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Post by humbletigger on May 12, 2010 9:21:56 GMT -5
Hahaha! I love my life!
I just googled "J K Rowling religion" and learned a lot!
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Post by coleslaw on May 12, 2010 9:24:18 GMT -5
You use the word "quote", rather than "blockquote" and enclose "quote" and "/quote" in square brackets [], rather than pointy ones <>.
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Post by km on May 12, 2010 9:55:23 GMT -5
I don't think that I could distinguish fantasy from reality when I was "saved" as a 4 year old. I was willing to accept that Jesus and Moses and David, etc were "real" instead of stories, even though they seemed just like stories. I guess that according to most evangelical theology, after being "saved", even at a young age, the Holy Spirit should have guided me and made the truth of Jesus real to me, but that just never happened. So I grew up having a problem with what was reality. Were the Zionist books Brock and Bodie Thoene's Zion Covenant? I thought that the story telling was decent if you took out the Christianity parts - but I feel generally cheated by the quality and content of the books that I was allowed to read. I was able to sneak a few secular YA type books that didn't contain sex or violence by the censor. Yes, those were the books. I thought the Thoenes and Peretti were good storytellers at the time. Now, Peretti's politics make me cringe, but it all just went over my head as an adolescent. Frankly, I used to skip over the heavy religious sections in almost every book I read, because I was more interested in finding out what happened next! Anyone else remember the Mandie books? I was much more interested in the plot and the characters than the random Bible verses that got plugged in to drive home the moral. As for the fantasy/reality divide, it sounds like the consensus view is that kids sort this out quite young (<5) and thus should really have their ideas straight by the time they start reading novels of the caliber of Harry Potter. The Mandie books are the ones that I was thinking of that were *most* horrifically written. Ugh... And I was able to see that when I was 11 or 12 or whenever I first read one. I couldn't stand Peretti either. I was totally put off by the whole angels and demons wearing loincloths aesthetic. I did like one of those end times books... I can't remember what it was called now. But, eh, the author puts this chapter in the back alleging when he thinks the "antichrist" will appear--and why from the US, etc. It wasn't The Illuminati, but it was written in something like that vein. I can't remember its name anymore. However, I was able to be more discerning because my parents didn't censor my books.
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Post by km on May 12, 2010 10:01:40 GMT -5
"I don't think the issue was whether the *kids* would believe the stuff in Harry Potter, it was that the adults believed there was some truth to Harry Potter." Not at my house, it wasn't. I am quite honest about the reasons we held back on HP until the middle school years. On the other hand, the "fact" that J.K. Rowling was Wiccan was widely circulated in fundamentalist circles, and many people did believe that. Guilty by association! I guess it was feared your children could become Wiccan by reading her stories? I haven't ever researched it to see if it was true, though it hardly matters to me, since (disclaimer: I am a Christian!) the book series was a fiction, not a systemic theology textbook. I have read that she is simply an atheist. Her books read to me kinda like Roald Dahl lite. I loved him as a small child because there was always a dark side to his work that made it clear to me that he wasn't writing down to children. I don't think Rowling is nearly as good, but I think she's a sound and creative writer (far, far more so than whosis with the Twilight series... ugh...). I appreciate her mostly because she was so successful in getting young people to love reading. That the quality of her work is quite good is even better. My other favorite childhood writer was Madeleine L'Engle. A professing Christian, but nevertheless a liberal one whose works included sex and gays and all kinds of taboo things in the fundie world. Books like A Wrinkle in Time were such huge--and formative--aspects of my childhood... To think of the possibility of not having been *allowed* to read them is something that I shudder to think about even now.
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Post by Sierra on May 12, 2010 10:24:33 GMT -5
The Mandie books are the ones that I was thinking of that were *most* horrifically written. Ugh... And I was able to see that when I was 11 or 12 or whenever I first read one. ... However, I was able to be more discerning because my parents didn't censor my books. I read Peretti and the Mandie books ... along with Mark Twain, Harper Lee, L.M. Montgomery, Tolkien, and even 1984, Brave New World, the Grapes of Wrath, and Lord of the Flies. I enjoyed the Mandie books. That doesn't mean I didn't have the discernment to know that they weren't going to be leather-bound literary classics one day. They entertained me, just like The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks and Wayside School is Falling Down. Guess I should have known better than to have infected my mind with such trash. I can't even remember Peretti's inane ramblings about the antichrist, because I skipped all that crap and read the story. ETA: The tone of my post here is probably acerbic, and that's because I feel quite snubbed at the implication that I was not 'able to see' the relative poor quality of the Mandie books. I found Janette Oke's lot infinitely worse (all her books had the same paternalistic dude and fainting princess type, copy-pasted into various historical 'themed' settings like 'the prairie') but I even cherry-picked some enjoyment out of those.
