensions, Robert was estranged from his aunt, leaving the comforts of her home and heading off to have his own youthful adventures which acquainted him with the more rough-hewn side of life in Virginia. He was eventually persuaded to attend college for a while but was a dismal orator, frequently violated curfew, and never could muster much appreciation for higher education. Wisdom, he explained, was more valuable than knowledge anyway.

The increasingly eccentric young man was increasingly attracted to lively revival meetings and didn't mind traveling long distances to participate in them. After he dropped out of college, he was employed at a store for a while. When locals invited him to take the tiny school along Cripple Creek, Robert accepted. And then he fell in love with Elizabeth Zwecker.

Elizabeth was 26 when she married the little schoolteacher, three years her junior. He could read, write and teach; he noticed details no one else paid attention to; he was never at a loss for words and he was so sure of himself! He could have had a city girl with smooth hands and a parasol, but he had chosen her. How she wanted to be worthy of his love! Everyone liked Robert, and he would stay by her side always.

The newlyweds lived with her parents for the first couple of years. Robert, who was teaching school at the time, missed the birth of his first child. As the arrival of their second child drew near, Robert continued to travel all over Virginia to attend revival meetings, mixing with the audiences and encouraging potential converts to repent. For a while, his brother rode along on these trips, but Daniel decided the travel was too exhausting. Robert found the trips invigorating, always meeting new folks, staying in the homes of strangers.

And while Robert traveled, friends and relations were constructing a new cabin for the growing family. Sure, he helped with some of the work, but others did the lion's share. Robert would include the building project in his lengthy classroom prayers which bored and confused his students who expected to see someone else standing the room when they peeked from behind their folded hands. Two of the four rooms were still unfinished when the family of four moved in at Christmastime. They were also $100 in debt, which worried Elizabeth.

Not the Sheffeys' cabin

By the time the school year came to a close, Robert was itching to be back at his hobby--and maybe not just exhorting this time, but even preaching. He tried to help Elizabeth get the garden in, but he was really daydreaming a sermon and had trouble multi-tasking.

The babies kept arriving: James and Hugh were followed by Daniel in 1848 and Sarah in 1849. Sarah's pregnancy had been rough for Elizabeth, who begged her husband to stay close to her for a while. So while his wife slowly and painfully recovered from the birth, Robert curtailed his travels, staying within a day's ride of the cabin all summer long, thus discovering many tiny church groups he had hitherto overlooked. At one such meeting just twenty miles from home, he had his first opportunity to preach.

Robert went through the motions of teaching the following school year, again helped Elizabeth with the garden, and tried not to make too many trips that summer. But he had found his passion. He would join the Methodists, he determined, and maybe he would even become a licensed preacher. He forced himself through another year of teaching, itching for summer to arrive. Elizabeth was pregnant again, but James was six and could be a help. Leah and Sarah Zwecker often came by to help their sister with her house full of children.

Robert made his first missionary journey early that spring, in April, before the garden was even planted. But he was at home in August when Elizabeth delivered Margaret. This time, she hemorrhaged so badly that she could hardly hold the infant, let alone feed her. Robert called a doctor the following week, who said Elizabeth needed rest. Robert negotiated with a slave woman's owner for her service as a wet nurse and tried to stay close to home. He studied the Bible, read the newspaper he subscribed to now, helped in the garden, and taught school.

After a few months, Elizabeth had improved enough to visit the city with Robert, but she was anxious about her health, still unable to breastfeed little Margaret, and she dreaded the arrival of another spring. "Please don't leave me--stay home with us," she begged him. And come summer, she was still far from well. Robert planted more crops that year and imagined getting a license to preach in local churches. That fall, Elizabeth helped her husband as she was able, until he decided she should save her strength. Poor Elizabeth was pregnant again.

She was 35 when she pushed baby John out into the world in 1853, her sixth delivery in less than nine years. A month later, she was still frail, able to stand up for only an hour a day. They had to hire another wet nurse. Robert promised he wouldn't leave them, but he made exceptions: a trip to see a dying slave from his childhood home, visits to the Methodist district presiding elder to seek a preaching license.

Poor Elizabeth wished Robert would stay put. Months after the birth, she continued to battle hemorrhages. The doctor put her on bed rest and Sarah and Leah took turns helping with their six nieces and nephews. After Christmas, as Elizabeth's life continued to leak away in red blotches, Aunt Sarah moved in with the family to stay. Two of the older kids were home sick with mumps in February, 1854 when Elizabeth suffered a massive hemorrhage and bled to death in her bed. She was 36 years old.

