Journal Excerpt: Learned Passivity

This is what my 14-year-old self had to say on a long ago New Year's Eve:

What I’ve learned most this year:  God will provide for my every need. All I need and ever will is Him. Since His love is SO great, He’s the only Being I’ll ever need to be content and joyful. He wants what’s best for me, knows what is best, and will supernaturally take care of it. I don’t have to do anything, trying to make my plans work out. If I trust Him, He’ll show His power.

Just a few years earlier, I was an active girl with dreams and goals and ideas for the future. Dad wrote on my 6th grade homeschool report card that my "interest in spiritual things" was limited to "just the facts".

Somewhere between ages 12 and 14, I learned that I was to be passive, that I was to wait, that I was to be guided, led, and provided for by a supernatural being. That I didn't know what was good for me. That I didn't have to do anything.

Circling the Christianity Buffet, Part 4

In Which I Return to the Beginning

We had exhausted the church options in our own community; now we crossed county lines heading east, south, and west. We piled into our 12-passenger van and rotated directions each week, laughingly calling ourselves a "circuit-riding congregation".

The Church of Christ had fired their ATI pastor, and he was now leading a small fellowship of mostly homeschooling families who met on Sunday mornings at a public school to the east, near the lake. The school would rent them the library for something like $10 a week, and we could drag in a piano from down the hall to accompany the pastor’s guitar. This band of believers sang a lot of praise songs I remembered from my childhood. The pastor would print out his sermon notes and pass out copies to everyone. Then he would put the same notes on the overhead projector, stand to the side, and proceed to read them to us. But the homemade cubes of communion bread were nearly as delicious as the charismatic kind, and they served it every single week. On Sunday nights, many in the church liked to have bonfires, s’mores, and guitar-led sing-alongs on the beach.

In the opposite direction, we knew an ATI family pastoring an old country church. Their theology was more covenantal than ours and the congregation more blue-collar, but their music was safely conservative and I borrowed interesting books from the minister. Having connections to the Methodist tradition, they took their monthly communion at the altar rail. Until I asked the pastor to officiate at my wedding, I did not realize that Bible Methodists do not endorse jewelry—including wedding rings.

Other weeks, we drove south to join an eclectic "plain" fellowship meeting in a township hall. Some families were ex-Amish, having been forced out of their communities when they were "born again". One couple had been raised Catholic and now vehemently objected to the celebration of Christ-mass. Another had been Episcopalian, turned Amish (exchanging their minivan for a horse and buggy), and were now neither. When they decided to have a baptismal immersion service at a farm pond, no one knew how to do it. The baptismal candidates didn't even get completely moistened, though, as a female observer, I didn't tell them so. 

Everyone homeschooled, the girls all wore dresses, there was little interaction between the sexes, and the women all wore scarves around their hair, with only an inch or two revealed above their foreheads. The a capella singing was painfully slow. The men took turns preaching. I doubt anyone in the group had a college degree; some of the adults had not even finished high school. I cannot recall the fine points of their theology because it was primarily discussed at men’s meetings. As non-members, we would not have been allowed to take communion.

I was annoyed with the extreme patriarchy and made a point of wearing lipstick (gasp!) and my boldest pale pink dress (short sleeves, print of scattered full-blown roses, dainty lace collar, decorative brooch-like button, and wide belt). Though I enjoyed hats, I did not wear one there. I was accustomed to being the most conservatively dressed in any social group, so feeling like the "harlot" was a new experience! I suddenly realized how most normal women must have felt when they visited our family. 

After months of riding our little circuit on Sunday mornings, we settled at the fellowship that met at the school. The pastor was soft-spoken and kind, there were lots of other children, and the families were the most like us. In many ways, that church was a spiritual rehab center or halfway house, attracting the hurt, the lonely, the ones who didn’t fit elsewhere. It was, for the most part, a safe and quiet place for us to park while our emotional wounds healed.

I moved to Oklahoma (to work for Bill Gothard's cult) and fell in love with a Christian & Missionary Alliance Church there. For the first time since childhood, I looked forward to going to church. The people were friendly and the service combined all the elements I most enjoyed. Even though I couldn't remember the CMA church of my infancy, I had a feeling of returning to the beginning, of coming home to where I belonged, and for a year I participated to the fullest extent my cult involvement would permit.

Theologically, I liked the CMA teaching on the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts; after all I'd seen, it felt centered. One week the pastor prayed for a sick man to be healed. The man was anointed with oil and we all prayed. I went home for a visit and when I got back, the man was dead. I tried to understand. I wrote a poem for his widow, imagining the man in heaven and trying to put a hopeful spin on his passing. Faith was so mysterious.

One of my coworkers at Gothard's training center was confident she heard God’s spirit communicating with her. We talked about faith and what we wanted it to mean. During the lunch hour one day, we went up to my room and she prayed for me to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That afternoon I spoke in tongues for the first time. After decades of stories, curiosity, contradictory advice, and yearning to "experience God" in a physical way, this strange and awkward exploratory event felt like losing my spiritual virginity. I basked in a sense of fulfillment for a while.

But my job moved out of Oklahoma and CMA church in my new city wasn’t as inviting. The charismatics weren't down-to-earth enough; the Lutherans were too old or too certain; the Baptists far too stuffy. I kept exploring, learning from each church I was part of, but never able to put down roots. I married, and we eventually settled at a Christian church in our neighborhood that both my husband and I could appreciate. The music leader played with skill and gusto, though some of the more suggestive songs about Jesus made me giggle now that I had sexual experience.

Since Christian churches share a common ancestor with the Church of Christ, communion was a weekly ritual. Unfortunately, this particular congregation used tasteless minuscule crackers that got stuck in my teeth. I tried to think reverent thoughts, picturing the tiny cup of grape juice "blood" as an oral vaccine, passing Christ's immunity on to me and strengthening my resistance to various temptations. It helped for a while, but eventually I started taking two crackers at a time, to get a morsel big enough to chew. Then I switched to selecting the darkest bit on the plate, because at least Burnt Bleached Flour is a flavor.

Once in a while, I would pray in tongues again, sometimes because I felt overwhelmed by life, other times just to see if it still worked. This went on for years until one week, sitting in the sound booth in the back of an evangelical church in the middle of Kansas, my husband and I knew we didn’t belong anymore.

In an attempt to preserve what faith we had left in the God of the Bible, we found a Methodist church with a beautiful pipe organ and a heart of compassion. But even singing anthems with the robed choir, attending the pastor’s Bible class, and dipping bread in grape juice in his study didn’t help. One Easter Sunday, we helped the children’s department with the resurrection-themed crafts, then quietly slipped away. Even as an atheist, I found I could still speak in tongues.

Friends sometimes suppose that if I had ever met their Christ, I would have to love him. But I was presented to the Lord at two weeks old and have seen more of the Body of Christ than most. I found that we simply weren't compatible. For thirty-odd years, I thought we had a relationship; I even thought we were close. But after years of thinking the problems were all mine, his behavior at last began to trouble me.  Could he be trusted? Could he be schizophrenic? Was he cruel? Was he real? And I finally had to conclude: eternity would be far too long to spend with anyone so enigmatic.

Circling the Christianity Buffet, Part 3

In Which I Learn I am Not a Baptist

Now we were Baptists, or nearly so. Some of the men in suits were my Dad’s clients, successful businessmen in the petroleum industry. One man managed our grocery store, another the Christian radio station. Another dad sold computers at the local store. A retired public school teacher led the congregational singing, but many of the musicians we heard at church were professionals, some even affiliated with an internationally-renowned arts center.

I was mesmerized when a guest harpist performed one week. My heart melted when the pastor’s son accompanied his own voice at the piano on a visit home from college. The sound guys could have turned off the microphone when one of the deacons played a trumpet solo, but for the most part, Baptist music was crisply timed, properly rehearsed, and perfectly orchestrated. Only once did a soloist break down in the middle of her song and let the soundtrack run on without her.

