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Post by setfree on Apr 8, 2010 8:12:18 GMT -5
It sounds so perfect, so appealing, so attractive, so wholesome ... yet what is that seductive appeal, too? That draws you like a moth to a flame? I have a friend doing the moth thing atm, while a farm-dwelling, homeschooling IBLP family are setting the example of the perfect godly family to her and her family. (They tried to trick us into letting our kids go - they took two other kids from school, whose parents have no idea what IBLP is all about ... we googled it, and decided against letting our children go to the farm to play with all the lovely animals and the well-behaved children and have Character First training with them ....)
I have had this experience of families into this doctrine presenting themselves as the Godly Example for You To Learn From twice. They come over very loving at first but soon the instruction on the Right Way begins, and as long as you are the starry-eyed disciple, all is well. Scratch beneath the surface, think for yourself, ask questions or wonder out loud if there is an element of legalism to the perfection .... and things begin to unravel. Defend yourself or challenge the legalism directly - and oh dear you are toast - excommunication from the warmth of the circle of fellowship for you! Being wooed & cultivated so carefully with such lovingkindness only makes the eventual shunning and being cast out more of a threat to be avoided at all cost, and so an effective tool of pressure and manipulation. That was my experience, anyway.
Your writing is excellent, talk about a cliff-hanger! Is there a Part 3 yet?
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Post by setfree on Apr 8, 2010 7:30:34 GMT -5
I don't think you're being negative, WKoW. I think you are asking the kind of critical thinking questions that are a natural intelligent response to dogmatic rhetoric that brooks no dissent. These are sweeping generalisations that go beyond saying, "homeschooling can be a very positive option for some families at certain points in their lives" to insinuating that homeschooling is morally or spiritually superior, with that lovely holier than thou overlay .... puke puke.
These blessings are not 'unique' only to homeschooling families.
We just began hs a couple of weeks ago. We also had our babies at home, and the idea that either of these options are somehow more 'godly' makes me want to swear violently. We certainly didn't choose these options because of some warped, coercive doctrine. We have found that since we started h/s we all seem more close knit and a lot of time pressure is lifted off. I am enjoying the kids more. So - does that make homeschooling superior? No. It means that it's working for us, for now, and the pros outweight the cons for now. That doesn't mean it's the right options for ALL ("godly") families. It's that religious manipulation that really gets me.
The last point irks me most, you nailed it - it's about relationships, not rules and roles, and certainly not the ludicrous polarised gender roles this sicko teaching puts forward as being "biblical".
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Post by setfree on Apr 7, 2010 6:10:42 GMT -5
Oh, Journey. My eyes practically bled, reading that. Awesome post again by you - but oh those quotes ... I feel so angry, my head aches.
Manipulative spin bullshit. Arrrrgh!
Well done to everyone who can formulate a more measured and constructive critique than this .... I think I need to go and cool down ....
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Post by setfree on Apr 6, 2010 0:58:55 GMT -5
If I found out my husband had a 77- item list on how to interact with me, I'd be wondering why he thinks I'm so difficult to live with. Good point, Margybargy! I dunno about the racism. Mu Lan has Asian colouring. Pocahontas has Indian colouring. These are iconic heroines of their cultures. Sleeping Beauty was German fairytale, for her and other Grimms characters to be depicted as Caucasian seems reasonable. What does strike me as racist though, is when Mary or Jesus are depicted as Caucasian instead of Mediterrannean.
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Post by setfree on Apr 6, 2010 0:50:24 GMT -5
thank you for that dose of sanity, krwordgazer. i needed that. One day I burst into tears (immediately knee-jerked into worrying about whether I was now doing emotional manipulation) and said, "I don't know WHY it bothers me so much (the mess)"' I think when you come out of spiritual abuse you are so paranoid that you are being abusive too. Because, you are. Because, it's all you've ever known or seen modelled. So there's a bit of over-compensating and pendulum swinging that goes on. Of course it's reasonable to expect kids to pick up after themselves. But do I need to be so hysterical about it, does it need to be so Loaded ... as you heal and get more balance, so much of the heat goes out of it. I hated being harped at and relentlessly criticized and used as the family maid just because I happened to be a girl. I feel awful when I hear myself repeating the same phrases ... Hope I'm not hijacking this here thread ...
