THE FAMiLY LEADER, a federally-funded public advocacy organization associated with Focus On The Family has garnered plenty of media attention recently.

Republican presidential hopefuls Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum have signed on to the para-church group’s “The Marriage Vow: A Declaration of Dependence upon MARRIAGE and FAMiLY” – a right-wing political policy document which calls on candidates to support a federal “Marriage Amendment,” oppose same-sex marriages, pornography, abortion, no-fault divorce and adultery and to encourage “robust childbearing and reproduction” in order to ensure U.S. global economic and political domination.

The public outrage is justified.  The Marriage Vow pledge, which ironically makes a show of rejecting “Sharia Islam and all other anti-woman, anti-human rights forms of totalitarian control” is one of the most misogynistic and totalitarian political policy proposals in recent history.

There’s one “little” detail in The Marriage Vow that critics have overlooked – small, subtle, and yet glaringly obvious once you see it – an alarming point which warrants the careful attention of freedom-loving women and everyone concerned with human rights.

A quick visit to THE FAMiLY LEADER’s website reveals the self-abnegation ideal which is expected of American women according to THE FAMiLY LEADER’s extremist paradigm.   Notice that in their logo, in The Marriage Vow document, and throughout their website, the “I” in FAMiLY is never capitalized?

The first footnote to The Marriage Vow explains this consistent use of the little “i”:

“Sociological data squares with tradition to argue that self-centered adult egos and agendas in American families must be subordinated to the long-term interests of America’s children.”

Simply stated, women who are unwilling to subordinate and sacrifice themselves to populate America’s economic and political war machine are selfish with a capital “I” - s.e.l.f.I.s.h.

No Longer offering MY blood for God’s binge drinking ~ I’ve sobered up!

by Vyckie Garrison @ No Longer Quivering

When my daughter saw the cover of my copy of “Drunk With Blood: God’s Killings in the Bible,” she asked, “So are you becoming a Satanist now?”

Drunk With Blood really is a horrible book ~ and what makes it such a horror is that it enumerates the sheer number of people whom God either killed Himself or else approved of their deaths ~ straight from the Bible!

From the back cover: Who has killed more, Satan or God? (Biblical numbers only, no estimates.)

Satan 10
God 2,476,633

That’s slightly less than 2.5 MILLION people killed by God in the bible, folks.

In the introduction, author Steve Wells, explains how he came up with the numbers ~ he only uses the actual #s from the bible. For instance, in the story of Job ~ God gave Satan permission to kill all of Job’s children & servants. The bible says he had 10 children. Since he was a wealthy man, Job probably had more servants than children ~ but “Drunk With Blood” doesn’t count the servants’ deaths. Which means that these numbers that Steve Wells came up with are actually under-representative of the # of people killed by God.

Steve explains that he also didn’t include FUTURE killings ~ those promised by God in Revelation ~ since they haven’t happened yet.

The promised End Times killings are ~ Wow ~ a horrendous # of dead people ~ to be killed by Jesus, himself! Rev 14 foretells “one like the Son of Man” swinging his sickle & “reaping” enough dead that their blood fills a huge winepress. Wells calculates that the amount of blood needed to fill this winepress would require the death of 24 TRILLION people ~ killed by JESUS!

‘Cuz ~ as we’ve been told ~ the first time, Jesus came as a Lamb ~ next time, He’ll come as a Lion ~ wreaking vengeance upon the enemies of God.

Quoting Steve Wells, “there are many other verses that say similar (batshit crazy) things in the Bible, & they’re not all in Revelation …”

Ch 1: The Flood of Noah ~ est. # killed 20 Million ~ Everyone on earth except Noah & family.
Ch 2: Abraham’s war to rescue Lot ~ est. # killed: 100
Ch 3 Sodom & Gomorrah ~ est. # killed: 2000

So you get the idea ~ “Drunk With Blood: God’s Killings in the Bible” quotes verse after verse where God killed the creatures He made in His own image.

When I was a Christian, I generally skimmed over those barbaric killings ~ I figured God must’ve had a reason ~ even if I didn’t get it. Or I would say, “Well, that was the old covenant” Jesus came to be the ultimate sacrifice ~ so Christianity is different.

Quoting @AlmightGod: To most Christians, the Bible is like a software license. Nobody actually reads it. They just scroll to the bottom and click “I agree.”

“Drunk With Blood” includes God’s killings in the New Testament too: Ananias & Sapphira, Herod Aggripa, and of course, Jesus. “God killed his son in order to stop himself from torturing people forever after they die…”

It’s impossible to see all God’s killings ~ clearly enumerated ~ chapter & verse ~ & not conclude that the bible God is EVIL.

So here’s the thing ~ for all the talk about God being LOVE & the value of human life ~ the bible God relishes the death of His enemies … and He also glories in the deaths of his chosen people (martyrs get a crown) and even His own Son!

As a former Quiverfull believer, I saw this devaluing of human life ~ esp. for women ~ for mothers who risk their lives producing “arrows for God’s army” (See Kathryn Joyce, Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement) Mary Pride ~ a Quiverfull leader, says that women who die in childbirth are to be honored as martyrs! Quiverfull moms who die in childbirth are just so much collateral damage in the war for the advancement of God’s kingdom.

After reading “Drunk With Blood” I am not at all surprised when I think of the callous attitude re: maternal deaths among the “pro-life” and “pro-family” ~ biblical family values camp.

I used to identify with Job ~ “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” was my life verse ~ ugh! I feel betrayed by this “Creator!” I was willing to die for Him ~ yet, the bible God thinks nothing of wholesale slaughter of men, women, children. What the hell was I thinking? Such a monster God is unworthy of my devotion & self-sacrifice.

And my oldest daughter ~ she very well could have become another victim of this Killer God ~ as a “Quivering daughter” (see Hillary McFarland, Quivering Daughters), following His ways drove her to attempt suicide.

When God says, Love me & serve me or burn forever ~ that’s not a choice ~ that’s an ultimatum.

Thanks, Steve Wells for “Drunk With Blood: God’s Killings in the Bible” ~ this book is an awesome contribution to HUMAN SANITY!!

What if God hates Quiverfull? How would Jim Bob & Michelle know?

by Vyckie @ No Longer Quivering

In the latest issue of People magazine, Jim Bob & Michelle Duggar say they are ready to consider a 20th child.

The only thing that surprises me about this statement is the fact that Michelle is not already pregnant ~ I was predicting that she’d make an announcement when she received that “Mother of the Year” award at Vision Forum’s Baby Conference last month.

Since writing the latest NLQ FAQ: Which of Your Kids Would You Rather Had Never Been Born?, I have been thinking more about confirmation bias and Quiverfull.

Specifically, I wonder, “What if God hates Quiverfull ~ what could He do to communicate His disapproval of prolific and indiscriminate reproduction to the Duggars, who claim to be “following [their] convictions”?

Let me explain what I mean.

When I first began to hear about the Quiverfull conviction of trusting the Lord with my family planning ~ leaving my reproductive life completely in His capable hands ~ I convinced my (ex)husband, Warren to have a vasectomy reversal. The surgery was successful and I immediately got pregnant ~ confirmation that Quiverfull was indeed God’s will for our family.

Everything that could possibly go wrong during that pregnancy did: gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, polyhydramnios, emergency c-section ~ that’s just the short list ~ the full story was an absolute nightmare.

Afterward, friends and family came to visit me in the hospital and all of them asked, Are you really sure this is what God called you to do?

In trying to explain to myself how that pregnancy ~ in which I had fully trusted in God ~ could go so wrong, I imagined the following scene in Heaven:

God to Satan: Have you considered my servant, Vyckie? She is completely faithful to me ~ even risking her life to be obedient to My calling.

Satan: Well, of course Vyckie serves You and loves You ~ look at all You have done for her ~ You’ve blessed her beyond measure. Take away Your protection and blessing ~ and watch her curse You to Your face!

God to Satan: No ~ Vyckie would never deny Me ~ “Though He slay me” is her life verse. Go ahead ~ check it out ~ do your worst ~ only don’t kill her ~ and see how she continues to love Me.

So it was a test ~ and God obviously was so pleased with my sincere and wholehearted devotion to Him ~ He had me in the same category as Righteous Job, in whom He had full confidence. This to me was confirmation that Quiverfull was indeed God’s will for our family.

Baby number five was born at home ~ an almost unheard of HBA4C (home birth after 4 cesareans ~ Google that and see how many stories come up besides mine ~ none that I know of) ~ obviously, I had proven myself faithful in being willing to conceive again even after coming so close to death with my previous pregnancy that I actually felt my spirit being sucked down that long black tunnel that you hear about. And now, God was blessing me with my first vaginal delivery ~ a victorious home birth! Wow ~ of course, this was confirmation that Quiverfull was indeed God’s will for our family.

