Browsing Tag

conservative evangelicalism

Theology

the road to perdition: evangelicals and the Bible

As I started writing this blog, initially just chronicling my journey out of fundamentalism, I thought of fundamentalism and evangelicalism as radically different things. At first, evangelicalism seemed pretty harmless by comparison. However, as I became a member of evangelicalism through my church and the culture I was absorbing through books and blogs and sermons, I realized that while fundamentalism and evangelicalism look remarkably different, they have far more in common than I’d realized.

To anyone familiar with the history of fundamentalism and evangelicalism, that’s a remark on the obvious. Of course they’re similar: they come from the same ideological tree. At first, around the turn of the 20th century, there were only fundamentalists, unified by a set of essays called The Fundamentals. Eventually, those essays were condensed into The Five Fundamentals. Interestingly, what those are can vary a bit (see here and here), but they essentially are:

The nature of God is that of a Trinity; Jesus was born of a virgin and was fully God and fully man.
Salvation is by faith, not by works; it was achieved by Christ through the substitionary Atonement.
Scripture is divinely inspired by God and totally sufficient for Christian living.
Jesus was bodily resurrected from the dead and now reigns at the right hand of the Father.
There will be a literal second coming of Christ.

The most important idea to be more fully articulated at this time was what it meant for Scripture to be inspired. While not new– there are echoes of this principle in Catholicism and in the Reformers’ belief in sola scriptura— the way these early fundamentalists started treating the Bible was new.

Over time, “inspiration” became a sort of short-hand for the concept that the Bible could be easily read, easily handled, easily interpreted. God meant it for all peoples, all times, all places– and he wouldn’t have done that without giving us the ability to see the “plain meaning of the text.” As the fundamentalists gained power, it birthed men like R.J. Rushdoony and Charles Ryrie who advocated not only for inspiration, but inerrancy. An argument for the inerrancy of Scripture wasn’t present in The Fundamentals, but to fundamentalists it was the only logical place a belief in biblical inspiration could go. After a while, the fundamentalist view of inerrancy became that the Bible is totally without error: it contains no contradictions and is completely and utterly factual.

Around the time that inerrancy was being affirmed by fundamentalists, the evangelical movement began. Fundamentalists began teaching the doctrine of separation, and evangelicals opposed them. Men like Billy Graham rejected the idea that the Church was strictly for Christians– that Christians should retreat into isolated sanctuaries in order to remain unsullied by the corruption of “The World.” Instead, they advocated for the guiding principle of being in the world, but not of it. How could a Christian hope to reach the lost if they kept to themselves all of the time?

Hence the term evangelical.

However, evangelicals didn’t leave their theology behind. They still held to the Five Fundamentals, but they didn’t go along with the movement to accept inerrancy the way the fundamentalists did. At least, not at the time.

In 1979, roughly thirty years after fundamentalists had totally bought into inerrancy, the evangelicals did the same when 300 evangelical leaders signed the Chicago Statement. If you read it over, you’ll notice that the ideas they affirm and deny are important, balanced, and to a degree fairly nuanced; so it shouldn’t surprise you to know that it didn’t go anywhere near far enough to fundamentalist men like Charles Ryrie, who had already moved from biblical inerrancy to biblical literalism.

At this point, fundamentalists started proclaiming ideas like verbal plenary inspiration, and double inspiration. Men like Jack Hyles and Peter Ruckman became fundamentalist figureheads, and they taught the Bible as almost literally dictated, word-for-word, by God themself. These men believed that God chose the men because of the wordings they would choose, and “guided” them to the exactly “correct” words and phrasings. Not only that, but some men like Ruckman took it one step further: God had even inspired the KJV translators toward choosing the “correct” words in English. Along with all of that came other teachers like Bill Gothard, who took these concepts and started applying them. In fact, if God had chosen the very words, then there could be no harm in taking the Bible literally. It was meant to be taken literally.

Young Earth Creationism sprang out of a belief in biblical literalism, and so did a slew of other problems like the anti-LGBT movement and complementarianism. It took a while for Hyles and Ryrie and Ruckman and Gothard to have an effect, but their words and ideas are now being championed by some of the most influential evangelical leaders– most notably in the neo-Reformed movement, which is dominated by a strict adherence to biblical literalism.

Oh, but the fundamentalists have, again, already moved on. They’ve moved through inspiration, inerrancy, and literalism to finally arrive at biblical docetism.

Historically speaking, docetism is the notion that Jesus was not really human, that he only appeared human but, in reality, that was just a pretense. That idea was roundly condemned by virtually everyone as heresy. However, I believe modern American Christianity has done something even more insidious then denying the embodied Incarnation of Christ: they’ve made the Bible only “appear” like a book.

It was not really written by men– it was written by God. Biblical docetists don’t have to pay attention to how these men had their own personalities, their own vendettas, their own ambitions, their own priorities, their own flaws and their own achievements. To be honest, biblical docetists don’t just ignore how Paul was quite a vociferous fellow frequently given to tantrums (I will never ever work with John Mark ever again!) and tirades (Cretans are all liars!); the fact that Paul had a temper with a tendency to see things in blacks and whites is irrelevant.

To biblical docetists, cultural contexts don’t have to have any bearing on the text– it’s not really an ancient library of texts gathered together over time and with a lot of arguing. It is divine, it is holy, it is preserved. God intended every word exactly as it was recorded to reach our ears today. They knew that we would be reading it, and mythically they imbued it with the power to make perfect, clear sense to ancient readers, and modern readers, and people reading it thousands of years in the future. It is not really a book. You can’t treat it like any old book, or expect it to follow the common sensical rules of other ancient texts. Everything we understand about how ancient near-eastern cultures viewed history or biography doesn’t ultimately matter. It’s the Bible.

In fact, the Bible is so magical that you can rip sentences– halves of sentences, even!– out of their paragraphs and force it down other people’s throats as God’s divinely ordained word for that specific moment. We can all read every letter and stand sure in the knowledge that every word was ultimately meant for our ears, not necessarily for the church to which it was written. Genre– whether it’s oral tradition, poetry, myth, parable– should be erased, for it’s not just any book. It’s not predicated on ideas of style or voicing or purpose or audience. Everything in it is literally true, literally factual, and literally meant for us today.

Hopefully it’s obvious that I’m describing not just Christian fundamentalism, but evangelicalism as well. Evangelicals might not take it as far as a man I knew who actually plucked his eye out because it had “offended him” through a pornography addiction. But just because they’re not going that far doesn’t mean that evangelical biblical docetism isn’t having real-world and devastating consequences. We may not be plucking out our eyes, but we are voting for a man who (possibly) thinks LGBT people should be stoned to death. We are taking Jesus’ words about persecution and forcing it apply to photographers and bakers. We are proclaiming doomesday messages about being in the End Times because a black man was elected President. We are telling women to stay in abusive marriages.

