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Post by km on May 28, 2010 18:42:48 GMT -5
Okay, well thank you for clarifying this. It actually changes a lot... So, well, yeah... Okay then, so he wasn't a leader? Good to know. Uh, so... Was this supposed to be a reply? Because, actually, it only answered one of my questions.
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Post by km on May 28, 2010 18:49:38 GMT -5
Oh, gosh that isn't what I meant at all! I meant that the 'bible belt' has a more pervasive brand of conservative Christianity that seems to just be assumed by society as a whole where the places I am from (California/Oregon) do not have the same pervasive Christian atmosphere. So our particular flavor of evangelicalism is likely to be quite different than that evidenced in the south. And that's just a general thing I noticed over the years. And I realize that there is much diversity in the cities and all. My sister and her husband moved to the south for about ten years and now are in Oregon with me. And they were evangelicals when they went south and are still so -- and they tell me tales. Huge christian culture shock for them. They were very at odds with some of the attitudes they found in churches down there. So there's a difference is all I'm pointing out. So now I am going to stop replying because you need to clean and I'm distracting you. I need to clean too (but I won't). Oh, no worries. I knew this wasn't what you meant. It's just... Lots of Southern stereotypes get passed around on TV and in movies. And there are differences throughout the South (The urban area where I live is quite different from the surrounding rural areas, for example. And my state is quite different--or so people tell me--from areas in the deep South. But, yes, it's true that evangelical culture is quite pervasive throughout the South and throughout many parts of the Midwest. And, having lived up and down the East coast, it's actually pretty pervasive in the Middle Atlantic and in parts of the Northeast, too. But I've also lived in Canada, and I would say... Depending on where you live, it's certainly possible to forget how pervasive--and politically powerful--the culture can be (and is in certain parts of the United States). So, yeah, I can see how we would have had quite different experiences of evangelicalism. I'm guessing you'd have had more experience with people like that guy who wrote Blue Like Jazz--and that kind of, eh, calmer evangelicalism. My sister got into that book at one point, but I don't really know any evangelicals like that.
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Post by tapati on May 28, 2010 19:03:03 GMT -5
Nikita, there is a quote button but they don't make it obvious.
If you look at the various symbols and buttons, it's the second to last on the bottom row. Looks like a sheet of paper with a blue arrow. Took me the longest time to find it! How 'bout a Q for quote?
As for the discussion, while it seems like it's so easy for a man to "just leave" I can imagine that means, in most cases, leaving the kids in the custody of their mom to be raised in QF. That would seem pretty daunting to me.
Perhaps NLQ can empower the less aggressive men to band together and work to change QF to a more reasonable form rather than just be steamrolled by the aggressive leaders influencing their wives.
Some people just have an easier time of it when it comes to speaking out. Those who are conflict-averse have to learn new skills and overcome whatever past experiences made it difficult for them to advocate for themselves and others directly.
It doesn't help when you are in a society or subculture where speaking against it is heavily penalized and the Bible is being used as a weapon. Peer pressure is a powerful force. So many studies have been done that demonstrate this.
I think we all have something in our past we wished we had done differently or better. I have a truckload myself.
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Post by km on May 28, 2010 19:25:27 GMT -5
Nikita, there is a quote button but they don't make it obvious. If you look at the various symbols and buttons, it's the second to last on the bottom row. Looks like a sheet of paper with a blue arrow. Took me the longest time to find it! How 'bout a Q for quote? As for the discussion, while it seems like it's so easy for a man to "just leave" I can imagine that means, in most cases, leaving the kids in the custody of their mom to be raised in QF. That would seem pretty daunting to me. Perhaps NLQ can empower the less aggressive men to band together and work to change QF to a more reasonable form rather than just be steamrolled by the aggressive leaders influencing their wives. Some people just have an easier time of it when it comes to speaking out. Those who are conflict-averse have to learn new skills and overcome whatever past experiences made it difficult for them to advocate for themselves and others directly. It doesn't help when you are in a society or subculture where speaking against it is heavily penalized and the Bible is being used as a weapon. Peer pressure is a powerful force. So many studies have been done that demonstrate this. I think we all have something in our past we wished we had done differently or better. I have a truckload myself. I sincerely wish people would quit attributing words to me that suggest that I think men have the ability to "just leave." Please do not put words on my mouth, and engage me based on what I have actually said. Please. Not just you, Tapati, but everyone. I have tried to do that here, with substantial quotes and examples. I would appreciate the same courtesy. I said that, structurally speaking, men are probably *more able* to leave than women. I do not believe that this is a simple matter or that men can just up and go when they have family and relationships and connections. I think it is utterly ridiculous that I should have to clarify this, but just in case it wasn't explicitly clear... I don't think that. I haven't seen anyone here express such a ludicrous belief. I have explained at length what my problems with the post are, and I don't really see a point in continuing to explain it differently.