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Post by kisekileia on May 12, 2010 10:32:14 GMT -5
J.K. Rowling is a Christian, which becomes obvious towards the end of book 7.
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Post by rosa on May 12, 2010 12:04:19 GMT -5
Humbletigger, that makes sense (the fear that reading books by Wiccan authors would make you Wiccan...though I seek out those books and there are not very many) - since many Christians think that consuming Christian media (books, TV, music, movies) will make their kids Christian. Or more Christian?
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Post by humbletigger on May 12, 2010 12:51:13 GMT -5
Hah! I feel so tech savvy now!
LOL @reading a book by a Christian author makes you Christian!
Reminds me of a sarcastic song from the 80s "and you'll only drink milk from a Christian cow!"
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Post by Sierra on May 12, 2010 13:00:16 GMT -5
Reminds me of a sarcastic song from the 80s "and you'll only drink milk from a Christian cow!" That's really funny. ;D Reminds me of communion at my church. None of us were supposed to go into a wine & spirits shop, lest we pick up the other kind of spirit. Thus, we were only ever allowed to use communion wine homemade by another follower of Branham. Then we passed a big cup around from person to person and everyone took a sip. Those who were concerned about sanitation were chastised with, 'There's no sickness in that cup! There's healing in that cup!' Huh. I should do a post about communion sometime. 'Drinking unworthily' was probably my second biggest fear after missing the Rapture.
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Post by km on May 12, 2010 13:24:11 GMT -5
The Mandie books are the ones that I was thinking of that were *most* horrifically written. Ugh... And I was able to see that when I was 11 or 12 or whenever I first read one. ... However, I was able to be more discerning because my parents didn't censor my books. I read Peretti and the Mandie books ... along with Mark Twain, Harper Lee, L.M. Montgomery, Tolkien, and even 1984, Brave New World, the Grapes of Wrath, and Lord of the Flies. I enjoyed the Mandie books. That doesn't mean I didn't have the discernment to know that they weren't going to be leather-bound literary classics one day. They entertained me, just like The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks and Wayside School is Falling Down. Guess I should have known better than to have infected my mind with such trash. I can't even remember Peretti's inane ramblings about the antichrist, because I skipped all that crap and read the story. ETA: The tone of my post here is probably acerbic, and that's because I feel quite snubbed at the implication that I was not 'able to see' the relative poor quality of the Mandie books. I found Janette Oke's lot infinitely worse (all her books had the same paternalistic dude and fainting princess type, copy-pasted into various historical 'themed' settings like 'the prairie') but I even cherry-picked some enjoyment out of those. Eh, sorry, that wasn't what I meant. And you're right. It was poorly worded and does literally imply a snub, but was not what I meant to say. I hope you will take this at face value and know that it wasn't what I meant to say. I was in between two phone calls and an email and am *not* good at communication when multi-tasking. Please do accept my apology. I meant to say more just that... Well, hell, books were in many ways the only things I had--also as a lonely kid in an abusive home. And with the "discerning" comment, well... What I meant was, well, more self-critical and in no way a reflects my view of your critical discernment (which doesn't really exist, since we don't know each other. I know you're a grad student in literature (right?), so I assume it's awfully advanced.)... Put as concisely as possible, here's what I meant: I am now and always have been a book snob. I'm not this way with other creative mediums (In TV, I'm a scifi geek.), but I've sort of been this way about books ever since I was a kid. It's an annoying personality trait of mine that I try to acknowledge upfront because I know it's annoying. I was thinking *not at all* in terms of your taste or whatever, and I liked all the other books you mentioned as well. It was my snobbery about books coming across, and in my distraction, I communicated it in a *really* offensive way. I'm sorry. It's a good reminder to take better care to say things more carefully on forums like this one. And, me, I was *not* as critical as you about fundamentalism when I was quite young, so when I explored that stuff, it was all by choice... It was related to a phase my parents went through but got out of by the time I turned seven, and it had far more of an impact on me than my much younger sister. But I did *not* know to be critical about it when I was little. My family was very, very troubled even after they left fundamentalism, and--in my innocence--I thought getting back to that kind of literalism in religion might help. There was also this Perfect Family (the ones who paid for me to attend the Gothard seminar) who tried to bring me into the fold--and who were smart and articulate and seemingly perfect in *every* way. I know now that things were never what they seemed, *but* they kept up appearances in a sort of immaculate, beautiful way... So, you sound a lot wiser than I was even into my late teens about theology of any kind. Books were pretty much the *only* thing I was smart about from a young age, fwiw. Well, that, and on seeing my sister and mother get into disordered eating patterns... I thankfully got scared enough to have avoided that. But, yeah, I was pretty much clueless about everything like every other kid. ETA: Slightly modified, mostly for typos.