Many good things happened in our family life during our Quiverfull years. We started a “pro-life, pro-family” newspaper which grew into a profitable business/ministry which supported our growing family quite comfortably. The governor of Nebraska presented us with the 2003 “Family of the Year” award at the Nebraska Family Council’s Salt & Light banquet. We were able to have our home remodeled ~ completing our full basement and adding an extra bathroom and two more bedrooms. All these blessings were confirmation that Quiverfull was indeed God’s will for our family.

When my seventh pregnancy ended in an emergency c-section due to partial uterine rupture ~ the doctor recommended that I never get pregnant again. However ~ he did not perform a hysterectomy ~ so I still had my uterus ~ how could I know what the Lord wanted me to do with it? “Seems to me that God’s made it very clear what He wants,” the doctor told me. But to me, it wasn’t clear at all. If God wanted me to stop having babies ~ He could have arranged it so that I did not have any choice about it. Obviously, He wanted me to continue to trust Him.

About that time, things were getting more and more overwhelming and intense at home ~ Warren’s personality disintegrated to the point that he was driving us all crazy ~ I could not keep up with the homeschooling or the home business ~ Angel was in Nashville, involuntarily committed to the psych ward after a failed suicide attempt ~ during this time, I constantly had a mental image in my head of a huge black and white target on the roof of our home ~ all our efforts to advance the Kingdom of God had caught The Enemy’s attention and now we were in the midst of his evil frontal assault. Naturally, this was confirmation that Quiverfull was indeed God’s will for our family.

So here’s the deal:

As a Quiverfull believer, whenever anything that could be considered good or positive happened in my life ~ I took it as proof that I was doing right and therefore, God was blessing me.

Conversely, whenever anything occurred which wasn’t so great ~ trials, tragedies, hardships ~ these I considered as evidence that I was doing right and therefore, Satan was upset and he was determined to make me regret having chosen the Quiverfull path.

Either way ~ I *knew* beyond a shadow of a doubt that my Quiverfull ideals were God’s will for me.

I see that same confirmation bias in Jim Bob and Michelle’s recent statements with regard to their conviction to trust the Lord with their family planning.

“Our family is stronger than ever,” Jim Bob, 45, tells PEOPLE in its new issue. “We made it through the storm.”

So here’s what I’d like to ask Quiverfull believers: What if God hates Quiverfull? What if He’s embarrassed by the poor witness to “the World” which only sees irresponsible and narcissistic parents building their own little fiefdoms? What if God thinks Quiverfullers put too much emphasis on the “be fruitful and multiply” part of the Dominion Mandate and not enough on stewardship and “tending the garden”? What if God (gasp!) actually values women for more than just their ability to get pregnant and have babies? What if the Lord cares about little baby Josie ~ and wants her to have all the benefits of her mother’s loving, undivided attention? What if God wanted to tell the Duggars to stop?

What could He do to get His message across?

Obviously, preeclampsia and a micro-preemie baby didn’t convince them ~ in fact, the challenges seem to have strengthened their determination to follow their Quiverfull beliefs.

“People think we are overpopulating the world,” says Jim Bob. “We are following our convictions.”

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TLC’s 19 Kids & Counting: The Duggar Family on How To Prepare For Courtship & Marriage

by hopewell for No Longer Quivering

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“Helpmeet” is such an odd-sounding word to modern ears! But it resonates well in the lingo of the King James Bible. Girls born to Quiverfull families begin their training for the life’s calling as a Helpmeet [aka wife and homemaker] almost at birth.

Girls are born for one and only one reason: to serve a husband. In that capacity, as his helpmeet, she will bear and raise his children, feed as many children as God sends on whatever income he earns, may raise a garden and animals or run a home-based business [with his approval], may home birth and will certainly homeschool all of her children.

Becoming a successful, multi-tasking helpmeet is not something you just “do.” Something that important cannot be left to chance. The training starts almost at birth with “child training.” Moms have a number of helpful “ministries” to turn to for child training guidance. For infants and toddlers two of the best known are Ezzo and the Pearls—both of whom are very controversial to the secular world. We’ll briefly look at each.

Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo developed the popular and often criticized programs “Babywise” and “Growing Kids God’s Way.” As with any program there IS some good and helpful information as well as a lot that many people find abhorrent. “Babywise” teaches new parents to adhere to rigid schedules and rules for bedtime, breast feeding on a parent-friendly schedule and bedtime rigidly enforced with few, if any, interactions with parents after “lights out” no matter the tone of the child’s cry.

“Growing Kids God’s Way” is a huge undertaking for parents. Both parents must attend each session and both must complete weekly homework. This program met tremendous success in conservative churches and megachurches during the late 90s and on. [They also do offer a single-parent version now.] Parents are taught to take back their lives by having a parent-centered, rather than child-centered home. [For the gist of the controversies see www.ezzo.info, but please note this IS a biased site.]

Michael and Debi Pearl of “No Greater Joy Ministries” are some of the most controversial child training advocates in the world today. Several deaths have occurred in homes following the Pearls advice. [NOTE: I am NOT saying in any way that the Pearls are responsible for the deaths, just that the parents were known to follow their methods.]

Their book, To Train Up a Child, advocates corporal punishment to a degree seldom seen today. The idea is to compel instant, willing and cheerful obedience at all times from even the youngest children. Failure to comply results in physical punishment. Parents are taught that children are born with a sinful nature and that they must begin early to “train” the child in the “way he should go” as is taught in Proverbs 22:6. Therefore, it is appropriate to even “chastise” babies with a switch—even one made of plumbing supply line. Parents are told

“Training does not necessarily require that the trainee be capable of reason…”[Pearl & Pearl, Chapter 1.]

With this background in mind we can now try to piece together the “training” of a future helpmeet. In her infancy the girl we will call “Jerusha Faith” may be enticed with a toy and swatted for reaching for it. She may be fed only when Mama says and not when her tummy says she is truly empty and hungry. She may be left in the throes of colicky insomnia to cry it out alone for hours on end. In short, she is learning, like a Nun, to deny her “self.”[Note: it is important to remember that ALL families are different not all my use these practices and some may even agree with the critics!]

This dying to self will include seemly innocuous phrases like the one the Duggar family uses which is summed up by the acronym “JOY”—Jesus First, Others Second, Yourself LAST. (Duggar family website, FAQ) Even in infancy little Jerusha Faith is learning that she is not important as herself. She is merely important when she is doing the will of her authority figures—in this stage her parents.

As she grows older, should she dare to be “wayward” in any way she can expect to be chastised with the rod or, in more humane families, may be “tomato staked” meaning she is expected to stay right with Mama and do only what she is told to do for a set period of time.

The next stage of training begins at about school age. It can be summed up as “the cult of character.” For Quiverfull families, like the Duggars, who belong to Bill Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute homeschooling program, “Character” will be the focus of education throughout the school years. Jerusha Faith and her siblings will likely take 3 complete trips thru the famous “Wisdom Booklets” which teach each of the Gothard-defined character qualities. So much focus is placed on these qualities that other educational subjects are often severely neglected. Some mothers are more creative in this training than others and one book they may use to enhance creativity is Marilyn Boyer’s Fun Projects for Hands-On Character Building.

For girls one character quality receives even greater emphasis begining just before puberty: Virtue or Purity. Beginning with books such as “The Princess and the Kiss” by Jennie Bishop:

“On the day she came into the world, the royal couple gave their daughter a very special gift from God—her first kiss” (Bishop, 1999, p. 2).

From that moment on she will be surrounded with an odd mixture of encouragement and suspicion all aimed at keeping her not only technically a virgin, but totally untouched by any man’s hands or lips until her wedding day. [Of course, her Father may kiss her….]

Some families may have their Jerusha Faith and her Father participate in a Purity Ball. Her father will accept her promise to remain pure and give her a “purity ring” as a reminder of her promise. Her mother may do a study with her (and possibly other like-minded mothers and daughters) of Stacy McDonald’s book “Raising Maidens of Virtue” . Mrs. McDonald cautions parents that“certain yearnings [can be] awakened too early [and] can cause all kinds of temptations and trouble.” (McDonald, pp. 161-162). This study teaches girls the importance of her “purity:”

Part of your [parents'] responsibility to God and TO YOU is to guard your purity and insure you are faithful to your future husband EVEN NOW…..Emotional purity involves saving your romantic feelings for your husband…You will be able to offer him your WHOLE HEART on your wedding day—not just bits and pieces that are left. (McDonald, p. 162) [emphasis added]

McDonald also cautions girls not to read romance novels which may lure them into fantasizing about a “perfect husband” (McDonald, p. 162), citing Hebrews 13:5 which reads in part “and be content with such things as ye have….”

On her own, or with a sister or mother, Jerusha Faith may read Beautiful Girlhood—a classic for Chrisitan girls. Her parents may, however, remove or censor some material in Karen Adreola’s revision of this book since it advocates completing your education and being able to support yourself and a family if the need should arise later in life as well as the chapter about boys.