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Post by setfree on Apr 5, 2010 23:06:16 GMT -5
What a heavy, heavy load for the eldest daughter. How burnt out she must get even before she starts having babies of her own. I can't imagine what it must be like to be the eldest of a quiverful of 8 or more, and then in your early 20's go straight to producing your own quiverful ("the homebirth mothers say it's a sin not to start having babies right away" is what one QF daughter told me .... her mothr married at 16, so did her grandmother, and she thought she was quite the strong-minded rebel to hold off until she was 18).
I can't imagine that this is the life expected of these daughters.
I have three children. They make a LOT of mess. Sometimes we have crazy times when i am so over the mess that I am barking orders like a drill sergeant, "pick this up! pick that up!" - I feel bad enough about that, i do worry we are pressuring them too much, my dh is worried about it too ... i just hate the mess, really struggling with this - i can't stand the mess and how taken for granted i feel, like i just have to be this cleaning/tidying machine while they just play and entertain and feed themselves - but then, when I'm yelling at them to do this that and the other just to get some semblence of order back, i do feel guilty that i am shaming and pressuring them.
At least in our house my dh does as much if not more domestic chores as me. If I'm this psycho and pressured just with this small quiver, and an equal -opportunity dh to boot, i can only imagine the pressure on older girls in full on QF households.
thank your for sharing your story starfury, i look forward to part 2.
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Post by setfree on Apr 5, 2010 6:41:58 GMT -5
That is really interesting. I have held the belief that nowhere in the Bible does it say for wives to "obey" their husbands. I didn't realise some translations actually do use the word 'obedient'. My Bible (NIV) says, "... to be subject to their husbands" and later in Titus 2:9, "Teach slaves to be subject to their masters ..."
The New American Standard version says "be subject to" also.
There is a clear difference in the Greek between "obey" and "submit" or 'be subject to", so i would be interested to know whether Titus 2:5 uses the Greek word that is used in Eph 6:1, or the Greek word used in Eph 5:21.
if it's actually the same word, then a translation that is interpreting it "obey"/"be obedient to" rather than "be subject to" is kinda stretching things a little, in favour of male entitlement.
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Post by setfree on Apr 5, 2010 6:34:41 GMT -5
I emailed it to my husband. He was pretty horrified.
Then he said, if you exchanged all the hes and shes and hims and hers, what would it look like?
It's an interesting exercise. If these were instructions to a MAN, it would be like some of the extreme doctrines we've seen in Communist totalitarian regimes (we were missionaries). If it were a man being given all these instructions, there's a twisting in your gut as you think in horror of how this poor man is going to be totally emasculated and oppressed and reduced.
Somehow it's strangely less shocking when it's directed towards women, we are more accepting of the total domination of women, and of the concept of women 'pouring themselves out' or emptying themselves' or 'throwing themselves into' or 'losing themselves' in a role.
Just changing the hes and shes around puts it in a whole new light.
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Post by setfree on Apr 4, 2010 20:57:47 GMT -5
Oh good, I'm glad you won't mind if I break down and do a bit of hair-pulling from time to time. I have read your posts Jeb, but haven't found anything to be pissed off about??? Is there a particulat post that tells your story, I'd like to know more of where you are coming from.
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Post by setfree on Apr 4, 2010 20:53:21 GMT -5
True. But my point was, the Bible does not tell wives to obey their husbands.
These hideous books (like Helen Andelin's "Me? Obey him??" do.
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Post by setfree on Apr 4, 2010 20:47:25 GMT -5
Yes, I agree - the husband is coddled and infantilised, (prevented from anything that could lead to genuine spiritual maturity, such as selflessness, servanthood, submission, surrender or sacrifice - at least as it pertains to his relationship with his wife and the sharing of the domestic load) but at the same time he is put on a pedestal and looked to as the Leader who can do no wrong. The wife gets all the work and all the responsibility and the husband gets all the kudos and status and privilege. This is really insightful: Yes, things are better than they used to be and better than in some countries (worse than in others), but there is a long, long uphill climb to real equality and I was not ready to face that.
