ElizabethEsther.com

I Am Free

Dear Elizabeth in 2000,

I know that right now it's hard to believe you'll ever be happy. It's been a tough summer for you. You're 23 and your whole life should stretch out before you with hope. But instead, you just want to die.

You're not alone. Being trapped inside an abusive fundamentalist church tends to do this to people; especially to women.

The desperation and the despair you feel is so deep that you've asked God to strike you with a terminal illness just so you can escape this life. But I want you to know something: I'm waiting for you in 2010 and your life here is beautiful.

Will you do something for me? For us?

Don't give up. Instead, get angry. Because I know that if you get angry, you'll fight. And sweetheart? This is a fight for your survival.

Get angry because what they are doing to you is wrong. I know nobody believes you. I know you cry to God and think He doesn't listen. I know you cry yourself to sleep and wish you wouldn't wake up.

But hear me.

One day you will be heard.

One day you'll be so free from fear that you will share your stories with courage and dignity. You will speak the truth and discover that you're not alone.

One day all the things you thought were your liabilities will become your strength. You think you're too sensitive and emotional. You've been told that you should remain silent. You cover yourself because you think physical beauty is almost sinful.

One day you will realize that being sensitive enables you to empathize with others. You'll recognize that God gave you the gift of being able to feel. You'll use your words to speak your stories. You'll be comfortable in your own skin.

Elizabeth, you'll even spontaneously dance in public! There is a sunset in your future that will so enrapture you that you'll bust out a dance right there on the beach cliffs. And you won't care who is watching.

Here's the best news ever: Elizabeth, you are FREE.

So, hang on. I know this might sound impossible, but can you try to find the lesson in the suffering? Can you let the suffering make you a beautiful, compassionate, just human being?

Because one day you will be free. 

And one day your freedom will help others be free, too.

With love, Elizabeth in 2010

Life as a fundie pastor's kid

Despite the loud claims that our fundamentalist church didn't have a centralized authority structure like the "worldly churches," there was definitely a highly specified hierarchy. It was kinda like the Jacob's ladder to holiness. The closer you were to the top, the more "spiritual" you were. And my family was at the top.

This was because my Dad and my grandfather were both pastors. You could say that preaching was the family business. 

It might have looked like a glamorous life to outsiders: all those life-transforming sermons and cross-country preaching tours. I've had friends tell me there was a sort of "princess" aspect to my childhood and I can see that. People were always volunteering to cook, clean and babysit for my family since we had so little time for anything but "the work of the Lord." Other people cleaned our toilets because it was a privilege to "serve the Lord" in our communal home.

But being a "holy princess" came with its own set of difficulties--especially since I lived inside a high-demand, borderline cult Christian group.  I shouldered a heavy weight of expectations and also, what was for me, a distinctly uncomfortable public life. When eager new converts asked me what it was like to the daughter and grand-daughter of such noble men of God, I didn't know how to answer. To me, they weren't glorious orators so much as bombastic personalities who cracked good jokes at the dinner table and had stinky feet.

I loved being a pastor's daughter and I also hated it. There were rich times of honest, deep fellowship, especially during family dinners together. But there was also the heavy burden of needing to "uphold the testimony," which was just a fancy way of saying "keeping up appearances." I spent a good deal of my childhood smiling when I was sad and exhibiting cheerful obedience in spite of a breaking heart.

As pastor's kids, we were expected to be ready with verses to recite, testimonies to share or hours to spend serving others. We needed to look good because, well, when boiled down to its primitive motivation--that's what people's tithes paid us to do.

If my family didn't produce a valuable product (ie. holy children and a Godly legacy), who would invest in our "spiritual stock"?

I remember when it finally registered in my child-brain that the money being put in the "Lord's Treasury" was buying food for me to eat and clothes for me to wear. The older I got, the more I felt a growing sense of mortification and guilt anytime I got a new outfit or ate out at a restaurant. 

All of which to say, it was tough work being "spiritual" before I even knew how to spell that word. (Ah, to experience the simple, plebian joy of being the daughter of a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker!)

Oh, well. At least I was well-trained and had my pastor's daughter routine polished to a shine.

By age 5 I knew how to share my testimony with any heathen I might encounter at, say, the playground. By age 10 I could open-air preach the Gospel in 1 minute. Damnation to salvation in 60 seconds flat. But by the time I was a teenager, the pressure of always having to perform was catching up to me. There was never a chance to discover who I was since from the time I was born I had been told who I was and who I was expected to be. 

I was a miserable, panicky hypocrite. And an insufferable drama queen.

