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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Jun 4, 2010 9:03:31 GMT -5
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Post by anatheist on Jun 4, 2010 11:17:13 GMT -5
Every new installment of your story makes me more and more afraid for you - I'm glad that you're here now and can look back at those things as something you no longer have to do.
One thing that I was wondering - do you think that your husband fabricated some of his troubles at work in order to point to a "sign from god"? It just seems incredibly coincidental that within days of him expressing his dissatisfaction with where you were living, all these things would immediately start happening in a job that had apparently been satisfactory enough for him to intend to retire there before.
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Post by freefromtyranny on Jun 4, 2010 13:27:25 GMT -5
I'm shocked that Cecelia helped you move. Christians are so prone to eating their own.
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Post by margybargy on Jun 4, 2010 15:59:48 GMT -5
Every new installment of your story makes me more and more afraid for you - I'm glad that you're here now and can look back at those things as something you no longer have to do. One thing that I was wondering - do you think that your husband fabricated some of his troubles at work in order to point to a "sign from god"? It just seems incredibly coincidental that within days of him expressing his dissatisfaction with where you were living, all these things would immediately start happening in a job that had apparently been satisfactory enough for him to intend to retire there before. I had precisely the same thought. I'd like to hear more on this if ShellyC wouldn't mind. Putting tacks on somebody's chair is extremely juvenile. I'm having a hard time picturing a workplace where adults could do this and get away with it. This Cecelia character is very mysterious. I'd also love to know why she didn't say anything about her trips as they happened. Very strange. It's almost like one of those guys who tries to make himself seem distant and unavailable as a dating technique.
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Post by anatheist on Jun 4, 2010 16:12:07 GMT -5
This Cecelia character is very mysterious. I'd also love to know why she didn't say anything about her trips as they happened. Very strange. It's almost like one of those guys who tries to make himself seem distant and unavailable as a dating technique. I thought that maybe she didn't consider Shelly to be Quiverfull enough to associate with her in front of those other families - not enough children, not enough strict rules, not enough submission...
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Post by margybargy on Jun 4, 2010 17:10:55 GMT -5
This Cecelia character is very mysterious. I'd also love to know why she didn't say anything about her trips as they happened. Very strange. It's almost like one of those guys who tries to make himself seem distant and unavailable as a dating technique. I thought that maybe she didn't consider Shelly to be Quiverfull enough to associate with her in front of those other families - not enough children, not enough strict rules, not enough submission... Hmmmm, maaaybeeeee. *rubs chin*
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Post by juliacat on Jun 4, 2010 19:15:44 GMT -5
I am on the edge of my seat, as always.
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Post by arietty on Jun 4, 2010 20:55:44 GMT -5
This Cecelia character is very mysterious. I'd also love to know why she didn't say anything about her trips as they happened. Very strange. It's almost like one of those guys who tries to make himself seem distant and unavailable as a dating technique. I thought that maybe she didn't consider Shelly to be Quiverfull enough to associate with her in front of those other families - not enough children, not enough strict rules, not enough submission... Yeah she hadn't yet arrived.As to the signs from God well.. I know that if you are looking for them you will find them. Personally I think it is very very easy to manufacture them. All of a sudden every little coincidence that just blipped past your mind lights up as a.. SIGN FROM GOD <---need shiny letters for this. If Cecelia's husband had been called from somewhere else to this job and felt it was God's will for him to be there he would have interpreted this treatment as persecution because he was doing the right thing. Since he was bored (everything was mundane) he interpreted it as God telling him to leave. Really it just (IMHO) was what it was.. stuff happened, people disliked him or were just juvenile. Events without spiritual meaning, just events.
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Post by freefromtyranny on Jun 4, 2010 21:11:20 GMT -5
I think Cecilia considered Shelly a "ministry".
