“When I was your age, my parents wouldn’t send me to college,” my mother was telling me. “I had to work my way through on my own. I don’t want you to have to stop. I will do everything I can to help you keep going to school. Your education is the most important thing to me.”

We stood in the kitchen, a printed letter lying on the counter between us. It was not good news.

I glanced up at my mother with a strained smile. I knew that if wishes could be cashed at the bank, I’d be writing my admissions essay to an ivy-coated castle. Instead, I was trying to find a way to pay the bill from my last semester of community college in time to register for fall classes. It was already August.

My work at Wal-Mart paid eight-fifty an hour: better than all the other work options for teenagers in the area. My schedule was already as close to full-time as it could be without requiring the company to offer me benefits. My hands were tied: I could take another part-time job, but when would I go to school? It was all I could do to keep our car paid for and insured while my mother handled the rent and utilities. College tuition had slipped between more pressing matters like food and transportation, and dragging it back to current status again would not be easy.

Still, I was grateful to have a mother who dared to disagree with the life track laid out before me. A Catholic turned evangelical, my mother was a radical believer in forging new paths. She had, after all, followed her heart out of her family’s religion when I was still a toddler. Going to college was my chance to discover what God had in store for me as an individual, she thought. I knew already that beliefs like these made my mother an outsider, a liberal and a radical in my church of stay-at-home daughters and unremitting parental supervision. What I did not yet know was how short and how tight the bonds were that held my friends.

“Why don’t you fill out your FAFSA?” my mother suggested. “Maybe you can get grants or student loans. They might offer you more if you apply to a four-year school. Let’s drive around and look for a college where you can transfer your credits.

I loved Rowling College on sight. The sprawling green lawn, ancient shady oaks and dark grey stone of its oldest building washed over me in a wave of color and charm. “It looks like a little Harvard,” I told my mother breathlessly. A more culturally adept young woman might have said it looked like Hogwarts.

The admissions counselor radiated warmth and hope. She beamed at my community college transcripts. No, it didn’t matter that I didn’t have SATs, she said. My grades proved that I could handle introductory classes. I felt a bubble of excitement rising in my throat, and firmly swallowed it. I would assume that this all was beyond my grasp, I decided. If it proved true, I would be pleasantly surprised. If it didn’t, I would not allow myself to feel the disappointment. I can go back to college later, I reasoned. There is a manager position opening at my store.

I was only half fooling myself. As I sipped the coffee and marveled at the expensive upholstery in the admissions office, I imagined myself striding up the long path to the college’s double doors, each step declaring, “I belong here.”

“What are your career goals?” the admissions counselor asked me.

“I want to go to graduate school and become a writer,” I said. Then, daringly, “I want to go to Harvard.” Saying it aloud sounded absurd, but there it was. The story of the homeless girl who had walked through its gates gave me not only the dream, but the audacity to name it.

The counselor smiled. “We’ll get you to Harvard.” Rowling had sent students there before. Other students had sat in this chair and then gone on to great things. Why indeed couldn’t I?

The next two weeks were spent working and trying not to think about whether or not my application would be approved. My retired friend Jim, the store greeter, welcomed my news and bolstered my hopes. “That’s good,” he told me. “You should go to college. You’re smart. Get the hell out of here while you’re young.” I grinned, and told him I intended to do so. I could still hear my community college teacher’s words in the back of my mind. You could be a writer. You could go to grad school. Graduate school seemed like the most glamorous place in the world.

Meanwhile, my friends at a sister church were catching the education fever. I learned of their ambitions in a phone call with their ambassador: Jennifer. A tall, active, tomboyish young woman, Jennifer had gone out of her way to befriend me on the basis of our shared connection with my best friend Sven. Despite the fact that her church was in Connecticut and mine in Pennsylvania, she kept in touch via the internet and periodically came to visit. Demographically, our churches seemed destined to be a match: her youth group was comprised mainly of girls, whereas mine was overwhelmingly slanted toward the boys. That spring, I’d been invited to spend a week at Jennifer’s house, where I’d met her circle of friends and found myself in the strange position of what felt like the ambassador from Land of Raining Men. It appeared that my church had been sighted as a hunting ground for husbands. Knowing that we were expected not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers, I suppressed my disgust with the contrivance of it all and dutifully related the names and ages of the potential suitors that I knew, possessively avoiding Sven’s. A decade had taught me that he was safe: passive and uncontrolling. A girl who had no intentions of obedience had first to ensure that she’d never be ordered to do anything.

As I told Jennifer about my nascent college plans, she burst out in excitement: “We’re going too! A bunch of us are applying to Bob Jones University.”

Bob Jones? I’d heard that name before. Other homeschooling families in my church used Bob Jones textbooks. My mother had discarded them as dull and political, opting for the more flexible and artistic Sonlight curriculum instead. I had no idea that Bob Jones had founded a university, nor (as I was just realizing) did I have any idea who Bob Jones really was.

“I told my dad that it would be okay since we won’t be going alone,” Jennifer continued. “We’ll watch out for each other. It’s a Christian college. We won’t have to worry about drinking or partying or any of that. You should come with us!”