I mean, most teenage girls are prone to melodramatic seizures. Imagine mine with the added bonus of being able to out-exegete any poor soul who dared question whether or not dating was Biblical. It like SO wasn't! Duh! And then I'd turn around and try to convince my parents that the boy who'd invited me to the movies wasn't asking me out on a date-date. It was more like hanging out. 

See, this is what happens when you kiss dating goodbye long before you've even had your first kiss. You go screwy in the brain. Or you become a professional Pharisee.

Even though I often dreamed about escape, we were taught that leaving our church was equal to leaving God. For me, leaving our church also meant leaving my family. And for how sick and crazy we were, I just couldn't imagine leaving them. Especially my mother and sister whom, despite the insanity, I genuinely loved and was genuinely loved in return.

I don't know if other pastor's kids felt this way but the stress of needing to live a holy life (to please God) plus the stress of needing to look like I was living a holy life (to please others and make the ministry look good) was exhausting. I got sick all the time. For awhile, nobody could figure out what was wrong with me.

I was carted off to all sorts of doctors, herbalists, nutritionists and some holistic healer who listened to me breathe over the phone. Everyone had a different solution. I was placed on a restrictive, dairy-free diet. I didn't eat processed foods. Once I went on a five-day water fast where I lost so much weight that I couldn't stand up on my own.

Not one doctor ever asked if I was living in a high-stress environment. No-one said the words "panic attack." And anyway, we didn't believe in that stuff.

I realize my experience is way off the charts in comparison to the average PK's life. But still, I wonder if the broader Christian community appreciates the emotional and spiritual cost of being a pastor's kid. I mean, since most evangelical, Protestant churches are organized like a traditional business model with the leading influence of one person (ie. the senior pastor/CEO), it's been my observation that the pastor's children often get the leftovers of their father's time and attention.

This is because church ministry as we know it today is pretty much a 24/7 job. You work weekends and make midnight dashes to the hospital to visit the dying. You write books and travel around the country on speaking engagements. There are late-night board meetings, prayer meetings and counseling sessions. 

I often wonder if PKs feel like their parents love God more than their children. 

To an adult it might seem all holy and spiritual to PUT GOD FIRST. To me, that seems like a spiritualized excuse for neglecting your familial obligations.

[SIDEBAR: for all the naysaying against priestly celibacy, I actually see the celibacy requirement as pro-family and pro-child since it frees the married men to be devoted husbands and fathers. The priest is also freed to serve his congregation with undivided attention. In other words, nobody neglects their children to serve God. Just a thought from my obviously biased perspective. :) ]

One of the strangest things about being a PK in a hard-core church was how often we impressed other Christians. Whenever I met other Christians, they only seemed to notice how devoted and on fire for God I was (at least, until they saw me start to shake with an out-of-the-blue panic attack). Sometimes they said they wished their church was as "alive" as mine.

I have a theory that if concerned people observed the children (and overwhelmed mothers) living in these groups, they'd gain a different perspective than they would by listening to the pastor's sermon. 

Instead, it seems like American Christians are particularly vulnerable to the seduction of what I like to call: Bigger, Holier, More-Radical-Than-You Christianity! 

They just don't see that zealotry is often the white-wash covering a tomb.

The Bible: like Google maps with a side of Motrin

A scary thing happened when I left the abusive fundamentalist church of my childhood: I couldn't open my Bible and read the words without hearing my grandfather's voice, his exact intonation and inflection. Certain passages were so fully saturated with his interpretation that I literally could not, as evangelicals often say, "read the Bible for myself."

This scared me because I was still convinced that the only way to be an active Christian was by reading my Bible every day. My grandfather was particularly fond of a catchy little phrase I inscribed in the cover of my Bible: This book will keep you from sin or sin will keep you from this book.

Go a few days without reading the Bible and you were backsliding. I remember several occasions when I went to church leadership for help only to be asked: "Are you reading your Bible every day?" Everything from finding God's will for my class schedule to finding relief from PMS could be solved by reading my Bible every day. The Bible was like Google maps with a side of Motrin.

I'd seen entire families shipped off to plant new churches based on a few scraggly verses from I Chronicles or II Corinthians. One family I knew uprooted their entire life to move to Oregon because they'd been praying for the Lord's will and came across a verse in Psalms that mentioned "Salem."

Fundamentalists are radically opposed to horoscopes and witchcraft but sometimes they treat the Bible as their own personal crystal ball. I was always deeply uncomfortable with this. It freaked me out that good, honest, well-intentioned Christians could cherry-pick verses out of the Bible and make them mean whatever they wanted them to mean. As long as the person could present a compelling argument in favor of their interpretation, the rest of us were just supposed to agree that God had indeed spoken to them. Biblically.