A little later in her teens, just before courtship “season,” Jerusha Faith may be found reading “Before You Meet Your Prince Charming”—a book recommended to elementary school children by one of the Duggar girls.(“18 Kids and Counting,” TLC, “School Daze” episode. See Youtube for complete episode.) Her parents may allow her to read specially written “courtship stories,” such as those written by the Castleberry family, which emphasize parental approval, waiting on God and trusting the Lord and your father. Mostly, this pre-courtship and courtship phase will be spent as a daughter “at home” serving her own father in any way she can. [See: Return of the Daughters (check Youtube) and So Much More by the Botkin Sisters.

With her character trained, her mind directed to thoughts of others and her purity guarded what’s left for Jerusha Faith to do? Plenty! While still in diapers, she will begin learning to help with simple household chores. She will definitely have chores to do almost from the moment she learns to walk. Like Mrs. Duggar, her mother may use the Managers of Her Home or Managers of Her School to schedule her day and may pin a Chore Pack on her children to remind them to be diligent in doing their chores!

Naturally, all of these chores can be “supplemented” with corrective chastisement as necessary. Jerusha Faith will need to model cheerful, willing, and immediate obedience to her siblings—some of whom she may be assigned to help with their own chores or with other tasks like getting dressed. By early elementary school she will be very experienced in the care of infants and toddlers thanks to her mother’s need for help and the consistent arrival of new siblings.

About the time she is in her “tween” years Jerusha Faith will be expected to begin formally learning the housekeeping tasks, social skills and other practical knowledge she will need as her future husband’s helpmeet and mother of his children.

While it is important to remember that all families are different, one popular “program” for training girls and teens in these skills centers on Ann Ward’s huge Training Our Daughters to Be Keepers At Home. Ward, who styles herself “Mrs. Craig (Ann) Ward,” on the title page offers a Ph.d. in housekeeping, practical nursing, child care, practical handcrafts and much more.

Each of the SEVEN years of this program has a very strong spiritual development component—usually featuring a classic Christian book. (For supplemental materials see the Unofficial Training Our Daughters web site.) Should Jerusha Faith marry a missionary to the 3^rd world or a backwoods homesteader, once she graduates from Ward’s program she is good to go—even free birthing her own child if necessary. This book uses the “holy grail” of cookbooks—the Sue Gregg whole grain books which fueled the “grind your own wheat” to bake your own bread movement among right-wing Christian families.

Jerusha Faith is now ready for the next stage in life—the ultimate stage—marriage and motherhood. She and her parents will be reviewing Mrs. McDonald’s advice to be sure she is “ready:”

…be well prepared for your groom when he comes. He will find you well-equipped to your position has his honored helpmate with your lantern filled, radiating purity. You will ease into motherhood with confidence, grace and an eager desire to serve. And, if you continue in your diligence serving here at home, you will be a much more organized and prepared homemaker….” (McDonald, p. 163)

During her years as a daughter at home, Jerusha Faith will be a sort-of “helpmeet in training” for her father. Non-quiverful, non-Patriarchal families often find this very odd—after all Dad has a wife. She will run errands, provide child care, do chores, plan and cook meals, help on the farm or in her father’s business if appropriate. If her father approves she may even start a home-based business. Basically she is to “serve” her family in any way she can—Jesus First, Others Second, Yourself forgotten by this time in her life. (See the Botkin Sisters, above, or blogs such as Firmly Fixed on the Father or Aspiring Homemaker.)

Finally the day Jerusha Faith and her parents have been praying for: God has sent the man who wants to marry her! With her father’s blessing, the courtship can begin. It will likely be long and --rarely, if ever, will the couple be alone. One of the foundational books of the movement, A Full Quiver by Rick and Jan Hess sets the tone of what Dad will be looking for in a future son-in-law:

Strive to build Christian discipline and habits before marriage…..Another thing, especially for men, finish your education and training as as much as God allows, get established in your law firm, assembly line or home business, then get hitched to your sweetie” (Hess & Hess, 1990, p.) 137

A Godly man who is able to fully support not only a wife but a rapidly growing family are the only men who need apply for Jerusha Faith’s hand. Whether she likes the man or not, or has even met him, is not always very important—she is to trust God and her father in this matter. She will spend time in prayer as will her parents who have been praying about this man since her birth. It may be at this time, too, that she fully learns the “facts of life” and what will be expected of her in marriage.

Let’s leave Jerusha Faith for now and see what went on in a real Quiverfull Courtship—that of Joshua Duggar and his wife, Anna. The Duggars, as a Quiverfull and Patriarchal family, view their family in terms of a chain of command with God at the top and the father of the family as the “head” of the family. Bill Gothard’s ATI &IBLP teaches this as the father’s “umbrella of authority” over his family.

The use of an umbrella to symbolize protection is commonly understood and accepted. In the insurance industry, an overall coverage of protection is referred to as an “umbrella policy.” In the Bible, similar symbols teach the concepts of provision, protection, headship, and leadership.

The use of this symbol in relation to the family is to give special encouragement to fathers to protect, instruct, lead, and provide for their wives, sons, and daughters. (http://billgothard.com/bill/teaching/authority)

When Joshua Duggar, met Anna Keller in a concession stand line at an ATI-homeschool event, he felt sure that she was “the one” God had chosen for him. He “knew” because he had been taught since childhood to be on the lookout the future wife God hand-picked for him.

I was taught to wait for God’s best in my life partner. But as time went along and I grew older it was harder to keep my heart only for the one that God had for my life partner. (Josh and Anna Duggar blog)

Josh spoke to his father about courting and was first counseled to pray, to listen carefully to God to be sure he was hearing God’s message correctly. After a visit by the Keller family to the Duggar home, Anna’s father asked her if there was any one man God was leading her to. Was she called to be someone’s wife? When she said she thought it was Josh, her father agreed. After the visit, Josh too, told his father he was sure. This resulted in a “virtual” courtship—supervised phone calls or Skype calls etc. Anna remembers her parents’ teachings on courtship:

Like Joshua I was raised in a Christian home, and my parents encouraged me to save my whole heart & purity for the one that God had for me. As a young girl, my parents told me that it was normal to have desires & thoughts, but that it was my responsibility to commit my future to the Lord and trust God to lead me in His timing. (Josh and Anna Duggar blog)

On their show, and in their book, Jim-Bob and Michelle and their children return time and again to the discussion of not giving “pieces of your heart” away by dating. Choosing a spouse is the single most important thing after accepting the Salvation of Jesus Christ.

The Duggars teach their children to “guard their heart” in many ways. Courtship, not dating is one such way. Another is being very careful of the images and words the put into their brain. Limiting TV and Internet, and parental approval of reading material and music are another way the children are taught to “guard their hearts.”

Not being alone with a member of the opposite sex and only very limited touch is a very visible way of keeping pure. The Duggar children were also encouraged not to think “wrong thoughts” –which Joshua confesses was as hard for him as for any other young man. (Josh and Anna Duggar blog) As parents Jim-Bob and Michelle take time to help their children deal with such thoughts and encourage them with Scripture and prayer. (20 and Counting by Jim-Bob and Michelle Duggar and the Duggar family website and TLC’s 19 Kids and Counting).

Like most Quiverfull couples, Josh and Anna had a longer courtship than their engagement, the thinking being that courtship is “getting to know you” and engagement is “all but married” so “temptations” come into play and must be fought off. During this time Josh focused on becoming a provider. On TV we were shown how they re-did an old rental house to live in and how Josh was developing a used car sales lot to support them. Another difference between the Duggar courtship and other even more Conservative families was when Josh proposed to Anna he was allowed to slip the engagement ring onto Anna’s hand himself. This is not always the case. Since the ring symbolizes the coming “transfer of authority” over the young woman from her father to her husband-to-be [and is only final at the wedding] the father sometimes places the ring on the woman’s finger (see the blog Kristina’s Keepsakes).

More from Hopewell:

A FULL QUIVER OF INFORMATION [my information only site]http://quiverfullmyblog.wordpress.com/
Personal Blog http://hopewellmomschoolreborn.blogspot.com/

A follow-up to:

Extremist “Pro-Life Group Consigns Quiverfull Moms to Die

In the name of “Right to Life” mega-moms like Michelle Duggar could lose their lives

Following the previous post about Vision Forum’s plans to advance their thesis that surgical treatment for a tubal pregnancy before the confirmed death of an unborn baby is the ethical equivalent of elective abortion, several insightful questions have been presented in different areas around the blogosphere including the NLQ Forum. They are worth noting.

The discussion raised some interesting questions about the actual risk (morbidity and mortality) related to ectopic pregnancy as weighed against the chance of a non-tubal ectopic pregnancy producing a live birth. Refer to this HERE at Under Much Grace which includes some great diagrams and statistics from sources including the CDC and Lancet.

Most notably, ectopic pregnancy accounts for 6-9% of all maternal deaths in the US. Assuming that these statistics also apply to other developed countries and those countries that do not provide state-of-the-art care to their citizens, this translates to a rough single year death rate 25,000 worldwide (in 2008 based on Lancet’s estimate) due to ectopic pregnancy.