I froze. Rowling College’s wrought-iron lampposts and immaculate lawn flashed in front of my eyes. I want to go to a real school, came the unstoppable silent protest. I was immediately wracked with guilt. What do you have against Bob Jones? I asked myself furiously. How do you know it’s not a “real” school? But the steely voice in my head would not be silenced. I don’t care if this makes me a terrible, judgmental person. I want to go to a real school, and that does not include Bob Jones.

“Maybe,” I answered finally, failing to muster any enthusiasm. I told my mother nothing, fearful that she would think it was a good idea and my Rowling plans would evaporate before my eyes.

I slept fitfully that night. I pictured myself bursting through the chains that had held me in one place for too long, only to find myself swept away into a dreary black-and-white encampment. I saw the dull stone halls filled with good Christian husbands, all grey and lifeless. I saw the parade of unthreatening ideas, the inevitable fight against the Trinity but the ultimate surety of everything else. A silent scream welled up inside me. Away in the distance there stood the gates of Rowling, vibrant with promise, a dark channel separating me from them. I wanted to jump, to take the greatest risk, to grapple with the edges of the chasm and yank myself up. I feared the abyss not because I would be striking something unknown, but because I was afraid that I’d never know anything else. Bob Jones University, that good Christian college, in its very safety and certainty struck me with terror. I could not go where Jennifer went, even if it meant giving up everything.

Later that week, as I finished a shift at Wal-Mart and returned my tray to the manager, I heard my mother call my name. I turned to see her striding rapidly toward me, waving an envelope.

She couldn’t hold it in. “You were accepted!” she cried.

I scrambled for the letter and held it up before my eyes in shock. My frantic eyes struggled to focus. Rowling had taken me in. I was in! I was a real college student. With scholarships. The store spun and danced around me. I was dimly aware of my Wal-Mart managers grinning and patting me on the back. All I could see was the small black print: “Congratulations!”

As I studied my admissions package that night, I learned that I would be starting classes in a week. My first semester was paid for. I would only have to cover my books. I would even be moving onto campus! Since my room and board were covered under my scholarship package, it would cost more to commute. Apprehensively, I filled out my roommate survey. “Likes to read,” I wrote. “Very quiet. Early riser.” The excitement outweighed my nervousness. I would get to live on campus! I would get to eat in the cafeteria and study in the library. It was all so overwhelmingly new.

I was giddy as I called Jennifer to tell her the good news. When she answered, however, I knew that mine was a solitary joy. The tide had shifted. The sisterhood of Bob Jones would never be.

“What happened?” I asked.

“The elders of my church had a special meeting,” she sighed. “They decided that it wasn’t right for young women to go away together and live on their own. They said we would be too far away from our fathers’ headship.”

I hung up the phone with tears of rage stinging my eyes. Just like that, my friends’ futures had been sealed, their hopes crushed, their homes transformed into prisons. The doors of opportunity had slammed shut, and I stood alone on the outside. A cold fear settled on my shoulders, Frantically, I began packing my belongings, looking ahead to my move-in date with trepidation. If I could just move onto campus, I would be safe then. I would never come back, never be caught, never be caged. I thanked God for my faithless father, knowing now that only the “headless” state of my family permitted my escape. As I stuffed t-shirt after modest t-shirt into my luggage, I wept for my friends. There was nothing godly about this, nothing loving, nothing just. The girls had done everything right, but it was not enough. No amount of prayer or planning would be enough to let mere women follow their dreams, unsupervised.

If I make it to college, I promised God, I will work with all my might. I will take every opportunity in sight. I will not squander this gift.

For the next six days, I waited for the hammer to fall.

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum.

Sierra is a PhD student living in the Midwest. She was raised in a “Message of the Hour” congregation that followed the ministry of William Branham. She left the Message in 2006 and is the author of the blog The Unspoken Words: A Non-Prophet Message.

Read all posts by Sierra!

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Growing up, I read books like The King’s Daughter, Dear Princess, Beautiful Girlhood, Waiting for Her Isaac, and The Courtship of Sarah MacLean over and over. I would plan out having twenty six children, so I could use every letter of the alphabet when I named them. I would try to devise my own homeschool curriculum based on the ones I had used, and what I liked and didn’t like about them. On top of all that, I was writing my own Proverbs 31 devotional.

And yet, somewhere in all of this, I was still punching things into a ”computer” on a tree, and yelling for everyone to get out and climb the Jeffries Tubes because of a warp core breach. Rather than make a hoop skirt, I made a Confederate general’s uniform for the end of unit celebration. I was almost fifteen, the homeschool convention was happening over my birthday, and I wanted two things: a Vision Forum pop gun, and a purity ring from Generations of Virtue.

I got both.

They probably assumed the pop-gun would do little harm, after all, I had seven brothers and probably wanted to use it on them, until I tired of it and returned to my books and daydreams. The people at the Vision Forum booth looked a little more wary when they saw my dad hand the pop-gun over to me, but I didn’t care. After all, I’d grown up fashioning blasters out of Legos with my brothers, so we could play at Star Wars or Star Trek. Now I just had a gun that actually made noise when you shot it!

I spent hours trying to decide on a purity ring. I wanted one with meaning, and I wanted it to be pretty. Besides, the more time I spent there, the more likely I was to convince my parents that I really wanted the newest Ludy book. After we picked up the purity ring, my dad and I had a talk about what it meant. I told him what I wanted, and I promised to remain pure until marriage.