I think there was in me, some kind of resistance to realizing this because it is so depressing and scary. So, instead, I rebelled against this knowledge by thinking that if I just EMBRACED traditional womanhood, all would be well. It wasn't being a woman that was problematic - it was rebelling against being a woman! I really thought I had the problem solved, when really I had just forfeited the whole issue, not having had the heart or courage to fight. Isn't the religious spin something? The books make out that you are being this courageous radical by embracing "God's" role for women. But I have sensed that fear before in women who cling to the hierarchical doctrine. As well as this that MusicMom put her finger on, there's also the fear of rebuke and rejection, of being disapproved of and censured, like what happened to That Woman. Oh, the shame! Oh how terrible to cast out into the 'outer darkness' ... if you just be a Good Girl and fulfill your role, you can at least have the assurance of being Acceptable and Approved Of. Even if you have to quench your soul and keep your Wild Woman captive to earn that. I never thought of this aspect, that the traditional subordination could be a kind of refuge for women wanting to live in denial about the wide-spread misogyny throughout society and the world. It reminds me of Stockholm Syndrome: "If I just be a very good, compliant, righteous girl, my captors won't hurt me too badly, will they? Surely it's really for my good and they know best ..." (As a doula, I see this dynamic in obstetric hospitals too. I think it is a typically feminine survival tactic.) It's just that if you are doing this, it would seem to imply that your soul is regarding you as a captive, even if your (programmed/brainwashed) head is not.
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Post by setfree on Apr 4, 2010 8:36:03 GMT -5
Um, Jeb. When your sign off your posts saying "play nice now", I want to go pull someone's hair. (I don't usually go round yanking the hair out of my friend's heads.) Just wondering, why do you say this? I'm thinking it could be some cute southern thing, or do you have some anxiety that others on this forum are going to get into a scrap?
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Post by setfree on Apr 4, 2010 8:12:38 GMT -5
Whoa. There is so much I relate to here. I know a lot of quiverfull women who will try to pretend they are so happy, and they'll tell you so, yet they all look extremely miserable, hardly ever smile, and they bully other women. I think they bully other women to make up for the lack of any kind of control they have in their marriages. Yes. This was my experience. I wanted to say to her, "You are in a prison of your own making, with chains you've forged yourself, and you want every other woman to be in there too, to validate and justify your experience." My failure to comply was met with such anger and frustration when i just would not play the game. And this! In my experience, there's another manifestation besides bullying other women: it's developing pathologically obsessive relationships with eldest children, especially sons. I've known more than one woman whose eldest son served as a demi-husband with whom the woman felt she could express herself. It allowed her to have some modicum of authority in the relationship, whereas with her actual husband she wasn't allowed to act as anything but his appendage. This meant, unfortunately, a lot of stifled sons who were never given the emotional freedom to leave home - and it meant hell for the young women they liked. This was MY hell. This was my mother in law. ... they beat the only pulpit they are allowed to have: that of encouraging other women to submit to the patriarchal system. So true, Journey! Elisabeth Elliot, Nancy Campbell, Mary Pride - they all remind me of this dynamic. My QF ex-friend was intelligent, sensitive, dynamic ... she lectured and chastised me, I couldn't believe the emotional violence and just assumed she must be getting that from her husband - but within a few years she was a faint shell of her former lively self.
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Post by setfree on Apr 4, 2010 7:45:29 GMT -5
Please excuse the double post.
I just had another look at her list. It's like a manifesto from the North Korean Communists.
I think I have it deciphered now.
To be a good godly acceptable woman, all you have to do is:
Be clueless Act incompetent Abandon financial independence
Practice idolatry - such as, if your dh makes a decision, it's God's will - so no worries if "God" and "Husband" are inter-changeable. So no it's not about studying God's Word and knowing God - instead, just "study and know your husband".