Though Elizabeth's story ends there, she lived on in the hearts of her grieving husband, her loyal sisters, and her motherless children. Sarah and Leah Zwecker had grown close to their nieces and nephews and were glad to share the responsibility of mothering them in their sister's stead, leaving Robert free to travel as he chose. And he did choose, after his initial sorrow. He left teaching and took up independent itinerant work for the Methodists--praying, preaching, and discouraging the distillers of moonshine whiskey.

Robert Sheffey

As the years passed and the older boys left home, one to join the Confederate Army, another for employment and further education, Sarah Zwecker urged Robert to allow the remaining children to move in with their grandparents and doting aunts and uncles. The younger two had no memories of their mother at all, but were very attached to the aunts who had raised them from infancy. Robert withheld his blessing on this plan, however. He had met an attractive woman on his journeys and had begun to build a new castle in the air.

When Robert Sheffey announced his plans to marry Elizabeth Stafford and move his family to another part of the state, his sister-in-law was incredulous. Aunt Sarah had devoted over nine years of her life to raising her nieces and nephews, while their father traipsed all over the countryside, and she became their advocate now.

For nearly a decade, the Zweckers had been all the family these young ones had known. And Robert--this man known far and wide for his obsessive compassion for the smallest creatures: rescuing tadpoles from a shrinking puddle with his handkerchief, righting overturned beetles and moving insects away from wagon wheels, insisting on the best care for his horse--this preacher wanted to uproot his children from their home and give them a new mother they'd never met? Robert was always quick to make demands of his hosts for his own comfort (requesting different bedding or dishes prepared a particular way) when he stayed with strangers, yet when it came to the emotional needs of his own flesh-and-blood, he seemed both deaf and blind.

In the end, Sarah's pleas prevailed. Robert did remarry in 1864, but Elizabeth's children were settled at the Zwecker home "in a manner that was pleasing to all". Robert let the empty cabin out to tenants and split his non-preaching time between visits to his children in Cripple Creek and stays with Eliza and his new son Eddie in Giles County. Unlike the first Mrs. Sheffey, Eliza knew from the start that she was marrying an itinerant Methodist and their largely long-distance marriage was a happy one. They are buried side by side in a churchyard in Trigg, VA.

Biographer Jess Carr wrote in his introduction: "Perhaps this old Methodist circuit rider was really crazy after all. Plenty of people thought so."

I wonder what Elizabeth Zwecker Sheffey thought. Was she happy? Did she have regrets? Did she love Robert in spite of his eccentricities? Because of them? Did she feel that her husband loved her? Did she ever believe he was off doing God's work?

"To love another person is to see the face of God."
                                                                        Victor Hugo

Perhaps Robert Sheffey was the one who missed out, after all.

Voiceless Women: Arda J. Rushdoony

Arda June Gent Rushdoony has become an invisible woman.

When her youngest child, Mark Rushdoony, wrote a 20-page biography to celebrate his famous father's 80th birthday, he made no mention of his mother. Not a word about the couple's marriage, their life together, or their divorce.

How does a woman vanish so completely?

* * * * * * 

Born in 1915, Arda Gent (sometimes misspelled Orda) was in Moffat, CO with her parents at the time of the 1920 census. A Lionel Albert Gent (her father's name) was buried in the Moffat cemetery that same year, at the age of 51. By the 1930 census, the young teen Arda and her mother Ida May (Hall) Gent were living in Los Angeles.

Arda Gent's yearbook photo, 1941

The trail picks up again in Spokane, WA where Miss Arda Gent was enrolled in the Presbyterian school Whitworth College (now Whitworth University) in 1939. She was active in the Volunteer Fellowship there, and in demand as a speaker.

Sunday morning the [Whitworth college] male quartet will sing at the Knox Presbyterian church. Sunday evening a gospel team from the Volunteer Fellowship will conduct the senior Christian Endeavor service. On the program will be Carl Blanford, Eugene Marshall and Arda Gent, speakers, and Ellen Menge, pianist. The theme will be "The Christian Life".
Spokane Daily Chronicle, Nov. 1940

In February, The Spokesman-Review listed Arda as an honor student near the top of her class. She was a senior that year; the Whitworth yearbook for 1941 tells us that Arda was the "proud owner of a Ford" but hated "any kind of flat tire".