Looking back, I wonder why I was promising things at 14 that were so far in the future. I was blissfully ignorant of the concept of ideas and people changing, and in my naivete, I assumed that what I thought on that day would still hold true in 5 years. Even if it didn’t, I had the guilt of breaking promises hanging over my head.

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum!

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by Tess Willoughby

September 11, 2001. This dark day united all Americans in horror, in terror, and in pain.

With at least one exception: Nate Willoughby.

I found out that our country had been attacked using our own commercial aircraft when my mother called me from town and said, “Turn on the news.” Her tone of voice suggested the worst of the worst of the worst: so awful that you didn’t ask “what channel?” because it didn’t matter what channel. The president had been assassinated. There was some horrific, unthinkable natural disaster, probably in Virginia. Something so bad she couldn’t say it.

I hung up, turned on the TV and watched the Twin Towers burn, holding the phone in my hand.

The phone rang. I hit the answer button. Nate lit into me about how I needed to come back to him and I was in rebellion against God and would probably go to hell.

I swallowed and sat on the floor and said, “Are you aware that terrorists have attacked New York City? The World Trade Center is burning!”

Nate said, “Who cares. We’re talking about my life.”

I hung up on him and sobbed and choked in front of the TV until I didn’t have any more strength to cry. How mean and insane was my husband? How would I ever get away from this vindictive bastard without being destroyed? Was Nate even human? Was my country’s government about to fall? How many more planes had been hijacked, and what would blow up next? It felt as though my own personal hell had unleashed national horrors and worldwide chaos. The lid had blown off life itself and nothing venerable, nothing precious, nothing good could stand. My own personal, religious zealot terrorist had gone global somehow and the world was burning and crumbling to the ground; nothing and nobody was safe from crazy men with extreme religious agendas.

Post-traumatic stress does funky things with your brain. That September, I believed that I had landed in a world without personal boundaries, without national security: a world of merciless anarchy where freedom was not only impossible but a joke and and an illusion. A world where terrorists could strike anywhere and nightmarish, ruinously expensive court hearings never ended, but God was silent. I believed that I could lose absolutely everything, even my nation. If not for my parents, I would have lost my sanity.

My divorce lawyer had been worn down by Nate’s bullying to the breaking point. She was pushing me to agree to a no-fault divorce with all legal issues reserved for later. She would do nothing to get me any permanent alimony, nothing to get me any property, nothing to get me permanent custody of my children, nothing to help me with the personal injury suit, nothing at all except to sign a no-fault divorce decree now that the year-long waiting period was over.  She made it clear that I had no choice in this—in order to continue to represent me, she would have to hire additional staff to keep up with Nate, who had her completely buried in paperwork.

My lawyer was quitting, and she hated to bring it up but. . .I owed her $30,000.00. When my dad and I couldn’t pay any more, she put me on a payment plan. When we couldn’t make the payments, she turned me over to a collection agency. That collection agency, Chase and Citibank (Nate had credit cards in my name, remember?) called me every day.

Nate paid no child support, of course. He had a child support matter filed in court (the first of six), and was appealing the alimony, so would not be sending a dime while a decision or appeal was pending. Because the children and I were on public assistance, I got Legal Aid in Virginia Beach, but they would only help with the equitable distribution matter because of limited resources. On the custody/alimony/ child support matter, and the personal injury matter, I was on my own; I would have to drive six hours and represent myself.  Another lawyer in Virginia Beach was unaffordable.

Why so many matters? Why so many cases? you may be wondering. The judges found it more economical for the court to farm out the matters to multiple judges rather than one judge hearing the whole mess, since Nate files multiple motions per hearing and rants and raves for hours. Every separate matter in turn quickly became a legal swamp with its own morass of motions to respond to, discovery to answer, and subpoenas to move to quash. Litigating with Nate has always been like fighting the Hydra. You lop off one hearing but that hearing spawns three more hearings; answer one motion and get three more in the mail; quash one subpoena and get notice of three more. In Virginia, a lawyer can file his own subpoenas without going through any court, so Nate subpoenaed everything and everybody he could think of for every hearing. He quickly overwhelmed the whole judicial population of the Virginia Beach Circuit Court. The first judge, who returned Moriah to me after her dad kidnapped her out of school, stepped down after Nate filed a writ of mandamus against her with the Virginia Supreme Court.

Legal Aid got me nothing in equitable distribution except the stuff I ran away with. The judge ruled that I kept what I had in my possession and Nate kept what he had in his possession. Nate had taken out a second mortgage on our house without my knowledge, plus run up the debut on the credit cards, and so Nate persuaded the judge that in order to split the property 50/50, it was only fair that the marital debt also be divided 50/50. The judge bought this argument, and I got nothing. Not even the children’s toys.

This is going to sound idiotic but I’m going to say it anyway: even though I’m moderate now and voted for Barack Obama and probably will vote for him again, I can’t hate George W. Bush like so many of my good friends do. I detest the Patriot Act and hate the war even more, but I was on welfare with six little kids when the terrorists attacked and about to lose everything I owned in the courts. After 9/11, it was the president who gave me the reassurance that I might lose everything else—all my belongings and even eventually my children—but I wouldn’t lose my country. I’d still be American, and Americans have always been bullheaded enough to hang onto the faith that they can get free. No matter who or what is standing in the way.

