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Post by sargassosea on Nov 4, 2009 10:05:17 GMT -5
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calulu
Junior Member
Posts: 76
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Post by calulu on Nov 4, 2009 10:15:54 GMT -5
Oh man! Headcoverings..
Brings back bad memories of my fundie church. One faction of women started insisting that every female in the place wear head coverings 24/7. There ended up being a big church split over it. The covering folks went off and formed their very own Church of the Holy Basement because the pastor said that the scripture about headcoverings was just for that time in history, not for today's times.
Erika I'm so so sorry you had to deal with headcovering folks because if they were anything like the ones at my old church, and it sounds like they were, they were the most uptight prideful self righteous people on the planet. They also were super interested in making sure everyone at our church toed the line of behavior exactly. I remember once I had an allergic reaction to a food and my lips were swollen for a few days. One of the headcovering people started saying I was vain and had gotten lip injections. Eventually one of them confronted me and I started laughing so hard. I couldn't believe someone with misinterpret an allergy as plastic surgery.
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Post by redheadedskeptic on Nov 4, 2009 10:23:03 GMT -5
omg, NOT beaded moccasins! Seriously, how lonely that must have been for you.
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Post by stampinmama on Nov 4, 2009 10:33:33 GMT -5
Erika I'm so so sorry you had to deal with headcovering folks because if they were anything like the ones at my old church, and it sounds like they were, they were the most uptight prideful self righteous people on the planet. They also were super interested in making sure everyone at our church toed the line of behavior exactly. I remember once I had an allergic reaction to a food and my lips were swollen for a few days. One of the headcovering people started saying I was vain and had gotten lip injections. Eventually one of them confronted me and I started laughing so hard. I couldn't believe someone with misinterpret an allergy as plastic surgery. It sounds like the same kinds of people were the same kinds that we had encountered. Headcoverings were just as demeaning to me as being forced to wear skirts and dresses. I totally agree with you....so many of them were uptight and self-righteous. It's amazing how so many of these people totally misinterpret things as God's judgment and that we are sinning. They are constantly jumping to conclusions. I have friends that couldn't conceive but weren't using birth control. They just had trouble getting pregnant. People judged them for using birth control and thwarting God's will for them, which was supposedly that they have a million children. It wasn't until one of these friends went through a period of sterility herself that she realized that people were looking at her the same way that she looked at others. That sometimes, people just can't get pregnant and it's not a judgment or a sin in that person's life. ugh. People have no business judging others.
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Post by stampinmama on Nov 4, 2009 10:35:08 GMT -5
omg, NOT beaded moccasins! Seriously, how lonely that must have been for you. It was extremely lonely for me, though I tried to make the best out of it by reading, writing, sneaking my earphones on at night to listen to the one oldie station that I could get in. I also had my rabbits that I spent a lot of time with and then later, my horse. Thank goodness for the small ways that I could escape in my mind.
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anne2
New Member
Posts: 11
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Post by anne2 on Nov 4, 2009 11:00:46 GMT -5
I actually wore beaded moccasins and of course that was all wrong. I actually was the only one who wore a headcovering ( never said a word about it to anyone) - just a hat and of course that was all wrong. No longer wear the headcovering because I got tired of DH accidentally knocking it off and having to rethink everything I wore so I didn't look like an idiot every time I went out wearing a hat. I wore bandanas in the 60's and 70's but those kerchiefs and bandanas wouldn't cut it at my age and appearance now. It all comes down to acceptance - like you said. Being willing to accept our differences. Why or why is someone always standing over us with a yardstick bound and bent to whack us into their shape?
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Post by stampinmama on Nov 4, 2009 11:15:14 GMT -5
I actually wore beaded moccasins and of course that was all wrong. I had the beaded moccasins, too! Not just the printed bandanna. I actually had 2 pairs. One pair was ankle height and the other one was knee height with the leather laces and fringe at the top. I still have them and still wear them. My grandmother bought them for my 15th birthday. One of the best gifts I've ever gotten. I got into leather working when I was 14 and have made quite a few pairs of beaded moccasins for friends. I need to make some for my kids. They would love that. When I was 17, I made a beautiful leather vest that I stitched by hand and fringed and beaded it. It won 1st prize in the county fair in PA. I still have that, too. I'm hoping to pass it on to my daughter when she's a little older and can fit into it and understands how to take proper care of things like that.