Fundamentalists have already been treading the path through biblical docetism for almost two decades now, and it’s had disastrous consequences. If evangelicals don’t experience some sort of course correction in their view of the Bible, then it’s going to lead them to places the rest of us don’t want to go.

Art by Valeria Preisler

March 18, 2016 by SamanthaField

Theology

American Christianity is broken

[content note: discussions of child sexual abuse, rape apologia]

Growing up as a Christian fundamentalist meant that I was supremely good at judging people. I could tell, usually with the briefest glance, exactly who was in and who was out. I could winnow out the chaff of liberal and “lukewarm” Christians in an instant, but I could also spot a legalistic Christian– untrimmed hair, no makeup, no jewelry– five miles off.

That skill hasn’t gone away simply because I’m a liberal now. I have to fight off the urge to circle a completely different set of wagons and refuse admittance to the people who don’t agree with me. My theology has changed, but the desire to keep a mental checklist of doctrines to compare everyone to is still there. I’m on the opposite side of the question, but the problem is that I’m still asking it, and it’s difficult to stop. I’ve been reading through Searching for Sunday again with my small group, and one of Rachel’s challenges is to have room for all Christians in your faith– even the Christians you really don’t want anything to do with.

I was getting more comfortable with the idea, slowly, but this last weekend threw a whole monkey wrench into that process.

For the first time in a long time, I am truly astounded by the depths of depravity that American Evangelical Christianity is capable of sinking to.

For years I’ve heard preachers make jokes about beating infants and breaking the arms of toddlers. I’ve heard calls for genocide. I’ve seen Christians blame natural disasters on innocent children. I’ve watched as our leaders remain silent and complicit amidst horrible abuse. I thought I’d seen it all. I believed there was a line– surely there was a line. Surely we couldn’t be capable of defending a confessed child sexual abuser. We couldn’t.

I was wrong. Turns out, yes, we can. Easily.

I didn’t go to church on Sunday because of how exhausted I was and because I knew that if I heard a whisper of someone defending Josh Duggar I’d start screaming. I still can’t quite process the idea that I could encounter someone who thinks that child sexual abuse isn’t that bad, that people like me are merely “bloodthirsty,” that we’ll do anything to make conservative Christianity “look bad.”

I am repulsed. I am absolutely stunned by the amount of stomach-churning evil pouring out of keyboards and mouths. These people– supposedly good people, supposedly faithful Christians– are defending a young man who crept into bedrooms in the middle of the night and groped and fondled little girls. If they’re not saying it was a “mistake” or a “childish indiscretion,” they’re calling it normal.

Normal. To thousands and thousands of Christians, child sexual abuse is normal. We should be ignoring this and moving on because it isn’t that big of a deal. They shrug their shoulders at something that should be making every single one of us pull back in horror. They’re saying things that should make good people vomit. Anyone making the argument that child sexual abuse is dismissible should make us grieve, but we’re not. Instead I see thousands of Christians nodding their head in agreement.

That is sick.

All weekend, I couldn’t help but think of I Corinthians 5:

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this? … So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.

Only now it’s worse. Now it’s a teenager attacking a five-year-old little girl, and we are just so proud of the Duggars. Look at how wholesome they are, look at how they espouse family values, look at how radiant and spiritual they are!

I read an article on Saturday that argued how it would be “wrong” for someone to criticize conservative Christianity because of this, but oh, I am. If the reaction from all these self-proclaimed “true Christians” is so utterly despicable, how am I supposed to rectify this with the notion that being “saved” means we have a relationship with Jesus, that we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us, calling us to a more holy life? How is this possible?

There is something defective in American evangelical Christianity, something rotten in the core of it. We’ve created a culture conducive to almost nothing else besides defending predators and abusers. Right now, that seems like all we are: a way for predators and abusers to shout “do over!” and escape justice.

Photo by Rodrigo Parades

May 26, 2015 by SamanthaField

Social Issues

iron sharpeneth iron, part one

“I’m really worried about her.”

I was laying in my bed, staring up at my ceiling, envisioning all the different situations one of my dearest friends could find herself in, now that she was living in the downtown of a big city, far away from people she knew and the community she’d grown up in. Handsome was on the phone, listening to my concerns.

“Why? She’s a grown-ass woman. There’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“Well… I’m just worried that she’s away, and so busy, and the only relationships she’s forming are with people that she works with.”

“So?”

That question made me pause. I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by so? This was a straightforward concept, at least to me, and he didn’t seem to understand my concerns at all. Which puzzled me, and I wasn’t sure how I could explain what was, to me, a foundational idea about relationships. I was running into conversations like this one with Handsome more and more often– concepts I’d lived with all my life, that I had accepted as normal, seemed completely foreign to him.

“I… well, I mean, hanging out with non-Christians is fine, but it seems like it’s more difficult. You need Christian friends, too. So they can help you.”

“I don’t understand, Sam. None of my friends growing up were Christians, and I think I turned out just fine.”

That stopped me in my tracks. “Really?”

“Yeah. All my friends were Muslim or Sikh or non-religious. I knew a few people who were Orthodox, but yeah, all my close friends weren’t Christians.”

This was a complete about-face from anything I’d previously been given about the nature of friendship. I fell silent as I struggled to process what Handsome had just handed me– it felt like a deluge, like being thrown into a river and I couldn’t quite tell which way was up.

“Anyway, I don’t think you have anything to be worried about. She’ll be fine.”

We talked for a few minutes longer, but when we hung up, I didn’t move. I continued staring up at the ceiling, recalling past relationships, past friendships I’d had. I realized that I had always assumed that being a Christian made you a better friend, and even through all of my struggles with God and religion and faith, even when I’d lost my faith completely, it was such a deeply held belief that I never even bothered re-thinking it. But, suddenly, I could almost taste how ridiculous the idea was. Nothing about being a Christian makes anything about me intrinsically better than any other human being on the planet. But that was what I’d believed– I’d believed that having Christian friends was better. To an extent, I’d believed that having “non-Christian” friends was almost a waste of time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was nervous. More nervous than I’d been on my first day of class– more nervous than during my freshman piano audition, even. Philip* had approached me during choir practice and asked if we could go to dinner together after church– just the two of us. I was confused by this, especially since Philip earnestly believed in never being alone with a girl, so whatever it was he was thinking, it was serious. I had accepted, and here I was, sitting at the cafeteria table, waiting for him to get through the line and join me. I arranged the potato chips on my plate, fiddled with my silverware, wiped the condensation off my glass.

I jumped when he appeared, and my heart started beating harder as he took his seat. He said grace, and he dug in while I picked at my tuna sandwich. Eventually, after a horrendously long attempt at small talk, he brought up why he’d asked me to dinner.