And the odds of a baby from non-tubal ectopic pregnancy surviving the pregnancy? One in 60 million. That means that worldwide (assuming a general birthrate of 134 million annually for the past 30 years), only one such birth occurs every 6.7 years, based on a now current and somewhat stable global birth rate.

Vision Forum will laud one baby every 7 years while 25,000 mothers die in one year? Hmmm.

This information out of Lancet and from the CDC paints quite a different picture than Samaritan Ministry’s publications when they reproduced Vision Forum’s new dogma. (I think Vyckie’s karma ran over their dogma!)

Is it worth speaking out on behalf of women with ectopic pregnancy, even if it risks the downplay of the significance of the rare live births that result from viable ectopic pregnancies? What will the liberals say?

(I think that they will respect those who are trying to hold their own groups accountable. Liberals think we are hypocrites when we ignore our own problems while pointing out theirs! And they’re right to think so.)

What connection does the Schatz Family have to Vision Forum’s decree regarding ectopic pregnancy?

I believe that both issues point out Evangelical Christianity’s avoidant behavior regarding provocative issues that are not easily understood, are unpleasant, and might result in a loss of contributions from people who think it is unchristian to confront error. Rather than engage the serious natures of both these dilemmas, most ministries have completely ignored the matter. Rather than showing Christian compassion to what I am told is a fringe group that doesn’t equate to a “significant demographic,” suffering people who are precious to God are thrown away like so much inconvenient trash.

“Here’s the thing about the Schatz’s–they weren’t a crazy family. They were right there in the mainstream of QF, doing exactly what the Pearls’ book told them to do–to keep “switching” the defiant child until her will was broken and she submitted. They interpreted her cries as defiance, since she wasn’t “whimpering” like the Pearls tell you to expect. All their Christian friends liked them and considered Mrs. Schatz to be a gentle, kind, loving mother. . .

But since the Pearls’ advice is abusive and not Christian at all, a lot of children are severely harmed by it. And a few are going to die, until we get the word out there that it’s an awful book that should be thrown out and never followed. Lydia will not be the last victim, unless conservative Christians rise up and throw the Pearls out of their midst.

The real kicker about the Pearls and their ilk is that if you believe them, you–loving, well-socialized, reasonable you–will accidentally beat your child to death out of love and duty.”

Why is this decree such a big revelation?

This has been the unspoken and understood message within the ranks of the group from the beginning because birthing conveys spiritual blessing as if it were a sacrament.

Manipulative groups that use spiritually abusive tactics have two sets of rules: the Formal Doctrinal Statements and the “Unwritten, Understood Rules” that are conveyed through rhetoric, propaganda technique, and social pressure/proof. This example demonstrates the rare transposition of a provocative vaguely implied rule into a formal one. (Cultic groups generally avoid making direct and definitive statements.)

In the name of “Right to Life” mega-moms like Michelle Duggar could lose their lives

@No Longer Quivering 

Editors note: There is a growing subculture of extreme fundamentalist Christians who eschew all forms of birth control.  “Quiverfull” women typically give birth to a half a dozen or more children.

In June of 2008, Vision Forum posed the following question from their Witherspoon School of Law and Public Policy on its website: “If abortion is the murder of a human being, is it biblical to oppose all abortions?” The organization addressed this topic in a series of blog posts on the matter, determining definitively that tubal ectopic pregnancy did not justify surgery to remove the fatally compromised fetus along with a pregnant woman’s fallopian tube.

Despite the medical fact that tubal pregnancies prove to be fatal to the fetus in all cases, the Vision Forum group determined that any surgery which ends any ectopic pregnancy to rescue the mother constitutes an elective abortion, unequivocally qualifying as a utilitarian decision which amounts to the murder of the already terminal fetus. The group also improperly downplayed the incidence, morbidity, and mortality associated with tubal pregnancy.

Though the Catholic Pro-Life position supports surgical intervention in the case of tubal pregnancy to save the mother, Vision Forum’s dangerous position continues to spread throughout sectors within the Evangelical Christian community.

Samaritan Ministries, a Christian medical needs-sharing ministry that provides an alternative to “third party payment” medical insurance that is not subject to laws governing the medical insurance industry, republished Vision Forum’s position in their materials ostensibly as a moral imperative. Samaritan Ministries ambiguously suggests that such care might be an expense that their organization would refuse to cover, potentially qualifying as a condition that involves unethical behavior.

Per the ministry’s policy and the subscriber’s agreement, the group denies payment for treatment of any conditions resulting from sinful behavior (e.g., sexually transmitted disease, substance abuse recovery, etc.). Vulnerable subscribers may potentially be rendered without coverage if their physicians opt for early treatment.

By capitalizing on fear and distortion through undue influence, Samaritan Ministry’s stance complicates the medical decision-making process for affected families, delaying appropriate care at best or precluding care at worst.

Vision Forum seeks to advance this position on ectopic pregnancy as well as their views on corporal punishment for children through the vehicle of their “Baby Conference” in July in San Antonio.

Dan Becker, President of Georgia Right to Life was invited to speak, falsely suggesting that all state and national level Right to Life Organizations also share Vision Forum’s views. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar (natural parents of 19 children of the TLC/Discovery show) have also been invited to the conference to participate as keynote speakers and receive an award.

The group also plans to address spanking, likely as damage control following the recent death of Lydia Schatz who died as a consequence of the stringent corporal punishment methods that are staggeringly popular among the group’s following. Presumably, Vision Forum seeks to capitalize upon the notoriety of the Duggar Family to surreptitiously advance both of these agendas.

Though EthicsDaily.com reported on this issue of ectopic pregnancy in August of 2008, not one Evangelical Christian Pro-Life or Biomedical Organizations agreed to make any public statements specifically confronting Vision Forum or Samaritan Ministries regarding their views about ectopic pregnancy.

Cynthia Mullen Kunsman, RN, BSN, MMin , ND

http://www.undermuchgrace.com/

(Discussing the phenomenon of Spiritual Abuse in Evangelical Churches)

Not raising your kids to be narrow-minded hyper fundamentalist right-wing theocratic Christians?

What the heck’s the matter with you?!!

by Vyckie Garrison @ No Longer Quivering

Quiverfull believers are generally pretty easy to spot ~ they’re the submissive ladies in denim jumpers with half a dozen or more stair-step, kids ~ all of whom are clean-cut and perfectly obedient. They do not use any form of birth control, they deliver their babies at home, they homeschool, homechurch, practice “courtship” rather than dating, ~ all with the ultimate goal of raising up a quiver full of “arrows for the war.”

At first glance, the average, fair-minded person will view large, homeschooling Quiverfull families such as the Duggars of TLC’s “19 & Counting” with tolerance ~ perhaps a bit of headshaking or maybe even amusement. With women’s reproductive choice as the primary guiding principle, it seems reasonable to think, “Such a demanding lifestyle might not be for me ~ but if that’s what works for them …”

Shrug.

Live and let live, you know?

As a former Quiverfull adherent, let me tell you that these fundamentalist women are not nearly so generous in their views with regard to the chosen lifestyle and motives of those who are not “like-minded.” Here are 10 lies I believed about “worldly parents”:

1) Worldly parents only have one kid ~ two at the most (and sometimes none at all ~ gasp!) because they are selfish and lazy and cannot be bothered with the responsibilities of parenthood.

2) Worldly parents send their kids to public school because they have been duped into turning their kids over to be brainwashed by secular humanism in Satan’s government-run indoctrination centers.

3) Worldly women only care about chasing after Mammon and earthly glory so they waste their lives making greedy men (to whom they are not even married) rich by their labor ~ which technically makes them whores.

4) Worldly parents indulge their kids and refuse to train them to be “instantly, joyously obedient” and to honor their fathers because they are guilt-ridden for not caring enough about their kids to spend a quantity of quality time with them.

5) Worldly mothers are eager to hand their kids over to minimum wage-earning daycare workers who don’t give a rat’s ass about their precious children so they can spend their time shopping, getting their nails done and working out to keep their bodies “hott” for their worldly husbands who only love them superficially.

6) Worldly mothers are clueless about nutrition and growing healthy bodies ~ that is why they only feed their kids pre-packaged junk food. They are more concerned about their kids being popular and “well-rounded” (read: worldly) than they are about their health ~ which is why worldly moms pick up dinner at the McDonald’s drive-thru on their way to soccer practice or dance class almost every night of the week.

7) Worldly parents park their kids in front of the electronic babysitter for 5 or 6 hours every day so they can sit on their butts in front of the computer watching pornography because they don’t care if their kids’ minds atrophy and they are glad to have their little brats’ heads filled with ideas for cheap plastic Disney toys which they will pitch a fit in Wal-Mart and demand their parents buy as bribes or guilt-offerings.

Worldly parents have learned nothing from the shame and degradation of their own promiscuous dating relationships which is why they believe “comprehensive sex education” will protect their kids from STDs and broken hearts more than insisting on abstinence.