I mean, taken to its logical end, this kind of practice led to the emergence of all sorts of random pet doctrines and "convictions." Or, you know, just garden-variety heresy.

And, of course, the only way to know God was through the Bible. If you didn't read your Bible, you didn't know God because the Bible was The Only Source of Our Revelation. We were often warned against "extra-Biblical" revelations of God. The idea was that "extra-Biblical" revelation was a non-stop ticket straight to apostasy. Also known as Catholicism.

(SIDEBAR: if there is one topic about which fundamentalists and The New York Times agree, it's that the Catholic Church is a corrupt, evil organization.)

So, since God could only be found within the pages of my Bible and since I couldn't read my Bible without hearing my grandfather's voice, I figured my faith was doomed.

Reading the Bible was driving me away from God. But staying away from the Bible meant I was sinning. 

I found myself at this weird crossroads. It was like: Go Crazy or Go To Hell.

I chose Hell.

Well, not really. I mean, it felt like that. By not reading my Bible everyday I felt like I was choosing The Way That Leadeth Unto Destruction. 

But I was actually choosing to have my brain deprogrammed. I stopped reading my Bible for a long time because, well, I needed to get my grandfather's voice out of my head.

We'd been attending Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa and had spoken briefly with one of the pastors there. He was remarkably gracious and gentle. That was a new experience for me. Our time at Calvary Chapel was consistently refreshing and healing.

But even so, I was still unsure about whether God really loved me. Which is to say, would He come after me even if I wasn't actively seeking Him? Could I push it further? Would God look for me even if I ran away from Him?

I mean, when the Bible has been used as a weapon against you, it's very difficult to find a loving God there. And since I couldn't read my Bible without breaking down in tears, well, I figured I'd lost God, too.

The problem, though, wasn't that I'd lost God so much as radically underestimated Him. Growing up inside fundamentalism, my idea of Him was very small. I thought He was bound up inside the Bible. I didn't realize He was bigger and more wonderful than I'd ever imagined.

One of the new thoughts that broke open my concept of God was this: if God can only be known through the pages of Scripture, does that mean all illiterate peoples will never know God?

I slowly accepted that if God the Father could exercise mercy on the illiterate peoples of our world, then perhaps He'd also show mercy to a confused, intentionally illiterate woman like me.

I know it sounds weird, but I was basically telling God to treat me like someone who had never been exposed to the Christian God. 

If I was ever going to regain my faith, me and God were gonna have to start over from scratch.

Tears for "Quivering Daughters"

I tried several times to talk about Hillary McFarland's book without weeping. Could.Not.Do.It. I thought about editing out my tears, make this a nice, pretty little video. But you know what? I didn't. I didn't because what is happening inside "biblical patriarchy" is nothing short of tragic. We should be weeping. I was honored to write the Foreword to Hillary McFarland's new book "Quivering Daughters" and I'm unashamed to weep for these precious daughters, here. Please watch and please consider purchasing her important, courageous book.

We Will Tell You How To Feel (or how I discovered my emotions after an abusive church experience)

A few weeks ago, I came across my journal from 7 years ago. We were just coming out of our abusive church. Our family had been blown apart, scattered, estranged.

I was lonely and terribly unsure of myself. I had no friends or social networks outside of my church. And yet, there was a sweetness in each journal entry. My faith was shaken, but still intact. I was full of longing and loathing, hope and self-doubt. I was intoxicated by new freedom but terrified about making my own decisions.

Every day I struggled with feelings of failure and unworthiness. I was fearful and anxious about even the simplest things--like going to a park by myself. I was extremely sensitive to "worldly" stimuli and spent a lot of time swinging between total panic and slow, rational acceptance of my new, "secular" life.

We got a TV for the first time ever and at first I was completely overwhelmed by the noisy commercials and blaring BREAKING NEWS headlines. One morning I was washing dishes and the TV show was interrupted by trumpeting horns and a BREAKING NEWS UPDATE! I ran into the living room all freaked out. 

Was the world ending? What was happening?

Nothing. Just some lame car chase in L.A. I felt so used and manipulated. I turned off the TV and stomped back into the kitchen. Stupid, stupid TV.

Yeah, adjusting to a TV took some time. We still only have one TV in our house. I think it's more than enough. (I still have difficulty not getting all emotionally involved in stupid reality shows).