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Post by arietty on Jun 4, 2010 21:22:43 GMT -5
I think Cecilia considered Shelly a "ministry". ABSOLUTELY. I have a friend who was always in the position of being some powerful woman's "ministry". In the end she was always ejected from the friendship. It was horrible to watch.
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Post by bananacat on Jun 4, 2010 22:04:02 GMT -5
Wow, an "exclusive" church? That seems to miss the entire point of Christianity! They got so caught up in all the technicalities that they complete forgot what Jesus himself said about loving other people. It sounds more like an exclusive social club than a place to celebrate Jesus.
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Post by nikita on Jun 4, 2010 22:45:41 GMT -5
The idea of the closed church was foreign to me too, quite the surprise. I thought the idea was to evangelize. But apparently there is a whole group of conservative churches nowadays that take the idea of church to be very exclusive. The ones with which I am familiar are very conservative Reform but there are probably others as well. You have to have a recommendation from your prior pastor to join the congregation, interview with the pastor, sign a statement of faith, and agree to submit to their church authority and discipline. And for some of them, you are not allowed to leave without their permission. At least one I know about tells you that if you leave while under discipline that they have the right to call up any church you subsequently attend and tell them you left under discipline and why you were being disciplined. There is an entire website dedicated to how to deal with church discipline within the system so to speak. This is all said to prevent 'church hopping' and other sins in the church. And you agree to it all when you are accepted as a member and sign their papers. This is serious stuff to the people involved. Personally, it raises my hackles. In my cult there was no enrollment and everybody was welcome. Leaving was a pressure thing but no one went all over town and declared you 'under discipline' and therefore ineligible to switch churches. I mean, the Catholic church can choose not to accept you and they can excommunicate you and Scientology can choose not to advance you on and can declare you a suppressive person so it's not like no one else does this. But coming from a more evangelical background it wasn't something we did. Apparently, now we do. (I'm Catholic now but the Protestant in me is very ingrained. I will never completely think like a Catholic. )
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Post by km on Jun 5, 2010 1:27:56 GMT -5
The idea of the closed church was foreign to me too, quite the surprise. I thought the idea was to evangelize. But apparently there is a whole group of conservative churches nowadays that take the idea of church to be very exclusive. The ones with which I am familiar are very conservative Reform but there are probably others as well. You have to have a recommendation from your prior pastor to join the congregation, interview with the pastor, sign a statement of faith, and agree to submit to their church authority and discipline. And for some of them, you are not allowed to leave without their permission. At least one I know about tells you that if you leave while under discipline that they have the right to call up any church you subsequently attend and tell them you left under discipline and why you were being disciplined. There is an entire website dedicated to how to deal with church discipline within the system so to speak. This is all said to prevent 'church hopping' and other sins in the church. And you agree to it all when you are accepted as a member and sign their papers. This is serious stuff to the people involved. Personally, it raises my hackles. In my cult there was no enrollment and everybody was welcome. Leaving was a pressure thing but no one went all over town and declared you 'under discipline' and therefore ineligible to switch churches. I mean, the Catholic church can choose not to accept you and they can excommunicate you and Scientology can choose not to advance you on and can declare you a suppressive person so it's not like no one else does this. But coming from a more evangelical background it wasn't something we did. Apparently, now we do. (I'm Catholic now but the Protestant in me is very ingrained. I will never completely think like a Catholic. ) Oh my god... Where can one find this website? How do they even know which church you're subsequently attending? That is...ridiculous. I mean... Would you even be allowed to visit one Sunday just to make sure you were ready to go through the membership process? What if you got married in the church and wanted "outsiders" to attend?
