Tag: Judgementalism

Emotional Incest: The Bottom Line

April 21, 2012

by Sierra

[Editors' note: At the time of writing, Libby Anne and Sierra were unaware of the controversy surrounding Hugo Schwyzer. The discussion of his critique of emotional incest is not an endorsement of Schwyzer by NLQ.]

My last two posts, and indeed all my thinking on the subject has led me to some conclusions about the ways that Christian Patriarchy and purity culture enable and even celebrate emotional incest. The following are the cliff notes:

Christian patriarchy turns marriage from a relationship to an institution, effectively reversing the historical trend from business partnerships and heir insurance to bonds between two free agents based on love. Evangelical culture says that marriage takes three: you, your spouse, and God. It also promotes self-denial and the sublimation of one’s own desires to those of Christ. Therefore, any two evangelical Christians should be able to marry each other and have a godly, fulfilling marriage, given enough work and prayer. Purity culture says that chemistry and personality don’t matter. What matters is following the Word of God. Husbands and wives should love each other because it’s commanded in God’s Word to do so; loving his wife is a husband’s “first ministry.” Similarly, a wife “ministers” to her husband by submission and love. The core of marriage in Christian patriarchy is the commitment to be loyal to God and to the marriage, not attachment to the person of the spouse. This is why evangelical courtships are more focused on purity than the prospective partners getting to know each other personally; what matters is getting to the altar without regrets. The love in marriage flows from commitment rather than the other way around, mirroring the logic of arranged marriage.(Note: Most evangelical Christians do acknowledge the importance of an emotional bond between the bride and groom that develops before the wedding day. Most evangelical Christians do want their children to marry people whom they find attractive, companionable and fun. If you are one of these Christians, you’re not the one I’m critiquing. (Congratulations! You’re normal!) What I do find problematic is the branch of evangelical-fundamentalist Christianity led by people like Bill Gothard, Matthew Chapman (who famously didn’t ask his wife to marry him), Doug Wilson, Jonathan Lindvall, et al. who expect young people to marry with hardly any knowledge of each other, rigid parental oversight and laundry lists of abstract virtues rather than personality traits in mind.)

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Emotional Incest Part 3: Daddy’s Girl

April 19, 2012

by Libby Anne

[Editors' note: At the time of writing, Libby Anne and Sierra were unaware of the controversy surrounding Hugo Schwyzer. The discussion of his critique of emotional incest is not an endorsement of Schwyzer by NLQ.]

In Part 1 I looked at the definition of emotional incest and in Part 2 I looked at how integral emotional incest is to Christian Patriarchy, but in this segment I want to look at how easy it can be for even ordinary families to be sucked into (admittedly, less intense) patterns of emotional incest.

I recently came upon an article called “Princesses, Princes, Daughters, and Dads: Against Emotional Incest.” The author explains his own experiences as the father of a young daughter and the measures he plans to take to ensure that he does not fall into the trap of emotional incest. It was such a good article that I’m going to quote from it at length and then finish with some discussion.

Becoming a parent for the first time in one’s forties has myriad advantages, not least that one has had the opportunity to watch a great many of one’s peers “do it all first.” And I’ve seen, a time or nine, an unhealthy triangulation occur with dads, moms, and their daughters. While the dangers of physical incest and abuse are real, there’s a kind of emotionally incestuous dynamic I’ve witnessed between fathers and daughters, one in which dads seek from their daughters the validation and affirmation that they feel they are entitled to, but are not receiving from their wives.

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Emotional Incest: The Mama’s Boy and the Other Woman

April 17, 2012

by Sierra

I have already written about the ways that growing up in fundamentalist-evangelical culture made me especially vulnerable to covert incest from my father. There is a flip side to the father-daughter craze in Christian patriarchy, though. I am here to bring you two stories: and one of them isn’t about me!