Happily, though, I also discovered this amazing band. Maybe you've heard of them? They're called The Beatles. Dude, I bought a whole collection of their music and for an entire year I went around singing these raw, passionate lyrics like: Love, love me do! You know I love you!

It was freaking awesome!

I felt like an alien being acclimated to mainstream society. But instead of the world being this horrible, ugly, vile, sinful place, I found America to be a wonderful, multi-colored place full of love, creativity, passion and friendly people.

Sometimes, though, the sheer intensity of the emotions I felt were overwhelming. I could only let myself feel these things in small doses. Occasionally, I had to turn off The Beatles because All You Need is Love  was liable to throw me over the edge. I didn't know what to do with all that love, love, love.

There were dark emotions, too. Anger, frustration, feelings of betrayal, panic. I didn't know how to handle these feelings and eventually I went to therapy. 

I remember telling my therapist some of the things I experienced and was astonished to see her wiping away tears.

"Why are you crying?" I asked.

"Because it's a sad story," she said. "Crying is what people do when they hear something sad."

I know it might sound silly, but it was one of the first times that I realized it was OK to feel my emotions. When something sad happens, it was normal to feel sad. This was a major revelation.

Up until that point, I'd operated under the idea that the only acceptable emotion was rejoicing. Any other state of being--even happiness--was suspect and perhaps sinful. 

In the church we talked a lot about how being happy wasn't really spiritual. True Christians weren't happy. They were joyful. And you were never just sad. You were "sorrowing yet rejoicing."

As Christians, what did we have to be sad about? Nothing! 'Cuz we were on our way to Heaven!

So, I learned to systematically repress any non-rejoicing feelings. This was a fantastic coping mechanism for surviving a cultish church, but it did come with a hefty price-tag once I got out into the Real World. For one thing, I had a difficult time identifying what emotion I was experiencing. I was emotionally challenged. 

One day my therapist lent me a children's book about feelings to read with my kids. Instead, I was the one who kept reading it over and over.

I loved the little pictures of facial expressions. Sad. Happy. Concerned. Confused.

So many emotions to feel! A bountiful HARVEST of emotions. Oh, dear, sweet, GLORIOUS emotions!

But it was scary, too. Managing my emotions was turning out to be a full-time job. Once you start letting yourself feel, well, HELLO NIAGARA FALLS OF EMOTION, how do I stop you now?

I would let myself feel for awhile and then I'd go scurrying back into Not Feeling. It was safer.

In the last couple of years, I've started feeling safer about my life situation. I'm settled and stable. It's safe to feel. 

I sort of have that little diagram of facial expressions memorized. It's a helpful little tool. Whenever I'm stuck, I imagine my therapist asking me: "So, how does that make you feel?"

I consult my little mental diagram. Ah, ha! I'm feeeeeeeling.....ANXIOUS! 

Awesome. 

At first I hated the "How does that make you feel?" question. I hated it because it stumped me. Huh? How do I feel? I HAVE NO FREAKING IDEA HOW I FEEL. Can we move on, now?

But I gotta admit. That little question probably saved my life. Seven years ago I was a 25 year old woman who was terrified of feeling anything.

Now? I feel and I feel and I feel and I FEEEEEL! Guess what? My feelings aren't broken!

Oh, beautiful feelings. Oh, precious feelings. Oh, gloriously wide spectrum of lovely, sparkly, sad, happy, confused, concerned, rainbowy feelings.

Oh, God, thank You for feelings! Love, love me do! You know I love YOU!

Aridity of spirit

I walked out of church today. The Presbyterian pastor made a derogatory remark about Catholics and his sword of spiritual elitism sliced me open. Everyone else laughed but I bled all the way up the aisle, stumbled out into the sunny courtyard and blinked back tears.

Most Sundays I feel far too broken and weak to brave the sermon. I'm not strong in the face of the booming male voice of Biblical authority. I bleed too easily. 

But still, every Sunday morning I get up and put on my church clothes. I put on my church face. I put on my church talk. It's my armor. It hides my aching, bruised soul. Every Sunday morning I hope for just one taste, just one tiny draught of grace.

We attend a Presbyterian church as a family and later, I go to Mass alone.

What this usually means is that on Sunday morning I get torn apart and on Sunday evening I get sewn back together.

It's a cobbled-together faith that matches my cobbled-together life. 

Today, sitting alone in the sunny courtyard, I really felt the schisms that divide Christians. I've inherited the centuries' old grudge of Protestant v. Catholic. Sometimes it feels like I'm being asked to pick between two equally beloved parents. How do I pick? I love them both.