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Post by nikita on Jun 5, 2010 2:28:59 GMT -5
The website for assistance with handling church discipline is a general one, not for that particular church. It is here: church-discipline.blogspot.com/2007/08/how-to-leave-church.htmlAnd this particular article gives a good explanation for the strict membership rules within a church and why it isn’t just a matter of leaving one and joining another. www.patriarchy.org/church/church_hopping.htmlAs a converted Catholic I realize that my own church has rules regarding membership and excommunication but I guess two thousand years of bureaucratic history and really nailed down rules as well as most congregations and leadership not making my life their business for the most part lets me feel pretty comfortable with it. On the other hand, having a group of men kind of making it up as they go along in a smaller newer church denomination, one with very strict conduct rules, where everyone is watched and rebuked and made to toe the line about the minutiae of their lives, would make me feel like I was walking on eggshells all the time. That article quoted earlier regarding that Baptist church’s discipline is a good example. It is a system rife for abuse and at the dictates and whims of the local pastor. I have a problem with that, that would make me very uneasy. Of course churches have a right to set up their own rules regarding polity and discipline, I just find it very oppressive as a practice and strange in concept. I mean no offense to anyone on this forum who attends such a church. It is a practice that has gained in ‘popularity’ over the last decade or two so it is pretty much out there now. The objections now are primarily in how it’s handled on a case by case basis on not whether it is appropriate to have it. I mean, say John Doe is having an affair with Mary the piano player and leadership finds out about it. That would start a discipline process which end may be either repentance and fellowship or a public excommunication. John MacArthur (big Reformed leader) and his church sent a public letter regarding Gary Ezzo and his excommunication from their church and also his subsequent church. They wanted to let the public (Ezzo’s clients) know that he was not in good standing. Ezzo is big in severe child rearing circles. But apparently he also has moral issues and he was disciplined publicly because he would not repent or not to their satisfaction or whatever. So that’s how these churches handle these situations, they take certain specific steps that could end up with a person receiving a public renunciation. But it also happens when a member is alleged to have sin even if they do not or would not by anyone else’s standards. A woman who reports her husband beat her was accused of ‘gossip’ and brought up for discipline. Her husband was not, but she was. That was the sin. Not honoring her husband and ‘gossiping’ about him, even though she was simply asking her own pastor what to do about her husband beating her. The pastor felt that was gossip. It stuns the psyche, no? But it is the elders and pastor of that one church who decided who was ‘sinning’ and what to do about it and began formal discipline which ended with not only the woman but her children being shunned, even though the children had done nothing wrong. That is power that I am not comfortable giving to another person or group of elders in a church. To me, that is abuse. The girl in the article who was under discipline for getting pregnant by being raped is a case of church discipline gone horribly wrong. The whole system is just way too subjective for me.
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maicde
Junior Member
Posts: 69
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Post by maicde on Jun 5, 2010 10:48:31 GMT -5
Shelley, before you reveal Cecelia's "secret" (that you stated at the end of your article), I'd like to know what "secret" she had for taking care of 14 children, keeping them totally quiet, AND cleaning your house. Were they duct-taped and tied to a chair? Did she have a secret cleaning crew come in and clean? Is she a genie? I have a large family - children ages 26 to age 8 and I've yet to learn the secret that Cecelia apparently knew/knows. Looking forward to your next installment(s). You have a fascinating story. P.S. - wow! Joining some of those churches you mentioned sounds as hard as Kahn ("King of the Hill") trying to join the exclusive all Asian-American "Nine Rivers Country Club"! Sorry, I know that this is serious stuff, but so much of this patriarchal/control stuff is so over-the-top ridiculous that sometimes you don't know whether to laugh or to cry, so sometimes you just have to laugh so that you don't go bonkers.