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Post by km on Nov 4, 2009 11:44:12 GMT -5
omg, NOT beaded moccasins! Seriously, how lonely that must have been for you. It was extremely lonely for me, though I tried to make the best out of it by reading, writing, sneaking my earphones on at night to listen to the one oldie station that I could get in. I also had my rabbits that I spent a lot of time with and then later, my horse. Thank goodness for the small ways that I could escape in my mind. A couple of things that I wanted to mention. First, I count myself lucky to have known you then (hope it's okay for me to mention here). These were really dark times for both of us, and you know something? Even though we were not really free to be ourselves, I could see how much you threw yourself into writing--even into letters that you wrote to me. I always knew that you were really strong and that you had an unwavering sense of yourself that you held on to hard. As traumatic as those things were, I always believed you'd come through with a strong sense of yourself intact. But most of all, you always seemed like such a real person to me, so unlike most of the other teenagers whom I knew in that lifestyle. And as glad as I am to have known you, I'm even more glad to have found you here--happy and away from all of that. Second, I've been thinking a lot about Charity recently. I thought about including Denny Kennaston in my List of Dominionists Whom You Should Know About, but I didn't because of (1) the rules against military service and (2) my sense that Charity is more of an East coast phenomenon among homeschoolers than anything else. If I'm wrong about this, I hope someone will correct me. But I've been thinking about them a lot because some family friends of mine got involved with Charity through the Youth Bible School around the same time that I started getting to know you. They tried to get me to attend the Bible school with them, but fortunately I had the presence of mind after the Gothard seminar to turn them down. The list of rules that we were required to abide seriously put me off (especially the fact that headcoverings are "actively encouraged," and one need not merely dress modestly, but wear a double covering or a cape dress. No skirts with slits, no anything I had. I was not gonna buy new clothes for that thing.). When I first found out that my Conservative Christian Right family friends were going to a Mennonite-influenced church, I was really excited. I thought maybe they'd start to care more about social justice and inequality! (Even in my darkest fundie days, I was always a social liberal at heart.) But it almost seemed to me that Charity merely gave them *the worst and most oppressive* traditions of the Old Order Mennonites. I have so much respect for the Not-Old-Order Mennonites (When I last went to church, I went to a liberal Mennonite church with a liberal feminist pastor. I even served with Mennonite Central Committee for a time.). Far from becoming interested in social justice, these family friends became even more fanatical about dress. They had to wear double coverings now and be so paranoid about what they wore. They ultimately got publicly rebuked and shunned from the church over the issue of musical instruments (and probably also because the girls wore those "rebellious" bandannas as well). That is, they were not willing to stop playing musical instruments or listening to music with drums in their home lives. They're still conservative Christians, but I think they've loosened up a lot since what must have been an extremely painful experience. They put a TV back in their home, and they're no longer wearing plainclothes. One of the daughters still wears a headcovering, but I think they've mostly given that up. The Charity Ministries/Remnant movement is really scary to me. I've listened to a couple of "Brother Denny's" sermons online, and my god... That is cult-like spiritual manipulation/coercion if I ever saw it. It's the church-service equivalent of the film, "The Passion," at least. And the extreme subjugation of women is something that is not even that ubiquitous in Amish communities (where they're "culturally" patriarchal, but it's become more of an "ethnicity" than a QF style obsession with submission.). That man has counseled women to remain in physically--and otherwise--abusive marriages, and I wouldn't be surprised if he'd counseled underage girls to marry as well. He's an ex-Amish/Mennonite zealot who is very, very bitter and who truly seems to hate women.
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Post by km on Nov 4, 2009 11:48:57 GMT -5
Anyway, Erika, I'm truly sorry that you had to be so influenced by that congregation--and that you were stuck there.
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Post by journey on Nov 4, 2009 12:01:54 GMT -5
Brother Denny was a major factor in my and my husband's life. My husband handed out The Godly Home series to many in our church (interestingly, none of them really liked it much and never got into it)... After listening to that series, there were some changes in our home, but not for the better. I'll talk about that in a post someday, I'm sure. Ugh.
So, anyways, I was wondering...what is Denny's family like? His wife...she seemed like a really neat person when I listened to her on tape (that Debi Pearl tape for wives) but someone who has had to keep to the shadows, so to speak...
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Post by km on Nov 4, 2009 15:16:56 GMT -5
A question... Does Charity have strict rules agbout how children address their parents? When my family friends were there, they had to start calling their parents "Mama" and "Papa." They'd always just used "Mom" and "Dad" in the past. I thought that was so strange!
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Post by Sierra on Nov 4, 2009 15:46:08 GMT -5
A question... Does Charity have strict rules agbout how children address their parents? When my family friends were there, they had to start calling their parents "Mama" and "Papa." They'd always just used "Mom" and "Dad" in the past. I thought that was so strange! When I was about 12, my father made a pass at insisting that I call him "Father." Said it was more respectful. I thought this was absurd, and laughed at him. He then got very angry at my "disrespect" (a constant theme in our home) and went off to yell at my mother for failing to raise me properly. My dad wasn't QF, though - my mom was the religious one. He just enjoyed being in charge.
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Post by gloriamarilyn on Nov 4, 2009 16:53:00 GMT -5
*shudders* Oh, Charity! How nearly I got stuck in there! I don't think everyone was supposed to call their children "Mama" and "Papa", but I'm guessing that came from Denny Kenaston's Worshiped Tape Series. I showed my husband the list of sermons in that series, and he nearly died laughing. What a horrible, horrible way to mislead people!! I remember thinking about how wonderful those tapes were- a sure guarantee- if I raised my children according to that, they were guaranteed to turn out. (have I mentioned that I'm beyond grateful that I did NOT get married there?) This article gives me the heebie jeebies. charityministries.org/theremnant/2002/january/theremnant-january2002-blessingcorner-mylord.a5w My family was still interested/partly attending Charity at that time (the branch here in Canada). I remember reading this, and being horrified to the point of wanting to vomit. I sent Denny Kenaston an email, telling him what I thought of that hogwash. He never deemed it necessary to respond to me, a woman, but instead told the leader of the local chapter, who in turn told my father about it. Heh. I'm not important enough to talk to, huh? Either way, I'm so, So, SOOO grateful that I never got stuck in there- I don't have enough words. So many creepy experiences in the short time I was involved with them. (not to mention my resistance to the head covering- LOL!)
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