“I’m worried about you.”

I didn’t say anything, knowing he’d explain without prompting. I couldn’t even look at him.

“Why have you abandoned all of us?”

I didn’t know how to answer him. Being honest– if he even believed me, it would not be well-received. “I’m just not comfortable hanging out with you guys any more.” I could feel my promise to myself wavering. I’d sworn I wasn’t going to get pulled back into the politics of it all. The backstabbing, the gossip, the lies and manipulation. I was done. I was leaving.

“Why not?” He was careful to keep his voice calm, soothing.

“I just don’t get along with . . . people.”

“Sarah*.” The one word was an accusation. I expected him to know; the problems between me and Sarah had long become obvious to pretty much everyone.

“You’re both being utterly ridiculous.”

That made me look up, look him in the eye. “What do you mean?”

“You two. You’re both squabbling over something that isn’t even your decision to make. It’s mine.”

I cringed. He’d caught on to that. Finally. “I’m not squabbling with her over you, Philip. I could care less.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t believe you.”

“No, honestly. I don’t care. I’m your friend, and that’s it. I don’t want anything more than that. I’m not interested in anything more than that.”

He leaned back his chair, crossing his arms. It was a gesture I knew well. “Then why have you been constantly fighting with her over me?”

I sighed, exasperated. “I don’t like you. But she does, and I think she thinks that I do, too, and so… well, I’m a threat. And she’s been manipulating all of us, and I’m sick of it. I’m not interested in participating anymore. I’ve tried to talk to her about it, but it did no good. So I’m done. It’s pointless, and stupid, and it sucks.”

“I think you should stay.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s your obligation to. We’re friends, and that means that we’re supposed to help each other. Iron sharpeneth iron. You can’t just abandon your friends when you don’t like what they’re doing. You have to help them grow.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey, you think I could try on your scarf? It’s so fluffy!”

I turned from the pool table, grateful for a momentary distraction. I was terrible at pool. I was losing, embarrassingly, to Michael*, who had already imbibed six bears, half a bottle of rum, and a few shots of . . . something that smelled a bit like gasoline. When I saw who had just asked me that, I laughed. “Sure. Absolutely.”

A few minutes later, after Michael had completely stomped all over my terrible billiard-playing abilities, I walked over to introduce myself, and we ended up chatting for a few minutes.

“Hey, you want to catch a smoke?”

“A– what?”

“Do you smoke?”

“Uhm . . . no.”

“Cool. Mind if we go outside while I smoke?”

I shrugged. “Sure.”

We stepped out onto the rickety porch and joined a few others who had stepped out of the crowded entryway and living room to get some air or to smoke. Someone I didn’t know launched in to what seemed to be a familiar speech, describing all the benefits of “whole leaf” cigarettes. I got handed one, and in lieu of lighting it on fire and sticking it in my mouth, I sniffed it. “It smells like tea!” my surprised outburst interrupted the flow of conversation. Initially, I was embarrassed. I never knew how to handle myself when I’d inadvertently grabbed attention.

But everyone just laughed. “Of course it does. Awesome, isn’t it?”

And they moved on.

No admonishments about not interrupting people.

No gentle reminders to let everyone take their turn in the conversation.

Nothing.

I looked around at the group of people I’d found myself in– I wasn’t entirely sure how I had ended up here, at this party. But it was the first place I’d ever been where I felt like I could belong. A stranger, someone hardly anyone here had even met before. The shy, nervous little girl who didn’t know how to play pool, didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t talk– and when I did talk, it was random outbursts that didn’t fit. The woman standing in the corner nervously fidgeting, obviously desperate to fit in, to be cool. They could see right through it– but they didn’t care.

It didn’t matter where I’d come from, who I was, where I’d been, what I believed, where I went to church, if I went to church. None of it. I was a person. And that was enough.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As I lay on my bed that day, my conversation with Handsome over, staring up at my ceiling, I realized something.

By and large, my relationships with regular church-attending evangelicals (with a few notable exceptions, my best friends among them) have been extremely toxic and unhealthy. It took me having friendships with men and woman who had never been Christians, who had grown up Christian but were now agnostic, who were still Christian but would be described as “nominal” or “backslidden” by anyone I’d grown up with, to experience friendship. Real, honest, loving, friendship.

I don’t think Christian culture really knows the meaning of the word.

August 20, 2013 by SamanthaField

Theology

learning the words: on fire

Today’s guest post is from April, who blogs about “taking back the church” at Revolutionary Faith. “Learning the Words” is a series on the words many of us didn’t have in fundamentalism or overly conservative evangelicalism– and how we got them back. If you would like to be a part of this series, you can find my contact information at the top.

“Are you on fire for God?”

This question became the bane of my spiritual existence in my young adult years–specifically from 2000 to 2008. Every Sunday morning and every Wednesday night youth service, I heard how important it was to be “on fire” for God. Because according to Revelation 3:16, being lukewarm was the worst possible thing for any Christian to be. People cold in their devotion got a pass. Lukewarm believers received the distinct pleasure of being vomited out of God’s mouth.

In my view, Revelation 3:16 is one of the most misunderstood, misinterpreted “clobber verses” in charismatic, Penecostal churches–perhaps even more than Ephesians 5:22-24 (wives submit to husbands). I know that’s a pretty bold claim. But I had this verse shoved down my throat almost weekly, and it proved to be just as damaging, if not more so, to my walk with Christ.

See, according to my church, being “on fire” meant to be enthusiastic in worship. Very enthusiastic. Don’t want to raise your hands? You’re not on fire. Don’t feel like shouting? You’re not on fire. Don’t feel like dancing as King David danced? You’re not on fire. Don’t scream like a “Jesus groupie” whenever the pastor speaks the Savior’s name? You’re not on fire. And, someday, God is going to barf you straight into the Lake of Fire–because you once cheered louder for Michael Jordan than you did for the everlasting Son of God– who died for you!

One can imagine the intense guilt this bred in me over time. I couldn’t worship quietly without feeling judged by my pastor, youth pastor, worship leader, and peers. Nothing I did during worship was ever good enough for them or, I thought, for God. Simply meditating in His presence was not good enough. Folding my hands and bowing my head was not good enough. I had to prove to everyone that I loved God more than anything else, and that meant jumping higher and singing louder than the average tween at a Justin Bieber concert. If ever I showed the slightest reservation in this regard, someone was always there to remind me of my fate as God’s future spew.

Needless to say, worship soon became a miserable experience for me. I often left youth service feeling sick inside. I was stuck on an emotional roller coaster without a way off. I’d come to church desperately wanting to feel the Holy Spirit, spend the whole time participating in a big pep rally, and leave feeling even more empty, guilty and confused than when I showed up. Something seemed terribly wrong with this scenario. I began to suspect I was being manipulated. But how? The verse was right there in black and white, wasn’t it?