In what would have been my high school years, a miracle happened. Sven, my best friend from my early childhood, came back to my church. We were fourteen. We had been estranged for about three years while his family lived in another state. But we quickly reconnected (not least due to my idealistic hopes that we could pick up where we left off, and some aggressive book-lending). But the stakes were so much higher now.

Sven’s mother had all but declared me a slut at seven years old, a fact I’ve alluded to several times as it was formative for my conception of myself (in a quite negative way that required overcoming later). But now that we actually had secondary sex characteristics, my apparent sluttitude was all the more threatening. Who knew what debaucheries my round, pimpled face might concoct? Meanwhile, I dreamed that Sven would take me away somewhere to live in childless bliss in the mountains. In retrospect, Sven could hardly have taken me across his driveway without asking his mother’s permission. But who is better at sustaining ill-fated wishes than a lonely fourteen-year-old?

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Emotional Incest: The Junior Wife

April 12, 2012

[Editors' note: At the time of writing, Libby Anne and Sierra were unaware of the controversy surrounding Hugo Schwyzer. The discussion of his critique of emotional incest is not an endorsement of Schwyzer by NLQ.]
by Sierra

Libby Anne has begun a series on Emotional Incest at Love, Joy, Feminism. In her latest post, she also links Hugo Schwyzer’s striking analysis of the problems with the “Daddy’s Girl” myth and princess culture. The following is my attempt to confirm and add more perspectives to the issue they are bringing to light.

As a child of a believer and a nonbeliever, I walked a confusing and sometimes torturous line between the prescriptions of my church and the realities of a divided household. Additionally, I was the only child, and female. For the first couple of years after my mother joined our fundamentalist church (while my age was still in the single digits), we basked in fellowship and preoccupied ourselves with the joys of home. Fundamentalist culture is extremely good at fostering an environment that feels like shelter, with clearly-defined expectations and an emphasis on the “simple life” – about which I’ll write more later. So for the early years, I happily did my homeschool lessons, read books, played outside, and ran to the door yelling “Dad’s home!” whenever his pickup truck began the descent of our long rural driveway.

Then puberty hit like a bombshell.

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Snipped! Part 4 The Freedom of Divorce

April 10, 2012

by Incongruous Circumspection

Seven years old was a big year for me. It was at this point that Mama and Dad’s relationship boiled over and broke apart. Dad left and went to live by himself, leaving my siblings and I alone with Mama. At this point in my life, the alone time with Mama wasn’t too bad. She hadn’t learned yet, to take her immature “lashing out,” and reconcile it with her interpretation of the Bible. She was just solidly abusive and then excitingly adventurous.

At one point, Dad did try to come back and give the marriage another chance. I remember being asked to dry the dishes one evening. Dad had pulled our old black and white television from its corner, to the middle of the living room, and was watching a night game between the Vikings and who cares who else. I was drying a dish and became quite interested in the noise coming from the tube, being that I wanted to love what my father loved, so I peeked around the corner into the living room. Dad caught my gaze and motioned for me to climb up on his lap. I obliged and, for the next sixty seconds, I learned everything about football down to the color of the Vikings away laces.

Sixty seconds with my Dad was an eternity. He had come back to try and reconcile with Mama and the whole eleven days that he stayed was a living hell for him. Any time he tried to enjoy his family by playing with his kids, Mama would come into the room and yell, demanding that we go and do some chore that sorely needed to be done. This time was no different. Around the corner she came, swooping in and grabbing me, forcing me into the kitchen to finish my duties. It would be about a year before I watched another game of football with my father.

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Debunking the Fourteen Basic Needs of a Marriage: Part 1c Men are Fragile, Women are Manipulative Fools

April 3, 2012

by Incongruous Circumspection

In Part 1b we listened in as Gothard tried valiantly to describe the differing outlooks on life that, according to his understanding, men and women exemplify. It needs mentioning again here that Bill is relying on no practical experience. He has never been married. It makes sense that, being he has propped himself up to be a guru in every area of life, and the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of worshipers at his feet, he would make vast, overarching, easily wrapped up in a square box and neatly tied with a silk bow, conclusions for very complex issues in life. One of those issues is human nature. It cannot be pidgeonholed, no matter how many verses you abuse.