"A gospel team from Whitworth College Volunteer Fellowship will conduct the Christian Endeavor service Sunday evening at Fourth Presbyterian church. Taking part in the meeting will be Miss Arda Gent and Roy Howes, speakers; Miss Marianne Dresser, soloist; Miss Eleanor Hunter, pianist; John Hook, song leader, and Sydney Eaton, violinist."  Spokane Daily Chronicle, March 8, 1941

Roy Howes was the treasurer of the Volunteer Fellowship at Whitworth in 1939. He graduated in 1942, married a member of the Whitworth women's drill team, and went on to seminary in San Francisco. Eventually, he returned to pastor Millwood Presbyterian Church in Spokane. Ten years after graduating from Whitworth, Roy was still in demand at Whitworth--as a chapel speaker, or toastmaster for the college alumni association banquet. In 1960, Whitworth awarded him an honorary doctorate.

Did sharing a platform with Roy make Arda nervous? Did she blush when their names appeared together? At what point did she plan on becoming a missionary wife--a calling held in high regard at Whitworth? When and where did she meet the philosophical idealist scholar Rousas Rushdoony?

Rushdoony had received his M.A. in 1940, then attended Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley and had a ministry to Chinese Americans in San Francisco. Rousas and Arda June married in San Francisco the week before Christmas in 1943, at the beginning of the winter college recess. The following year, at 28 years old, Rousas graduated from seminary, was ordained by the Presbyterian Church, and was sent forth as missionary pastor to the Duck Valley Indian Reservation in Owyhee, Nevada. Together he and Arda packed his extensive library into a truck and headed for the wilderness mission where they would live for the next eight and a half years.

Rousas found the wild beauty and the isolation of the desolate reservation just south of the Idaho border awe-inspiring. He found he enjoyed hunting and would wander off on lengthy fishing trips by himself, apparently leaving his new bride back at the parsonage ("manse", in Presbyterian parlance).  He wrote to a friend, "I love it here and would gladly remain all my days if God so wills."

Conditions were difficult, however--even primitive. Snows arrived in November and would continue for weeks without respite. Travel was impossible until spring, and even then the muddy roads were frequently impassable. Communication by telegraph and telephone was limited. The mission church was collapsing, with snow drifting through cracks in the walls. Finances were tight. As the months passed, the missionary's enthusiasm predictably cooled.

Rousas reported that the social order of the reservation was threatened by alcoholism, excessive gambling, teenage sex, marital infidelity, and rape. On a Saturday night, Arda would be out till 9:30 using her elocutionary abilities to persuade girls off the street. Then it was Rousas' turn: he would send drunken teens home or put them to bed himself, break up knife fights, and rant about the rampant lawlessness to the government superintendent. At 6 a.m., he would collapse on the day-bed, still fully dressed, for an hour's sleep before getting up to conduct the Sunday service. Rousas described his ministry there as "harsh and ruthless"; he was waging war in God's name, but he wasn't at all sure their side was winning.

Restless and impatient with the work, Rushdoony let his ambitions soar beyond the reservation. He submitted a manuscript to the University of Chicago Press for publication and dreamed of a career in academia. When his work was ultimately rejected, his disappointment was sharp. His dreams shattered, the shepherd felt lost and his letters took on a pessimistic tone. Even as he continued to preach and write, the Reverend Rousas Rushdoony was depressed.

And Arda was exhausted. How could she not be? She bore Rousas four daughters during those eight years and each was given a strong Biblical name: Rebecca, Joanna, Sharon, Martha. Did she deliver at Owyhee's little 20-bed hospital, the one built of native stone? Did Rousas hold her hand, or wait properly outside, or maybe he stayed at the manse to care for the other children? Was Arda's mother ever able to come visit her granddaughters? Was her mother still living? Could she get emotional support from the Native American mothers around her carrying their infants on cradleboards? Or were the cultural differences too vast? Did she learn to speak Paiute or Shoshone?

Owyhee must have been lonely for Arda, especially when Rousas was off traveling. He was invited to speak in New York and made the long journey from city to city by train while she stayed in Nevada waiting for spring. Did she envy his freedom? Did she remember her own popularity as a speaker? Could she still recall, between dishes and diapers and naps and runny noses and quick trips to the latrine, what she'd said at those church meetings back in Spokane? Besides their own little girls, Rousas and Arda had adopted a Native American boy, Ronald Rushdoony. The missionaries had their hands full, at home as well as serving the mission congregation.