And so I wept for the divorce. I wept for everything that Protestants threw away during the Reformation and I wept for the sex scandals that are rocking the Catholic Church. I wept for the misunderstandings and the misconceptions, the prideful one-upmanship, the false dichotomies and the pitting of brother against brother.

Mostly, I wept because I don't know how to fix it.

Sometimes I think God is asking me to live in the place of brokenness. In fact, I know this is what He's asking me to do. And frankly, I hate it. I accept it. I don't resent it. But it's painful and, well, I don't like pain.

So, every Sunday morning I get up and put on my church clothes. I put on my church face. I don't have zealous feelings or passion. 

I don't have the answers for repairing the breach or mending the centuries' old divorce.

But I do have love. And I can choose to obey. I can give my broken, paltry offering.

By God's grace, perhaps it will be enough.

One single act done with aridity of spirit is worth more than many done with feelings of devotion. --St. Francis de Sales

How the "I am a worm"/total depravity theology hurts children

When you believe that you are a vile, filthy piece of scum and that you are unworthy of God's love, could this perhaps transfer to how you view your children? And to how you discipline them?

In my fundamentalist upbringing, children were viewed as little more than wretched sinners who must be spanked into submission. And although we would have certainly protested against that characterization, our actions proved otherwise.

Our perspective of "child-training" ran very similar to the systematic chastisement espoused by Michael & Debi Pearl. Thankfully, none of our "training sessions" ever ended in death or hospitalization.

But many of us often went around with bruised behinds. And in my case, a kind of chronic heartache. It was like always living in a parched state, nearly dying of thirst for love. My husband says I was so needy when he first met me and that I required copious amounts of attention and affirmation.

In fact, it wasn't until our 7th wedding anniversary that I finally started believing he loved me.

Of course, there were many reasons for this but one of them was that, as a child, I'd been trained and programed quite systematically. It was a form of mental conditioning that was often achieved through corporeal punishment.

Sometimes I wonder what motivated such harsh discipline. Was part of it the rigorous meeting schedule that required all children to sit through 5 hours of meetings on Sundays? I mean, how else do you get a 2 year old to sit quietly through 5 hours of meeting? Lots of spankings, of course.

But I wonder if the other part, the part that gets to the deeper root of why there was so much harsh discipline was due to our deeply ingrained assumptions about who we were. We believed in the inherent evil of all humans.

Isn't it easier to repeatedly spank your child when you believe she's inherently evil? In our group, parents started spanking their babies when they were around 6 months old because this was when babies started trying to "manipulate" their parents by exerting their "rebellious will." 

Looking back, it seems blindingly obvious that spanking a 6 month old is ridiculously abusive. But that's the power of peer pressure. When all the parents are attending the same meetings and reading the same "child-training" books, there arises a definitively creepy ability to quash the natural protective, parental instincts.

Suddenly, your greatest concern is not your child's best interest but how you appear to the group. You don't want to look like the lazy, bad parent who doesn't have "control" of her child. So, it becomes easier and easier to tell yourself that you're spanking your child for "his/her own good."

And when you truly believe that you, yourself are unworthy of God's love that you, yourself are a wicked, vile, piece of scum...well....the unflagging certainty of your belief motivates you to discipline your child likewise--to save his/her soul from Hell, of course.

I realize that my experience in fundamentalism is the extreme exception. However, the idea of total depravity and/or inherent human wickedness is prevalent through out many modern Christian churches. And I often wonder if any of them pause to examine how this belief affects the way they view their children.

Some people say that my experience has clouded my objectivity and has rendered me incapable of understanding these doctrines. I get emails and comments from folks saying that my past is preventing me from seeing clearly.

In fact, when I wrote about the horrific abusive "child-training" practice of Michael and Debi Pearl, I got all kinds of emails from people asserting that I was simply reacting negatively as a result of my own bad experience. 

Also, they argued, they had used the Pearls' methods and it had worked for them! They had reared wonderful, awesome, God-fearing servants of the Lord!

Perhaps there's a measure of truth to the idea that my bad experience affects my ability to approach these topics in an unbiased way. I guess when you've suffered actual trauma as a result of aberrant religious belief you do become a tad allergic to, say, "proof texts" being pulled out of context to supposedly prove that a child ought to be "beaten with rods" to save her soul from Hell.

Still, even with my allergic reaction to proof texts, the dismissive attitudes towards my ability to think through these issues strikes me as flat-out patronization. 

Yes, my experience was extreme but I think it's actually enabled me to identify some of the root errors that led to the inevitable craziness and abuse. 

