Quiverfull Topics

Adventures in Recovery ~ Souvenirs From The Circus

June 16, 2011
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by Calulu

Remember when you were a kid and would go to the circus or the carnival? Sure, there were elephants and chimps, usually crapping everywhere. The air was scented with cotton candy, popcorn and the smell of animals. I remember the games, balloons, darts, tossing things. Besides the lion tamers and the freak show part of the carnival there were usually fortune tellers, people that would look at your palm or into a cheap hunk of round glass and predict you’d meet a tall, dark and handsome stranger. It was exciting and thrilling, wasn’t it, when you were a kid?

When I was a member of Possum Creek Christian Fellowship we used to have something like that, but we called it a ‘conference’. Sometimes there were people there that purported to hear from God for you. They didn’t have crystal balls or tea leaves in the bottom of delicate porcelain cups.

At first I thought it was as equally ridiculous as the palm readers and fortune tellers of the circus even if you weren’t being told something as mundane as the ‘tall dark and handsome’ thing. I recall scoffing over it, saying there was no earthly way the things you were being told were real. But eventually, with enough time and drinking the Kool-Aid I started to believe in these ecclesiastical fortune tellers too.

I’d forgotten about this aspect of my old life until this week. I spent the week clearing out the large storage room over our garage. It’s being set up as my design studio, with all my art supplies, drawing desk and computers for those side jobs I’ve been taking on recently to supplement my studio and teaching income. I found a box that contained my old Bible and various tracts, photos and journals from my years at PCCF.

One of the more interesting bits were three pages of notes from an intense ministry weekend that my husband James and I attended about seven and half years ago. You have to realize this wasn’t long after James had confessed to a depression so deep that it made him consider suicide. He wasn’t long out of the mental ward. None of us knew at that point that it was a combination of internal dissonance between what he knew and believed and what the men of our church were pressuring him to believe. We didn’t know about his chemical imbalance due to a parathyroid gland tumor. We just knew he was deeply unhappy when our life was nearly perfect in most ways.

At a conference at RCCF a big ministry from the Wilmington, North Carolina area was claiming to heal people of depression and many other ‘spiritual’ problems by deliverance ministry, prophetic words from God and prayer. Somehow James got to talking to them and before I knew it scheduled us to go down for a ‘deliverance’ on Thanksgiving weekend.

I was furious, even if I did at that time believe people with various prophetic words for me that were supposedly from the Lord. I was furious I was being drug away from my children during a family holiday for something I did not want to do. I felt no need for ‘deliverance’. Part of me seriously feared what they might say.

We went. It wasn’t helpful, it was just all kinds of weird. It might have fit in well with a freak show or circus somewhere.

The Beautiful Girlhood Doll ~ Part 6: Joy & Friendship

June 15, 2011
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by Libby Anne

The woman of God is joyful and seeks companionship with those who share the same vision. For the daughter who has embraced the beauty of Christian girlhood, the richest friendships begin within her family, where she learns to love and honor, and first learns the joy of belonging to another.

I had a lot of friends growing up, and they definitely all shared my vision. In fact, they were all exactly like me! All of my friends were white, middle class, and homeschooled, and they all shared the same religious beliefs that I did. This is because I only ever met other girls my age at church or in a Christian homeschool co-op, and I only ever got to see a friend frequently if our parents were also friends and our families got together regularly. Thus my friends were generally the children of my parents’ friends.

All of my friends were girls. This was probably largely a result of the strange coincidence that none of my parents’ friends had sons my age, but it was likely also furthered by the strong belief in different roles for boys and girls. I also think that the concern that if I knew a boy, I might somehow end up falling in love with him or kissing him or something, against my parents’ wishes, contributed to my not ever going out of my way to seek friendship with any boys my age. And in reality, I would not have known what to do with a guy friend if I had had one. After all, guys do not generally have tea parties, play with dollhouses, cook, or sew. Regardless of the reasons behind it, the fact that I only had girlfriends meant that eventually, when I went to college, I had to figure out how to deal with guys my age from scratch.

My friends and I often discussed our beliefs, but because we were in agreement on all the particulars the result was that we simply moved ourselves further and further into Christian Patriarchy. We were all devoted believers, and our discussions made us only more fervent. Head coverings, skirts only, staying at home rather than going to college – it was all on the table. It was like we had somehow tied our worth to our level of devotion, so the more devoted we could prove ourselves, the more holy we would be. Because of this, several of my friends almost talked me into staying home and not going to college. I admitted to them that they were right, we as girls shouldn’t go to college and should instead spend those years serving others. Yet at the same time I had to reconcile this new-found realization with my parents’ strong assumption that I would go to college. In the end, my parents expectation won out over doubts that had built up in my mind, largely planted there by my friends.