9) Worldly fathers have no idea what a dangerous place our society can be for women. They allow their wives and daughters to wear pants or mini-skirts or show cleavage, expose bare shoulders, etc ~ totally shirking their responsibility as men to protect their women from getting raped.

Worldly men whose wives dress immodestly are most likely porn addicts.

10) Worldly parents consider their parenting job a success if their kids make it to adulthood without getting raped, killed, drug or alcohol addicted, or committing suicide. Any good thing beyond that is just icing on the cake.

BONUS: Christian parents who use birth control, do not homeschool, homebirth and run a cottage industry, own a television, send their kids to Sunday School rather than keeping the family together for worship, allow their kids to date or have sleepovers, don’t grow their own vegis and grind their own wheat for bread, or who are okay with the wife wearing makeup or pants or working outside the home ~ are actually Worldly Parents ~ they probably aren’t even really saved and are only using church as a social club with no membership fees.

This post was prompted by a Facebook status update from an old high-school acquaintance, who has no connection to Quiverfull ~ he wrote:

One major problem with our society is that parents are raising boys and girls. They are supposed to be raising MEN and WOMEN!

When I read it, I thought, Wow ~ a person doesn’t have to be Quiverfull to be convinced that every other parent is ignorant and lazy and they’re doing it wrong!! Here’s what I wrote in response:

Another major problem with our society is that we judge one another and make presumptions about what awful failures others must be in order to feel superior and mask our own feelings of inadequacy.

I say, parents are doing our damnedest to raise sons and daughters to the best of our abilities. The deck is stacked against us and the odds are not in our favor. Nevertheless, very few of us throw in our hands and walk away from the table ~ instead we play out the game with the cards we’ve been dealt.

Later … sometimes much later, we are pleasantly surprised to realize that our kids are the winners.

“As the world lauds barrenness for economic and personal convenience … we purpose to celebrate life” ~ Doug Phillips

[Be sure to watch the video here.]

by Vyckie @ No Longer Quivering

The Quiverfull folks at Vision Forum are gearing up for their Baby Conference: A Historic Family Summit on the Triumph of Life Over the Culture of Death to be held in San Antonio, Texas this coming July. According to conference promotional material:

As the world lauds barrenness for economic and personal convenience and marginalizes the value of our aging populace, we purpose to celebrate life and to explore a myriad of practical and theological issues that are pertinent to Christian families of the twenty-first century, such as: adoption, home birth, the coming cry for euthanasia on the horizon as our elderly generation increases, and the many blessings that come from raising children in the fear of the Lord.

One of the highlights of the Baby Conference will be a special “Ladies Tea Time” in which Michelle Duggar will be presented with a Mother of the Year award for “her heroic example to millions as a role model of Christian motherhood and her defense of life.”

As a former Quiverfull “mom of many” ~ I have to say that what Michelle modeled for me was an incredibly high standard of Christian motherhood.

She inspired me with a vision of what a wonderful testimony my own family could be as I gave over my reproductive life into the Lord’s capable hands and trusted in Him to strengthen and empower me to raise up the children He blessed me with to be dedicated, faithful, on-fire Christians willing and able to do mighty exploits in the ever-intensifying battle against the advancing forces of darkness in this sin-sick nation.

Michelle made the whole big-happy-homeschool-family-living-for-Jesus picture of submissive helpmeet and prolific motherhood seem not only incredibly attractive ~ but fairly straightforward, uncomplicated … and doable.

All it takes are some basic administrative skills: organization, time management, delegation … plus, a biblical child-training program … and character education ~ to be sure the children are also inspired to cooperate … um, what else? a piano teacher? Too bad we couldn’t afford ATI ~ but if that had been truly necessary, surely the Lord would have moved us to Texas and provided more money (a lot more money).

We’d need to have God’s blessing, of course ~ but not to worry: with our wholehearted dedication to the Lord and unwavering adherence to the principles which He was revealing to us through the Word of God ~ as long as we were in His will ~ God’s blessing was pretty much guaranteed.

Having God’s blessing meant that whatever we lacked in competency, ability, health, time, money, etc. ~ the Lord would make up for so long as we remained faithful to His calling.

Isn’t that what the verse promises, after all? Blessed is the man who has his quiver full of them? So how could we go wrong? Surely, if Michelle could do it with her mega-family ~ I could do it with “only seven” arrows in our quiver.

In the Quiverfull economy, “heroic Christian motherhood” simply means producing an abundance of children ~ trust the Lord, have babies ~ then keep on trusting that He’ll take care of the rest.

What I found out after investing over a dozen years, plenty of money(I’d have thought nothing of forkng out the Baby Conference admission price of $85 per individual), every ounce of my energy ~ not to mention, my whole heart, mind, body and strength ~ is that the Quiverfull lifestyle is a perfect set up for child neglect.

The truth is, there is absolutely NO WAY that one woman can be a decent ~ let alone good or exemplary ~ mother to so many children.

There. I said it. It’s just impossible ~ plain and simple.

In the two-plus years since I left the QF lifestyle ~ I’ve been living off the collateral from all the effort invested in developing organizational skills and my sanity-preserving “gift of delegation.” Much of what I learned (lower your standards, use the crock-pot, etc.) from the Titus 2 ladies has really helped to keep us afloat.

But recently, my health has not been so great (the result of too many pregnancies combined with PTSD has been adding up to frequent episodes of anxiety and depression) ~ and try as I might ~ I can’t keep up ~ and so I’m feeling completely overwhelmed.

So okay ~ I thought, I’ve done this before ~ even adding in homeschooling (which I’m no longer doing) ~ and managed for the most part to keep up. Maybe it might help to do a little refresher course? ~ revisit the QF hints and tips which were so helpful in managing my little flock of “precious lambs” ~ in an effort to find ways of getting a handle on the huge amount of responsibility that comes with having so many children.

The only problem is ~ nearly all that helpful large-family management advice is dependent upon the underlying QF-parenting philosophy ~ which basically amounts to turning your kids into easy-to-control automatons and de facto family servants.

How does Michelle do it?

Truthfully:

The older girls do the cooking. (Question #3)

The older children and their “buddies” do the cleaning. (Question #3)

She relies on “the buddy system” ~ older children care for and teach the younger ones ~ as explained by Jim Bob here:

M. DUGGAR: Yes, it is great, the buddy system. This house would not work if we didn’t have the buddy system. The older children mentor the younger ones. They help them with their little phonics lessons and games during the day, help them practice their music lessons. They will play with them or help them pick out the color of their outfit that they want to wear that day, and just all of those types of things.

(More on the Buddy System here.)

Training her daughters to be keepers at home explains how Michelle manages to feed her brood. (She delegates.) The Buddy System explains how Michelle manages the basics such as hygiene and homeschooling. (She delegates.)

What about the children’s social and emotional needs? As a former QFer, I well remember the way we “moms of many” reassured ourselves with the thought that, while our quiver full of children are undoubtedly denied copious amounts of one-on-one time with Momma ~ the Lord has provided built-in friends and playmates so we could rest assured that our children were still getting plenty of love ~ an abundance of love, in fact ~ from each other.

From Examiner.com: … watch those little details, like Jackson clinging to Jana for comfort after he was lost in the airport (while his parents laugh blithely in the background) or Jennifer crying for Jill whenever she’s upset. You can call it being a buddy all you want — the truth of the matter is that those girls are parenting their little siblings … (Again ~ she delegates.)

“Michelle Duggar is the real deal,” noted Doug Phillips, President of Vision Forum Ministries. “… She is clearly a mother deserving of this award, and we are excited to honor her as ‘Mother of the Year.’”

I disagree.

Consider this: According to the Christian Newswire report, “Jim Bob and Michelle will share their story together, and Michelle will also be hosting a separate Ladies Tea Time, which is close to selling-out in the two weeks since the event was announced.”

Please tell me who is going to be taking care of baby Josie while Michelle is in San Antonio accepting this mothering award and playing Tea Party with fellow QF moms who are privileged with the luxuries of time and money to attend this event?

Seriously. By the time of the Baby Conference in July, micro-preemie, Josie Duggar will only have been home from the hospital for a few months ~ she will need constant care for quite some time to come. Is Michelle planning to delegate that care to the older girls? Is she planning to bring little Josie along?

Michelle’s in-person acceptance of VF’s Mother of the Year award is … is … what? I hesitate to use the “H-word” ~ but, Wow ~ is it ever tempting!

But, of course ~ the show must go on.

Nobody gives Angelina Jolie a mothering award ~ because she pays others to take care of the kids for her. Michelle Duggar does not pay her cooks, housekeepers, private tutors and nannies. I don’t doubt that she has the very best of intentions, but honestly ~ reality dictates that at most, we should recognize her as a superior administrator.

If anyone in the Duggar household is going to receive a “Mother of the Year” award ~ shouldn’t it be the ones doing the majority of the actual mothering ~ that is, the four oldest daughters: Jana, Jill, Jessa, & Jinger?