No, it wasn’t. Not like my leaders claimed, anyway.

I eventually stumbled upon Revelation 3:16 in my private studies and read it in its proper context. And do you know what I discovered?

“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”

Revelation 3:16 has nothing to do with the outward intensity of one’s worship. Not. a. single. thing. It’s referring to people who know Jesus in name only–who refuse to draw close to him because they find fulfillment in the power of their wealth. They are self-righteous people who have allowed their materialism to blind them to their spiritual shortcomings.

It’s entirely possible for a person to be blind to their spiritual shortcomings while dancing around the front of a church. Dancing, jumping and shouting do not indicate spiritual awareness (as a visit to any night club will clearly demonstrate).

So why did my leaders twist this verse so far out of context? Probably because my jumping around made their ministry look more spiritual than it really was.

Over the past few months, God has been showing me exactly what it means to be “on fire” for Him. And it has nothing to do with how much I jump up and down in the pews. Instead, it’s about how much I’m willing to abide in Him, trust Him, lean upon Him for strength, guidance, and transformation. It doesn’t matter so much how I’m worshiping Him as long as I am worshiping Him, as the Bible says, in Spirit and in truth (John 4:24). And the truth is, God isn’t easily impressed by people’s outward displays. As always, He’s looking into our hearts to determine our true attitude toward Him (1 Samuel 16:7).

Finally, in 2013, I can say with humble assurance that I’m “on fire” for God. No crazy jumping or waving required. And my walk with Him has never been more intense.

August 13, 2013 by SamanthaField

Theology

learning the words: christian

Today’s guest post is from Lana, who blogs at Lana Hobbs the Brave. “Learning the Words” is a series on the words many of us didn’t have in fundamentalism or overly conservative evangelicalism– and how we got them back. If you would like to be a part of this series, you can find my contact information at the top.

When I was in the third grade–in the Bible belt–I was discussing my faith with a classmate, and she asked when I’d been baptized. I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, so she told me if I wasn’t baptized, I must not really be a christian.

To be a Christian, in my mind, was synonymous with being saved. In fact, “being saved” is talked about more often in some circles, perpetuating the idea that getting to Heaven is one of the most important parts of the faith.

Now someone was saying I had to be baptized to be a Christian?
If I died in an earthquake at school before I could be baptized, would I go to hell?

I asked the teacher on recess duty if I was doomed to hell. She didn’t really answer.

On the other hand, I was saved by faith alone, right? So I didn’t have to be baptized? So if my friend believed only baptized people were saved, maybe she wasn’t really a christian, since she wasn’t relying on faith alone. Maybe I needed to share the gospel with her.

Since then, Christian has always been a difficult term to wrap my mind around.

Catholics pray to Mary (or so I was told)– so are they the real Christians? Dad said probably a lot of them are, Mom seemed to doubt it. Mormons? Dad knew Mormons, he figured that a lot of them were, but I read a book from the church library that said Mormonism was a cult–so maybe they weren’t.

Then there were the people who responded to calls to “be saved” multiple times, and even got baptized several times, saying :I realized I wasn’t saved before, but now I am.” They believed they were saved, they believed in Jesus and tried to obey, and then they realized they weren’t really Christian– they didn’t have actual faith, they only thought they did?

If that is what Christianity is, how can anyone ever be certain they are really a christian, really saved, really following after God?

Then there are those who claim to be Christian, and bomb abortion clinics, or picket soldiers funerals, or write hateful messages online. They claim to be obeying God, but many quickly say “They aren’t true Christians.” The same goes for Christians like Rachel Held Evans and Rob Bell, when conservatives talk about them. Well, then, what is “Christian”? From looking around, reading what people write, hearing what people say, does it just mean “acting and thinking in a way consistent with my interpretation of the Bible”?

In the preface to Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis suggests that the only meaningful way to define ‘Christian’ is “one who accepts the common doctrines of Christianity.” He anticipates, in this usage of the word, a possible objection: “may not many a man who cannot believe these doctrines be far more truly a Christian, far closer to the spirit of Christ, than some who do?” In response to this imagined objection, he replies :this objection is in one sense very right, very charitable, very spiritual, very sensitive. It has every available quality except that of being useful.”

“If once we allow people to start spiritualising and refining, or as they might say ‘deepening,’ the sense of the word Christian, it, too, will speedily become a useless word. In the first place, Christians themselves will never be able to apply it to anyone. It is not for us to say who, in the deepest sense, is or is not close to the spirit of Christ. We do not see into men’s hearts . . . and obviously a word which we can never apply is not going to be a very useful word.”

Lewis says the original meaning (he also uses the word ‘obvious,’ but I didn’t find it so until he pointed it out) is “those who accepted the teachings of the apostles . . . The point is not a theological or a moral one. It is only a question of using words so that we can all understand what is being said. When a man who accepts the Christian doctrine lives unworthily of it, it is much clearer to say he is a bad Christian than to say he is not a Christian.”

I do find this a far more useful way of talking about it, and it helps us avoid the ‘no true scotsman’ fallacy that so many people use when confronted with ‘Christians’ who they really don’t want to be associated with.

Of course, this still doesn’t answer the issue of “who is saved?”

I don’t think Lewis would think this is quite the problem my childhood self thought it was. For one thing, he’s rather an inclusivist, and for another, he seemed to believe the Christian life was more about being a new man than about avoiding Hell.

I think that following Christ” is more about loving others than about whether or not you are saved. I think it makes sense to stop trying to evaluate how “saved” a person is, and instead take them at their word– do they believe in the basic doctrines of Christianity?

And for the record, by that definition, I am not a Christian. There are many doctrines I can’t make peace with right now. As soon as I put a useful meaning to the word “Christian,” I realized I couldn’t take it on myself anymore. I’m now nameless, but I still embrace the teachings of love, humility, and justice.

June 18, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

learning the words: liberation

Today’s guest post is from Way of Cats, a former fundamentalist who now considers herself spiritual. “Learning the Words” is a series on the words many of us didn’t have in fundamentalism or overly conservative evangelicalism– and how we got them back. If you would like to be a part of this series, you can find my contact information at the top.

In my Midwest rural birthplace, my parents had a mixed-faith marriage. He was a Lutheran; she was a Methodist.

My first firm memories of church were after our move to the small-town South. We went to non-denominational, bible-believing, born-again churches. I joined Youth Group and went to sleepaway Bible Camp every summer. I cried in my seat when a revival group took over evening worship and screamed a blow-by-blow re-enactment of the Passion of the Christ.