For the large part of my childhood, my friends ranged from one year older than me to three years younger than me. However, when I was in high school a number of factors resulted in my not seeing my closest friends very frequently. In response, I made several new friends, but they were six or seven years younger than me. This meant that at seventeen the friends I spent the most time with were ten and eleven years old. We had good times, tea parties, dollhouses, and all, but our friendship caused some interesting dynamics. For example, they looked up to me a great deal and this both gave me a lot of influence over them and meant that they would affirm pretty much anything I said or did.

No Charity in the Remnant ~ Part 5: They had freedom and liberty and so many choices …

June 9, 2011
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by Whisper Rain

Whisper’s parents went to the church they’d heard about on Sunday morning. When they got home, they were cautiously optimistic. Maybe this was the right place for them. Maybe the Rains could finally fit in somewhere, and be a part of something that would be a good, godly influence on their family. Maybe some new friends would be good for the children, especially Whisper. It was drastic… but it seemed like it was time for something drastic.

When the next Sunday rolled around, Whisper’s parents were much more picky than usual about the kids’ clothes. Yes, the girls were wearing skirts but… they’d better take off their jewelry too. And the boys had better wear button up shirts and keep them tucked in. Whisper started getting worried. It was a long drive to this church, and before they got there, her parents turned around and gave everybody another nervous once over.

They pulled into the parking lot. The church building was very plain and immaculate white. Even the gravel in the parking lot was flawless… not a pothole to be seen. The parking lot was full of well-kept vehicles. There were a lot of maxi vans there. A few people were standing around talking while they made their way to the building, and at the sight of them, Whisper’s heart fell into her shoes. Beards. Carefully combed hair. White head coverings. Homemade dresses. Charity people. She could hardly breathe. No… she wouldn’t go in there.

They parked the van at the end of a row of other vans. Whisper was rooted to her seat. No. This couldn’t be happening. Her parents and brothers and sisters got out, and waited for her. NO. “Please,” her parents said, “give it a try. It couldn’t hurt to give it a try.” NO. “Please?”

She looked at her parents. She knew they were doing their best. She knew they loved her. They thought this was a good place. These people apparently knew something special about God. Her parents were trying to do what was right- and it couldn’t have been easy for them to walk in there either. Whisper got out of the van.

They walked into the building, past the stares. Even in their long denim skirts & button down shirts, which had seemed so conservative… they stood out in the crowd. People made a path to let them through… or was it to stay out of their way? Whisper couldn’t tell. Not many people smiled at them. A few men came to greet Dad, but their wives and children hung back and tried not to stare.

Magic Menstrual Mummies

June 7, 2011
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A boy discovers that there are right and wrong kinds of blood.

by Frank Schaeffer

I’d never heard of pheromones when I was ten. All I knew was that each month the large wicker basket in the bathroom on the middle floor of our chalet filled with softball sized, tightly-wound wads of toilet paper. These tissue bundles were evidence that—in biblical terms—the time of Our Girls’ Monthly Uncleanness was once again upon them.

Let me explain why I’ve capitalized those words. My late father, Francis Schaeffer, was a key founder of the Religious Right. My mother, Edith, was herself a spiritual leader—not merely the power behind her man, though she was also that. My parents raised me in L’Abri Fellowship, a sort of fundamentalist hippie commune before there were hippies, really not much more than a big old Swiss chalet where we lived, along with everyone who visited for “spiritual help” and/or to “find Jesus.” Mom divided everything into Very Important Things—say, Jesus, Virginity, Japanese Flower Arrangements, Lust, See-through Black Lingerie (to be enjoyed only after marriage), Our Girls’ Monthly Uncleanness—and everything else—those things that barely registered on my mother’s to-do list, like home-schooling me. So I’ll be capitalizing some words oddly in here. I’m not doing this as a theological statement so much as as a nervous tic, a leftover from my Edith Schaeffer-shaped childhood and also to signal what Loomed Large to my mother and what still Looms Large to me.

This was back in the days when a sanitary napkin was a fluffy and formidable thing, about the size and shape of a canoe. I knew God didn’t like the Menstrual Mummies because I’d heard Mom read from Leviticus 15 in a Bible study:

When a woman has a discharge, and the discharge in her body is blood, she shall be in her menstrual impurity for seven days, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening. And everything on which she lies during her menstrual impurity shall be unclean. Everything also on which she sits shall be unclean. And whoever touches her bed shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening. And whoever touches anything on which she sits shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water and be unclean until the evening. Whether it is the bed or anything on which she sits, when he touches it he shall be unclean until the evening.