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum!

Read all posts by Tess Willoughby!

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by Sierra

Growing up in fundamentalism was like living with a moral GPS navigator installed in my head. Every decision was mapped out already; all I needed to do was listen to the voice telling me where to go. Sometimes I could stop and look at the map. Most of the time I was looking ahead, trying to live, listening and following directions as best I could.

The GPS gave me directions for living: Read the Bible and pray every day. Obey your parents. Be respectful of elders.

Those directions made sense. They were there to help me get where I wanted to go: straight ahead. There were no twists and turns yet.

Then the directions got a little stranger: Listen to one of Branham’s sermons every day. Wear long skirts. Be modest. Grow out your hair. Throw away worldly music. Throw away makeup. Look down on public-schooled kids. Don’t watch TV.

The GPS gave me directions for my relationship with my parents: Ignore your father’s rage and violence. Win him to Christ by silence. Submit to him as your earthly head until you are married. Follow the chain of command.

It gave me directions for relationships with boys: Don’t touch. Don’t laugh too much. Don’t be alone with them. Don’t give away pieces of your heart. Wait for God to bring you your husband.

It gave me directions for lifetime ambition: Your greatest calling is to be a wife and mother. Choose a vocation you can pursue at home, while raising children. Learn to cook and sew. Don’t venture out into the world.

The cacophony of advice was deafening. More troubling still, I felt a tug, a conflict in my soul. There was something wrong with the directions.

“Turn right.” They said. “Turn right. Turn right. Turn right.”

I was going in circles. The roads looked too familiar. I was trapped here, spinning in the dark, following the dull illumination of my headlights, listening for the next command. Nervously, I watched out the window and flinched when I spotted pale pairs of green forest eyes reflected back at me. Anywhere, there might be roadblocks. There might be deer. Where was I going?

I stopped by the side of the road and locked my doors. I let my engine idle. I looked at the map displayed on the GPS screen.

“This is not where I want to go,” I said hesitantly.

“Turn right in five hundred feet,” replied the GPS.

“You don’t understand,” I argued, growing bolder. “I need to get somewhere. I don’t want to burn up all my gas going in circles.”

“In five hundred feet, turn right.”

“You want me to get stuck here, don’t you?”

“Turn right.”

“But I’m not going anywhere!” I yelled. Fingers shaking, I turned off the GPS. I stashed it in the back seat under a pillow. I took out the batteries and flung them into the woods.

The silence was overwhelming.

Then I noticed a tiny bobbing compass stuck to my dashboard, a vestige of an earlier time when I was free to find my own roads. The compass pointed north.

I eased the car back onto the road. The compass dipped and bobbed, but held true. I watched the fluid inside form tiny bubbles around the arrow.

I came to a fork in the road.

“TURN RIGHT!” screamed a ghostly voice from the back of my head.

I turned left.

Anxiously, I glanced right and left on this unfamiliar road. I had no idea what animals might jump out at me, what pitfalls or construction might lie ahead. How could I find my way out of here on my own?

Then, as I drove, I grew more confident. Morning broke. As the trees melted away, I saw the forest in my rearview mirror. I glanced at the compass. It held steady.

For the first time in my life, I turned on the radio and floored it.

…

The moral of the story here is obvious. GPS navigators are great conveniences. They can get you almost anywhere you want to go. But if you use them all the time, you start to forget. Reading a map and finding your way feels difficult, unfamiliar. Risky.

Human beings weren’t made to follow moral GPS directions. We were made to find our way, minute by minute, adapting and readjusting our route along the way. We were meant to notice the scenery and remember it, to accept each turn as a choice, to own it and live it consciously.

We weren’t meant to follow ready-made routes. No such routes exist in the landscape; they’re imposed on it by the almighty powers of Google and men like William Branham, Bill Gothard and Doug Phillips.

Why do we rely on moral GPS navigators with their pre-recorded voices? (I’m looking at you, Voice of God Recordings!) Why are we so afraid to find our own way? Because we might trip up? Because we might find ourselves in a ditch needing forgiveness? If we’re never so vulnerable, how are we supposed to know who might stop and give us a helping hand?

Note that this doesn’t mean driving off wildly, without direction. I traded a moral GPS for a moral compass: something I can use to keep my destination always in sight. Something I can use to find my way out of any wrong turns I might make, even if it means hitting a dead end and retracing my steps. Even if it means taking a little longer to get where I’m going.

I don’t know the names of the roads I may take. I didn’t know them, either, when I was listening to Branham’s voice telling me where I had to go. I trusted him, and found myself spinning. Now I trust the destination.

Some call this following the Holy Spirit. Some call it keeping our eyes on Jesus. I call it trust. Maybe even faith.

And the music is way better.

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum. Comments are also open below.

Sierra is a PhD student living in the Midwest. She was raised in a “Message of the Hour” congregation that followed the ministry of William Branham. She left the Message in 2006 and is the author of the blog The Unspoken Words: A Non-Prophet Message.