I spent seventh grade in a Southern Baptist Christian Academy where we had chapel twice a week. The first row would get hit with spit from our principal, raving about the demonic influences of “rock music.” Girls’ skirts and boys’ haircuts were measured with a ruler. I mastered the art of the five-second shower, lest the Rapture occur during that window, in which case I would be naked in front of God and Everybody.

My science class discussed tectonic plates as though God himself had assembled them. Evolution was a lie, and our textbook for this discussion was a Chick Tract. We grew used to our teacher lifting his head and saying, “Do you hear that? It’s the godless Communist hordes coming down the road. They are going to come in here and point a gun at your head and kill you unless you deny Jesus Christ.”

He would use his finger as a gun, and point to each of us in turn, moving through the rows of desks. The beige weave of his polyester slacks and the ketchup tinge of his breath would embed itself into our about-to-be-blown-out brains.

Make no mistake– I grew up Fundamentalist.

We would get sent home from school if we had the nerve to wear a blouse and jeans, since everyone knew we were allowed to wear a “pantsuit,” where the top matched the pants. Of course we were expected to be chaste before marriage; that was not a part of dating, where That Boy was supposed to Respect Us and get us home by our ridiculously early curfew. A woman could be a manager, a teacher, an accountant or nurse or even a doctor; but she better bring her best covered dish to the potluck, and she would (of course!) do the washing up along with all the other women.

In my early teens, I did chafe at my circumscribed “woman’s role” in the church. I was happy when my intellect was respected by our classically trained minister, who spoke Greek and read Aramaic. He would discuss theology and morality with me and lend me books. Why, I could be anything… except a President, (of anything!) or a pastor.

As a bright, and academically gifted girl, I was expected to pursue a career, so long as it didn’t interfere with the two or three children I was also expected to have. More than that meant I wasn’t “taking precautions” and having too many children for us to support.

What alternate Universe was this? It was biblical-literalist, full-immersion, haters-of-secular-humanism Southern Baptist in the early 70s.

I left Christianity entirely at fourteen, shortly after I did what every Fundamentalist is subtly discouraged from doing: reading the entire Bible, cover to cover, without a study guide or Sunday School teachers or pastors to “interpret” things for me.

Once we have read other works of art, the Bible is so-obviously a collection of history and poetry and myth, the incredibly preserved testament of a people who gave birth to one of the world’s greatest Teachers; Jesus. I took the red words and ran away.

Back then, I thought I was being oppressed. I had no idea.

Now, wandering around the Spiritually Abused sites where people tell incredible stories of inconceivable oppression, I am humble and grateful. As bad as my parent’s divorce was, it at least put us beyond the reach of what the Protestants have become; a Quiverfull, woman-hating, incredibly abusive, sect that has completely lost track of what Christianity is supposed to be about.

God is Love. It’s not that difficult.

While I had legitimate issues with the “role of women” as described by religion during my teens, I was never regarded as Less than Human. I was never just an incubator who cleaned. Sure, I felt that way, but in the early 70s, I was never actually treated that way. What triggered this War on Women?

It was Feminism. That’s all. Women’s Liberation. Because, at that time, what my church taught was not that different from what the entire culture believed and practiced. Women could go so far, and no further. This is what broke up my parent’s marriage.

Years later, when my mother confessed that it drove her literally crazy that my father could not handle money, and she felt driven to divorce him, I was stunned. Why didn’t she, with much more skill as her later life proved, just take over the finances? Because she hadn’t been raised that way. It didn’t even occur to her to do that.

It wasn’t done.

Women escapees from Spiritual Abuse are very familiar with the ways certain ideas are not allowed to be thought– familiar with all of this was a backlash against Women’s Liberation. It’s not God at all.

Be keeping women slotted into housekeeping and shutting up, it’s easier for small men to feel superior. This is what happens when they cannot inspire respect with their accomplishments. They can only bully fear from the weak and vulnerable.

They are mean, petty, scared, small men.

God is much bigger than that.

June 13, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

learning the words: worldly

Today’s guest post is from Melissa, a reader who grew up in the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement, but eventually left it with her husband. “Learning the Words” is a series on the words many of us didn’t have in fundamentalism or overly conservative evangelicalism– and how we got them back. If you would like to be a part of this series, you can find my contact information at the top.

Worldly – perhaps no word is quite so “fundamental” to the way hyper-fundamentalists view how they should or should not live as this one. During my upbringing in the independent fundamentalist Baptist movement (church, school, college), I heard this word used countless times, and always in a highly negative sense.

Simply put, worldly is defined by Webster’s as “of, relating to, or devoted to the temporal world: not religious or spiritual.” In our lingo, however, it was further defined as describing the things “the world” did and, conversely, things which “we” did not do. “The world,” by the way, is anyone outside of the IFB mindset. In short, wordly = bad, sinful, the opposite of Godly. The less worldly one is, the better, closer to God, more spiritual one is. The idea is based on Bible verses that say things like, “come out from among them and be ye separate,” and that Christians are “a peculiar people.” [Editor’s note: that particular example is a form of Dominionism, a common fundamentalist heresy.]

Almost anything could garner the adjective “worldly,” depending on who was talking about it, and what his or her personal beliefs were. I have heard the word applied to the following: clothing, hairstyles, music, amusement parks, malls, movies and movie theaters, TV and TV shows, education, government, books, jewelry, games, make-up, hobbies, jokes, magazines, and probably a few others I can’t remember right now. In utter defiance of Webster, worldly was also used to describe decidedly spiritual things like churches, Christians, preachers, and Bible translations other than ye olde KJV 1611.

Worldly was used to distinguish the “sinful” forms of these items from the “Godly” ones. For example, there were “worldly hairstyles” and “Godly hairstyles” – long hair on a man was worldly, as was extremely short hair on a woman. I remember the handbook for my Christian school containing a picture of a “Godly” male student’s hairstyle, which looked remarkably like the hair of all of the male characters on “Leave It to Beaver.” Jesus, apparently, could not have attended our school.

Many rules were created to keep us from becoming worldly. Flip-flops represented the hippie movement, so they were worldly. (I believe this led to rules about girls having to wear socks or hose—it makes it harder to wear hippie footwear!) Wire-rimmed glasses were worldly because John Lennon wore them. Black lipstick/nail polish was associated with the worldly Goths. Can’t use a standard deck of cards, even for solitaire, because that’s what worldly gamblers use. And worldly music, even Christian music . . . well I don’t even have time to get into that can o’ worms!

The avoidance of all things worldly, quite naturally led to some practical problems, such as where the line between worldly and godly should be drawn. I remember a friend in my church had never been to an amusement park, and had only been to a mall once or twice because, according to her father, those “are things the world does.” Even as steeped as I was in the IFB ideology at the time, I remember thinking, “but ‘the world’ also goes to grocery stores and eats food and drives cars, and we don’t think those things are wrong.” Another major problem, of course, is pride. Because so many worldly things were visible, we could tell at a glance how spiritual someone was. And because worldly = ungodly, the more worldly items we avoided, the more we could congratulate ourselves on how much better we were than “the world,” including those “worldly Christians.”