Which is to say, when you believe in total depravity, is it entirely out of the realm of possibility to suggest that this belief can lead to abusive discipline of children? I'd say it's entirely plausible, actually. 

In fact, I may go so far as to suggest that it's one of the primary motivating factors.

To sum up, I really enjoyed one of the last comments to my post about the inherent nature of humans. I agree with Aimee that my mothering heart is being healed, too. Here's what Aimee wrote: 

The only thing that I wanted to say is I know that having been brainwashed with "people inherently evil" mindset, it really affects our view of children. I have been in Christian parenting circles that dehumanize children and always look at them through that lens of "they are evil...they are manipulating you"...and these people can't/don't truly enjoy their kids when they view them as evil! (And truthfully, I still struggle with not viewing my own children this way, b/c teaching like this runs deep) I started believing a few years ago that we are a mixture of both with propensity for both...it not only gave me a love/compassion/grace for my fellow man and made me feel "one with humanity", but also it healed my mothering heart in many ways.

What do you think? Does belief in the inherent wickedness of children 
 make parents more susceptible to abusive disciplinary practices?

Are humans inherently good or bad?

On the morning of Memorial Day I was baking cookies. I happened to look out my front window just as a red truck ran over my neighbor's dog. The truck didn't stop and for a split second I thought: maybe it's just a roll of carpet that fell off the truck. But the carpet was twitching. 

I dropped everything and ran. Sammy lay dying in the middle of our street, a thick river of blood pouring from his head. He'd vomited internal organs. Still, his sweet little tail was wagging.

Three minutes later, he was gone.

Neighbors spilled out of houses, offering help. We were all crying. Everyone knew Sammy because he often got out and wandered around, making little visits.

We hugged each other and said things like: poor Sammy. But thank God it wasn't one of our children.

Sammy was wrapped in a plastic bag and placed in a big cardboard box. Another neighbor hosed down the street. Slowly, we returned home.

But I couldn't stop thinking about it. Our street is quiet and with very little traffic. How did the truck driver not see Sammy? And what kind of person just drives away?

I was reminded of last month's Saturday Evening Blog Post, and how Father Mathis shared that he believed humans beings were essentially good and they needed Jesus. His reflections have stuck in my head and I keep wondering: could it be true? Are we inherently good?

For me, it's a revolutionary idea. From infancy, it was ingrained into my psyche that I was a bad, horrible, wretched sinner worthy of Hell. The result was that for most of my life, I felt unworthy of love.

At one point I literally confessed my sins like 20x per day because I was so scared of dying an accidental death in a state of unconfessed sin.

It has only been in the last couple of years that I have finally come to believe that God loves me.

I'm also slowly coming to agree with Father Mathis' perspective because I realize that my previous position (we are inherently bad) often resulted in a glaring lack of compassion. In fact, it led me to dehumanizing thoughts and opinions about other people. I was unable to see the good--or the image of God--in them. 

In my eyes, people were defined by their sin. If they happened to do good things, I trotted out the verse "all our righteousness is as filthy rags." Good works were a fluke. I don't know how many times I heard the example: well, even Hitler loved his dog.

The point seemed to be that even if we were capable of being good once in awhile, down deep, we were all little Hitlers. 

But what if the opposite is true? What if God created us as essentially good, but we have to build and exercise the muscle of good character and virtue through the power of the Holy Spirit? If we don't, we are prone to wander. And wandering becomes sinning and sinning becomes a habitual lifestyle.

I guess what I'm saying is maybe we don't start out as little Hitlers.

Sometimes I think my fundamentalist theology mistook human weakness/sinfulness for inherent human evil. I seemed to think that humans being essentially good meant we didn't need the atoning work of Jesus. It felt dangerously close to diminishing the necessity of the cross.

I thought: yeah, well, if we're all so good then why did Jesus need to die?

Here's what I'm beginning to think now: maybe Jesus needed to die because without Him, we cannot live up to the full measure of the goodness for which we were created. Without Him, the image of God in us is muddled and dirtied by our weakness and sinfulness.

Is this making any sense?

All I know is that coming from a place of essential goodness helps me see the good in others. It helps me give them the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe the driver of that truck really didn't see my neighbor's dog. Or maybe, if he did, he was ashamed and ran away. Maybe what that driver needs is grace. Not condemnation.

Because only through grace is forgiveness possible.

I know that God loves me and I'm even beginning to believe that when He created me, it was good. But I also know that without His grace, I cannot live up to the goodness He meant for me. Without Him, I am wretched. 

Maybe that's why grace is so amazing.

'Course, I don't have all the answers, here. I'm just thinkin' about this stuff. 