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Libby Anne makes an astute point in her recent post at Love, Joy, Feminism:

Vision Forum focuses on problems in society, inflates them, and then blames feminism and modernity. Then Vision Forum seeks to fix the problems by turning back the clock to a time that never existed. The version of the past that Vision Forum sells is a myth. The problems we face in society today are not new. Substance abuse, the challenges of balancing motherhood and work, and the devaluation of women have always been with us. Looking back to some idealized imaginary past where families had no problems, mothers happily stayed home and devoted their time to raising their children, and women were valued and esteemed in return for surrendering their freedom and rights does not actually fix any problems!

For example:

A Devaluation of Women

Vision Forum speaks with disgust of the ways young women are treated today as the young men around them treat them as accessories and pressure them for sex. Vision Forum is looks in horror at the ways women are portrayed in advertising, and at the pressure to conform to some sort of perfect body image that women are faced with every day. Vision Forum is completely aware that women are devalued in our society.

Yes, be very, very horrified by that image and the accompanying text. I only show it to point out that there are real problems here. Women in today’s society are often treated as sexual objects and devalued as “blond bimbos” or “simply emotional.” But somehow, Vision Forum does not realize that the root of this problem is sexism, and instead blames feminism. Seriously,what? Feminists are not complicit in this misogyny; rather, they are working to end it. But for Vision Forum, the solution is once again not to fix the problems we face in the here and now, but to turn back the clock.

Vision Forum points back to a time when young women were valued and protected (by their fathers). Once again, this picture was never reality for more than a sliver of society. Most women were working class and fended for themselves. They lived with the reality of sexual violence and exploitation.

But there’s more to it than that. Vision Forum tells women that they can be valued and have their position in society elevated - if they surrender their rights and accept male authority. They do not see misogyny as the problem, but rather blame the way families today push their young women out of the home at age 18 and launch them unprotected into the dangers of society. Young women will be protected from the debauchery of college men, Vision Forum promises – if they stay home and obey their fathers. Middle aged women will be free from the pressure to conform to an idealized image of sexy, Vision Forum asserts – if they stay home and obey their husbands. What is this? You will be valued and protected if you surrender all your rights and obey your male authority? THIS is the solution Vision Forum offers!

Meanwhile, feminists believe that women can be valued and have equal rights. In fact, feminists hold that the key to ending the devaluation of women is not accepting women’s subordination to males but rather bringing about true equality. Accepting a second class status for women only furthers the root problem here, which is sexism and misogyny. Vision Forum doesn’t see this, because it believes that women are “weaker vessels” which need protecting. Furthermore, feminists work to fix the problems in our society today by actually working to fix them. The solution is not to turn back the clock or to ask women to surrender their rights in return for protection. The solution is to combat sexism and misogyny and work toward actual equality. But somehow, Vision Forum identifies that as the problem.

Read the full post here …

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum.  Comments are also open below.

Libby Anne lives with her husband and toddler somewhere in the U.S. She has left patriarchy for feminism and has found freedom. She is a graduate student with big plans for her life. You can read her blog at Love, Joy, Feminism.

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Whisper was taken under the wing of some of the godly people at her new church. They taught her how to sew, and how to cook the way they did… which was very different from what she was used to. She felt like there was so much she needed to learn and re-learn to be a truly godly woman, but she was willing to do it! Where would she be if she hadn’t met these people? Not living the way God expected her to, that was for sure! She was so thankful God had led her to a group of people who really understood what he wanted- people who were serious about God, and who would do anything he told them to. Looking around at the average, “professing christians” living such “lukewarm” lives, it was very clear how few people were willing to go all out for God.

All her life, Whisper had made friends easily and naturally. Until now. As her social life started to revolve more and more around people from church, Whisper felt her status as an outsider keenly. Many of the young people in the youth group had been born and raised in “The Community” or a similar one, and they didn’t seem to notice that they formed a very exclusive core group… or that the only way to be a part of it was to be born (or marry) into one of their solidly established, reputable families. Little things that were natural to them (like having been brought up speaking Dutch or German- or being proud descendants from well known Amish or Mennonite communities) quickly showed who was “in” and who was “out.” Either you naturally fit, or you didn’t. Whisper didn’t.

As far as the adults were concerned, Whisper’s drastic change (or “conversion experience,” as it came to be known), kind of gave her a pass. She acted on almost all of the teaching she received… Whisper was the ideal convert. An almost-perfect example of someone becoming a “new creation.”

Having not been brought up in The Community, Whisper began to find out that she was a bit of a bull in a china shop there. There were certain unspoken rules that were understood by everyone who had been there long… and Whisper started learning them slowly and painfully. Sometimes, for whatever reason, a “concerned person” would take it upon themselves to inform Whisper (or her mother) what people were saying about her latest faux pas. The original offended party was usually well hidden.

Whisper came to realize that no matter how hard she tried to fit and blend in… she still didn’t. These “godly people” found something to be scandalized about even in her best efforts…

She wore a necklace in public! Has no one ever taught that girl that outward adornment is sinful?? Did she have the second button of her blouse unbuttoned AGAIN too?