The first time I encountered the word worldly used in a positive light was just before graduating from my IFB college. I was with a guy (who is now my husband) at a bookstore and came across a slim volume in a black and gold dust jacket with the title Worldly Virtues by Johannes A. Gaertner.

HUH?

It seemed like an extreme oxymoron, akin to saying “holy devil” or something. We were intrigued and each picked up a copy and started reading right there in the store. The book is filled with one-page reflections on various aspects of being human. It covers such worldly traits as tact, perseverance, and commitment. From it I learned:

that worry is “an eminently healthy, normal, and human trait.”
that fear can be positive because “the person who knows no fear…is either incredibly stupid or harbors a secret death wish.”
that discernment is a way to prevent “being manipulated day in, day out, virtually every waking hour of the day.”

We each bought a copy, and from that day I began to understand Webster’s second definition of worldly: “sophisticated or cosmopolitan.” Kind of like that most worldly of movie heroes, “Bond–James Bond.” Mr. Gaertner actually helped me reclaim a number of words that hyper-fundamentalists had perverted for their own use. Now, the label of worldly doesn’t make me cringe – it’s a label I strive to live up to.

June 5, 2013 by SamanthaField

Theology

learning the words: wisdom

Today’s guest post is from Physics & Whiskey, who blogs about his journey away from absolute certainty and toward endless curiosity at Science and Other Drugs. “Learning the Words” is a series on the words many of us didn’t have in fundamentalism or overly conservative evangelicalism– and how we got them back. If you would like to be a part of this series, you can find my contact information at the top.

As far as fundamentalist homeschooling families go, mine was fairly average. We saw a lot of families that were definitely more extreme. Growing up, I felt like my parents had balanced everything out fairly well. They swallowed the Pearls’ teachings on discipline hook, line, and sinker, but they shied away from the patriarchal teachings. All of us envied the sense of community in the local ATI group, but we knew there was something a little off about the whole business. My dad preferred the KJV, but we recognized that the KJV-only dogma of most Independent Fundamental Baptists were ridiculous.

We sampled a little here and a little there, never entirely diving into any one system or group or ideology. Perhaps that’s why the word I’m most thoughtful about is wisdom.

“The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight.” (Proverbs 4:7)

Growing up, this passage always seemed tautological. “In order to get wisdom, get wisdom.” Boy, that sure tells us a lot. Of course, the presupposition of Biblical Literalism obscured the poetic depth of many such passages, but still, it was puzzling.

In our family, wisdom had a very specific meaning. Wisdom was a special piece of knowledge or insight provided by the Holy Spirit apart from any epistemic process.

Epistemology is the study of how we acquire knowledge our information. For example, empirical (observational) epistemology says that we use our senses to arrive at most or all knowledge. An epistemic process is a pathway to making a claim; it follows the basic principles of logic and reason and includes both premises and arguments. Because it has all these elements, a statement based on an epistemic process can be questioned, debated, and ultimately understood.

But wisdom was something different. A piece of wisdom couldn’t be questioned or argued or analyzed. It came from God, so it just had to be accepted. You weren’t allowed to understand wisdom; you just had to follow it.

In practice, this meant that whatever insight my parents gleaned (either from the Bible or from a fundamentalist parenting book or from a pastor or from special revelation during prayer) could not be questioned. According to fundamentalist belief, parents had a special connection to the Holy Spirit which allowed them to make the right decision 100% of the time, as long as they were “trusting God’s Word.” They didn’t have to understand it, they just had to apply it and believe that it would yield positive results. “No chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

Labeling intuition or church dogma as wisdom essentially made it God’s Word; since God is the source of all wisdom, questioning anything labeled as wisdom was tantamount to questioning God. Worst of all, not even my parents were permitted to question it. If my mom said something was wisdom, my dad was duty-bound to defend it; if my dad said something was wisdom, my mom had to do the same. Wisdom could be invoked at any time to end any discussion. If you continued to protest after wisdom had been invoked, the full weight of Proverbs was brought to bear.

“Fools despise wisdom and discipline.”
“He who disdains instruction despises his own soul, but he who heeds rebuke gets understanding.”
“A fool despises his father’s instruction, but he who receives correction is prudent.”
“A wise son makes a glad father, but a foolish son is the grief of his mother.”

Oh, and here’s my personal favorite. Any time we tried to defend ourselves: “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who heeds counsel is wise.” In other words, shut up and face the consequences; the more you try to explain, the more foolish you are.

I say “favorite” with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek, because nothing could be further from the truth. Even now, I’m having trouble glancing through the book of Proverbs. These passages bring back a lot of difficult memories. My heart is racing and I have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Wisdom is hard for me to talk about. I can feel the nervous panic of sitting in my parents’ room waiting and waiting because I had made the painful mistake of “despising wisdom.”

The irony was that fundamentalists prize the doctrine of “solo“ scriptura to an extreme degree. Scripture is supposed to be 100% sufficient– except when it’s not, and you need to add wisdom to properly round it out. This practice is hard to spot, especially since most “wisdom” consists of Bible verses pulled out of their context and applied liberally to the current situation.

Wisdom was a way of cementing parental authority. “Do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor detest His correction.” To question a parent’s wisdom was to rebel against God. It was our responsibility to simply pray until God gave us the same wisdom he had already given our parents.

So it’s easy to see how I might be a little hesitant about using the word “wisdom” now.

“The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.” (Matthew 11:19)

Growing up, wisdom couldn’t be questioned. Wisdom was a guarantee of results. You simply applied it, and it always worked. No matter what.

But in Matthew 11, Jesus says: “Wisdom is justified by her deeds.” Even Jesus, who metaphorically embodied wisdom, didn’t act as though he was above question. He didn’t say, “I have divine wisdom on my side, so I’m right no matter what.” No, he said that wisdom was identified by what it actually did, not where it came from. If actions bear good fruit, they were wise; if actions bear bad fruit, they were unwise.

Wisdom isn’t magical. It’s the result of experience and reflection. If something works, it’s wise; if not, it isn’t.

If I want to be a wise father to my son, I can’t depend on “wisdom” as a fall-back that will guarantee the proper results if I don’t know what I’m doing. Finally, I understand what Proverbs 4:7 means: In order to be wise, I have to get wisdom. I have to pay attention to what works and what doesn’t; I have to be willing to change if my intuitions are leading me the wrong way.

“Test everything; hold fast to what is good.”

That’s wisdom.