In 1953, the Rushdoonys left Duck Valley.* Rousas took a Presbyterian pastorate in Santa Cruz, CA, a retirement town. Their three-bedroom home was adequate, but cozy, especially after Arda birthed another baby. A boy at last! They named him Mark.

Arda and R.J. separated in 1957. According to the court documents, R.J. had custody of the the six children (aged approximately three to eleven years by this time) at their home in Santa Cruz. A year later, Arda filed for divorce, custody, child support, and court costs. She charged her husband with "extreme cruelty" and inflicting "grievous mental suffering" on her. The fight must have been bitter. When the divorce was finalized in 1959, R.J. kept the house, the Plymouth, and custody of the kids. Arda was awarded $1 a month in alimony, and the freedom to be single again.

Around the same time, Reverend Rushdoony transferred his membership (from PC-USA ) to the Orthodox Presbyterian denomination. The OPC has a comparatively narrow interpretation of the Biblical texts dealing with divorce, remarriage, and post-divorce ministry. Supposedly, the presbytery investigated the circumstances of R.J.'s divorce and pronounced him the blameless party (and thus still qualified for the ministry).

In May of 1962, The Presbyterian Guardian reported: "Rev. R. J. Rushdoony has resigned as pastor of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, reportedly to devote his time to writing and lecturing." He also remarried--to Dorothy Barbara Ross Kirkwood**.

That year, the court granted Arda custody of the three older children, while R.J. kept the younger three. Both parents were forbidden to discuss, or even mention, each other in front of their offspring. Perhaps this is part of the reason Mark was silent about his mother at his father's birthday celebration.

The divorce, and its terms, certainly scarred the children deeply.

In a 1986 Chalcedon publication, Mark wrote about divorce: "The divorce problem will be solved in a society under God's law because any spouse guilty of capital crimes (adultery, homosexuality, Sabbath desecration, etc.) would be swiftly executed, thus freeing the other part to remarry..." This statement echoes his father's own advocacy for Old Testament-style capital punishment in Institutes of Biblical Law: "Divorce by death made remarriage possible, and freed the innocent partner from bondage to a guilty and unclean person."

Rousas J. Rushdoony died in 2001.

He is remembered in many ways: as the father of Christian Reconstruction, father of the home schooling movement, prolific author, controversial theologian, founder of the Chalcedon Foundation, philosophical influence on America's religious right, and more.

Arda June Gent Rushdoony died in Santa Cruz in 1977.

She is not remembered at all.





*A Wycliffe linguist named Ed Andrews arrived at Owyhee in 1953. He and his wife, Neva, were tasked with translating the New Testament into Paiute. They parked their house trailer behind the Presbyterian "manse". Did Neva get to know the Rushdoonys, or did she arrive after they'd gone?
Lester Pontius replaced Rushdoony as the Presbyterian missionary pastor at Owyhee. He and his wife Margaret had also attended Spokane's Whitworth College, graduating together in 1948. The church's outhouse was in poor repair when Lester's brother visited in 1954, so he dug a new one. He later attended Whitworth College as well.



**[Edited 8/4/13] A Dorothy Barbara Ross was born in Pennsylvania.  She and Thomas Gilbert Kirkwood, both aged 21 and residing in Pittsburgh, PA, were issued a marriage license from Brooke County, WV in August of 1932. It appears Dorothy had at least one son: Thomas Kirkwood, Jr., born in 1946 and later living in Santa Cruz.
Mr. Tom Kirkwood was an elder in Rushdoony's new Orthodox Presbyterian Santa Cruz congregation. Dorothy Rushdoony died in California in 2003 and was buried beside her husband, R.J. Rushdoony.

Film Favorites: Rabbit Hole

Rabbit Hole is a beautiful movie* about grief and recovery. Simple but deep, poignant yet sometimes funny, it is the story of a couple (played by Aaron Eckhart and Nicole Kidman) grieving the loss of their young son. His death was an accident--there is no one to blame--but that does little to assuage anyone's pain.

This is serious subject matter and the deliberation of the filmmakers shows up in the detail: colors, lighting, clothing, score. The filming and acting are gentle, yet so honest that we feel the rawness of the emotional wounds each individual is struggling to survive: Becca, Howie, Becca's mother, and Jason (the teenage car driver). Becca and Howie have a strong marriage and seek recovery together, but inevitably their paths diverge as they heal at different rates, in different ways, with different needs. This inevitably stresses their relationship, and us the viewers who are rooting for their survival.