The morning service, recorded and aired on a local radio station at night, ran on a fixed schedule. There was no open-floor "quiet time" and prayer was not spontaneous. The opening song was always cheerful, the closing song always introspective. Even altar calls were predictable, unless someone actually went forward and we had to sing another verse of the hymn. Personal testimonies and hymn requests were reserved for the evening service.

The Baptists were very sure about some things that we had previously left open. Jesus would return AFTER the Tribulation, and salvation was a permanent deal, unless you didn’t get the genuine article the first time. Baptism had to be by immersion, not for salvation, but as proof of salvation. They knew that God didn’t use "speaking in tongues" anymore, though they still prayed for healing for a long list of sick people on Wednesday nights. And their pastor had to write three sermons a week!

We finally left Bible Baptist because Bill Gothard had convinced my parents, who convinced me, that songs with a backbeat—even songs about Jesus—were tools of Satan. The elders were tolerant of our beliefs for a while, but they came to look with disfavor on a family of nine standing up and filing out of the sanctuary during the soloist’s "ministry of music" week after week, even if we returned to our pew for the sermon! It was a mutual break-up in the end, because the church introduced a "contemporary" early service, with a drum set up front, and my parents could not attend a church that resembled a rock concert.

So it was back to the church search, though we knew our options were very limited by now. Two other homeschooling dads in our town were followers of Bill Gothard (and members of his ATI program). One was the pastor at a Church of Christ, but their doctrine was suspect. The other attended a tiny IFB church close to our house. We started visiting there, and there was nothing offensive about the music if you didn’t care about quality, or the lyrics. The hymnal we used had been edited by John R. Rice, and the songs we sang were almost entirely of one genre (and almost entirely written between the years between 1850 and 1950). Here, there was an uncomfortable divide between the Gothardite homeschoolers (only two families now, but we made up more than half the minors in the church) and the rest of the congregation.

The pastor left shortly after we started attending, so we sat through repetitive interim preachers, guests, substitutes, and prospective young men interviewing for the position. In the end, the other ATI dad was "called" to the pastorate, which was convenient since his family was already living in the parsonage. He was a layman with his own audio-visual business, and it was odd thing all ‘round. My parents were not part of whatever voting process landed him the church, as they were waiting for the new pastor before they officially joined.

The new "pastor" ruled with a heavy hand. We didn’t know he was an abusive man at home—that would come out years later when two of his daughters escaped his house. We only knew he wore a somber suit and tried to make people feel guilty. We sat uncomfortably in those pews for two more years. All the normal people disappeared, leaving only the most rigid fundamentalists—and us. Since the former pianist had gone, I played the Gospel songs for the southern-style worship that emphasized sins, blood, and dying Lambs. Being a novice accompanist, I had some input on the song list, but the male leader had the final say, and his whims determined how many stanzas we sang. He typically announced, " e’ll sing the first, second, and the last!" I once told him I would hate to be a 3^rd verse in a Baptist church.

Much as we looked the part in our long, homemade dresses with our KJV Bibles, we weren't really fundamentalists. We were tolerant of dispensationalism, but not sold on it. We watched Billy Graham movies at home (sometimes skipping objectionable songs), we prayed with Presbyterians, we visited gloomy Lutheran Lenten services, we once attended Mass with our Catholic cousins, I read a New Testament paraphrase, and we didn’t think the evangelicals building the huge complex down the road were on the path to hell. Dad even read us a book about glossolalia—stories about people praying in tongues that were supposedly unknown to the speakers but recognized by others within earshot. Stories that directly contradicted the pastor’s sermon series on Acts.

At home, I dug out a songbook from the 70’s with familiar guitar tunes from the days of the Home Fellowship group and the Sunshine Inn. After Sunday dinner, I would play stormily, pounding out my frustration and wounded spirit in haunting minor chords. I sang "Our God Reigns", "God and Man at Table Are Sat Down", "You Are my Hiding Place", and eventually drifted to hymns like "Be Still, My Soul" and "Blessed Quietness".

One day the pastor and the one remaining elder asked my dad not to come back anymore. It was both a relief to me and a deep sadness. Other might talk of their "church home", but we were spiritual refugees again: too "Pentecostal" for the Baptists, too "plain" for the charismatics, and too "Baptist" for our Mennonite friends. Too full of emotion to know what to say, I wished I could pray in tongues.

Part 4: In Which I Return to the Beginning

Circling the Christianity Buffet, Part 2

In Which God and I are Friends

This particular group of Friends was unique in that they did occasionally celebrate Communion, with grape juice and fluffy white bread. Everyone tore off a piece as the loaf was passed down the row. The congregation was small and the old wooden meetinghouse drafty, so they set up chairs in the basement for services through the winter. The pastor was young, with a sweet wife and baby boy. Through every sermon he would remove his glasses, set them on the lectern, put them back on, take them off, and so on. There was no band, no overhead projector. In the middle of the service, everyone sat down, even the pastor, for fifteen minutes of "quiet time".

A short white-haired lady whose neck had gotten lost in multiple chins frequently filled the silence with stories or thoughts from her week. Other times a grandfatherly jail chaplain shared his thoughts about God in a reassuring voice. His daughter-in-law played the piano for our services. There were college students who occasionally attended in shorts and t-shirts, a one-armed man who frightened my mom, a blind mother of three who played the guitar, a dairy farmer who also worked as a nurse, and a dark-haired young outdoorsman with a beard that made my pre-teen heart beat faster.

Dad took us all to midweek hymn sings and prayer meetings at the parsonage, where I learned to follow along from a hymnal. Mom and I did a discipleship study with a small group at the church, which groomed my shy child-self to pray aloud with an adult partner. I recall a boring video series called Ordering Your Private World by Gordon MacDonald, former chairman of the board of World Vision. About the time we were watching MacDonald on a TV screen, he was resigning as president of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship after admitting to an adulterous affair. But the Internet had not yet been born, so we knew nothing of MacDonald’s private world.

Another video presentation was more memorable. It warned of the AIDS crisis: the American population was forecast to be decimated in ten years’ time, or was it twenty? I didn’t really know what they were talking about, only that public restrooms could expose me to a deadly virus. The video had a lot to say about "homosexuality". Dad leaned over from his folding metal chair next to me in the dim room and whispered into my ear, "That’s when a man sticks his penis into another man's bottom." My eyes must have widened, but there was nothing to say.

I was twelve or thirteen the Easter that some of the church ladies decided it would be cute to have a children's choir. They taught us a Michael Card song (that included the line: "You can choose what not to believe in…"). There were perhaps eight of us on the stage. Standing there in the new skirt and blouse Mom and I had sewn for the occasion, I was painfully aware of being the oldest.

Changes came as more families followed us from the charismatic fellowship to the Friends church. When the congregation withdrew from the Quaker denomination, I joined the adults in voting for a new church name and was pleased when my favorite won out. "Cornerstone" soon voted to align themselves with the Evangelical Free denomination. We parted ways with them at that point, because the "E. Free" allowed divorced men to be pastors and my mother’s interpretation of the New Testament did not permit such low standards.

My best friend during this period was part of the local Mennonite church. Our family occasionally attended special meetings there, and we loved their potluck meals. Like us, Mennonite girls wore homemade dresses and eschewed make-up. Unlike us, the adult women all wore their hair tucked up inside pleated white caps. They sang unfamiliar hymns in four-part harmony from shaped notes. Marriage was a permanent bond. The pastors were laymen; women were homemakers who planted spectacular gardens and made their own ketchup. Their Anabaptist heritage ran deep; some couples spoke German at home. But the insurmountable difference was their approach to education: my parents were passionate about homeschooling, while the tight-knit Mennonite community expected all its members to support the church's one-room private school. So in spite of all we appreciated about the church, we could never really have fit in.