May 31, 2013 by SamanthaField

Theology

learning the words: brainwashing

Today’s guest post is from Jonny Scaramanga, who blogs about his journey out of fundamentalism and into atheism, as well as his experience with Accelerated Christian Education at Leaving Fundamentalism. “Learning the Words” is a series on the words many of us didn’t have in fundamentalism or overly conservative evangelicalism– and how we got them back. If you would like to be a part of this series, you can find my contact information at the top.

I was so excited to read Samantha’s post on Learning the Words, because the way fundamentalism uses language to control believers’ thoughts is fascinating to me.

Robert Lifton was one of the first people to study victims of brainwashing by the communists in the Korean War. In his book, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, Lifton gives eight criteria for thought reform (brainwashing to you and me). One of them is “loading the language”:

For an individual person, the effect of the language of ideological totalism can be summed up in one word: constriction. He is, so to speak, linguistically deprived; and since language is so central to all human experience, his capacities for thinking and feeling are immensely narrowed.

Reading this was a eureka moment for me, because I’d always thought that my Accelerated Christian Education experience was an Orwellian instance of words being redefined so that it was hard or impossible to question their doctrine. Lifton describes how totalist ways of thinking use “thought-terminating clichés… brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases.” Simple labels are attached to something you like or dislike, and they are the start and finish of all thought on the subject.

Accelerated Christian Education (ACE), like a lot of Christian fundamentalism, redefines terms in black-and-white, so things are either absolutely good or absolutely bad. Then you can just stick a label on something, and end the discussion. Want someone to accept that a politician is bad? Just call them a liberal, and the argument is over.

Here are a few thought-terminating clichés from ACE:

Positive:

Biblical
Christian
Believing
Faith
Conservative
Free enterprise
Absolutes

Negative:

Liberal
Secular
Humanist
Atheist
Unbelieving
Socialist
Communist
Left-wing

Here’s how this plays out in practice. When teaching politics to children, ACE doesn’t give reasons why Medicare or social security are bad. It simply says they are liberal and socialist. Conversation over. Often, I never saw these words explicitly defined. They were just used in a negative context repeatedly until I learned that ‘liberal’ ideas are always bad. Some examples:

Although [President Kennedy’s] New Frontier sounds good, it was as socialistic as the New Deal and the Fair Deal had been.

The year 1933 was a dark one in American history. In that year, President Roosevelt began introducing socialistic programs which now play such an important role in American politics, economics, religion, and education. In 1933, America began shifting from a nation whose philosophy was a conservative, God-fearing one to a nation whose philosophy was a liberal and socialistic one.

As Congress became more conservative, President Truman became more liberal. He supported labour unions and such socialistic programs as government aid to farmers, expanding social security, and providing federal housing aid. President Truman called his program the ‘Fair Deal’. To many American voters, the Fair Deal was only an extension of President Roosevelt’s New Deal, and President Truman’s popularity dropped to its lowest point.

So if someone says, “Hey, maybe we could raise taxes!” the response is simply, “but Free Enterprise is Biblical. You wouldn’t question God’s Word, would you?”

If someone suggests that maybe Young Earth Creationism isn’t the best way to interpret the Bible, well, how dare they question Biblical absolutes with their unbelieving doubts.

If someone says, “Maybe we should use government to help the poor,” the response is “that’s how the liberals think!” Since liberal = bad, there’s no room for questioning. Thought is terminated.

If I could go back in time to reason with my 14-year-old self, I don’t know how I would even explain the views I have now. Most of the vocabulary that I could use just meant “evil” to me back then.

By depriving children of the language to question their political and religious ideology, Accelerated Christian Education indoctrinates them to believe that everything they disagree with is evil. As Robert Lifton notes, “these clichés become what Robert Weaver has called ‘ultimate terms’: either ‘god terms,’ representative of ultimate good, or ‘devil terms,’ representative of ultimate evil.”

What matters here is not whether you agree with ACE’s political views or not. What matters is that ACE stifles all debate and education by using language which demonizes all other opinions. It worked on me. When I left to go to a normal school, I told anyone who expressed sympathy for Tony Blair’s Labour party that they were Communists.

May 28, 2013 by SamanthaField

Feminism

silence will let evil win, so I'm screaming

Fair warning: this is going to be long. But worth it, I hope.

Our recruitment period at the fundamentalist church-cult was over about three years after we had become members. I don’t remember anything before this point being bad– in fact, all I do remember was preferring our church to the other churches we had visited. I’d made friends, a few in particular.

So I was confused when Anna’s* family didn’t show up for church one Sunday morning when I was thirteen, maybe fourteen. They didn’t come to church Sunday night, either. Or Wednesday. They didn’t show up for “Visitation” on Thursday, either. I asked my best friend, the pastor’s daughter Christina*, what had happened. Were they ok? Did they go somewhere? I figured she would know– being the pastor’s daughter gave her an “in” with church gossip. I was worried about Anna– especially since the last time I’d seen her we’d gotten into a tiff and I hadn’t said some very nice things.

Christina told me that her family had been “sowing division in the church.”

“Sowing division? What does that mean?” I’d had a vague inclination about “sowing division” in the context of how people accused us KJV-only types that insisting on our translation was “sowing division,” and basically our response was to blow that accusation off. That didn’t really make sense, here.

“Her father has been holding private services outside of church, without Pastor’s approval, and trying to teach people heresies.”

That was pretty much the the extent of our talk, as words like “heresy” tend to be conversation-ending. I didn’t know what to do with this information, but it just… it just didn’t feel right. Luckily, Anna’s family lived in my neighborhood, as was within easy biking distance. I biked over to her house, all by my lonesome. Anna’s mother answered the door.

“Samantha– what are you doing here?” Her voice sounded surprised, shocked even.

That’s strange– I come here all the time. I knew why I had come– if Anna was never going to come back to church, I couldn’t let the last things I ever said to her be awful. “I have to talk to Anna.”

“I don’t know if that’s a very good idea right now.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know what to do– should I just turn around and leave? But Anna appeared behind her mother, and it was obvious that she had been crying. When I looked at her mom again, I realized that she had been crying, too. What was happening?

“It’s ok, mom, I want to talk to her,” Anna said, and we went to sit in the backyard on her swing set. We trailed our feet in the sand for a while without saying much of anything.

I finally had the courage to say something. “Anna, I just… wanted to say I’m sorry. For the things I said.”

Anna nodded. “It’s ok. It’s not a big deal, not anymore.”

I didn’t now if I could ask what was happening– how did someone ask “Hey, is your dad teaching heresy?”

“What did Christina say?” She asked suddenly.

I was floored. “Uhm . . . just . . . well, it didn’t really make sense.”

She waited.

“She, well, she said that your dad was sowing division,” I whispered.