I suppose the Vision Forum crowd looks at these four young ladies who graciously comply with the Duggar Family vision ~ and concludes that their joyful service is evidence of Michelle’s heroic Christian motherhood.

The rest of us see a handful of beautiful girls and wonder, What the heck?! Where’s all the drama? ‘Cuz you know there ought to be plenty of drama with all these females in the family. There’s something disturbing ~ even alarming ~ and certainly not praiseworthy about the mother of teen girls who don’t push their “buddies” back into Momma’s arms and say, “Take care of your own kids ~ I’ve gotta get ready for my date!”

My thanks to Kathryn Joyce, author of Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement, for bringing the Baby Conference and Michelle’s “Mother of the Year” award to my attention.

As the content of our faith changed, so did our conceptualization of Jesus.  He was no longer a God of love, but a muscle-bound tyrant. … And thus over the gradual course of time we became foot soldiers in a zombie-army, doing the political bidding of our Christian Right masters…

by Jonathan W. Rice for No Longer Quivering

Recently I was looking at a thread on a Web forum for women who’d escaped from the Quiverfull/Christian Patriarchy (QF/CP) movement. For those unfamiliar with QF/CP, it’s a faction within fundamentalist Christianity, some of whose proponents are Doug Phillips of Vision Forum, Mary Pride, R.C. Sproul, Jr., Voddie Bauchum, and Nancy Campbell.  It’s been popularized by the Duggar family’s TV reality show (they have 19 children at the time of this writing), and made infamous by Rusty Yates who, goaded by a fanatical minister, coerced his clinically psychotic wife Andrea to continue having baby after baby until she finally snapped in June, 2001, drowning her five children in the bathtub of their Houston home. (Rusty went on to remarry and is now siring replacement children.)

The word “Quiverfull” is taken from Psalm 127: 4, 5, which reads:

As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

In a nutshell, the QF/CP movement bans all forms of birth control; families should have “as many children as God gives them.” These children are homeschooled for the most part, in the hopes that they’ll become an army of the Lord’s mighty warriors who, through sheer demographic force, reclaim America for God.  Females are kept in perpetual servitude from earliest childhood, where they are considered the property of their fathers and spend their days caring for younger siblings. When a girl reaches puberty she must pledge her virginity/purity to her father (often in writing).  Once the father finds a suitor to his liking, he transfers his ownership of the young lady to her husband.  Adult women in the movement are not allowed to work outside the home, and usually forbidden to speak in church (obviously, they can never be ordained!).  And based upon a quirky interpretation of an obscure biblical passage (Isaiah 3:12), they are also forbidden to vote.

Lurking beneath the QF/CP lifestyle lies the teachings of R.J. Rushdoony, the leading exponent of a dire and militant form of Calvinism called “Christian Reconstructionism.” In his massive tome Institutes of Biblical Law, he advocated the overthrow of modern democracy, replacing it with a theocratic state in which all the laws of Leviticus are imposed (including the death penalty for disobedient children, adulterers and homosexuals).  Also, as per his reading of the Bible, the theocratic state would reintroduce slavery.  Hard-line QF/CP believers think that creating a population explosion of their own is the most effective means of bringing this dystopic vision to fruition.

In late 2009, I learned that a journalist had written a book about the Quiverfull movement.[1] I ordered the book and also discovered an online forum for survivors and refugees who’d fled from it (No Longer Quivering). As far back as 1989, I’d known several families who fit the description but could never really understand their rationale. I hoped the NLQ forum and the book might shed some light on their beliefs. I was not disappointed.

In mid-February 2010, a thread title on the forum caught my eye: How did you get yourself into this mess? The author, a female refugee from the movement, was wondering how she and so many others could have fallen for it in the first place. After reading it, I again realized how closely the QF/CP movement intersects with mainstream evangelicalism and fundamentalism; and how easily I too could have been recruited, given the wrong circumstances.

How, one may ask, do people get into such a seemingly bizarre religious movement? And how had I (in the past) been in danger of being sucked in myself?

The answer boils down to one simple word: “gradually.”

The substance of my gradual experience, which I’ll summarize here, is the shared story of countless rank & file believers who come under the broad labels “Pentecostal,” “charismatic,” “evangelical,” and “fundamentalist.”

In the beginning, as a teen in the mid 1970s, my cousin, followed by my mother, became born-again Christians. It was really positive in those days: God loves you and has a wonderful plan, and so forth. It was all about having a new life, full of purpose and meaning. A life in which the very Creator of the Universe actually cared about little people like us!

In her adolescent southern California manner, my fourteen-year-old cousin would say, “I used to get high on weed, but now I get high on Jesus!” She gave me a copy of The Way, a hippie-friendly version of The Living Bible, which I actually enjoyed. (At age 15, while terrified and deranged from a drug-trip gone bad, I picked it up and read about 20 pages, after which I felt calm enough to endure the next few hours.)

And the early Jesus-music to which they exposed me (Chuck Girard and others), though not nearly on par with The Grateful Dead or Emerson, Lake & Palmer, still spoke to me in a profound manner.

By the time I finally became a Christian at 17, this was my milieu. Sure, I was exposed to some disturbing signs of things to come at my Christian high school, but neither I nor my new friends shared the views of the newly-founded Moral Majority, which we thought to be vestiges of an old religiosity on the verge of extinction.

It was all really positive in those early, idealistic years. Loving Jesus, hoping to save the world, helping homeless people, having an abundance of real friends who stood with me through thick and thin: it was all good; really good. The song that often brought tears to my eyes in the early days was written by Keith Green immediately upon his conversion (before he’d entered into his extremist phase):

Like waking up from the longest dream

How real it seemed

Until your love broke through

But gradually…

A radio program called Focus on the Family that I used to hear doling out advice to crisis-wracked families, was becoming politicized. Through the show, and then through the warnings of Tim LaHaye and others, I began learning of sinister threats being hatched against us by people called “Secular Humanists.” LaHaye, in a breathless, frenzied spiel, warned of the threat as follows. Humanists, he said:

have been “planted” in strategic places in the United Nations, they teach children in public schools “to read the words scientific humanism as soon as they’re old enough to read,” and 275,000 humanists control the American government, education, and media.[2]

As conspiracy-paranoia mounted, politics in church began to subvert the innocent, Jesus-loving expressions of faith I’d known in the beginning. Our churches started distributing candidates’ score cards in the foyers, telling us to vote accordingly.

And then there was a radio preacher, William Steuart McBirnie, whose Voice of Americanism program daily rehashed senator McCarthy’s and Carl McIntire’s Red Scare fundamentalism, updating it for the mid-1980s. We had much to fear and many to loathe.

Music-wise, instead of hearing to how great it was to know Jesus, I discovered Steve Taylor, who was often promoting Christian Right propaganda in his angry, caustic songs.. Listening to and agreeing with Taylor could make my blood boil, and I heard him frequently; so much so that sixteen years later I can quote lines verbatim from memory—like this one from the 1984 song “Meat the Press”:

When the godless chair the judgment seat

We can thank the godless media elite

They can silence those who fall from their grace

With a note that says, “We haven’t the space.”

After the release of Taylor’s first album in 1983, Francis Schaeffer lavished gushing praise upon him.[3] (Francis, especially through his books How Should We Then Live?, Whatever Happened to the Human Race? and A Christian Manifesto, was the Godfather of the New Christian Right.)  On the album Meltdown, which contains the song Meat the Press, Steve Taylor thanked Francis Schaeffer for his encouragement.*

I met Francis Schaeffer and his son Franky in the spring of 1984, when they spoke at my college (Francis sat in a chair for the few minutes he spoke, being in the final stages of cancer. Two weeks later he died). It was the angry, energetic Franky who took center stage, bashing the “secular media establishment,” the vast Secular Humanist conspiracy, and even the bastion of evangelicalism, Wheaton College, which, he claimed, was compromising in some manner. “If I ever disappear,” he roared in a histrionic fit, “you can find my body buried in the swamps behind Wheaton!” Franky’s rage was contagious, further fueling my anger.

Most cults have a well-planned program for the indoctrination of new recruits, in which they deceitfully hide their more bizarre teachings from seekers (an exoteric/esoteric truth divide). The new convert is only taught the vision piecemeal; gradually gaining deeper (and weirder) knowledge over a period of months or years.

But with us, although it may have appeared that way, it wasn’t exactly so. I later realized I was living in the midst of a drastic change in popular American Christianity. The movement still really was (for the most part) benign when I joined. The resentful loathing was added gradually, not as a planned indoctrination program, but because the church genuinely was in the midst of radical transition during 1980s and ‘90s.

And thus by 1985, my original faith, though still there, was mixed with anger, resentment and fear—a sense of being under siege.

After another few years, the Rev. Don Wildmon, who Max Blumenthal would later describe as “churlish,”[4] started telling us to boycott Mennon Speed Stick deodorant because it was advertised on a TV show which he, and therefore God, didn’t approve of.