To his credit, my dad, despite homeschooling and delivering his own babies, never felt comfortable with home-churching. But hunting for a new church is a daunting process—all the more with five children in tow—so Dad and I formed a search committee and visited local Sunday morning services together, discussing their merits on the way home and reporting back to the rest of the family at lunch. Dressed in my mom’s hand-me-downs, I was mistaken for his wife more than once.

We settled at the Baptist church we’d driven past so many times early in my childhood: a traditional brick building with padded pews, a grand piano, and an organ. Dressed comfortably on our way to the charismatic church and gazing out the car window, I had always felt sorry for the proper, well-coiffed Baptists in their suits, Sunday dresses, and heels. They were obviously rich, and, I imagined, smug. I knew they didn’t dance or speak in tongues.

Part 3: In Which I Learn I am Not a Baptist

Circling the Christianity Buffet, Part 1

An abridged version of this article appeared as a guest post on the blog Ramblings of Sheldon.

In Which God and I Are Introduced

By age 23 I had made a full circuit of the American Christianity buffet table and if I hadn't tasted everything, I had at least gotten near enough to smell it.

I was dedicated to the Protestant God by my parents and a Pastor Dibble at a Christian & Missionary Alliance church in a college town in Pennsylvania. My parents, raised Lutheran from infancy, had been rebaptized there by immersion. They were enthusiastic about Bible study and campus evangelism.

I was wearing toddler sizes when I invited Jesus into my heart before bed one night. There wasn't a CMA church in our new town; my parents fellowshipped with a small, casual group that met in an old building named the "Sunshine Inn". I remember watching the adults perform skits for one another, sharing potlucks, everyone dancing to "Father Abraham", and a small printing operation in a back room. When the group decided to construct their own multipurpose church building, my dad was among the volunteers helping to lay block or hang drywall.

The church was young and charismatic, its members idealistic. Instead of hiring a single pastor, they attempted to follow the pattern of the book of Acts: a group of elders shared the responsibilities of leadership, sitting in front of the assembly together and taking turns teaching from the Bible. Our dentist was one of the elders--until his daughter returned home pregnant from Oral Roberts University and he resigned. Once when I was sick, a group of men from the church (some of the elders?) came to our house to anoint my forehead with oil.

During church services, people prayed out loud, prophesied in tongues, and danced or raised their hands in worship. Song lyrics were shown on the wall via overhead projectors and the song-leader was usually playing a guitar along with a handful of instrumentalists in the "orchestra". Against the wall were inconspicuous wooden boxes with mail slots in the top. Dad often let me slide his tithes and offerings envelope in—a treat I enjoyed and helped him remember. The envelopes were printed with a large Roman-style coin, cut into pie wedges to illustrate the ten percent that belonged to God.

There was a warm water baptistery off to the side of the sanctuary/gymnasium at the church, but my dad baptized me in the Great Lakes in a small ceremony with one other family. They sang “Our God Reigns”—my favorite. My friend’s mom wrapped me in my bath towel with the elephant on it, and I was excited because now Mom and Dad would let me share communion. Elders would stand in the aisles at church holding bottles of grape juice, ready to refill the the common cup as it passed down the rows. The cubes of homemade unleavened bread were fragrant with coriander and star thistle honey. I always tried to nonchalantly pick the biggest piece when the plate made its way to me. I still have the recipe for that bread; it’s one of my family’s favorite snacks.

I remember the men of the church being kind, and I was very aware of their contributions to the community. One was a Vietnam vet who became a veterinarian; he was renowned for his gentleness and good humor. My friends’ dad was an auto mechanic; his father served as principal for the church school and supplied bottled honey to local stores.  A craftsman builder with huge hands did the remodeling on my mom’s kitchen, and helped me ride a bike. When pipes in our house froze one winter, we called the plumber from our church; my brothers and I watched him work. Another dad built cabins from logs he cut himself, and showed my brothers how his bear trap worked. One couple collaborated on art and publishing.

Women and men seemed to participate freely and equally in everything but direct preaching. Except for the elders being an all-male group, I was never aware of restrictions based on my gender. Many adults, including my parents, took turns teaching Bible lessons to the kids in the school classrooms that doubled as Sunday school rooms. I can still quote many of the Bible verses I first memorized there, amid the alphabet posters, stacks of math workbooks, and cabinets of craft supplies. My teachers gave me The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe as a prize, but Mom made me exchange it at the religious bookstore. By then, all fantasy, not just witches, was banned from our home. If my parents had heard of C. S. Lewis, they had certainly never read him.

My parents came to object to sensuality in the church. The church orchestra became more of a band, and this made my parents uncomfortable. They were more concerned about several of their friends’ marriages falling apart and about two divorcees from the church marrying each other. This upset my mom so much that we left that church and started attending a Friends meeting.


Part 2: In Which God and I Are Friends

In Praise of Pluralism

"Tolerance is a necessary public virtue, but it does not require Christians and Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and ardent secularists to know anything about one another. Tolerance is too thin a foundation for a world of religious difference and proximity. It does nothing to remove our ignorance of one another, and leaves in place the stereotype, the half-truth, the fears that underlie old patterns of division and violence. In the world in which we live today, our ignorance of one another will be increasingly costly."      --Diana Eck

When my daughter came home with a worksheet summarizing "The Five Pillars of Islam" a couple of years ago, I must admit my eyes widened and my eyebrows went up a little.

For decades I'd been warned by the likes of Phyllis Schlafly and Bill Gothard that "government schools" were bastions of secular humanism. That they were hostile to religious faith. That Christians were persecuted in the American education system. 

So I was truly startled to encounter a picture of Jesus hanging in the corridor when I first toured our local elementary school. Still more amazed to find Little Pilgrim's Progress in a classroom library. By the time my kids came home with papers advertising the after-school Bible club, I was figuring out that I'd been misled about public education in America!

At our kids' school, several teachers wear crosses. Fourth-graders attend the play "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever". The third grade holiday concert last year included Hanukkah songs. A patriotic concert included "God Bless America" and the Battle Hymn of the Republic. The Boy Scouts recruit during school hours. 

The student body is as diverse as they come. When my kids talk about their friends, I have no idea how to spell the names. English is not every student's first language, their families come from all over the world, and many kinds of costumes appear on picture days when the usual dress code is set aside. The school menu notes which meals are vegetarian, and which contain pork. When I pick up my kids at the end of the day, I see other moms wearing head scarves, bindi, traditional harem pants, nursing scrubs, office skirts, skinny jeans, shorts, yoga pants, and baby slings. It's awesome, one of the things I love about public education.

Clay Bust of Martin Luther

And in this multidimensional environment, our kids are being educated. In history and science and math and social studies and music and so much more. One day at the end of a unit on Medieval Europe and the Reformation, my daughter brought home this piece of artwork (which bears a striking resemblance to one of her German-American ancestors). 

While surprised to encounter Brother Martin again--right in my kitchen!--I was also impressed. I might be tempted to avoid Luther for the rest of my life because of the messy theological and family issues he represents to me, but we can't afford that kind of selective memory. Fact is, he impacted history significantly--world history, German history, American history, my history. 

Avoiding things that make us uncomfortable only shortchanges our children. And our discomfort will be no excuse if they grow up ignorant of the world we brought them into.

Similarly, after my initial surprise at finding the "Five Pillars of Islam" on my kitchen table, I felt grateful. Grateful that the school's curriculum allows my kids to learn about topics that I might let slide, just because they intimidate me. As a homeschooling mom, alas, I didn't have anyone looking over my shoulder or pushing me to cover any topic I didn't want to. Fortunately, my kids' education is no longer dependent on my comfort zone! 

Then this week my kids brought home the following letter from their principal:

      "... Religion is an important component of the history of civilizations. Your students at Minneha cover the five major religions of the world – Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam – as part of their Core Knowledge magnet curriculum. Students study civilizations throughout time, throughout the world, and cover religion with a focus on history and geography in the development of civilizations. 