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Post by km on May 12, 2010 13:27:06 GMT -5
Also, to be clear, it's not like I think I was reading like an advanced critical theorist at age ten... What annoyed me about those books back in the day was, in part, the predictable plotting... But it was *mostly* the fact that the author never ever used conjunctions. And her characters spoke in *such* an artificially formal way.
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Post by km on May 12, 2010 13:41:01 GMT -5
And one more thing.... The fundamentalism that I explored as an adolescent *was* in many ways a kind of rebellion for me. It wasn't what my parents were doing. My mom was a public school teacher. They were a politically liberal family. When I talked sanctimoniously about courtship in front of their friends, that annoyed the *hell* out of them (and was in part why I did it). In my childhood all-or-nothing sort of perspective, I assumed for a little while that our problems had something to do with having left fundamentalism. The Perfect Family we knew seemed to be doing *so* well. So, I bought into it completely. This was only for a very short time (between about the ages of 13 and 14). Even then, the fundie pen-pals that I maintained in that world apparently gossiped about me being "very VERY liberal" (A friend who left the fold told me this long after the fact).
The only area in which I *didn't* buy into it was related to what I read.
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Post by km on May 12, 2010 13:52:21 GMT -5
Okay, so one *more* thing...
I really wasn't thinking about anyone's discernment when I wrote that other than mine, but I should have been. Because the effect was an offensive and narcissistic comment.
By way of explanation, please know that I don't get all tangled up in my own shit when it comes to most discussions. The issue of book censorship is really personal, though. In many ways the book, A Wrinkle in Time, saved my life when I was ten years old. That's why it's such a big deal to me. I was a depressive and sometimes suicidal child. There were a couple of books (especially ones that I read before I even hit puberty) that were the only things that ever make me feel *slightly* less alone during that time.
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Post by Sierra on May 12, 2010 14:16:13 GMT -5
Thanks, km. I was a bit thin-skinned due to grad school pressure and am picking up perceived hostilities all over the place. My bad. I'm intrigued by how A Wrinkle in Time helped you. I know I tried to read it and failed miserably - something about it put me off very strongly. I wonder what threat I perceived in it? I wonder if someone said something to me about it? I wish I could remember. My mother bought it, and I picked it up two or three times. I'll have to find the book again and see if I can figure out why I never made it through the first chapter. Thinking of more popular kids' series... I was deliberately turned away from the Ramona Quinby books because of their liberal bent. My mother didn't care if I read them in the library or book store, but she wouldn't buy them. What's really hilarious is all the fearmongering around that absurd book/TV series Animorphs. Oh, and who can forget Goosebumps? The homeschooling crowd was so terrified that I'd get into those two series... out of very guilty curiosity, I picked up one of each in a thrift shop one day. That was all I needed to know what I was missing! ;D It's definitely true that ascribing mystical powers and fears to books heightens their appeal to the curious child (especially when that child is already given to scepticism). km, I totally understand your finding (temporary) refuge in parroting fundamentalist ideas in order to take a stand against your parents' problems. Fundamentalism is a very attractive way to do that - all the confidence of being 'right,' a massive organization of adults who support your views, and a very simple message to deliver. This is why it's effective, and this is why the prospect of parenting so frightens me. Dangerous opinions are so easy to hold.
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Post by stampinmama on May 12, 2010 14:56:46 GMT -5
Reminds me of a sarcastic song from the 80s "and you'll only drink milk from a Christian cow!" That's really funny. ;D Reminds me of communion at my church. None of us were supposed to go into a wine & spirits shop, lest we pick up the other kind of spirit. Thus, we were only ever allowed to use communion wine homemade by another follower of Branham. Then we passed a big cup around from person to person and everyone took a sip. Those who were concerned about sanitation were chastised with, 'There's no sickness in that cup! There's healing in that cup!' Huh. I should do a post about communion sometime. 'Drinking unworthily' was probably my second biggest fear after missing the Rapture. I find the differences in your Branham church and the Branham church my husband went to interesting. They drank from small communion cups and not one single cup. They did use real wine made by one of the members, though. Like your church, they weren't allowed to have alcohol AT ALL anywhere else. I had communion once when going there and I'd always grown up having grape juice in communion. I wasn't warned about the wine before taking it and was SHOCKED that it tasted so bad. It was awful and I spit a bit of it from coughing. The minister wasn't thrilled at that. Did you have foot washing afterward at your Branham church, too?