Then, in 1990, James Dobson openly began using the language of civil war: “Nothing short of a great Civil War of Values rages today throughout North America. Two sides with vastly differing and incompatible world views are locked in a bitter conflict that permeates every level of society.”[5] Whether the timing of Dobson’s drum beating was cunning or just plain lucky, I don’t know. But it certainly was fortuitous. In September of that same year, PBS aired its nine-episode Civil War series, the most popular program in the network’s history. As Entertainment Weekly’s Albert Kim recalls, “The Civil War mesmerized 38.9 million viewers, upsetting the networks’ fall premieres.”[6] Or as Dave McCoy, in the official Amazon.com review puts it:

While [Ken] Burns is a historian, a researcher, and a documentarian, he’s above all a gifted storyteller, and it’s his narrative powers that give this chronicle its beauty, overwhelming emotion, and devastating horror…Burns allows us not only to relearn and finally understand our history, but also to feel and experience it.[7]

Due to the gripping popularity of the series, it mattered not whether one was an avid history buff or history-illiterate. Freshly burned in the psyches of those who read and heard Dobson’s 1990 Civil War cry were graphic images of America when it was in the throes of its most self-destructive conflict.

Civil War. What a great idea! Brother against brother. A woman against her coworker. Neighbor against neighbor. Divide and conquer. A nation’s unity destroyed. And when all was said and done, Dobson emerged from the fray as the new Republican Kingmaker.

In such a milieu, those negative traits of resentment and fear had become almost central, my original faith being sickly, barely alive and far beneath the surface. We were now in the midst of full-blown culture-war. And all that the churches and Christian mailing list materials were trumpeting was also confirmed by an outside source: The Rush Limbaugh show.

By 1992 I’d made the full transition from a spirituality of awe, joy and wonder to one of hatred, fear and all-around loathing. We Christians were under siege. “They” were taking away our freedoms. “They” had planted Secular Humanist agents in every ‘government school,’ brainwashing the next generation. Not only that, The New Age Movement (painted as a well-organized conspiracy rather than the loosely knit spiritual fad that it was) was out to forge a One World Government and wipe the final vestiges of Christianity from the face of the earth.

Around that time, I heard a song by the excellent alternative Christian rock band, The Swirling Eddies. One of the lines said, “…and it scares me just how angry I have grown.” This was a bit unsettling, but I felt my anger was justified. After all, hadn’t Franky Schaeffer written a book called A Time for Anger?

As the content of our faith changed, so did our conceptualization of Jesus. He was no longer a God of love, but a muscle-bound tyrant. Speaking of the Christian Right in 2009, journalist Max Blumenthal’s following description also summarizes the view of Jesus that was gaining ascendancy among us in the 1990s:

The movement’s Jesus is the opposite of the prince of peace. He is a stern, overtly masculine patriarch charging into the fray with his sword raised against secular foes; he is “the head of a dreadful company, mounted on a white horse, with a double-edged sword, his robe dipped in blood,” according to movement propagandist Steve Arterburn. [Mega-church pastor] Mark Driscoll…stirs the souls of twenty-something evangelical men with visions of “Ultimate Fighting Jesus…”

A portrait of virility and violence, the movement’s omnipotent macho Jesus represents the mirror inversion of the weak men who necessitated his creation. As [Erich] Fromm explained, “the lust for power is not rooted in strength, but in weakness [italics in original]. It is the expression of the individual self to stand alone and live. It is the desperate attempt to gain secondary strength where genuine strength is lacking.” [8]

I knew three Quiverfull families back in those days, though I didn’t yet know the term. Two of them had become discredited in my sight, one badly so. The other had moved far across the country to the Bible Belt, and thus their influence on me was minimal.

But: supposing a well-spoken, polished QF/CP promoter, who in outward appearance had an exemplary life and family, had befriended me then. And supposing this theoretical person had possessed a charismatic personality. Had this happened, I very well could have bought into the QF/CP vision.

The angry and ever-intensifying Christian Right machine had changed our churches into pre-stocked ponds in which QF/CP and other extremists fished. I was one of those pre-stocked fish. I just happened (by no virtue of my own at the time) to always be on the other side of the pond when people like Nancy Campbell, R.C. Sproul Jr., Doug Phillips, et al., went fishing.

That’s why I find it no surprise that so many of the former QF/CP people (like Vyckie Garrison, for example) are so smart and articulate. People don’t join the movement because they’re idiots. On the contrary, they join because they’re thoughtful, intelligent human beings who really care about their country; who are concerned about the kind of world in which their children and grandchildren will live. But these same good qualities became a curse when cunning fascist leaders subtly began to channel them for their ends.

And thus over the gradual course of time—sometimes even a decade—we (both “regular” believers and QF/CP Christians) became foot soldiers in a zombie-army, doing the political bidding of our Christian Right masters.

My desertion from the zombie-army largely came about through some unexpected developments. In 2002, my family and I moved to Colorado Springs where I worked for an evangelical ministry until we left the area in late December, 2007.

As I headed toward Colorado in a U-Haul van, my knowledge of that city was minimal. I knew it was America’s new evangelical Mecca, populated with scores of Christian organizations; and I loved the beautiful Front Range Mountains I’d seen on my visit a month before. But my main source of information was a book I’d read seven years prior, Ted Haggard’s, Primary Purpose: Making It Hard for People to Go to Hell from Your City.[9] In it, I’d read the amazing story of how Haggard and his initially small band of followers had transformed the supposedly pagan, anti-Christian city into God’s own country. Through spiritual mapping (identifying the ruling demons in a given area) and systematic warfare-prayer walks through each neighborhood (in which those demons were expelled from the region, presumably to resettle in Washington state, California, New York and Massachusetts), Colorado Springs was now the godliest place in America: truly a city that was “hard to go to Hell from.”

Or so I thought…

Although the organization that employed me was benign and apolitical, through my involvement with it I was exposed to the other big ministries in the area. Year after year I witnessed countless episodes of hypocrisy and self-congratulatory backslapping amongst Christian Right leaders. I soon felt uneasy amongst people I’d once greatly admired.

The church we attended turned out to be a de facto outpost of the Republican Party, and according to the pastor’s bizarre interpretation of an Isaiah passage, God had foreordained Republican Jesus to defeat Babylonian Saddam Hussein. By 2005, the church was showing a smiling picture of Sam Brownback each Sunday on the large overhead screen. The pastor would then instruct us to stretch forth our hands and pray fervently for him.

Brownback, dubbed “God’s Senator” by Jeff Sharlet, was a near-perfect embodiment of America’s new civil religion. He was a syncretic marvel who could glide effortlessly between his (Fundamentalist) Topeka Bible Church, Roman Catholicism, and a smattering of Orthodox Judaism. One cold winter Sunday, the pastor excitedly told us of the senator’s latest mystical experience: Brownback, the pastor claimed, had just been to Valley Forge with a group of prayer leaders. There, he knelt at the exact spot where George Washington had once famously prayed. While on his knees in the snow, Brownback had received “the spiritual mantle of George Washington,” an anointing which would send him to the Whitehouse in 2008—but only if God’s people prayed long and hard enough.

Growing weary of weekly political rallies, we soon dropped out of the church.

As the Iraq War went sour and the federal deficit went into the trillions under the “godly” Bush, I became increasingly disillusioned. Then came wave upon wave of varied Republican scandals; so many that they soon became an endless blur in my mind, and would have remained so to this day had Max Blumenthal not compiled them all under one cover in Republican Gomorrah. I realized that we’d been duped by the Christian Right: the politicians they promoted were not godly at all. They’d exploited a few causes that people felt passionately about, using them to con millions of voters. It had nothing to do with God’s will, only the will to power.

In early 2006, I heard our daughter, a student at Cheyenne Mountain High School, make reference to “Meth City” in a conversation. When I asked what it meant, she said Colorado Springs has such a bad Meth (methamphetamine) abuse problem that her fellow students had aptly renamed their city. (The things people learn from their kids!) At an elevation of over 6,000 feet, I was living in a Meth City on a Hill. Speaking of which…

Ted Haggard’s famous New Life Church was a few miles up the freeway from my office; we’d visited on several occasions over the years. On November 3, 2006, seized with morbid curiosity, I drove to New Life the day after Haggard had been exposed for his affair with male prostitute & bodybuilder Mike Jones, and for using Meth. The parking lot was jammed with major media vans broadcasting their stories and interviews. Entering New Life Church’s “World Prayer Center” on the campus’s east side, I noticed that the homoerotic paintings (macho, muscular, semi-clad men; one a blacksmith, another in chains, and an African-American angel), which I’d seen just a few months prior, were gone. It looked like a hasty job. No new paintings were in their places yet, and the picture hangers were still lodged in the now-bare walls, which had scratch marks from the rubbing of the frames over the years.