     "Over the last several days, questions have emerged about a bulletin board in our 4th grade hallway that represents the 5 Pillars of Islam. This display represented one aspect of religion in a historical context. Other aspects of religion in a historic and geographic context will be taught in 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th grades this fall. The purpose of this study is not to explore matters of theology, but to understand the place of religion and religious ideas in history."                                    (excerpt)

Now, I was disappointed to learn that the poster (representing some teacher's effort) had been temporarily removed because it made an adult uncomfortable. I was nonplussed by the fact that ours is the only Core Knowledge school in the district. (Do any other children get to learn about the major religions?) But I was exceedingly grateful to whatever luck allows my children to benefit from this particular curriculum. I plunked down in front of my laptop after dinner and sent off an email to our principal:

"Just wanted to say I am very pleased with Minneha’s approach to the subject of religion. We are not theists, and some of the hall displays do make me uncomfortable, but when I see multiple religions being presented in an even-handed way, I feel much better.

"As an inescapable force in our society, religion must be a part of any complete social studies or history program. And I am pleased to say that when my son was being bullied about religion by his classmates, Minneha teachers were swift to deal with the issue and use it as an opportunity to teach about respect for others and religious tolerance.

"Cultural diversity is probably what we most appreciate about Minneha. Our kids will live in a globalized society. It is invaluable for them to be able to relate to friends who hold different beliefs and traditions."

The flap over the poster has sparked both controversy and conversation. Ultimately, I like to hope it will deepen into a demand for pluralism in the community, helping us come together for common goals--like the education of our children--with understanding and concern for others' well-being. Goodness knows the future of humanity depends on our ability to understand each other and deal with our differences like grownups.

Diana Eck, director of Harvard's Pluralism Project, says pluralism is:

• The energetic engagement with diversity--not diversity alone
• The active seeking of understanding across lines of difference--not mere tolerance
• The encounter of commitments--not their dismissal
• Based on dialogue--not on agreement but on give and take, criticism and self-criticism

Clearly, this is a dialogue we still need to have. 

Reflections On My Childhood, Part III

I have been a bookworm since I learned to read at five years old. I loved Little House on the Prairie, Heidi, and Little Women, as well as history and pretty much any biography: inventors, spies, soldiers, presidents, escaped slaves, authors, businessmen, missionaries, and influential women.

I liked to play in an imaginary world of my own. In my imagination, I always went back in time. I was a pioneer, a forerunner on the prairie, an explorer, a scout sent to tame the wilderness ahead of modern civilization. Or I was blind, exploring my world through other senses. Or I was a conscientious mother to my doll baby, whom I carried on my back while performing my chores, papoose-style. What looked like my pink bicycle was actually my horse, Rosalind, stabled in our garage. Sometimes she was a bay, sometimes a chestnut.

My brothers and I, along with the two kids next door, would go mining in the sandbox. We created a miniature river, waterfall, and reservoir for our play figures to explore. We set up a tent in the backyard and cut up young cucumbers, baby carrots, and tiny onions from our mothers' gardens to make soups in little pots on our imaginary campfire. I can still taste the savory warm water and the tender onion-seasoned vegetable chunks, softening in the summer sun.

Nina was my "best friend". Our parents went to church together. When I was about seven, we joined several families for a Fourth of July picnic at her house and I got to try riding a bike without training wheels. I remember Nina's dad and another dad in the group patiently helping me balance and gently giving the bike a push down the path toward the barn, over and over.

I spent the night at Nina's house several times. We would giggle and play and stay up too late listening to cassette tapes or just reading. Her dad would come in and pray with us before we fell asleep. I remember being surprised that she prayed directly to Jesus ("put angels in my pillow") while I always prayed to God, "in Jesus' name". It was a small distinction, perhaps, but I puzzled over it.

I thought Nina's dad was terrific; he was at ease with kids and his sense of humor kept me laughing. He was a veterinarian and we once got to watch while he performed an emergency c-section on a cow. When he taught our Sunday School class, in a classroom full of desks that also served the church's private school, I repeated his puns in the car all the way home.

Homeschooled during the week, Sunday School was my place to shine. I knew all the answers and memorized Bible verses easily. When I completed one class memorization assignment, the teachers presented me with my own copy of C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. When I showed my parents my prize, they wouldn't let me keep it. Fantasy was frowned upon in our home, as were witches--which were not considered fantastic. We returned the paperback to the local Christian bookstore and exchanged it for something safe, without witches.

When Nina came to my house, we were known to spend most of the visit swapping books and reading together. Once, I had to run down to my dad's study, where our fathers were deep in conversation, to find the book I wanted. They looked up as I slipped in and headed straight for the bookshelf. Nina's dad seemed a bit surprised when I selected Tortured For His Faith, by Haralan Popov. I was rather proud of my grown-up taste in literature.

By that time many of my favorite books were about danger and suffering, about spirit and faith in the face of terror. The villains in these stories were communists, atheists, Nazis, Russians, Romans, Germans, southern slaveholders, Catholic prelates, or animistic "uncivilized" tribesman. I learned a lot very young about torture--both physical and mental, about cruelty, about interrogation techniques. I read and reread stories of measured starvation, of brainwashing, of monotony, of forced labor, of families kept apart. I was aware of the psychological effects of isolation, overcrowding, and sleep deprivation. I devoured tales of codes, smuggling, and covert communication.

I also read of missionaries who spent years getting themselves into dangerous situations, then prayed and struggled heroically to save themselves or their families from near-death. Some, like the five New Tribes men in Bolivia in 1942 and the five men who died in Ecuador in 1956, went into the heart of the jungle never to return to their wives and small children. I read vivid accounts of men dying alone (Dave Yarwood in Bolivia in 1951) or being murdered in front of their wives and children (John Troyer in Guatemala in 1981). They were all my heroes.

David Brainerd kept a depressing diary while he tried to save the Indians, but died of tuberculosis (at 29) before he could marry his girlfriend, who followed him to the grave a few months later. William Carey left a great linguistic legacy in India, but the poor wife he dragged there after God "called" him suffered so much trauma in the process that she went mad. Adoniram Judson buried two wives and numerous children in Burma. Bill Borden died of meningitis in  Egypt at age 25, long before reaching the Muslims in China that God had called him to convert.

When we got a video player during my teen years, many of our movies weren't any more cheerful. In one of my favorites, a Japanese man threw himself under a runaway train, saving the other passengers. In the film, his fiancee took it even better than I did, glowing in the memory of his selfless love. Roman Catholics were the bad guys in BJU's gruesome "Flame in the Wind" and the Reformation histories of William Tyndale and John Hus, while other Protestants were the perpetrators in "The Radicals", cutting out Michael Sattler's tongue before burning him at the stake.

We never skipped the martyrdom scenes, though we often jumped over romantic parts of movies, especially if the women's costumes even hinted at cleavage. We even fast-forwarded through scenes in movies produced by Worldwide Pictures (Billy Graham's film production company)! Tenderness and sexuality--beyond a chaste married kiss--were repressed, but cruelty and violence were commonplace. Satan was our enemy, after all, out to destroy us. We were soldiers for Christ and had to be ready to lay down our lives for his standard.

Even at ten years old, I took my responsibilities as a missionary rather seriously. Since I didn't often leave my own yard except to go to church or the grocery store with my parents, my evangelization opportunities were few. My Grammie didn't seem terribly receptive to converting, and she didn't seem very unsaved anyway. My neighbors were all churchgoers. But their friends didn't quite look like Christians. Two girls near my age would come over (to my neighbors' house) from time to time and we would all occasionally play together. A. & A. went to gymnastics and would practice cartwheels on the lawn. Somersaults were the limit of my flexibility, but I had a greater gift: eternal life.