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Post by stampinmama on May 12, 2010 14:59:28 GMT -5
When I was around 17 or 18, my youngest brother (he's almost 8 years younger than I am) would come into my room at night for me to read him a bedtime story. He loved the Mandie series. I thought it was entertaining in a child like sort of way.
My parents wouldn't let us read the Peretti books. They didn't want us reading anything with demons in them. He was too liberal for their tastes.
The Janette Oke series was also censored because it had to do with a love story and that was too much temptation for us, apparently.
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hrd
New Member
Posts: 46
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Post by hrd on May 12, 2010 15:05:23 GMT -5
What's really hilarious is all the fearmongering around that absurd book/TV series Animorphs. Oh, and who can forget Goosebumps? In my day, there was quite a bit of fear surrounding the masters of the Universe (He-Man) toys and the Smurfs. Seems pretty funny now.
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Post by Sierra on May 12, 2010 15:24:09 GMT -5
I find the differences in your Branham church and the Branham church my husband went to interesting. They drank from small communion cups and not one single cup. They did use real wine made by one of the members, though. Like your church, they weren't allowed to have alcohol AT ALL anywhere else. I had communion once when going there and I'd always grown up having grape juice in communion. I wasn't warned about the wine before taking it and was SHOCKED that it tasted so bad. It was awful and I spit a bit of it from coughing. The minister wasn't thrilled at that. Did you have foot washing afterward at your Branham church, too? That is pretty interesting. I knew some Message churches used individual cups - I honestly can't remember whose idea it was to share a big one. It might have had something to do with the size of the church. We only ever had communion 2-4 times a year and then at someone's house, out of a congregation of about 70. We were spread out geographically such that only half the congregation ever came, and it was always in the evening. So the group taking communion would be a ring of adults numbering around 15, and the odd child over 12 (not a hard and fast rule, but it sticks in my mind) who felt called to start. Taking communion was a bit like shaving your legs - once you did it, you had to do it for the rest of your life. ;D I don't think I spat the wine the first time, because I was warned that it would taste awful. Now, I kind of wish I could go back and take a sip, just to see whether it was really so much my immature tastebuds or the attempts of the wine-virgin Branhamites to make wine they only sipped a few times a year. ;D They could have given us vinegar, and only the 'worldly' would know something was wrong! Yes, we did footwashing. Women were banished upstairs so the men wouldn't be tempted by our ankles. We were supposed to signal each other by singing a hymn when we were finished, and then reconvene for closing prayers. Footwashing was so embarrassing. I felt really awkward as an adolescent touching other kids' feet, and if we giggled about it to lighten the tension we were scolded and told to be reverent and think about Jesus' humility.
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Post by km on May 12, 2010 15:37:32 GMT -5
Sierra--Thanks for being so understanding about that.
As far as loving A Wrinkle in Time--It definitely included a lot of magic and good/evil type stuff, so depending on where your family was then, you may have been scared by that stuff?
I liked it because it was about an unpopular, alienated young girl whose parents were well-meaning but neglectful. She doesn't fit in in her family or at school, and the book is all about her finding a place in the world. There's this amazing scene in which one of her siblings confronts an evil shape shifter who *looks* like their father, and, well... My father could go from charistmatic and charming to evil in a very short amount of time. I could really relate to that scene. It was powerful.
I also loved it because it involved these thoroughly spiritual themes, and I didn't understand this then... But it did this in a non-fundamentalist way. It's not even explicitly Christian... It's just about moral ambiguity and people dealing with bad situations--and trying to be a "good person" in a world that places so many limitations on human agency. I may overstate this aspect now (It's been several years), but I've always loved that kind of approach... The one that asks how well-meaning people can live with themselves and go to sleep at night given the way the world is. And it doesn't minimize threats and danger, so I didn't feel that it was talking down to me as a child.