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Post by arietty on May 28, 2010 19:27:55 GMT -5
This is fair. I can't really say something general about this beyond " fight harder." I'm not even asking for that. I'm asking for Brad to be more transparent about this--and not to claim that his wife or an abstract belief system were solely responsible for what happened. Can't we just listen to people's stories here without demanding that they be accountable to us about every bit of their willing own engagement in this abusive system? This is very offputting KM. The condom story, I'm assuming that is what happened in the beginning. Not ever time they had sex. And it's a very familiar story that I have heard from the woman's QF perspective many times. You will find the debate of whether you should have sex with your husband if he insists on using birth control on QF forums.. what is the bigger sin, using the birth control or denying your husband. And people will choose both sides of that question. And isn't it a whole lot easier in the end for the man to say Okay, if I go the QF way I get a happy wife, sex, AND I am pleasing God in this awesomely brave way and look here are a gazillion books and magazines patting me on the back about it. As someone said, getting sucked in is progressive. So is putting up with abuse. You can go back in my history km, back to when I was young and didn't have any kids yet and say "I want you to take responsibility for staying with him after he hit you and for lying to your friends about how he was a wonderful man, it's your fault too you can't just blame the system and your husband, you're being dishonest by posting that way." There are a lot of moments in our lives where we are presented with choices and we make the pacifying choice. To do otherwise is to be confrontational, sometimes dangerously so. We don't want a mad spouse, a wrecked marriage, and those small pacifying choices seem like a good thing at the time.
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Post by km on May 28, 2010 19:55:21 GMT -5
This is fair. I can't really say something general about this beyond " fight harder." I'm not even asking for that. I'm asking for Brad to be more transparent about this--and not to claim that his wife or an abstract belief system were solely responsible for what happened. Can't we just listen to people's stories here without demanding that they be accountable to us about every bit of their willing own engagement in this abusive system? This is very offputting KM. The condom story, I'm assuming that is what happened in the beginning. Not ever time they had sex. And it's a very familiar story that I have heard from the woman's QF perspective many times. You will find the debate of whether you should have sex with your husband if he insists on using birth control on QF forums.. what is the bigger sin, using the birth control or denying your husband. And people will choose both sides of that question. And isn't it a whole lot easier in the end for the man to say Okay, if I go the QF way I get a happy wife, sex, AND I am pleasing God in this awesomely brave way and look here are a gazillion books and magazines patting me on the back about it. As someone said, getting sucked in is progressive. So is putting up with abuse. You can go back in my history km, back to when I was young and didn't have any kids yet and say "I want you to take responsibility for staying with him after he hit you and for lying to your friends about how he was a wonderful man, it's your fault too you can't just blame the system and your husband, you're being dishonest by posting that way." There are a lot of moments in our lives where we are presented with choices and we make the pacifying choice. To do otherwise is to be confrontational, sometimes dangerously so. We don't want a mad spouse, a wrecked marriage, and those small pacifying choices seem like a good thing at the time. arietty: I don't really think I do this habitually even if I happen to be doing it now, because I have read someone as saying, "But my wife made me do it." And that bothers me. And I would like to get to the bottom of whether or not that has actually been said. Because I certainly owe Brad and others an apology if I simply misinterpreted the post. You're right, I don't have children. But here's what bothers me... Adults not taking responsibility for the pacifying choice when *children* are often wise enough to see what is going on. I was. I knew from the age of about eight that my parents needed to get divorced, and many of my peers who came out of abusive situations tell similar stories. If we knew how unsustainable the situations were... With no experiences of the world... It's frustrating when adults don't take responsibility, when they don't put us first. I try to believe that people do the best they can in the circumstances they're in, but... Some people are adults when these things happen, and some are children... It's not easy for anyone to leave, but it's not possible for children to do so *at all*... And it's structurally more difficult for women. Why is it problematic for me to say this? Yeah, I've found much of this profoundly triggering, is part of it. My dad would probably write an identical statement about his own involvement in Christian fundamentalism. My mother made him do it, or *I* made him do it as a small child... Because I was sooo headstrong, and he couldn't stand up to his seven year old daughter, so it's my fault and my mother's fault. I've always been that way, don't you know.... So terrifying that no one--not even a grown man--could stand up to me. And that's just...infuriating. I was seven. My father was in his thirties. And when I see the same kind of narrative and the same language and many of the same talking points, yeah, I feel similarly...upset by it. I'm sorry if it seems overly unpleasant, but no.... I've never been one who could just sit and listen, and I probably won't ever be. At the same time, I don't think I sit around critiquing everyone's narratives all the time... This is specific, and it's about this post.