One afternoon when A. & A. were visiting next door, I talked to them across the fence and said I had something important to share with them. They should come to my window in an hour and I would have it ready. As luck would have it, Mom was serving dinner when the appointed time came. I slipped away from the table, opened the window, and began to earnestly try to explain to the girl outside why she should care about what I was about to give her. One of my parents came looking for me and wanted to know what was going on. Embarrassed, I handed A. a pocket-size Gospel of John, shut the window, returned to supper, and indefinitely postponed my illustrious missionary career.

Faith of our Founding Fathers: Thomas Jefferson

Many years ago, I stood behind a church pew and argued with a college student who was the son of a Reformed Presbyterian minister. My family had just attended the Sunday evening service at his father's Pennsylvania church. Decades earlier, the building had belonged to a Christian & Missionary Alliance congregation. It was where my parents had been baptized as adults, where they were invited to sing cantatas with the choir, and where I was dedicated to the Christian God by a Pastor Raymond Dibble. We were in town to revisit those memories, but I was more fascinated by this Presbyterian church's songbook: a psalter that contained nothing but metrical psalms put to hymn tunes or chants.

I was also surprised to meet a young man close to my own age who had no aversion to conversation with a female. We stumbled onto the subject of American history, a favorite of mine. My fascination with the guy probably made me over-assertive. His studies had convinced him that Thomas Jefferson was not a Christian. At least not in the sense that his preacher-father would ever use that word. My home-education reading had led me to believe the opposite, and I was as stubborn as a bulldog. Not often did I have the opportunity to verbally wrestle with a handsome, intelligent young man! The intellectual contact made me as giddy as his wavy hair and Scottish last name did.

When my parents loaded us all back into the car to return to our hotel that night, my belief in our Christian founding fathers was still unswayed, though I did wonder how such such a cute Christian young man could defend such error so sincerely! I may even have been slightly jealous that he got to study such subjects in college.

My information had come largely from David Barton and ATI Wisdom Booklets. It was many more years before I realized the difference between real historians and David Barton. My definition of "Christian" has also undergone multiple revisions since that time. And now I understand what that pastor's kid was trying to explain to my much younger, naive but inquisitive and ever-searching self.

Thomas Jefferson

(Source: Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia at Monticello.org)

Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear. (Letter to Peter Carr, 1787)

To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed, opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; and believing he never claimed any other. (Letter to Benjamin Rush, 1803)

In extracting the pure principles which he [Jesus] taught, we should have to strip off the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches and power to them. . . . We must reduce our volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very words only of Jesus, paring off the Amphibologisms into which they have been led by forgetting often, or not understanding, what had fallen from him, by giving their own misconceptions as his dicta, and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not understood themselves. There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging, the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill. (Letter to John Adams, 1813)

I must ever believe that religion substantially good which produces an honest life, and we have been authorized by One whom you and I equally respect, to judge of the tree by its fruit. (Letter to Miles King, 1814)

But the greatest of all the reformers of the depraved religion of his own country, was Jesus of Nazareth. Abstracting what is really his from the rubbish in which it is buried, easily distinguished by its luster from the dross of his biographers, and as separable from that as the diamond from the dunghill, we have the outlines of a system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen from the lips of man; outlines which it is lamentable he did not live to fill up. Epictetus and Epicurus give laws for governing ourselves, Jesus a supplement of the duties and charities we owe to others. The establishment of the innocent and genuine character of this benevolent moralist, and the rescuing it from the imputation of imposture, which has resulted from artificial systems,* invented by ultra-Christian sects, unauthorized by a single word ever uttered by him, is a most desirable object, and one to which Priestley has successfully devoted his labors and learning. It would in time, it is to be hoped, effect a quiet euthanasia of the heresies of bigotry and fanaticism which have so long triumphed over human reason, and so generally and deeply afflicted mankind; but this work is to be begun by winnowing the grain from the chaff of the historians of his life.
* e. g. The immaculate conception of Jesus, his deification, the creation of the world by him, his miraculous powers, his resurrection and visible ascension, his corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity; original sin, atonement, regeneration, election, orders of Hierarchy, &c.
(Letter to William Short, 1819)

No one sees with greater pleasure than myself the progress of reason in its advances towards rational Christianity. When we shall have done away the incomprehensible jargon of the Trinitarian arithmetic, that three are one, and one is three; when we shall have knocked down the artificial scaffolding, reared to mask from view the simple structure of Jesus, when, in short, we shall have unlearned every thing which has been taught since his day, and got back to the pure and simple doctrines he inculcated, we shall then be truly and worthily his disciples: and my opinion is that if nothing had ever been added to what flowed purely from his lips, the whole world would at this day have been Christian. I know that the case you cite, of Dr Drake, has been a common one. the religion-builders have so distorted and deformed the doctrines of Jesus, so muffled them in mysticisms, fancies and falsehoods, have caricatured them into forms so monstrous and inconceivable, as to shock reasonable thinkers, to revolt them against the whole, and drive them rashly to pronounce its founder an impostor. (Letter to Timothy Pickering, 1821)

The truth is that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine words. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated reformer of human errors. (Letter to John Adams, 1823)

Library Shelf: Dating Jesus

Today, Susan Campbell is a journalist and author in Connecticut. But she was once a young fundamentalist Sunday School teacher, door knocker, Gospel puppeteer, and Bible Bowl champion in rural Missouri.

Dating Jesus: A Story of Fundamentalism, Feminism, and the American Girl

I could relate to so much in this award-winning memoir, but it was Susan's brother, former child preacher, who spoke the book's most powerful line:

"Fundamentalism broke off in us, didn't it?" 

Yes, it did. Like a sword, fundamentalism was plunged into our bodies, and then it got broken off in us so that we will never, ever heal from the wound. Like Perpetual Jesus on the Perpetual Cross, we are the walking wounded. By now, the shaft is part of our organs and these smiling, happy people? They have no idea.

Susan writes openly and passionately, but not bitterly, about the inequalities she experienced as a girl: in her home, at her school, and in her church. I strongly identified with her obedient frustration! Ultimately, those unfair experiences, the questions she was not supposed to ask, and the thoughts she was not supposed to think, drove her--like some of her American feminist heroes--outside the church in search of justice and "the social gospel".

Although an experienced public speaker, Susan poignantly describes the anxiety that threatened to overwhelm her the first time she was asked to speak from a pulpit, which is "so not a lectern".

Still "Christ-haunted", she spends a significant portion of the book wrestling with Bible passages, seeking to reinterpret them in kinder, more inclusive ways. This is how Rachel Held Evans would sound if she exited organized religion. And because many of the pro-woman authors Susan cites (Wills, Armstrong, Ehrenreich, Rose, Stanton) are also now familiar to me, following her thoughts and reading her conclusions feels like participating in an intimate book club discussion.

Susan's church would not have acknowledged me as a proper fundamentalist. Regardless of what some of our churches may have taught, my dad never let us think we were the only ones headed for heaven. In my family, I suppose each of us devised, of necessity, our own theological framework to support the weighty framework of rules and disciplines and standards laid upon us while making allowances for believers who took a more comfortable path. Mine was a theology of superiority--a kind of lay monasticism for the ultra-committed lovers of Christ.

Fundamentalist or haughty evangelical, it was just as Susan explains: "We believed, we believed, we believed, we believed, and we acted on it, too.... And then, when the burden became too great, people like us started... running as fast as we could from the church.... We'd been lied to. We'd been misled. We were angry."

And fundamentalism broke off in me, too.

The Rights of Women

Quick history review:

One hundred years ago, women in America were still marching for the right to vote.

An American suffrage event in 1913

Jeanette Rankin, the lonely female voice in Congress in 1917, was proud to vote for woman's suffrage. Her male colleagues finally approved women's voting rights in 1920, ratifying the Nineteenth Amendment more than forty years after Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton first drafted it. Men in Switzerland did not approve federal female suffrage till 1971.

Much more recently, married women in Wichita still needed their husband's permission to get a library card and women in Memphis could only get a library card in their husband's name.