So I never touched the Menstrual Mummies—except once. I unwrapped the tissue-tethered Unclean Thing and took a smear of blood from it to study with a small microscope that a kindly L’Abri student had given me. I wanted to see the egg that Mom said was “washed out each month unless it gets fertilized by the marvelous seed.” I didn’t see an egg, but I did observe several doughnut-shaped red blood cells after I dabbed a little blood on a glass slide and stained it, as per the student’s instructions.

About forty years after investigating the Menstrual Mummies in the wastepaper basket, I read an article in the New York Times science section about how humans’ sense of smell triggers physical responses. The article cited as an example the fact that women who live together—for instance, in college dorms, convents, and girls’ boarding schools—tend to menstruate at the same time. I don’t know if this theory of menstrual synchrony will stand up to the rigors of scientific inquiry, but I do know that our middle-floor chalet bathroom wastepaper basket seemed to fill and empty like some sort of metronome, keeping time with a cosmic rhythm as sure as the tides. Maybe Mom and my sisters reset the hormone “clock” of the women who stayed with us, from the helpers—cheerful, though virtual slave laborers working in return for room, board, and spiritual help for years at a time—to the students—who might stay for six to ten months or so.

These nubile, yet torturously unavailable young women filled our chalet with their pheromone-perfumed presence. And, as I learned from Mom’s Bible study on Leviticus, they were monstrously defiled as they plunged into their monthly menstrual freshet. I imagined that God was right there with me, in our middle-floor bathroom, brooding over the evidence of His Big Mistake: women.

NLQ FAQ: Should There Be a “You” in Quivering?

June 5, 2011
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What “Deny Yourself” Means – and Doesn’t Mean

by Kristen Rosser ~ aka: KR Wordgazer

The founders of No Longer Qivering spelled “Quivering” without a “u“ because, as they say, “There is no ‘you’ in Quivering” – there’s no place for self – and they claim this is a bad thing. But Jesus said that a true believer must deny himself, take up his cross and follow after Him. Quiverfull women take the Bible’s admonition to die to self very seriously. We use the acronym J.O.Y., for true JOY comes from putting “Jesus first, Others second and Yourself last.” How can you encourage Christian wives and mothers to turn from Christ’s teachings by making “You” a priority?

The problem with the way Quiverfull followers use the J.O.Y. teaching is that while they claim the “Y” is for “Yourself last,“ what is often actually practiced is “Yourself not at all” – and this particularly applies to wives, mothers and daughters. Quiverfull women believe that in putting their husbands and children first, they are putting Christ first, and that they are not to consider their own needs in any other way than as a means to an end, giving themselves just enough minimal care that they can go on serving “Others.”

J.O.Y. for Quiverfull women, in practice, usually looks more like O.O. – “Others Only.” But is this what Jesus actually taught or practiced?

The story of Mary and Martha is the story of how two sisters understood Christian service. Luke 10:38-42 shows how Martha “received” Jesus into “her house” – which is interesting in and of itself, for Luke apparently didn’t think it necessary to identify Martha in relation to a male authority (such as her brother Lazarus, seen in John 11 and 12). No, it was “her house” that Jesus came to, and Martha did what any good Quiverfull woman would do. Forgetting about herself, she bustled around preparing a meal. But Mary went and “sat at Jesus’ feet and heard his word.” “Sat at his feet” had a particular meaning according to the understanding of that time, which was “to learn as a disciple.” In Acts 22:3, Paul identifies himself as a disciple of Rabbi Gamaliel by saying, “I [was] brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel.” (Emphasis added.) What Mary was doing in Luke 10:39 was making herself a disciple of Jesus, sitting at his feet to learn with the other disciples.

Martha was upset. Here was Mary neglecting her womanly duties, leaving Martha to do it all herself while Mary took her place among Jesus’ disciples! So Martha went and complained to Jesus, asking Him to make Mary do her womanly duty and help in the kitchen. What did Jesus say? “Martha, Martha, you shouldn’t be thinking about yourself or your needs. If you have to prepare the meal alone, God will bless you all the more for your godly selflessness. But Mary, what do you think you’re doing? How will you find a husband if you continue to rebel against your God-given role?”

If Quiverfull teachings are to be believed, this is what Jesus should have actually said. But what He did say was quite the opposite. “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things. But one thing is needful, and Mary hath chosen that good, which shall not be taken away from her.”