Do blind, knee-jerk obedience, suppress and annhilate any autonomous thought or instinct. Just obey without thinking. Do not think. Quell any God-given instinct. It's just your rebellious spirit.
God will give you the grace to cope with marital rape. You don't have the right of consent.
Have no boundaries.
Have no needs.
Have no limits.
Have no opinion.
Have no rights.
Embrace negative spin of every aspect of your authentic personality. It isn't your intelligence, experience, perspective, opinion or input - actually, it's "resistance" and "interference". Get used to your voice being regarded merely as static. Abandon any expectation of joint decision making or responsibility bearing.
Have no voice.
Have no escape or respite. It's not loyal.
Get good at the dysfunctional art of appearance management. It's Co-Dependency 101. "Make him look good." "Make him look successful." Don't worry if he's a narcissistic failure from all this this sycophantic idol-worshipping you've been doing, all that matters is that you make him "look" successful.
Expect absolutely nothing from him. Do absolutely everything for him.
Give all that you have, let yourself be utterly drained, but when you inevitably feel empty, just spiritualise it.
Teach your children idolatry so they massage and serve his ego and image, too.
Use "forgiveness" to suppress and repress any authentic need or emotion - especially anger - that is alerting you that your boundaries are being trampled.
Learn to ignore all warning signals, all clenching of your gut, all instinct shouting at you that you are in emotional and psychological danger. You must not let your Programming be interfered with. Quell that rebellious thought right now!
You have no right to feel safe, secure or respected; neither do your children. That is merely a lack of submission. If you would only just properly and fully submit, then you WOULD be safe because you would be under his Umbrella of authority and so God would bless you. So you can't possibly be feeling undafe because he is a narcissistic, immature bully, it's just that you are not submitting exhaustively yet.
You must get everything from God and expect nothing from your husband, but you have to preen his ego as your leader and provider of everything, though. Don't worry if this seems rather contradictory or crazy-making - soon you'll be able to suppress all dissenting or questioning thoughts within seconds - and if that doesn't work, take more Xanax.
Lie. Don't tell the truth in love. It's critical. It's negative. Of course your husband is infallible. Well, I mean, he's not, but he is entitled to feel that he is, and to never have his foibles or sins pointed out. So, honey, just lie, lie, lie.
Wear masks. Cover up. Be phony. Pretend.
Smile.
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Post by setfree on Apr 4, 2010 7:05:11 GMT -5
Oh God. I left some comments on that blog. For any good it's worth. Dear heavens. How can anyone possibly live up to that? Such a contradiction - first she says marriage can't be an idol but she is teaching others to totally make and idol out of marriage - like getting married is the ONLY future for her daughter ... I hate how this doctrine instructs women in dysfunction.
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Post by setfree on Apr 3, 2010 6:45:45 GMT -5
Hi hrd, this is OT but just wanted to add, I'm another who is proud to say i am a feminist.
By my definition of a feminist, Jesus and Paul were also radical feminists.
God is pro-chick. (That's Russian for feminist).
Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.
I believe in the biblical equality of women and men and I don't believe the hierarchical chain-of-command doctrine is biblical.
Feminism is about ending prejudice and people being free from the restrictions and stereo-types of gender roles, so they can relate to each other as equal people. Just like ending the prejudic of racism in favour of justice and fair play.
Anyway no more lecturing, I am just so glad to find more like-minded people here and wanted to put up my hand.
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Post by setfree on Apr 2, 2010 4:26:47 GMT -5
what a shock that YWAM were handing out Above Rubies! My mother had those about the house, it wasn't long before I got to the point of burning them.
Perhaps YWAM did that back then because they were free?
Since then, YWAM seems to have taken a more moderate view, and a strong stance against prejudice, sexism as well as racism.