Let’s lean in to hear Bill Gothard describe the perfect cheerleading bear rug – the good wife.

*****

[Be enthusiastic about your husband’s achievements. Sharing his excitement is more important than sharing his work. Your husband needs and wants your faithful, loyal, and enthusiastic support.]

Poor, poor men. We have no self-esteem. If we do something good and a woman is not there to jump up and down, clapping her hands in utter joy, we are spent, and cannot continue on in this life. Even if the woman is exhausted from making meals, doing dishes, washing laundry, cleaning the house, schooling the fourteen children, and otherwise doing everything a stay-at-home perfect wife and mother should be doing, as quoted in a hen-pecked Proverbs 31, if I walk through the door, excited about the penny I found on the street and the subsequent rock candy I was able to buy with it, my wife would be expected to throw her arms around me and give me a thousand kisses, exclaiming her enthusiastic excitement for my success.

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Thirtyone – Adventures in Recovery

March 25, 2012

by Calulu

I was driving around the other day running a few errands and when I got back to my car I caught the tail end of a some random preacher speaking about the proper role of women in The Kingdom on local Christian radio. I didn’t catch his name or the name of his ministry or sponsor but his message was loud and clear and made my blood boil. Bulls eye. Trigger hit. Buttons pushed.

He started off speaking on the subject of what his ten year old daughter wanted to be when she grew up. She’s crazy for gymnastics and he asked her that question about the future we all contemplate, what did she want to be when she grew up. Her answer to that question was that she would be a gymnastics teacher as an adult.

I had to wonder how she’s come to limiting her own scope as an adult at that young age. I thought it was rather sad that his daughter said she was going to grow up to teach gymnastics instead of saying she dreamed of being an Olympic gymnast or of winning this or that gym meet. She simply wanted to teach her passion. She didn’t dare expand her dreams to include anything like actually being in competition as a gymnast. Her own goals were limited in scope to start with.

It was pretty obvious she wasn’t going to receive the same type of nurturing or encouragement the average ‘worldly’ or ‘atheist’ parent might give their offspring. Her passion and talent would never receive the type of acknowledgment and respect it might elsewhere. It’s hard to develop to the best of your talent without the emotional support of those closest to you. I suspect that is why this child could not see any further than teaching one day.

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An Introduction to Paul

March 20, 2012

By Paul

Vyckie Garrison has asked me to write an introductory post concerning my blog, paulspassingthoughts.com, and the timing is perfect. After researching New Calvinism for five years now, I have recently discovered a relationship between New Calvinism and Patriarchy groups. This is a very significant development.

New Calvinism shapes most of the Christian landscape in our day. It came out of the Progressive Adventist movement in 1970. The base doctrine is the centrality of the objective gospel outside of us. It teaches that all truth is outside of us and encapsulated in the gospel. By understanding Christ and his works in a deeper and deeper way, we manifest one of two realms, Spirit or flesh. New Calvinists attest to what some call the total depravity of the saints.

The project that launched the movement was known as the Australian Forum and their theological journal was Present Truth Magazine. The magazine is no longer published, but at one time was the most widely circulated theological journal in the world. The Forum participants, primarily Robert Brinsmead, Geoffrey Paxton, and Graeme Goldsworthy believed they had rediscovered the lost gospel of the Reformation.

The movement is characterized by exclusiveness (what they call their “scandalous gospel”), a Crusades like motivation (new Reformation), and heavy handed leadership style. These are basic characteristics that result in the tsunami of spiritual abuse that is indicative of New Calvinism. In fact, the list of potential warning signs for spiritual abuse as posted by the Take Heart Project hit close to home for those who know New Calvinism:

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