In the 1980's, I grew up in a religious cult that did not permit women to wear pants (lest they cause a man to lust after them and rape them). Contraception was also considered immoral, so my mother had 15 pregnancies: 4 miscarriages, 11 births. When I realized (just a few years ago!) that women actually have equal rights with men, I was amazed. And then I discovered that those rights are under attack right here in heartland.

For example, our governor and some of our male state legislators are continually eroding, in the name of religion, the rights of Kansas women to not be pregnant. If women were making these rules, that affect only women after all, maybe I would feel differently. But these men were born with the right to never be pregnant. Why would they insist that a woman grow another human inside her body against her will?

My daughters need to know they can be whatever they want to be. That motherhood is their choice--even if they are victims of sexual violence. Even if they are minors. Even if their birth control fails. Even if they are ignorant or irresponsible. Even if they don't discover they are pregnant until 8 weeks later. And if they choose to exercise their constitutional right to an abortion, they should not have to fight a state-mandated obstacle course of shame, fear and lies. 

Men, especially religious men, have a long history of telling women how God intended women's bodies to be used:

For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another...
--St. Paul (Romans 1:26-27)

You really wrote that, Paul? "The natural use of the woman"? Oh, God. Got that straight from Him, did you? You'll be glad to know the church in Rome took it seriously. In fact, they've spread the good news all over the globe--letting it be known that the only morally acceptable place for a male orgasm is inside a woman's vagina. Yep. Thanks, Paul.

Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
--St. Paul (I Corinthians 11:9)

Of course. What was I thinking?

But others drink potions to ensure sterility and are guilty of murdering a human being not yet conceived.
--St. Jerome (Letter 22, to Eustochium 13)

How the heck? I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Therefore, women do wrong when they seek to have children by means of evil drugs. They sin still more grievously when they kill the children who are already conceived or born, and when by taking impious drugs to prevent conception they condemn in themselves the nature which God wanted to be fruitful. Let them not doubt that they have committed as many murders as the number of the children they might have begotten.
--St. Caesarius of Arles (Sermon 51, 4; CC 103, 229)

Inconceivable!

By that primitive name [Eve], says he, He showed for what labor the woman had been provided; and He said accordingly, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth." Now, who among ourselves denies that the woman was provided for the work of child-bearing by the Lord God, the beneficent Creator of all good?
--St. Augustine (On Marriage and Concupiscence, Book II, Chapter 12)

 I guess no one else is going to do it...

...We see how weak and sickly barren women are. Those who are fruitful, however, are healthier, cleanlier, and happier. And even if they bear themselves weary—or ultimately bear themselves out—that does not hurt. Let them bear themselves out. This is the purpose for which they exist. It is better to have a brief life with good health than a long life in ill health.
--Martin Luther (The Estate of Marriage, LW 45)

I've seen such women. It is a heartbreaking sight.

Woman is more guilty than man, because she was seduced by Satan, and so diverted her husband from obedience to God that she was an instrument of death leading to all perdition. It is necessary that woman recognize this, and that she learn to what she is subjected; and not only against her husband. This is reason enough why today she is placed below and that she bears within her ignominy and shame.
--John Calvin (author of Institutes of the Christian Religion, cited by Brown in An Apology to Women)

So glad I don't live in Calvin's Geneva.

Woman in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man, not to rule and command him. After the fall, she was made subject to man by the irrevocable sentence of God. In which sentence there are two parts.
    (a) A dolor, anguish and pain as oft as ever she shall be a mother.
    (b) A subjection of her self, her appetites and will to her husband and his will.
From the former part of this malediction can neither art, nobility, policy nor law made by man deliver women: but, alas, ignorance of God, ambition and tyranny have studied to abolish and destroy the second part of God's punishment.
--John Knox (First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women)

And so it goes on. From Calvin and Knox to Doug Phillips and Jim Bob Duggar. Let the women kill fleas!

Sisters, we have come far. Occasionally with the support of religious groups, more often without. Our daughters are watching us to determine their own value. For their sake, let's not give up any of our hard-won progress now.

Women's Fashions Responsible for Crime & Hellfire

Today's Christian rape culture is nothing new.

From Clement of Alexandria ("By no means are women to be allowed to uncover and exhibit any part of their bodies, lest both fall – the men by being incited to look, and the women by attracting to themselves the eyes of men") to the infamous Modesty Survey, religious men have always been good at making women anxious about their appearance.

Digging through an old folder last week, I came across this gem of a tract. Years ago, articles like this one were an encouragement to me to keep dressing the way I was told to.

Alas, there is no date on the pamphlet, but I'm figuring the article had to be written about a hundred years ago. I've posted the full text below with my favorite parts highlighted.

Are We Dragging Men to Hell By Our Modern Dress? 

The old sign of the harlot's den was a red light by night, and women sitting in front by day showing their legs. The Bible says to Christians:

"In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with broided hair or gold or pearls or costly array." I Timothy 2:9

A preacher said, "Only yesterday my manhood was insulted. Across from and facing me on a street car sat a 'something' -- a female picking her teeth. Her dress was above her knees with no effort to keep them together. Horrors! What are we coming to when a clean man must cover his face with a paper or turn his head the other way to keep from seeing entirely too much? It seems that many of these she animals have lost all modesty and are out for sale, offering all that is left -- just leg! legs!! legs!!!"

A good lady said, "These knee-length dresses are not modest. The Holy Spirit showed me that at least half of the calf of the leg should be covered."

Hear what Dr. [Perry] Lichtenstein, Physician of Tombs Prison in New York City, who is able to speak authoritatively on the causes of crime, says: (He has seen, in 12 years, 170,000 prisoners pass over the 'Bridge of Sighs', and he ought to know.) "The so called crimes of passion are increasing alarmingly, and will continue to do so in my opinion until the principal cause is eliminated. This, it seems to me, is the present style of dress which, to say the least, is immodest. Rolled stockings and similar styles have a direct bearing on crime incitation no matter how innocent the wearer may be." It is safe to say that there would be much less crime today, far fewer homes whose happiness has been blasted forever by unfaithfulness, fewer divorce trials, less violations of maidenly honor, if everyone of these underworld styles could be thrown into the deepest Hell.

Dr. [Thomas De Witt] Talmadge said, "Thousands of men are in Hell, whose eternal damnation is due to the improper dress of women."

In a neighboring town lives a boy who was graduated from the State University with the highest honors. Later he had a fine position but acquired a venereal disease, went insane, and now is in the insane asylum part of the time--all because of lust. 

Low necks, short dresses scarcely to the knees, bare arms, painted faces--in a word--everything to arouse passion and lust is the order of the day.

"Everybody does it!" I know--but do you belong to the 'everybodies' or are you a pilgrim?
I went to Bible school, and one day the teacher had a special meeting of the girls and told them if they would let the Lord talk to them, they would lengthen their dresses. When the school had a social gathering, one boy left the party when the girls were playing games, etc. He could see too much, he said.

When women come with knee length dresses, and stoop to pick up apples, I think the men can see more that it is the Lord's will for them to see.

I would rather wear my dresses a longer length and please the Lord, than to try to please a hard-to-please fickle world. We surely will never send men to Hell by wearing longer dresses.

D.L. Moody in his book, Prevailing Prayer, said, "Why is it that many of our children are going down to a dishonored grave? Many Godly parents find that their children are going astray. Does it arise from some secret sin clinging around the heart? I sometimes tremble when I hear people quote promises, and say that God is bound to fulfill those promises to them, when all the time there is something in their own lives which they are not willing to give up. It is well to search our hearts and find out why our prayers are not answered."

One saintly woman, who wore rather long dresses, said, when she put on a shorter dress, the Lord would not hear her prayers.

John Wesley said gay and costly apparel tends to influence lust.

During the first hundred years of her ministry, Methodism was the greatest power for righteousness of any movement since Pentecost. In those days of her glory, Methodism always insisted upon plainness of attire.