What do you think?

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Surviving a cultish church Part 3: Deconstructing the tragedy

"Did that really just happen?" I asked my husband, as soon as we were safely ensconced in his big, bad-ass Suburban. For the first time that day, I felt safe. 

We pulled away from the wedding meeting and sped home. 

We spent the rest of the day processing and trying to understand what it was we had just experienced. It reminded me of how much we talked after leaving my childhood church. 

Eight years ago, we fled my childhood church and sorta went into hiding. We severed almost every single relationship, moved to a new city and started over from scratch.

It felt like we'd lost everything. But at least we had each other.

This past weekend, it was like being dropped back into The Crazy again. Except this time we were able to view it from the vantage point of having survived something similar.

The lingering impression we had was grief. 

The wedding was a shameful, heartbreaking misrepresentation of the love of God. It was so full of prideful posturing and spiritual one-upping that the true message of Christianity was completely obscured.

That is the real tragedy, here. And that is what breaks my heart.

Regardless of all the other cultish practices that were in place, the crux of the matter is that whenever a group or organization places anything before pointing people to God, they have failed to do the one thing that really matters. 

This church was consumed with proving its specialness, its uniqueness and its spiritual elitism--mainly (if you read their literature) by bashing all the other "sinful" Christian denominations. But all they were really doing was placing a yoke of bondage on their listeners. 

It all comes down to the gravest error of humanity: pride.

And what a subtle lattice this church had built on which pride could grow. It was devilishly brilliant, actually. They had created a pseudo-spirituality that sounds similar to Christianity but is, in fact, false because it provides the exaltation of human ego through exhibitionism, high-volume, and collectivistic mental conditioning.

As we discussed all these issues, my husband and I felt a deep sadness for all the young people we saw. We know from first-hand experience what it is like to be trapped inside one of these churches. We know how the leadership wears on the individual, beating him/her down, breaking and re-shaping the personality to fit the mold. 

We know the feelings of shame, guilt and despair that repeat on a vicious cycle. 

We also felt a profound sense of gratitude for the life God has given us since leaving these kinds of churches. It became startlingly clear to us how great and how unconditional is God's love. We were so thankful that our long-term experiences inside these churches did not entirely ruin our faith--as is so common among folks who escape these churches.

When we first left our church, it was hard to believe we'd ever have a "normal, happy life." After all, we'd been conditioned to think that normal and happy were not what God wanted for us.

We have been delighted to discover that God does, indeed, want our happiness. Our enjoyment and fulfillment in this life is full of unfettered freedom. Yes, it's still real-life with all the hard work and difficulties we all face.

But we are free from the yoke of bondage. We are free from the specialness and the elitism and the uniqueness. We are now just regular, everyday people who love God and their family. We have nothing to prove or build. We are just us.

And that has made all the difference. 

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Surviving a cultish church Part 2: The wedding meeting

So, there we were at the unwedding wedding, surrounded by prayer-shouters. (You can read part 1, here). My heart rate accelerated as the prayer-shouting escalated. It sounded like a communal chant, ramping up. All over the room men were popping up and offering spontaneous, shouted prayers which were punctuated by systematic, shouted AMENs from everyone else. It sounded something like this:

Lord, we thank You that this wedding isn't about this couple!

AMEN!!

We thank You that this wedding is about You!

AMEN!!

I bowed my head, resisting the urge to cover my ears. There was definitely a spirit/energy in that room but it wasn't the peaceful spirit of Christ.

Terror was clawing its way up my spine. My palms started sweating and I reached for Matt's hand. He took it and chafed it, gently, comfortingly.

I glanced at him, my eyes wide. 

The room was so loud with shouted AMEN! and O LORD JESUS! and HALLEUJAH! that I could speak loudly and not hear my own voice. I leaned close to Matt:

"Why are they shouting?" I asked, my voice shaking.

"Because they're so spiritually mature," he answered, with a wink.

That broke the spell. The terror evaporated and I felt a bubble of laughter well up in my throat. Dude, it's good to be married to an ex-fundie. We get all the inside jokes, y'know?

Still, I tried to hide my laughter. I bit my lip and stared at my lap. I didn't want to appear disrespectful. Which was odd, now that I think about it. These people weren't respectful of me. 

In fact, it was a kind of spiritual bullying; all that holy yelling in my ear.

You can't think your own thoughts when everyone is AMENing in unison at the top of their lungs. Actually, that's probably the point. Individual thought is a threat to the collective nature of this group.