Jesus was telling Martha that it wasn’t necessary for her to be working in the kitchen at all! Instead, what was “needful” was to sit at His feet as one of his disciples, and Mary was right in what she had done. Jesus neither rebuked Martha for thinking about herself, nor said a word to Mary about forsaking her proper gender role. He made no distinctions for the practice of discipleship according to gender at all.

All right, I can see making an exception to serving “Others” if it’s really about putting my relationship with Jesus first. But isn’t Christian life about denying ourselves? Aren’t we just being self-absorbed if we focus on our own needs or desire things for ourselves?

Jesus did say to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him. But does this mean it’s wrong to prioritize our own needs, to stand up for ourselves, or to ask others to do things for us?

Matthew 16:36-46 is the story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He is just about to give His life for the world. A greater example of self-sacrifice could not be shown. But listen to what He says to Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, His closest friends:

“My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.” Is that Jesus expressing a deep emotional need, and asking His friends to help meet it?

“And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and said unto Peter, “What, could ye not watch with me one hour?” Is that Jesus, expressing disappointment, telling His friends honestly that they have let Him down?

Yes, that’s Jesus, thinking about His own human needs and asking for something for Himself. That’s Jesus, honestly telling others how He feels about not getting His needs met. It could not have been wrong for Him to do this– so how could it be wrong for us?

NLQ Review: Sex, Mom and God by Frank Schaeffer

June 2, 2011
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Midwife at the Birth of Quiverfull

A review by Hopewell

Frank Schaeffer, son of Fran and Edith Schaeffer of L’Abri fame, continues his personal memoirs in his new book Sex, Mom, and God: How the Bible’s Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics–and How I Learned to Love Women (and Jesus) Anyway. Before I review the book I want to say that I was sent a copy to review by Frank Schaeffer, but was not paid for my review so the views expressed here are my own.


I have often cited Schaeffer’s “Calvin Becker Trilogy”
as some of the funniest books I’ve ever read. That said, I’ve found his non-fiction version of his life to be tougher reading. While his fiction is trim, funny and pulls the reader fully into the story, his non-fiction sort of rambles. And has a somewhat bitter edge to it. Considering his upbringing, these are not surprising and they do not come across as whining–more like talking in circles. That said, I learned a lot of new information in this volume, and did certainly get some good laughs.

Readers of this blog who read and critique my Duggar-family posts, will be especially interested in Frank’s role in birthing the Quiverfull movement. Way back in the Day, when he was still styled “Franky Schaeffer” (to distinguish him from from his same-named father), Frank was literary agent to a new Christian author named Mary Pride. With the Schaeffer name attached, Pride’s book was a shoe-in. Today we know her, and her (in)famous book, The Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality as the Spiritual Mother of the Quiverfull Movement. Frank(y) then, was her midwife.


What makes Frank(y)’s role so intriguing, is the fact that his parents were very much pro-birth control. His mother, who in fact and fiction, loved nothing (except maybe the Lord) more than discussing sex, revealed to her very young son that not only was his father a “passionate” lover, but his needs were such that they had marital relations every day–even when Mom was “off the roof” and Biblically unclean due to menstruation. She also showed him her diaphram and explained its purpose fully to her surprised son.


Known as well for her talks on the importance of keeping a man’s needs fulfilled as she was for her Hidden Art of Homemaking
[life style and book of same name--which predate Martha Stewart and still have a cult-like following today], Edith famously said that even on the Mission Field a wife needs a see-thru black nightie to entertain her husband. After “The Way Home,” Edith questioned her son with “Where did you find this unfortunate woman?” Like much of Edith’s prose, rhetoric and general life questions, this is a question still relevant today.

Crushing Daisies ~ Ways in Which Patriarchal Fundamentalism Harms Its Children ~ Part 1: Work, Work, Work!

May 31, 2011
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by Daisy

Note: This post is part one of a series that originally appeared at my now defunct blog A Dragonfly Diary sometime in 2010. It has been updated slightly for publishing here but mostly left as it was. Because of this, this post reflects my attitude at the time of writing when I still felt a strong connection to Christianity. I’d also like to note that I’m not suggesting it is necessary to leave one’s husband or faith in order to find happiness. That’s just my story.

***

Work, work, work!

Recently I caught the tail-end of the US-made Wife Swap program. The father in one home was a real stick-in-the-mud and a big believer in strictly ‘training’ his children. How I cringed to watch a work ethic so like my ex-husband’s standing pasty-white, flabby and naked on reality TV.