She refuses to wear her hair up under a white head covering, even though she WAS in church when it was mentioned that white symbolized purity, and we are the PURE bride of christ, are we not? And whoever heard of a woman getting headaches from wearing her hair up- poor girl, if only her mother knew how to guide her properly…

She had a conversation with THAT boy? When? Where? For how long? *gasp* Alone? Outside the church building? And she was laughing? Well it’s obvious what kind of girl she is…

The constant behind-her-back commentary left Whisper more confused than hurt. She didn’t understand why people would act like that… and for once she couldn’t think of any way to gloss over the ugliness of their actions. The only part of it that truly made her angry was the fact that, in all of the gossip going around about her, much of it implied some sort of wrongdoing or neglect on her parents’ part. Whisper was indignant at the idea… ever since her conversion, NONE of what she did was because of pressure from her parents. In her zeal, Whisper had become the driving force, pulling her family along in this direction. Her parents came along without complaint, but the reins of her life were once again very firmly in her own hands.

Whisper had no idea that she was about to lose them again… and this time they would be much harder to get back.

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“Does God Hate Women?” author, Ophelia Benson recently shared a note which was posted on Reddit written by a young patriarch describing his “biblical marriage.”

 As Bible-believing Baptists who hold to reformed theology, X and I believe that God is sovereign in choosing who will or will not believe in him, having chosen his people before the foundation of the world (see Ephesians 1), and that his selection is unbreakable and irresistible. If marriage is to mirror this principle, we believe that a woman has no right to select a husband for herself, but that she is to be chosen by a man and marriage is to be an unbreakable arrangement between the man and her father. Based on this reasoning, we have shunned a standard proposal and wedding ceremony, because if I had asked her to marry me (which I did not) then I would have given her the decision to marry me rather than selecting her and taking her myself. Furthermore, if we had exchanged conventional marriage vows, our union would have been based on X’s will and consent, which are not Biblical factors for marriage or salvation. Instead, I asked X’s father for his blessing in taking her hand in marriage. When he gave his blessing, X and I considered ourselves to be unbreakably betrothed in the sight of God. While we had initially intended to consummate our marriage after today’s symbolic ceremony, we instead did so secretly after private scripture reading, prayer, and mutual foot-washing.

PZ Meyers commented on Pharyngula, “It made my skin crawl.”  Yeah – mine too.

As Quiverfull Believers dig ever-deeper into their Bibles in search of the truly “biblical model” for godly marriage, ideas about courtship and “betrothal” are becoming increasingly savage and brutish.  It would seem unlikely that Courtship standards could get even more oppressive considering that Christian notions of “biblical match-making” have already been taken to outrageous extremes.

Josh Harris started a back-to-bible-living revolution among Christian young people when he advocated the courtship model in his book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. What – no dating for teens? Now that’s a radical concept! As “bible believers” jumped on the bandwagon of father-led pairing of qualified young men and women in serious pursuit of marriage, popular Quiverfull patriarchs took biblical courtship to a new level of paternal domination as they pointed to Old Testament examples of “betrothal” as the very best way to ensure the future success of Christian marriage.

Jonathan Lindvall, teaching “God’s Design for Youthful Romance,” cited the betrothal of Matthew and Maranatha Chapman as an ideal example of a “true romantic betrothal.”  Lindvall describes the crazy-making process by which Maranatha’s father, Stan Owen, orchestrated a year-long betrothal which was to be a “demonstration of Christ’s coming for His bride” based on the parable of the Ten Virgins.

Mr. Owen still faithfully directed both Matthew and Maranatha to avoid physical affection until their wedding. He particularly cautioned them to guard against impatience. Especially since Maranatha was rather young, their wedding might be quite a long way off yet. Though they hoped that the time would be soon, they nevertheless resigned themselves to the real possibility that the wedding could be a matter of years down the road, much like Jacob’s seven year betrothal to Rachel (Gen. 29:18-20). Yet they were both naturally quite motivated and energetically prepared in every way they could, as quickly as they could, just in case the wedding should suddenly be announced.

Not to be outdone in the “biblical examples of courtship and marriage” department, Michael Pearl counseled his daughter, Shoshanna, to forego a state-issued marriage license:

None of my daughters or their husbands asked the state of Tennessee for permission to marry. They did not yoke themselves to government. It was a personal, private covenant, binding them together forever—until death. So when the sodomites have come to share in the state marriage licenses, which will eventually be the law, James and Shoshanna will not be in league with those perverts. And, while I am on the subject, there will come a time when faithful Christians will either revoke their state marriage licenses and establish an exclusively one man-one woman covenant of marriage, or, they will forfeit the sanctity of their covenant by being unequally yoked together with perverts. The sooner there is such a movement, the sooner we will have a voice in government. Some of you attorneys and statesmen reading this should get together and come up with an approach that will have credibility and help to impact the political process.

Yeah … that’s “bible-believing” extremism for you – and it’s not enough to practice these ideals for themselves and their children, “biblical family values” must become the law of the land.

As a former Quiverfull believer, I used to get excited at the prospect of searching the Word and discovering greater “truths” and biblical principles – the implementation of which would bring my family increasingly closer to a truly God-honoring model of marriage and Christian home life.  At the same time, I secretly dreaded what the Lord might reveal to me next through Lindvall’s Bold Christian Living, Pearl’s No Greater Joy, and other “biblical family living” ministries.  Already I was obediently and faithfully having baby after baby to the obvious detriment of my health, submitting to my abusive husband, homeschooling, homebirthing, home churching, foregoing all government assistance including potentially life-saving health insurance and food stamps, cutting off all outside relationships with family and friends who were not like-minded Quiverfull Believers …. honestly, the regimentation and isolation made for a harsh and demanding life.