We may say if we wear our dresses a longer length we will look differently. What does Charles Finney (one of the most God-used evangelists of the all time) say? "I will confess that I was formerly myself in error. I believed the best way for Christians to pursue was to dress so as not to be noticed: to follow the fashions so as not to appear singular. But I have seen my error and now wonder greatly at my former blindness. It is your duty to dress so plain as to show the world that you place no sort of reliance in things of fashion.

If you wear immodest clothing that offers a suggestive appeal to sex, and stimulates those baser impulses which slumber in the human breast, do you think the Lord is so likely to protect your girl and boy in the wave of immorality among youth and others?

Preachers, if you think these knee length dresses are not modest, and it is a sin for women to wear them, will you be faithful to the Lord to warn them? Can you expect the Lord to put a hedge around yours sons and daughters, and keep them moral in this immoral world, if you do not?

I am trusting the Lord to keep my three sons pure. Can the Lord protect young people? I know He can; because He has kept mine moral. I couldn't commit adultery if you would give me the whole world; neither can I get mixed up in an affair with some other woman's husband (which is so common these days). If He can keep me moral, He can keep your son and daughter moral. The power of the Devil is great; but, praise God, the Lord has more power.

I don't want Jesus to say to me some day, "By the exposure of your flesh you have dragged men to Hell." Do you?

--Mrs. Dewitt Smith   (Reprinted by the Pilgrim Tract Society, Randleman, North Carolina)

Inciting crime in Moscow, ID in 1922

It all reminds me of Corrie ten Boom's dour and outspoken aunt: "To Tante Jans, the clothes in fashion when she was young represented God’s final say on human apparel; all change since then came from the stylebook of the devil. Indeed, one of her best-known pamphlets exposed him as the inventor of the mutton sleeve and the bicycle skirt" (from The Hiding Place). 

And I used to long for leg-of-mutton sleeves! 

Library Shelf: Foreskin's Lament

I have to love Shalom Auslander. His memoir Foreskin's Lament is poignant, amusing, daring, and unsettling. One minute it made me giggle, the next I wondered if I was tottering on the brink of insanity.

Though he was raised Jewish and I was Christian, and he went to school while I was taught at home, I can relate to him far too well to be comfortable. His stories of sneaking Slim Jims at the municipal pool Snack Shack made me laugh till my chest began to heave with sobs.

"Cheese or regular?"

Cheese? Pork, with cheese?

Oh. My. God.

I wasn't sneaky, but I envied the wicked with their pepperoni pizza. And I savored every mouthful of my first breakfast bacon as an adult. With stuffed apricot French toast at The Spotted Hog in Peddler's Village, Lahaska, Pennsylvania, with my grandma in 1999. It was amazing.

In one chapter, Auslander describes his school's "Blessing Bee" (you really should hear him tell it!) --a uniquely Jewish competition that could have life-or-death implications for Shalom's family. Only in the darkest depths of religion can a glass of milk, flicking a lightswitch on Friday, and masturbation become lethal weapons wielded in self-defense. Honestly, you need to listen.

Growing up under the "Umbrella of Protection" principle, I had no trouble taking Auslander seriously. And my familiarity with the rules of the Old Testament God  caused me to identify strongly with this weary but determined kid growing up Jewish in New York.

"Sitting on the lawn was prohibited because the grass could dye your clothes - dyeing, category 15. Some held that it was also a violation of plowing, category 2, and, should the grass be pulled out of the ground by the heel of your shoe, reaping, category 3." It should be borne in mind that not all Jewish belief is like this. Of a friend who belongs to Reform Judaism, Auslander says he has, theologically speaking, more in common with a Christian.  

(from a review in the Guardian)

"Belief can be incredibly exhausting", Auslander remarks in an interview with Terry Gross, who found him "angry".

Auslander sees no significant difference between a madrassa and a yeshiva. Different books, different dress codes, but the message is the same. I would add fundamentalist Christianity to the list. When you are taught what God wants and what are the horrific consequences of choosing your own will over God's, it is easy to understand where religious extremists come from.

Like Auslander, I am troubled (he feels "dumbfounded and distraught") to see people around me finding god, when I am "trying to lose him".

Also like him, some family relationships are painful and difficult, thanks to religion. I am still negotiating these.

In the meantime, I find stories like these to be cathartic. And honesty like that expressed by Shalom Auslander is yet another beacon along the way to living out an authentic and contented life.

My Abusive Ex

I used to be in an abusive relationship.

My abusive ex was God.

Yes, there were other people involved in the manipulation, bullying, over-protection, brainwashing, deceit, neglect, ignorance, isolation, control, and cruelty. But none of it could have had the effect that it did if it weren't for my "personal relationship" with the God I encountered in my Bible.

I thought I loved him and that he loved me.

I believed he was older and wiser and would take care of me. I gave him my heart, and my will. I didn't make a decision without consulting him.

I thought he hung the stars and made the sun come up every morning. His smile was my sunshine. He warned me about his violent temper: like earthquakes, tornadoes, and wildfire. But he assured me that his anger took a long time to heat up. As others had observed, "clouds and thick darkness surround him", but I got used to that.

I was a loyal lover. When other people criticized my God's social skills, I defended his innate goodness, his super IQ,  and even his, um, existence? I didn't doubt he was listening, even when he was quiet. I would wake up early to spend time with him. I wrote him poems, hung his promises up on my wall, spent years learning about his preferences and adjusting my tastes to his pleasure.

I depended on him completely and trusted him implicitly, even when it hurt like hell. When I felt ready to burst inside, I'd cry and sing this Twila Paris song:

"Sometimes my little heart can't understand
What's in Your will, what's in Your plan.
So many times I'm tempted to ask You why,
But I can never forget it for long.
Lord, what You do could not be wrong.
So I believe You, even when I must cry.

Do I trust You, Lord?
Does the river flow?
Do I trust You, Lord?
Does the north wind blow?
You can see my heart,
You can read my mind,
And You got to know
That I would rather die
Than to lose my faith
In the One I love.
Do I trust You, Lord?

I will trust You, Lord, when I don't know why.
I will trust You, Lord, till the day I die.
I will trust You, Lord, when I'm blind with pain!
You were God before, and You'll never change.
I will trust You, Lord."

Yes. That's the song.

But...

As I learned more about the characteristics of healthy relationships, I came to realize how unhealthy my relationship with God really was.

I saw victims of spiritual abuse whose behavior resembled the symptoms exhibited by Stockholm syndrome victims: "who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness". Come to think of it, that description almost sounds like the paraphrase of a worship song, or a sermon by John Piper, or Jonathan Edwards. What kind of being would be pleased with such fawning submission? Surely not a good god?

I started taking more initiative, making more choices on my own and then running them by God for his "approval".

As I grew emotionally stronger and gained confidence, I was able to see that he had flaws, too. I didn't really need a flawed god. Turns out I'm not really into the strong, silent type, especially if they remain strong and silent when their friends are in trouble. And I have no respect for guys (or gods) who lose their temper and scare little kids.

It took a long time to admit it, but it slowly dawned on me that I would not want to spend a lifetime--much less an eternity--with the God of the Bible, even if I could still believe that my world depended on him.

* * * * * * * *

As Julia Sweeney has described in her monologue Letting Go of God, there is a downside to losing the relationship. When I'm scared or hurt, there's no all-powerful being I can beg to make things better. I don't have a king's ear. I'm not really a princess. Without an imaginary friend, I have to make real friends, or feel very alone.

The universe may not be "on my side", but it does support me in countless ways. While allowing me the freedom to make choices based on my own preferences and what I believe will make me happy, and making no demands in return. I no longer feel obligated to defend my god's behavior, or worry about his temper. I don't spend time coaxing him to intervene on my behalf, assuring him that I know he had a good reason for ignoring my requests, or waiting for him to drop nice things in my lap. There is no more temptation to ingratiate myself. When life is going smoothly, I don't wait for "the other shoe to drop".