Why Not Women? (2000) is a book by Loren Cunningham and David Joel Hamilton. It strongly commends women in leadership and ministry, using research from Christians for Biblical Equality. It speaks of the femicide, misogyny and the distortions of doctrine that keep women subordinate, marginalised and de-mobilised. Other than books from CBE it is one of the strongest books speaking up for the equality of men and women.
How the pharisees of my community hated it. And hated that I had in on our communal shelves. They needn't have worried. I'm sure I was the only one who ever read it, let alone agreed with it.
A big improvement on Above Rubies.
Here's some quotes from the book: "It is time for us to re-think some of our oldest beliefs and traditions. It is time for us to repent for whatever ways we have hindered God's work and misread his word. It is time for us to release women to be all God has called them to be ..."
"... we believe marriage is to be a partnership of equals ..."
"If you have held women back - repent of hurtful attitudes ... ask forgiveness for the way we have made women or anyone else into second-class citizens in the Kingdom of God. Let us lead the way into reconciliation and healing."
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Post by setfree on Mar 28, 2010 23:24:58 GMT -5
Journey, your posts have been speaking to me very strongly. I also hope you'll write a book.
These 'marriage' books instruct women to do idolatry and dysfunctional co-dependency.
Are we meant to glorify God or glorify our husbands??? To say one is the other is such manipulative blurring. One is in the Bible (glorify God) the other is extra-biblical (glorify husband). It *sounds* religious - but IT IS NOT biblical. Subtle distortion, subtle deception.
Just like *obey* your husband. Obey your parents IS in the Bible. Obey your husband is NOT.
Kephale of the wife IS in the Bible. Head of the house is NOT.
All believers and kings, priest and co-heirs IS in the Bible. The husband is the priest of the home is NOT.
What twisting of scripture, to infer that submitting to your husband is part of being filled with the Spirit and walking with God!
How can they just *ignore* Ephesians 5:21? Being gentle and submissive towards ONE ANOTHER is the outworking of being filled with Spirit and imitators of God, being kind and compassionate and forgiving towards one another. Wives submitting to husbands (and husbands doing likewise as they lay down their lives for wives and see to it that they are lifted up to a position of equality as equal partners) is AN example of 5:21, in the context of the whole chapter and previous chapter!
How can it be twisted to force women to commit idolatry and become co-dependent???
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Post by setfree on Mar 28, 2010 3:00:25 GMT -5
When my dh and I shared while we were newly-weds about the intimacy problems we were having (dh had no communication skills and expected instant obedience and instant sex, he wasn't getting either) with another couple, I was later chastised for "slandering" my husband. The wife was banned from having contact with me. She begged her husband saying, "I haven't heard her say anything negative about her husband lately ..."
How can you deal with anything, avoid dysfunctionally sweeping issues under the rug, have an opinion, stand up for yourself, or do conflict resolution if you are not allowed to say *anything* negative about your husband???
Journey, your story is riveting and it is making my husband feel very uncomfortable.
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Post by setfree on Mar 28, 2010 2:22:30 GMT -5
Yes, because what you 'should be' is, of course, his unpaid household slave. How very convenient for him.
Has he ever held a toilet brush and scrubbed a toilet in his life?
Who cleans the spilt semen?
I'm furious. I've read parts of this to my dh, he is feeling pretty red-faced and bad because he was very like Mark in the early days. I too, worried i was rebellious and was called a jezebel. But i fought, violently and irrepressibly, i somehow knew it was wrong and i fought and fought against the injustice. I could never fight enough to break through my dh's defensiveness and passivity though. We are still married but our intimacy is crap.
Is part 5 on NLQ yet? Dying to see how you got out.
I find navigating the different series very tricky, any advice?
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Post by setfree on Mar 28, 2010 1:52:57 GMT -5
You can put a negative spin or a postive spin on just about anything. It is a manipulation technique (very common in materialism and marketing, eh?) To say balance is compromise or being luke-warm is a manipulative way to eliminate all reasonable options other than the one being presented:
that to please God, you'd better go get your burka on.
What a way to justify extremism - and 'sell' extremisn - so that you have a clear path to make sure women will accept being used as slaves and offer unquestioning obedience.
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