Her laugh was so hard and bitter. “Figures.” Our feet made a scraping-swoosh sound as our flip-flops skidded over the sand. “Dad was just having a Bible study. We were having a few families over for dinner, and then we’d just all sit around and talk.”

That made sense. I could see Anna’s dad doing something like that– he always had interesting things to say whenever he taught Sunday school, and I knew he was smart. And a Bible study didn’t sound so bad. Sounded like a good idea, to me.

“But Pastor found out about it, and he got all mad, and… he said we’re not allowed to come back to church anymore.” And she started crying. I didn’t know what to do except cry with her. I stayed for a little bit longer, and we talked about other things. I even saw her dad before I left, and I remember him putting his hand on my shoulder and thanking me for coming to visit. There were tears in his eyes, too. I wanted to hug him and tell him everything was going to be ok, that it would all work out.

When I told Christina about my conversation with Anna, her reaction was almost violent. She was furious with me– how dare I go behind her back like that. How dare I go to the people who had “hurt her family” and “disgraced the church.” She made it very clear that associating with “those people” was choosing the wrong side. They were filled with nothing but lies. Anna was only going to try to make the church, and our Pastor, look bad. They were out to ruin our reputation.

I never went to see Anna again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Five years later, during my freshman year at a fundamentalist college, my phone rang. That didn’t happen very often, so I was confused when I picked up the handset. It was Christina. She had been upset with me for choosing to attend college, and we hadn’t been on very good speaking terms since then, so I was relieved to hear her voice. I had been horribly afraid of losing her friendship, as she had been my only constant friend through all of the ups and downs at church.

She was not calling just to connect, though. She was sobbing. “The Stricklands* left the church, Sam.”

“What?” That was shocking. They had been there so long, had gone through so much with us. “What happened?”

“I don’t know!” She wailed. “All daddy would say is that Mr. Strickland said that we were all demon-possessed!”

Demon-possessed? What in heaven’s name? “Are you sure he said that? That sounds . . . so crazy.” Mr. Strickland was probably one of the most down-to-earth, solid people I could think of.

“What do you mean if I’m sure? Of course I’m sure! Are you accusing my father of lying?”

I instantly back-pedaled. “Of course not. That just doesn’t sound like Mr. Strickland, is all I meant.” I thought of his wife, and his children, who I adored. They seemed like a normal, healthy family. They were an integral part of our tight-knit church. For them to suddenly leave . . .

“You are. You think daddy’s lying.” Her rant went on for the next few minutes, and I fell into my habit of listening without really listening. It was the only way to survive some of these conversations with her. “Well, all they’re doing is trying to drag our good name through the mud, but it won’t work. We may be persecuted, but God will make sure that we prevail. The truth always finds us out.”

After she hung up, I sat on my bed and tried to cry. I’d cried for so many families over the years. Families that just hadn’t understood all the good we were trying to do. Couldn’t they see all the people our church had brought to Christ? Didn’t they understand that other churches didn’t really have good intentions when they didn’t preach on sin? We were the only beacon of light in that town. The only people willing to preach the Gospel.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Looking back, now, I can so clearly see what was happening.

The abused were being silenced.

If the dozens of families who “abandoned” my church had been able to tell their story, to speak truth, then the evil would have been exposed for what it was. If we had been allowed to communicate with those who had realized that the church-cult and its leader were horribly abusive, then it would have ended.

But, for all of these families, the only option was silence. Be quiet, don’t rock the boat, keep your head down, and just get out of Dodge as quick as you can. Talking about the abuse they suffered would have been received as “sowing division.” Everyone still in the grips of the cult would have shunned them– just like we did with Anna’s family, when her father tried to tell people what was happening. He didn’t even go about it directly– he just started trying to counterbalance some of the horrible ideas the leader was spouting from the pulpit.

But no. These people were creating discord. These people were liars. Once a family had left our church, the leader would get up and give an explanation for why they had gone– and it was always their sin. Their disobedience. Their refusal to honor God’s word and the Shepherd he had put over them to guide them. We were not to associate with them, lest we be tainted, and bring their evil spirit into our church.

It’s been about seven years since my family left. When we left, we were immediately followed by a vitriolic rampage. My father was weak– he was being manipulated by his “woman.” My mother was a whore. She was bent on destroying her family– see, they even let their daughter go to college, and he lifted up a letter I’d written to Christina trying to explain, directly to her, why we had left– so she’d have something beside her father’s lies. See, he said– see how college only corrupts and perverts a woman’s weak mind.

It’s been seven years, and I am still hearing this. Not necessarily about that church in particular. No– speaking about abuse in fundamentalism, why, can’t you see that all you’re doing is giving us a bad name? All you’re doing is talking about how much you hate the church– and don’t you see how damaging that is? Don’t you understand that you’re just driving people away from other good IFB churches? You’re putting out a spark of hope, Samantha. You need to forgive. You shouldn’t be angry. We need to love. Pointing out all these wrongs is just hurting churches that are trying to do the right thing. You’re not being very edifying, Samantha. You’re a bully.

First off– I am trying to do my damn level best to give IFB churches a “bad name.” It is my sincerest hope that no one will ever attend an IFB church ever again and that the movement will die. Yes, there are IFB churches that aren’t horribly abusive like the church I grew up in– but fundamentalism is abusive. The doctrines that make up the core of fundamentalist theology will lead to abuse in some form, whether mild or severe. Legalism, inequality, dualism, sexism, rape threats, and docetism are inherent qualities of fundamentalism that cannot be escaped, no matter how much “good” these churches claim to be doing. All the soup kitchens in the world cannot overcome the rampant abusiveness in fundamentalist doctrine.

I do not hate the church. My beliefs concerning theology don’t really stray that far from your typical Protestant orthodox. I’m leaning progressive, have some ideas that some might call “universalist” and I just think of as “consistent,” though, just to be honest. My point being: I love the church. It is because I love the church that I am compelled to speak truth. The ideas I talk about, while I can only speak to how they appear in fundamentalism, are not limited to right-wring crazies. Many of these ideas are considered central and moderate, by some. They are everywhere, and they saturate conservative evangelical culture. Left unchecked, these ideas will continue to cause untold damage. I am heartbroken by the countless stories of abuse, and because of love I must speak out. I believe that the church can overcome this. I believe that Christ’s message of reaching out to the oppressed, the abused, the marginalized, can be the message we cling to. I believe that the current culture of shame, silencing, violence, abuse, victim-blaming and slut-shaming can change. That’s why I write.

Being told to just “forgive” and how “forgiveness” is somehow supposed to equal my silence— if I were really forgiving, I wouldn’t be talking about it– deserves its own post. Thankfully, there are many others who have written that post for me, for now– although I might get to it.

So yes. I’m angry, and I’m here, and I will be here, trying to use my story to make the world a better place.

March 11, 2013 by SamanthaField