Turns out other people didn't like my god much, either. I thought they did when we hung out together, but when I mention him now, they tell me they realized he really was terrible. They're sorry for my experience, they say; I must not have really had a god, or maybe I had the wrong God. They want me to try theirs now. If I just want a good god badly enough, they say, the right one will find me.


I was always told I had an inner void only a god could fill. But since I said goodbye to God, I haven't yet experienced such a void.

I am content without a god.


Life is better without my abusive ex.

Building on Sand

I was about six when my parents gave me my own copy of the The Living Bible and encouraged me to begin reading in Genesis. I loved the illustrations and the crinkly sound the thin pages made. And I listened to the dramatized audio version of the New Testament by the hour. The book of Acts was my favorite: I learned most of the lines and all the voices by heart.

My family read through the books of Psalms and Proverbs every month for years and years. On the 5th of any given month, for example, we'd read Psalms 5, 35, 65, 95,  and 125, plus chapter 5 of Proverbs, taking turns reading our share aloud.

Following breakfast, Mom would read to us from a children's devotional. We might sing a hymn together. Then she would set a timer for 15 minutes and each of us went to our rooms for our own "Quiet Time", reading our Bibles or Bible storybooks.

In addition to mere reading, I started Bible study young. There was a Navigators' study I did with my parents, a couple of correspondence courses for young people, a discipleship study at the Quaker church. There were topical studies, Sunday School classes, Baptist and Mennonite vacation Bible schools, and family foreign missions camp with New Tribes missionaries who taught the Bible in jungles far away. When I was older, I participated in Bible studies at the local jail.

I had my own Strong's Concordance, and studied New Testament Greek. The phrases of the King James version permeated our family's speech, and our humor. The Picture Bible was our comic book, the judges and David's mighty men our superheroes. The Old and New Testaments--revered as true in every detail--  not only determined our theology and ethics, but also our understanding of science, history, relationships, diet, and sexuality.

Mom and Dad had us memorizing passages from the Bible before we joined ATI. It only got more intense when we started the Wisdom Booklets. Dad paid us to learn chapters, or entire books, and urged us to recite the Christmas story in concert at holiday gatherings, like a Peanuts special. Knowing the challenge of memorization, I looked up to men who were said to have memorized the entire New Testament.

In our household, the Bible trumped all other arguments. We learned to wield scripture like the ultimate weapon. We knew it backwards and forwards and could use it like lawyers for defense or prosecution of any position.

As I grew older, I came to view our scripture obsession as a kind of idolatry. It was as if our Bible was an extra person of the Godhead.

I felt we'd confused The Word that came from God (Jesus) with "The Word of God" (the Holy Bible). On the other hand, everything we knew of Jesus was revealed to us only through the scriptures. How would we have heard of him otherwise? I decided the secret was to read the Bible more simply, with less commentary from "experts", less interpretation, less wrangling over application.

While I sorted out my own theology, I spent a year living among a group of missionary linguists who labored year after year to express the words of the Bible in other languages and with strange alphabets for villagers who lacked schools, jobs, hospitals, toilets. Sometimes I got to help out, as when I helped type a manuscript of the Gospel of John.

One of my friends there had completed a New Testament, yet the fruit of her labors sat in boxes; many people of that region practice a folk Islam and have little interest in reading it. Another woman described her feelings when she finally completed her translation. Releasing it to be published and distributed to people as the word of God "traumatized" her, she said. Though the New Testament was the main priority, a few worked on translating the Old Testament with its stories of ancient battles, instructions about nocturnal emissions, and abecedarians for the Hebrew alphabet. An elderly translator spent her days refining the book of Job for a rural ethnic group with its own gods and folklore beliefs. (Thinking about it now brings to mind Samuel Wesley's Latin commentary on Job.)

Still, I believed that giving anyone the Bible would offer them Christianity in its purest form, guiding them to all the benefits of faith with the fewest glitches and hang-ups. Rather like the reassuring note the pharmacy prints on my prescriptions: "Remember that your doctor has prescribed this medication because she has judged that the benefit to you is greater than the risk of side effects."

Then I got married. After the wedding, we were faced with the daunting task of finding a church that fit the two of us. We spent months visiting different services, listening to pastors and interim pastors and guest speakers, trying out small groups. Even when we settled on a church, our loyalty was not exclusive. Each fellowship and each denomination seemed to have unique strengths, and I figured the clearest, most faithful image of God's would be a mosaic formed from contributions across all of Christendom.

So in spite of our freakishly encyclopedic Bible knowledge, we took numerous opportunities to learn from other angles. I did Bible studies at a conservative Lutheran church ("You should see how Baptists do baptisms. They have a hot tub up behind the altar!"), a megachurch with an awesome ladies' brunch every Tuesday, a tiny Christian church with no other text than our Bibles, a Methodist church with video lectures and graduation certificates. And the more I learned about what how other people interacted with this book, the more questions I had and the less impressed I became.

I was teaching the Bible to my kids by this time. Helping them memorize its most famous passages. Taking them to AWANA clubs. Rewarding them for reading "God's Word". Giving them their own children's editions.

But eventually, the questions caught up with me. What made this book different from other texts? Was it more reliable than other writings held sacred by other faiths? Was it a superior guide for morality? Surely its characters were no more virtuous than other ancient heroes.

And the God it described gave bloodthirsty orders that horrified my children. It was a stretch to connect this God of Genesis, Deuteronomy and Judges with the Jesus in the happy little board books of their toddlerhood.

Did the prophets really hear God speak? Or were they like my anxious friend who would hear God telling her she shouldn't eat more granola for breakfast?

How did these books come to be compiled? Who decided what God had said, and when? The eminent Bible translator Martin Luther, architect of the "grace" theological model, thought the author of James' epistle "mangled" and "opposed" scripture. "I will not have him in my Bible to be numbered among the true chief books," he wrote.

Why did some of my Bibles include Matthew 6:13 ("For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever") while others left it out? The more I researched about translation, texts, and manuscripts, the less confident I felt. If God had intended to make his character and desires clear to mankind through a book compiled over many centuries, he could have done a lot better.

The paradoxes in scripture had never bothered me much before. Some passages just had to be read metaphorically; sometimes you had to count fractions and not whole days or nights; sometimes you had to use your imagination, other times some common sense. Photosynthesizers could use some other kind of light before God made the sun. The writer of Hebrews meant that Sarah was "as good as dead". Or maybe he meant Isaac. A miracle here and there could clear up a lot of the seeming contradictions.

Thing is, I didn't much believe in miracles anymore. Oh, I might still pray in my head while searching for a missing library book, but it was more a habit than an expression of faith. Something akin to saying "gosh". Parenthood had given me a lot more experience with biology, and the laws of nature seemed pretty immutable.

And I was losing patience with everyone who had given me half-truths, exaggerations, well-meant deceptions, and bald-faced lies. My God was above that kind of thing. He was the Truth. He wasn't the author of confusion. Well, I was confused. His whole church seemed confused. They were confused about what it meant to be a believer and how God wanted them to treat other people and how to find mates or raise children. My God didn't manipulate, so why did I find myself invoking his name to make my kids feel guilt and shame?

Turns out I was still pretty fucked up. The one influence that had been consistent for 30 years of my life was the book I was devoted to. The book that taught me about my god, about relationships, about my self. A book that contained the most shocking and disgusting stories I'd ever read. A book used to promote both benevolence and abuse. To defend the weak and to subjugate them.

To quote from that troublesome book of James: "Out of the same mouth proceeds blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh."

Jesus taught that a wise man built his house on the rock, and it did not fall when the rain came down and the streams rose and the winds blew and beat against it.

"But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."  --Jesus

Strangely enough, what I thought was rock-solid turned out to be sand. I see lives built on it collapsing all around me.

I tried to build a life on Jesus' words, but became exhausted repairing cracks in the wall every time the wind picked up. Eventually, I fled for firmer ground to build a life that I hope will be happier for me and a whole lot safer for my children.