This guy and his wife owned a restaurant and they – and their children – worked 7 days/week so that they could ‘have the freedom of lifestyle’ they wanted. Those poor kids had no free time and lived weighed down by inappropriate burdens their parents inadvertently laid on them. Of course the new mom was a ‘servant’ who didn’t allow her kids to do anything for themselves at all. Juicy conflict ensued as she insisted Dad sell the inn and give his kids their lives back. The new mom encouraged the kids to string worry beads on a thread to symbolically give back the adult worries they were carrying. The poor little mites listed things like ‘I don’t want to worry that the inn will go broke and we’ll all have to live on the streets’. It was all uncomfortably familiar. I’ve seen it in so many QF patriarchal homes.

Some years ago I was invited to take a session at a homeschool mothers’ group. The leader had asked me to speak about home organisation as, apparently someone thought I had got that together. I’m guessing the entirety of my self-congratulatory little speech was pretty cringeworthy but I blush particularly as recall myself quoting from some book I had read on the subject which smirked, ‘Don’t ever do anything for yourself that your kids can do for you.’ I actually read it aloud twice telling them I agreed with it so strongly. And I really did.

Although with just seven children, our family is not so large as many I know, having the first six kids in relatively quick succession does make for a pretty busy household. At various times I inflicted new and proven-to-succeed home management systems on my family in an effort to impart a smidgen of orderliness. I’ve been known to impose Managers of their Homes, the happy face system, Fly Lady and numerous other mercifully short-lived, chart-ticking nightmares on my long-suffering offspring. While those programs are not all bad, in our home they were mostly educational in just two respects: They taught me that (1) nobody likes me when I’m in Household Hitler Mode and (2) I can only tolerate making my kids miserable for a short time.

But even though I failed to stick with a consistent program, my kids used to do a huge amount of housework. That’s not entirely unfair as they did create a lot of mess. And it wasn’t all bad. They learned some useful skills and developed – as promised by the program publishers – the seeds of character. But looking back, they did way more than was appropriate. It’s cute (hmmm, maybe) that a 10-year-old is capable of cooking dinner now and then for a family of nine, but hardly fair.

The Destiny of a Virtuous Daughter ~ Part 2: My New Love

May 29, 2011
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by Starfury

For as much as my parents objected to many worldly things, they gave in on a surprising number of equally worldly things. Most notably, in my case, was the subject of ballet. I had always wanted to dance from a young age, and when I was 8, my parents finally agreed to let me begin to take classes. This was often something I was reminded to be grateful for–they weren’t as conservative as other families, after all.

In truth, I was grateful for it. I loved it with all my heart, and had great dreams of practicing hard and winding up as a prima ballerina for some famous worldwide touring company and performing all the famous ballets. There was only one problem with this idea… I wasn’t sure how I could maintain the necessary strenuous schedule kept by company dancers (classes and rehearsals all day, every day), and still be a loving wife and mother who homeschooled her kids. As the years went on, I slowly began to decide that as much as I loved dance, I probably wasn’t going to end up doing it professionally. After all, I’d wanted to be many other things growing up, including an astronaut and a dolphin trainer, but neither was really compatible with homeschooling 6+ kids (and I didn’t like swimming under water).

Fortunately for my overactive imagination and tendency to jump wholeheartedly into things, ever embracing some new idea for my life that would somehow either be forced to fit the wife and mother mold, or be tossed out the window, my parents decided it was time that my political apathy came to an end. I was summarily informed that I would be participating in a program called TeenPact, which involved me being shipped off to the capital for four days to learn how the government worked. I had always hated politics, but it did offer high school credit, and my parents wanted me to expand my horizons–within the scope they had predetermined, of course.

My first day at the capital had my introversion hitting me full force. I was wearing an ankle-length skirt and my hair was bound up in a snood so I could wear a headcovering, but still seem somewhat “modern.” That was the first time I had ever touched a boy, when one of the boys there came over and shook my hand. There was a brief moment of horror, and wondering if I had just committed a terrible sin, but I decided that it couldn’t have been that bad. Lightning hadn’t struck me, and this was a Christian group, after all.

At the end of the four-day program, I was utterly changed. Politics was my new love, and I wanted nothing more than to go into it myself so I could help make a difference, turn people back toward Christ, and somehow set myself up as an example for how godly women can affect politics. My intentions were never purposefully arrogant–I merely thought that if I want someone to look up to, but the person I wanted didn’t exist, then I should pioneer the way myself. Though my aspirations were gradually turning independent, I realized that I had to keep them quiet… I should be more concerned about how to be a proper senator’s wife, than a proper senator.