“What’s next?” I frequently wondered to myself … ‘cuz my practice of Quiverfull was not “peculiar” enough already, I guess.

I am so grateful that I got out before I had a chance to “discover” the biblical principle of a man selecting and taking a wife for himself.  I am afraid, since the idea comes straight from scripture, I very well may have gone along with my daughters’ father coming to an “unbreakable arrangement” for a “godly” young man to “take them” in marriage.

Ugh.  It is a trap – a life-sucking quagmire – to attempt to order one’s family life according to a worldview which teaches that whatever is in the bible is necessarily “biblical” and normative for all times and all cultures.  I dread the thought that today’s Quiverfull daughters are now being taught that a young Christian woman “has no right to select a husband for herself, but that she is to be chosen by a man” and given no decision in the convenant agreement between her father and the man who will be taking her.

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum. Comments are also open below.

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by Sierra

Turning eighteen was magical. Suddenly, all the job applications I seemed to be throwing down an empty chute were bounced back with interest. Sven had already landed a job at Wal-Mart in his town. Now it was my turn. I nervously sat through my job interview, not daring to hope that I might actually be on my way to earning money. When they called back with an offer, I could hardly contain my excitement.

Not only did I have a job, I had a real driver’s license. No longer did I need the supervision of an adult driver. I could take myself anywhere I wanted, whenever I wanted. The freedom was intoxicating, and I found myself driving everywhere at the slightest excuse.

Now that I was mobile, my mother decided it was time to do something about the sorry state of my academic life. Homeschooling had ceased somewhere around age 15. I had been completely off the record in New Jersey, where strict homeschooling regulations would have required testing and proof of progress. Now, we were ready to move back to Pennsylvania, where the lax state laws meant I technically only needed one more year of credits. My mother decided that the best way to accomplish this would be to enroll me in community college classes, a strategy pursued by some of the boys in my church. They had used it to get a jump-start on college; at the very least, I could get a diploma out of it.

My first classroom experience since kindergarten was a twice-weekly evening class in one of the trailers behind the community college. It was a remedial math course, intended to catch me up on the untouched two-thirds of my Algebra II book, which had been only a guilt-emitting paperweight in my bedroom for the past year. I was nervous, but I also felt a sudden rush of power as I studied that remedial algebra. Although I was at a severe disadvantage, I knew that, with enough work, I could probably pass this class. I would never be like our church’s star students, both male, one working on his MBA at the esteemed Delaware Valley College. The latter’s mother lost no opportunity to remind me of that fact. And yet, the math was comfortingly rational. If I practiced enough, it came out right.

To my amazement, my tests began to come back with positive results. Not just positive results, in fact, but straight As! What is this? My mind reeled. I quickly rationalized it. This must be easy math. Anyone can do this. My whole class must be doing this well. I still might not make it in real college courses. Then I learned that the class average was something resembling a B-. I hid my starred exams under my notebooks, afraid that the other students would hate me as I quietly pondered what this meant.

Until that moment, I’d never had an opportunity to measure my own intelligence. I was terrified to learn: where were the limits of my powers? Could I make it in community college? In four-year school? In the workplace? After a lifetime of hearing that I was smart only from my parents, of getting meaningless As in a classroom of one, I threw myself into community college work with the fear ever lurking in the back of my mind, “What if I work as hard as I can and find out I’m not that smart? What then?” I resolved to work so hard that I didn’t have to find out just yet. I would tackle the challenge of this class, but not look beyond. One thing at a time.

I knew my future hinged on this. If I could make it in school, if I could make it in work, I wouldn’t be trapped in the Message of the Hour, doomed to a lifetime of incessant childbearing and submission. As I pulled into the parking lot of my community college for the last time, I noticed a promotional billboard hanging above the trailer where my class was held. Its message stunned me. I stopped the car and stared up through the windshield.

“From Homeless to Harvard,” the sign read, with a picture of a well-dressed woman beaming beside the bright red letters. It was a graduation photo. It was a picture of success, of triumph. As I got out of my mother’s car and stood gaping at the sign, an unfamiliar hope lodged in my throat like a piece of grit, nearly choking me. I, too, had lost my home – lodging, unwanted, in my grandparents’ cellar. I, too, was not expected to amount to anything – indeed, I was forbidden. William Branham saw working women as a threat to God’s order for the world. And yet, that smiling girl… she had gone to Harvard! Could I not, then, go somewhere? Could I not be something, too?

I turned in my final math exam with the lightest heart I’d felt since I was a little child, since before I’d ever heard of the Message or William Branham. I felt like a little girl again, with a whole future spread out before me for the taking. “I want to be an astronaut and an archaeologist,” the small child in my head whispered. “I want to write a book, travel the world and swim with dolphins. I want to do everything when I grow up.”

Weeks later, the final grade came in. I’d passed the math course with an A.

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Sierra is a PhD student living in the Midwest. She was raised in a “Message of the Hour” congregation that followed the ministry of William Branham. She left the Message in 2006 and is the author of the blog The Unspoken Words: A Non-Prophet Message.