After the prayer-yelling, there was preaching. I tried to understand what they were talking about but to be honest, it was like they were speaking a different language. They were using all kinds of code-words and unique lingo. There were bizarre analogies like a wedding not being about the couple getting married but as an opportunity to be measured in the collective whole of "the church life."

And then I realized, they were preaching at us although they weren't looking directly at us. We were told that those of us who didn't know this "secret" could be part of it, too. It began to dawn on me that they were trying to convert us.

I thought I might get sick. It's hard to describe the collective pressure we felt, sitting there surrounded by people preaching at us and aggressively praying in our ears.

Finally, there were moments of familiarity. Someone read a few verses from Ephesians 5. There was mention of having our vessels washed from sin. But the emphasis was not really on Christ, or even the wedding, but on how special their church was and how wonderful it was that this couple was completely committed to building up "the church life."

At one point, the couple stood and said a few words into a microphone. The vows? They didn't sound like any vows I'd ever heard, but they were exchanging rings so I guess it was? Except the bride had never walked down the aisle, there were no bridesmaids or groomsmen. There was no officiate. We were all just sitting around at tables like we were getting ready to eat.

After exchanging rings, the groom was about to sit down when he suddenly remembered something.

"Oh!" he said, "I guess I almost forgot to kiss the bride."

For like the twentieth time, I glanced at my husband in near shock. Was this for real? Who "forgets" to kiss the bride? It was like they were intentionally trying to be unconventional, like they were so super spiritual that they didn't concern themselves with silly things like walking down the aisle or kissing the bride.

Someone led out a hymn. Everyone sang it at the top of their lungs acapella. 

And then more pray-shouting. By this point my brain was going into sensory overload. I wanted to get the heck outta there, but they had seated us up at the front of the room. There was no way to exit without drawing attention to myself.

I glanced at Matt again. He read my panic.

"Just think scientifically," he said in my ear.

That helped. I forced myself to disengage, like a steel wall sliding closed against my emotions. I forced myself to observe, to watch the happenings without investing in them.

It was like watching the pieces of a puzzle come together. The same dynamics that had ruled my childhood church were at work here, too. I began to recognize the similarities.

When an elder man stood up to pray at the same time as another man, one man was shushed. Matt later told me that the elder man was a big-wig in the church hierarchy. Deference was paid. The AMENs were a little louder and more enthusiastic. This guy prayed longer and louder than anyone else.

It was almost like he had deigned to attend and everyone bowed and scraped before him.

And although there had been a big show about this event not having a program and just being led by the Spirit, there was clearly some serious orchestrating going on. The head table was full of people nodding heads, cutting their eyes, tapping shoulders, standing and sitting. It was a full-on silent choreography.

It was the epitome of the organized non-organization. The leaderless group was definitely being led. But everyone was pretending it was all spur-of-the-moment-divine-inspiration.

And then, quite suddenly, we were told that now it was time to eat.

Talk about shifting gears! One minute the room was full of pray-shouting, the next minute everyone was chatting amicably and smiling widely at us--the obvious aliens.

In a state of semi shell-shock, I followed Matt to the buffet and filled my plate. One of Matt's relatives came up behind me and smiled, but I couldn't think of any small talk that seemed appropriate. 

"Well, I've never been to a wedding like this before!" I chirped as happily as I could.

He looked at me. "It's wonderful, isn't it?"

"Uh...it's a cultural experience, that's for sure!" I managed and scurried to my table.

People kept trying to small talk me, but I felt so stunned it was like swimming through mud to answer their questions.

Eventually, I excused myself to the restroom and then darted outside for some fresh air. I had this weird urge to run up to some random golfers in the parking lot and yell: "Oh, thank GOD! Normal sinners! Hi! Can we be friends?" 

But I didn't. When I came back in, people were milling around drinking coffee or sparkling apple cider from champagne flutes.

But there were no toasts. And, of course, no real champagne.

"Just one more announcement," came the voice over the microphone. "We've purchased Bibles for anyone who wants one."

Not just any Bibles, mind you. Special Bibles full of footnotes of their founder's interpretation.

By that point, I was developing a massive headache and wanted to go home. I wasn't sure if we'd been invited by mistake, or because they were hoping to convert us? Whatever the case, I was feeling attacked. I wanted to jump in a fast car and race far, far away.

It had been almost 8 years since I'd been inside an oppressive, radical fundamentalist church meeting. I'd almost forgotten how suffocating it was.

I couldn't wait to get in the car and download my brain to Matt. He took my hand and together, we walked away.

In some ways, walking away was just the beginning...

(the conclusion, part 3, tomorrow...)

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