Rabbit Hole voices questions, rather than offering answers. It observes and portrays the human experience, reserving judgment. While Becca's mom finds some comfort in the church, her daughter is exasperated by well-meaning friends telling her that "God wanted another angel." In many ways, this awkward scene with their grief recovery support group reminded me of sitting in church.

Another Angel
Rabbit Hole at MOVIECLIPS.com

But the film is ultimately hopeful. Becca and Howie endure the crisis. By the end of the movie, our own wounds even feel more "bound up" as we watch them, together, step tentatively toward the light again. The sorrow is still there, but as Becca's mom confides, "At some point, it becomes bearable. It turns into something that you can crawl out from under and... carry around like a brick in your pocket."




*A year after we saw  the movie, we had the chance to see the original stage version. We wondered how it would compare, since we already knew the story. The play was extremely moving. The narrowed setting and smaller cast really put the dialogue into focus. Definitely go if you get the chance.

Film Favorites: Away We Go

One of my all-time favorites

We saw this film at the theater when it came out in 2009 and now it seems to represent several years of my life. We like to think our cinematic tastes are discriminating, and back then we were still hesitant about R-rated art, so that date night broke daring new ground for us. And I still laugh and cry every time I see the movie. Just watching the trailer again (for this post) made me happy inside.

Away We Go is an offbeat post-modern dramedy, with a side of realistic romance, in the road picture tradition. Burt and Verona are thirty-somethings living in a trailer with a cardboard window and taking life as it comes, until they learn they are expecting their first child. When Burt’s parents announce that they are moving to Belgium for the next two years, the young couple feels abandoned and unmoored. So Burt and a very pregnant Verona set out on a cross-country trip, visiting relatives and old acquaintances in hopes of finding a supportive setting in which to start their family.

Away We Go is full of quirky humor played directly to Generation X. Most of the characters are written as caricatures and I laughed out loud at the cast’s over-the-top renditions. The script and performances have the feel of a play, relying on dialogue and performances that almost seem too exaggerated for cinema. Still, many Gen-Xers will relate to the uncomfortable social situations. Our parents may not have moved to Belgium, but they have let us down.We laugh at Lowell, L.N., and Beckett’s mother not because they amuse us, but because we all wonder how to deal with pessimists waiting for the Apocalypse, parents who take themselves too seriously, or zealous proponents of fringe theories. When Burt shouts, in perhaps the best line of the film, “And I renounce your unbelievable bullshit!”, we cheer him, envious of his freedom.

John Krasinski plays a sincere, blunt, and clumsy Burt Farlander. Verona (Maya Rudolph) is reserved and thoughtful, but she and Burt have a comfortable relationship and are constantly communicating. Together, they face their fears and inadequacies head-on. Their optimistic quest for parenting role models and kindred spirits takes them—by car, plane, and even train—to Phoenix, Madison, Montreal, and Miami.

Retro clothing styles, older cars, and a subdued color palette make this film seem like it could be decades older than it is. The story values things and places and people that have weathered life. We feel conflicting values as the camera lingeringly contrasts rugged landscapes, beaches, trees, and sunsets, with luxurious buildings, stately townhouses, and nighttime cityscapes. Burt and Verona are clearly comparing the distinctive “feel” of each stop on their itinerary. The film’s soundtrack is moody and introspective, featuring many songs by Scottish singer/songwriter Alexei Murdoch. The music is beautifully haunting, the lyrics pregnant with  hope.

This screenplay was a first for husband-wife team Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. Dave, a satirical novelist once called “the J. D. Salinger of Generation X”, has written characters whose experiences mirror many of his own. Like Verona, he lost both parents while he was a college student. Like Burt’s brother, he felt the burden of raising a child alone. Burt’s sister-in-law disappears, abandoning her daughter and husband. Eggers’ sister committed suicide. Dave found that parenthood dramatically changed his lifestyle and the way he approached his career, and Burt and Verona are willing to embrace the inevitable changes that accompany pregnancy and new parenthood.

The meaning of parenthood, family, and commitment is a poignant and continuous theme. Verona is committed to Burt, but refuses to marry him. Burt’s brother wonders how his daughter will fare without a mother. Burt’s parents pursue their own European adventure, leaving their youngest son feeling rejected. Verona’s sister wonders how to know if she and her boyfriend are compatible. Both girls have to deal with the absence of their deceased parents. LN, a well-heeled New Age feminist university professor and “lactivist”, and her seahorse-obsessed husband smother their children under their notion of familial devotion. Tom and Munch try to protect their adopted family from sad reality, though their own hearts are bleeding. Lily and Lowell ignore or put down their children, while the lady at the hotel is raising a well-informed brat. After each encounter, Burt and Verona reflect on their observations, establishing their own values while considering the long-haul demands of parenting and realizing that there is no guarantee of success.