But it was impossible to remove the heavy sculptures with the same haste. As I went from the World Prayer Center over to the vast foyer of the church, the huge sculpture of an angel named “Exalter” was still prominently on display. It had the appearance of a steroid-sodden bodybuilder. Its massive arms were raised in adoration of the universe’s ultimate Alpha Male: the super-macho Christ of the Religious Right. Haggard’s consort, Mike Jones, had a physique quite similar to this sculpted angel. Was it merely a coincidence? Obviously, the people who’d scrambled to remove the paintings in the World Prayer Center either that morning or the night before knew it was not.

A few weeks before we finally left Colorado, a local news station did a major exposé on human trafficking in Colorado Springs. It turned out that kidnapped Asian women were stocking the city’s many massage parlors. An expert on the show informed viewers that if they saw massage parlors with barred doors and windows, the women inside were probably being held captive.

Droves of sex-prisoners languishing in God’s own Paradise? How could it be?

During that season I also learned we’d been lied to. Contrary to the jeremiads of the Christian Right’s propaganda industry, it wasn’t “America’s godless, secular intelligentsia” who had removed the Bible and the knowledge of God from our educational system. In reality, Christians themselves had caused it nearly 200 years ago. By the 1820s, America’s public schools were in a dilemma. Calvinists wanted the schools to teach only Calvinism, but Arminians (mostly Methodists) wanted them to teach only their doctrines. Several other sects were making demands of their own. And all of them agreed that no matter which version of Christianity won out in the classrooms, it should never be Roman Catholicism, which they all abhorred with equal passion. The endless infighting overwhelmed school authorities, who eventually gave up on the teaching of religion, substituting a vague, generic moral science in its place.[10]

The same thing goes for taking Bible reading out of public schools. No, it wasn’t a cabal of Secular Humanists in the early 1960s, but Christians themselves who brought it about, through viscous infighting between Protestants (most of whom championed the King James Bible) and Catholics who could only accept the Douay-Rheims translation. Speaking of the “Bible Wars” in the mid-nineteenth century, Stephen Prothero writes, “The most visible battlefield in these early culture wars was Philadelphia, where Protestant-Catholic riots over whose Bible would be read in public schools left over a dozen people dead and Catholic churches burned to the ground in 1844.”[11] In addition to outright violence and murder, the endless polemical clashes between these groups caused school administrators to become weary and wary.

As a result, by the 1870s, public schools in many states had not only done away with Christian education, but Bible reading and hymn singing as well. Contrary to what we’d learned from the Christian Right, the rulings of 1962 and ’63 were merely the final few nails in the coffin—not the beginning of a cultural decline engineered by Secular Humanists.

Speaking of Secular Humanists, were they really a threat, or were they mere boogey-men, the creation of our Christian Right overlords? Veteran journalist and author Chris Hedges observes:

The obsession with the evils of secular humanism would be laughable if it were not such an effective scare tactic. The only organized movement of secular humanists who call themselves by that name is the American Humanist Association (AHA), which has about 3,000 members… Its Humanist magazine has a miniscule circulation. In terms of influence, as Barbara Parker and Christy Macy wrote, “these humanists rank with militant vegetarians and agrarian anarchists, and were about as well known—until the Religious Right set out to make them famous.” But it is not important who is fingered as Satan’s agent, as long as the wild conspiracy theories and paranoia are stoked by an array of duplicitous, phantom enemies that lurk behind the scenes of public school boards or the media.[12]

A far cry indeed from LaHaye’s whopping 275,000 Secular Humanists who supposedly control the entirety of American life and polity!

Finally, what ever became of the angry young evangelical, Franky Schaeffer? He eventually tired of the whole scene and converted to Eastern Orthodoxy. Then, in 2008, he denounced the Christian Right in his book, Crazy For God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of it Back. In a candid interview with Max Blumenthal, Frank (he no longer goes by “Franky”) said:

We [Christian Right leaders] thrived on bad news, we thanked God that education was falling apart and teen pregnancy was going up. We couldn’t peddle solutions unless there was a crisis. We were in business in the same way an oncologist was—if there was no cancer he’d be out of business. Quite simply, we were trying to manufacture crisis.” [13]

In the same interview, Frank also said that his father Francis, on his deathbed, deeply regretted his role in founding the Christian Right. “He was convinced that he had created a monster.” [14]

Living in Colorado Springs and learning what I did there was like Neo swallowing the red pill. I’d seen the truth about The Matrix. I could never go back; life couldn’t continue as it had before.

But unlike some of my QF/CP-escapee friends, I didn’t pay a heavy price for leaving. No loss of friends or family, no painful divorce, and no “shunning” by fake former brethren in an abusive house-church. The Christian group with which I’m affiliated has never endorsed QF/CP. On the contrary, they aggressively promote the ordination of women. Nor are there any political litmus tests which members must pass. They range from very conservative to quite progressive. A group closely networked with ours has orphanages and schools across Mozambique, and in mid-2007 my family and I spent six weeks there.

While a gentle breeze off the Indian Ocean kicked up tiny swirls of reddish-brown dust in the large Pemba compound, I asked the co-founder, a vibrant expat woman from southern California, her opinion of American politicized Christianity. With a troubled look she replied slowly and deliberately, “Those of us who work among the poor have no fondness for the Religious Right.” Being just one week off the plane from Colorado Springs, I couldn’t believe my ears. But I had heard correctly, and most of the hundred or so other visitors we met during those weeks shared similar views. A few weeks later I heard music and saw a crowd of Pemba residents gathered under a large tent on the compound. When I asked the co-founder what the meeting was about, she replied that it was a UN-sponsored AIDS awareness program. “We let them use our place for free,” she said. “They’re trying to save peoples’ lives.”

Waves of relief washed over me as I came to a realization that should have been so obvious all along: “I don’t have to be fascist to be a Christian!”

Leaving, for me, was more an act of remembering; recalling what being a Christian was supposed to be in the first place. It was like “waking up from the longest dream, how real it seemed…”

Now that I’ve renounced the politicized spirituality of fear and loathing, I am so very relieved. Sure, I still get angry at times, like when I read about Fundamentalist parents Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz, who, following Michael and Debi Pearl’s No Greater Joy child-rearing manuals, allegedly beat their seven-year-old adopted daughter to death with plumbing supply line because she repeatedly mispronounced a word during a home-schooling lesson. In cases like this, there really is “A Time for Anger.”

But there’s a big difference. Because I deny Christian Right demagogues and their talk-radio allies access to my mind, I’m not simmering with anger and resentment. I really enjoy life again. This is not to say I’ve simply reverted to a facile Sunday School type of faith.  Such a second naivety is neither possible nor desirable.  Theologically, philosophically–and in every way really–I’ve been through many changes.  There was no “restore to default” button for me to click; no way to un-swallow the red pill once it was digested.

What I have been able to do, though, is make a return to a spirituality of awe and wonder, in which I no longer look to self-appointed authority figures and ‘experts’ for guidance. And I’ve utterly lost the Modern, Cartesian illusion of “geometric certitude,” which was so deeply ingrained through years of studying “Christian Worldview” materials. I now revel in the thought that the universe is, as the poet Robert Hunter put it, full of “mysteries dark and vast”; mysteries that my little ant-brain will never begin to fathom.

For these reasons I find a deep kinship with those (both female and male) who have fled the QF/CP movement. After all, they were once in that same pre-stocked Christian Right pond, swimming right alongside me.

And like them, I’ve also escaped that pond and know better now. We’re no longer taking the bait.

Born and raised in northern California, Jonathan W. Rice is a freelance writer, teacher and speaker. He can be contacted at twelvmnkys@aol.com.

ENDNOTES

[2] Tim LaHaye, The Battle For the Mind (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, 1980), pp. 27, 74, 97, 179. Summarized in George M. Mardsen, Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism ( MI: Wm.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1991), p. 109.

[3] “I Want to Be a Clone” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Want_to_Be_a_Clone). Accessed 23 February 2010.

[4] Max Blumenthal, Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party (New York: Nation Books, 2009), p. 203.

*Steve Taylor, Vinyl LP edition of Meltdown (Sparrow Records, 1984). Liner Notes (single-page insert inside the LP jacket). The acknowledgment expresses gratitude to “Francis Schaeffer for encouraging words.”

[5] James Dobson, Children at Risk (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1990), pp. 19-20.

[6] Albert Kim, “The Filmmaker Behind PBS’ ‘Civil War’ Steps Up To The Plate With His Epic ‘Baseball’” (http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,303684,00.html), accessed 25 February 2010.

[7] Dave McCoy, “The Civil War” (http://www.amazon.com/Civil-War-Film-Ken-Burns/dp/B000BITUE8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1267037976&sr=1-1), accessed 25 February 2010.

[8] Blumenthal, Republican Gomorrah, pp. 9, 10.

[9] Florida: Creation House, 1995.

[10] Stephen Prothero, Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know—And Doesn’t (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), pp. 109-120.

[11] Ibid, pp. 121-127.

[12] Chris Hedges, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America (New York: Free Press, 2006), p. 27.

[13] Blumenthal, Republican Gomorrah, p. 30.

[14] Ibid, p. 27.