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Post by anatheist on May 12, 2010 15:43:32 GMT -5
Oh, and who can forget Goosebumps? The homeschooling crowd was so terrified that I'd get into those two series... out of very guilty curiosity, I picked up one of each in a thrift shop one day. That was all I needed to know what I was missing! ;D It's definitely true that ascribing mystical powers and fears to books heightens their appeal to the curious child (especially when that child is already given to scepticism). I remember all the fear-mongering around Goosebumps. We also weren't allowed to read Judy Blume. I was kind of excited years later to read some of the forbidden books of my childhood, but what I hadn't accounted for was that I'd already way outgrown that reading level and it was a disappointment. A great set of humanist books that slipped past my mother because they looked like typical children's books were the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander. Those were real life changers for me. But about separating reality from fiction. By the time that I was about 10, I was deciding that the Bible was fiction. And I was just horribly conflicted and confused, because all the adults around me believed that it was true and I was pretty much forced to act like I believed it in order not to be different (and I had a pretty good sense of just how ostracized I would be and how I would have been endlessly harassed for my unbelief). Even those of you who believe, imagine that if everyone in your life was insistent on behaving as if your favorite childhood book was true and that the characters had direct bearing on your life (Babar is going to be disappointed in you if you do that!) And that's how it was that the lines between reality and fantasy never separated for me until I was an adult.
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Post by margybargy on May 12, 2010 16:40:52 GMT -5
A great set of humanist books that slipped past my mother because they looked like typical children's books were the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander. Those were real life changers for me. Good to know. My daughter's only 4, but it's nice to know there's some good books out there with humanist values. But about separating reality from fiction. By the time that I was about 10, I was deciding that the Bible was fiction. And I was just horribly conflicted and confused, because all the adults around me believed that it was true and I was pretty much forced to act like I believed it in order not to be different (and I had a pretty good sense of just how ostracized I would be and how I would have been endlessly harassed for my unbelief). Even those of you who believe, imagine that if everyone in your life was insistent on behaving as if your favorite childhood book was true and that the characters had direct bearing on your life (Babar is going to be disappointed in you if you do that!) And that's how it was that the lines between reality and fantasy never separated for me until I was an adult. Thanks for posting this. I felt the same way growing up. Still do a lot of the time.
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Post by usotsuki on May 12, 2010 16:48:24 GMT -5
I knew some Message churches used individual cups - I honestly can't remember whose idea it was to share a big one. It might have had something to do with the size of the church. We only ever had communion 2-4 times a year and then at someone's house, out of a congregation of about 70. We were spread out geographically such that only half the congregation ever came, and it was always in the evening. So the group taking communion would be a ring of adults numbering around 15, and the odd child over 12 (not a hard and fast rule, but it sticks in my mind) who felt called to start. Taking communion was a bit like shaving your legs - once you did it, you had to do it for the rest of your life. ;D The church I grew up with was more or less like that except they (can't say "we", I was forbidden from partaking because I was too young) had communion during the normal service. I think their rule was "no one prior to completion of 6th grade" was allowed to partake. They used grape juice by order of the denomination.
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Post by km on May 12, 2010 17:53:46 GMT -5
I had no idea Beverley Cleary was considered liberal! I always saw those books as apolitical. I did read Judy Blume, but aged out of those books pretty early. Mostly because I found all the talk of "menstruation" and breast-enhancement exercises a little dated. I *loved* the Prydain books and have been wanting to go back and reread them for a long time. I also loved this series based on Welsh mythology called The Dark is Rising. Loved Katherine Patterson's books, especially Jacob Have I Loved and Bridge to Terabithia.
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Post by rosa on May 12, 2010 21:55:11 GMT -5
She was considered liberal...in the '50s, when she started writing. I love Cleary, we've read probably 8 of her chapter books to Mica. But they were progressive when she started writing them, in 1950 (that's the original pub date for the first one, Henry Huggins.)
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Post by stampinmama on May 12, 2010 22:06:07 GMT -5
My daughter is loving the Cleary books.
She brought a Harry Potter book home from school, read a few chapters into it and decided she didn't like it. Ever since she was little, she's always been sensitive to stuff like that. She wouldn't watch Sleeping Beauty because the witch creeped her out. Fantasia seemed dark and disturbing to her. Alice in Wonderland was too freaky to her. Snow White bothered her. Even the Disney Princess movie collections (the ones where there's a few episodes on each from different princesses) freaked her out. She couldn't stand the one with Jafar in it because he turned into a big red eyed, fire breathing dragon and she got nightmares. It's just the way she's always been.
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