I feel a kinship with Burt and Verona every time I watch this movie. I appreciate that they want to live on purpose. Like them, I often feel lost in a sea of choices and even conflicting desires; I love the way they analyze their options. IMDB quotes director Sam Mendes as saying, “[All my films are]  about one or more people who are lost and trying to find a way through. It’s no different with this one, it just happens that they do find a way through.” While Burt and Verona find some of their friends’ homes more appealing than others, they ultimately realize that they must find their own way and create their own unique family. When they finally choose a place to be their own, Burt tells Verona, “This place is perfect for us. Don’t you think?”

Verona smiles through tears, “I hope so.”

I hope so, too.

Does Marriage Take Three?

With St. Valentine's Day around the corner, this beautiful article by Maren Stephenson is perfect for Testimony Tuesday:

"When Sean replaced his temple garments — the sacred underwear he’d promised to wear day and night — with boxers, I couldn't take it anymore. It was too much betrayal. I called up a neighbor with a husband like mine and cried. But instead of empathy, she offered questions that stunned me into silence. Was Sean addicted to pornography? Watching R-rated movies? What sin had brought him to this terrible place?

"...This started my brain twitching. I knew Sean was still a good person, that he still maintained the same moral standards he had when he married me. The Church was wrong about him. What else might they be wrong about? I shoved the thought away.

I hope you can read all of Maren's story. But I will just highlight one more paragraph--my favorite, for it is has been my experience as well:

"Ironically, the Mormon Church teaches that marriage can only thrive if God is an equal part of it. But when we left God out of it, we were free to love each other completely, to share the burden of our grief as two individuals with no one else."

I often used to wonder why some Christian marriages were so unpleasant, if God was truly the vital ingredient. The usual answer given was that God is more interested in our holiness than our happiness.

Speaking for myself, I would far rather have a happy marriage than a "holy" one.

My Wife Has Her Own Head

I thought this was an excellent article to share for Testimony Tuesday:

“In a way, abdicating my headship was a natural outcome of my observation that women were not, in fact, unequal. Growing up, I sensed the oddness of it all, but it was only once I had a girlfriend, then a fiancée, and then a wife that I detected the absurdity. My spouse, I recognized, was not like an employee or a child or a pet—she was a co-creator of our marriage and an equal hand in our new life together. She didn't need a head. She had her own. And thus my announcement that Friday evening during the commercial break.”

. . . 

“When finally we ejected theism from our lives, there was little change in my behavior toward my wife. My final decree as head of the house had come years earlier, and it had been to declare our relationship equal. Leaving our faith behind cleared up all the contradiction regarding science, history, cognitive dissonance, and the afterlife. No longer would we have to use tortuous rationales to defend our egalitarian marriage; being atheists meant such equality was now a given. It was so obvious, we spent no time talking about it.”

I am so very grateful for a husband who has always given me the space to become myself. Observing his treatment of women as equals has helped me to realize that I do, in fact, have my own head. :)

Relationship

As two people in a relationship mature, their friendship deepens. As children become less dependent on their parents, they develop richer ways of engaging in their parents’ lives. As I became more secure in my marriage, I became less jealous, less dependent, more self-confident, and capable of contributing more to the relationship. 

According to American evangelicals, Christianity is all about a relationship. It’s all about knowing God and him knowing me, and the two of us loving each other, and needing each other and taking care of each other—wait, the Almighty doesn’t depend on me. He doesn’t have to explain anything to me, or even TALK to me. Yet, according to evangelicals, I’ll be in eternal trouble if I give up calling, or get suspicious about the claim that I’m on his mind all the time, or even begin to doubt that he really exists. 

Christianity offers a relationship that never grows up: a perpetually lopsided arrangement of obedience, dependency, petition, and childish trust. Jesus may have said, “I have called you friends”, but friends maintain a dialogue. They respect each other, discuss their differences, explain misunderstandings, compromise, and work for one another’s benefit. If I ever had a relationship with God, I would have to describe him as my abusive ex. I left him when I realized we would never share the same values.