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Post by Sierra on Jun 5, 2010 15:23:46 GMT -5
Shelley, before you reveal Cecelia's "secret" (that you stated at the end of your article), I'd like to know what "secret" she had for taking care of 14 children, keeping them totally quiet, AND cleaning your house. Were they duct-taped and tied to a chair? Did she have a secret cleaning crew come in and clean? Is she a genie? I have a large family - children ages 26 to age 8 and I've yet to learn the secret that Cecelia apparently knew/knows. Great post, as always, Shelly. As for this woman's trick, I suspect it was sheer intimidation. My pastor's wife had seven children and she had this ability to wither the most rambunctious child with a glare. We were convinced that if she disapproved of us, God disapproved of us. I loathed and feared her and resented all of the women like her who thought that since I was a child, I was public property for rebuke and discipline. ETA: But I obeyed her, too, because it never occurred to me that I had another choice! ;D
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maicde
Junior Member
Posts: 69
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Post by maicde on Jun 5, 2010 19:06:23 GMT -5
Shelley, before you reveal Cecelia's "secret" (that you stated at the end of your article), I'd like to know what "secret" she had for taking care of 14 children, keeping them totally quiet, AND cleaning your house. Were they duct-taped and tied to a chair? Did she have a secret cleaning crew come in and clean? Is she a genie? I have a large family - children ages 26 to age 8 and I've yet to learn the secret that Cecelia apparently knew/knows. Great post, as always, Shelly. As for this woman's trick, I suspect it was sheer intimidation. My pastor's wife had seven children and she had this ability to wither the most rambunctious child with a glare. We were convinced that if she disapproved of us, God disapproved of us. I loathed and feared her and resented all of the women like her who thought that since I was a child, I was public property for rebuke and discipline. ETA: But I obeyed her, too, because it never occurred to me that I had another choice! ;D Very scary stuff, Sierra. I am so sorry that you were intimidated like that as a child. Same stuff happened to me. What I hated the most (and rebelled against it - thank goodness) was the constant indoctrination that displeasing the intimidator was displeasing God. What a heavy burden for a small child to carry. The sad part is that it can take years or a lifetime for the load to get lighter and lighter and for the shackles to come off.
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Post by madame on Jun 6, 2010 4:50:30 GMT -5
Shelley C, What an amazing post! I can't wait for the next installment!
I agree with Atheist BB about those "signs from God". Some Christians have a way of interpreting EVERYTHING as supportive of whatever they want. Nothing just "happens". It's all "signs" and orchestrated from above or below. I've found myself trying to find signs from God, or interpreting hardships as persecution. There's something "comforting" in knowing that it's all ordained, all under God's control, etc... But it can be nerve wrecking too, and the way people use it all to support their agenda is annoying, to say the least.
I can't wait to find out about Cecilia's "secrets". Ghosh, what a woman!
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Post by lg61820 on Jun 6, 2010 19:12:31 GMT -5
Gorsh! I can't wait for the next installment. I never knew a Cecilia exactly, but I knew some women who could inspire the same kind of envy. Women who could seemingly accomplish the impossible both at home and at church.
I'm so looking forward to finding out Cecilia's secret!
Also, about "God's will", it seems to me that those who declare themselves to be doing god's will are often doing just what they wanted to do all along.
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Post by journey on Jun 6, 2010 21:42:02 GMT -5
Next installment, please! You can't leave us hanging like that!!! (It wasn't a Charity church, was it...? You said IFB, so I'm guessing it couldn't have been, but just had to ask)...
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Post by grandmalou on Jun 6, 2010 22:16:54 GMT -5
What Journey said! We are hanging on by our toenails here! What a story! More of this "perfect woman", please... What was her secret?
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Post by hopewell on Jun 7, 2010 9:05:29 GMT -5
Oh good--the "D" word--Duggars! Let me guess, she's been "testing" her to see if she's holy enough to join ATI/IBLP. I'm jumping up and down with excitement!! You are an excellent story teller and I really can't wait for the next installment!
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Post by km on Jun 9, 2010 7:51:17 GMT -5
(It wasn't a Charity church, was it...? You said IFB, so I'm guessing it couldn't have been, but just had to ask)... journey--I have to admit that I wondered the same thing. The dress requirements in particular made me think of the dress codes at Charity (I looked into their youth Bible school at one point--as a teenager--and drew the line at the injunction about double coverings.). Incidentally... I wonder if anyone out there would ever be willing to write a series about experiences with Charity? I know that several here have had experiences with them.
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