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Authoritarian patriarchy mass-produces nutless weakling men… bitter, abused women… and scarred, emotionally-deformed children, and ought be abandoned as the utter, perverse failure that it is known to be.

~comment by “Pj” on Alternet article, How I Escaped the “Biblical Family Values” Nightmare That Drives Perry, Bachmann, and Tea Party Politics

Discuss on the NLQ forum.  Comments are also open below. Feel free to post any good snippets you come across here too.

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by 

The other day my husband came to me and confessed that sharing our story was just very painful for him to the point of tears. Out of love and respect for him I am submitting by not continuing to tell what we have been through. He did not ask me not to, but the last thing I want to do is hurt someone that I love so much. However, I would like to share where we are now, as how we got here really doesn’t matter. We choose to live from today and not let our past dictate who we are.

We no longer have an identity created by our marriage or our children. His identity is not bound to whether or not he is a perfect “leader” of his home. Mine is not tied to being the “perfect” wife and mother. We can never be those things. We could never achieve the perfection put forth by the Pearls, Doug Phillips, or any other mortal man. We were like beautiful tombs, but were dead inside. Our identity comes from trusting in the sacrifice of our Lord. The life I live is in faith, not faith in men, but faith in God. If my husband leaves I stand, if he stays I stand. We are who we are because It is finished, the work is done on our behalf.

This had given us freedom that we never knew. Before, we thought we had to be something or do something before our lives would be perfect. We had all these ideas from men, but when these ideas did not work out the way they promised we had to turn somewhere else. This compelled us to our answer, which was our faith. Is it perfect? No. We still stumble and misunderstand, but we have a peace now that was missing. We discovered through much study and prayer how we were supposed to treat each other. Not how some man said we should treat each other. We were in roles that were not intended for us to be in.

One thing we discovered is that we desire to be praised and worshiped. For me it was praise and honor that my marriage was intact and my kids well-behaved. Serving my family was not an act of love, but one of gaining praise for myself. A patriarchal dad is the center of his home or “kingdom”. He is worshiped by absolute obedience and getting his every desire. When our son began to rebel, and I was so unhappy in my marriage I was shattered. Everything I had worked for was not turning out the way I wanted. My husband was really unhappy trying to strive for this worship, because he was not created to be worshiped. He was created to worship.

We both felt condemned, because our life was not the perfect rosy picture of happiness religious men had told us it should be. We were condemned because our older children weren’t the picture of obedience, condemned because I worked out of the home, condemned for the music we listened to, and on and on. This unhappiness led us to the discovery of Romans 8:1-2. We had read it many times before but it never spoke to us. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit has set me free from the law of sin and death. We had bound ourselves to the laws of men’s interpretation. So now we will stand in the knowledge that it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. We will stand firm, then, and not let ourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery.

We realized that Phillips and the Pearls really have a narrow vision that can’t be applicable universally. We believe God is universal and cross-cultural. We had separated ourselves from the “bad” influences of the world. We wanted to keep our family “protected”. We lived in fear, which was wrong, because perfect love casts away fear. When Jesus walked the earth many of his friends were whores and thieves. He loved these people. The “religious” people on the other hand were constantly subject to His wrath. We were the “religious.”  This was hard for us to accept about ourselves. We had scorned the very people that Jesus loved. Since then we have opened our lives to many more people, and have been greatly blessed. We are confident that He who began a good work will complete it no matter who is in our lives.

One of the most important things we have learned is not to take ourselves too seriously. This can lead to hurt feelings, resentment, and bitterness. So we consider each other and look not only to our own interest, but to the interest of each other. Bitterness can destroy a person, so we have been gifted with the ability to let things go that have happened to us or things that we really can’t control. We bear with each other and forgive because we have been forgiven.

Notice that I say we. This has been a journey that we have taken mutually, and for that we are grateful. Neither of us could have done it without the other, nor would we be where we are today without the other being on this journey. Do we have the perfect, rosy marriage? No, but our vision is much clearer. This allows us to walk together in love and unity. If the unity is broken we have the tools to fix it. We had no one but each other on this journey, and that was good. We have been to many marriage seminars in the past, but they never helped like just being with each other through our trials. We are so very cautious now about the advice of men. It is always filtered through each other, prayer, and scripture.

The hardest thing we had to deal with was being totally open and honest with each other. That is naked and unashamed. I am not talking about being physically clothed or not, but about who we truly are and how we truly feel. We were guilty of putting conditions on our love, both with each other and our children.  In the past we were afraid to share our true selves, because of the possible condemnation. Finally being able to do this with each other has been the best part of this journey. The comfort we feel around each other has made a powerful difference in our lives. I am truly a better person, because of my husband and his unconditional love.

This is simply our story, and is not meant for advice to anyone. We have had enough advice to last us for eternity. It is our wish that it be an encouragement.

I would like to thank Vyckie for her courage in starting this website. Krwordgazer you have filled in so many gaps in my understanding. You have been blessed with a wonderful gift. Journey, Africaturtle, Dragonfly, Mamaloo, Calalu you have encouraged me with your courage and determination. Keep it up. Tess, I so want your story to have a happy ending. We are survivors.

Discuss this post on the NLQ forum. Comments are also open below ~ please feel free to add your well-wishes to LivingForEternity and her family.

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