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Post by brad on May 28, 2010 20:04:12 GMT -5
Concerning "christianese" - It's more than just a religious thing, it's also a cultural thing. If you watch certain movies that tend more towards the black experience, you will hear Christianese all the time alongside of cuss words, drugs, etc., because it's the way we speak. It is our culture. Just watch some episodes of Showtime at the Apollo. Amazing Grace next to a raunchy comedian. In my experience, black culture doesn't draw such hard lines all the time between the sacred and the secular. So if I use Christianese, it is not meant to offend.
Also, the article was originally a Facebook email that I shared with Vyckie before we realized that this would be published on her blog. I didn't feel the need to not speak it because I knew she would understand. And for those who may wonder, I spent time with my wife going over what I posted because I did not want to misrepresent her. She was the one who encouraged me to share my experience with Vyckie. My wife still has some QF beliefs and we don't always agree. But now we talk and discuss things. I would love for her to share her experience too. She eventually began to see the problems in the movement when some of her behavior no longer lined up with the belief system and some personal painful things happened to us both. We woke up to it together and realized we had a lot of fixing and forgiveness to do.
But for the record, I am a evangelical Christian, spent years as a music pastor, and actually still sing gospel music. Christianese is in my vocabulary. :-) So if I say something that seems too religious to you or make a reference you don't understand, please feel free to say, "what do you mean by that?" I don't mind at all. And there are a lot of non-QF people who are evangelical Christians where I live.
P.S. I will try to take the time to go through all the posts here and answer some of the questions.
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Post by arietty on May 28, 2010 20:13:40 GMT -5
You're right, I don't have children. But here's what bothers me... Adults not taking responsibility for the pacifying choice when *children* are often wise enough to see what is going on. I was. I knew from the age of about eight that my parents needed to get divorced, and many of my peers who came out of abusive situations tell similar stories. If we knew how unsustainable the situations were... With no experiences of the world... It's frustrating when adults don't take responsibility, when they don't put us first. I try to believe that people do the best they can in the circumstances they're in, but... Some people are adults when these things happen, and some are children... It's not easy for anyone to leave, but it's not possible for children to do so *at all*... And it's structurally more difficult for women. Why is it problematic for me to say this? I never said anything about you having or not having children. And of course it looks simple to children! Of course they see conflict and bad behavior and wonder why adults continue on in that way! That is a very simplistic view, the view of a child. The child does not see.. fear of being alone, debt, years of investment in a family unit, that family unit's place in their social world, weakness and addictions.. adult life is not simple at all. When I was a child I saw my parents bad marriage very simply. Now that I'm adult I see 10,000 nuances there and I know that my simple solutions wouldn't have touched on the deep issues at work. I hope you have read Brad's last post in this thread in which he expands on how passivity can seem like the right response, the good, kind response.
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Post by nikita on May 28, 2010 20:18:56 GMT -5
I think we're all just terribly complex and flawed human beings who for good or bad make the best choices we can at the time we make them, if we're lucky. And sometimes our choices turn out to have been the wrong way to go but we only saw it after the fact. I come from a pretty crappy family. And I mean really unpleasant lying dysfunctional people from waaaay back. Abraham Lincoln represented one of my family members (as an attorney) in a ridiculous lawsuit against another one of my family members. When I saw that evidence the first thing I thought was, 'Of course he did. Of course they sued each other. That's what my family does.' So aggravating. And this was without the benefit of any overwhelming religiosity. Just unpleasant people all around, generations of them.
Anyway, as a child and as a young adult I could cite you chapter and verse on exactly how I wasn't going to make the horrid mistakes my own parents made. And they did try, their own childhoods were complete nightmares, my grandmothers especially were two of the most selfish unloving women you would ever want to meet. So my parents did better than their mothers and fathers did. But I was going to do better. And I did do better. I made different decisions, I had a great education in human behavior and childhood education to help inform my thoughts and practices, I had great role models, and I did great. And my son can cite you chapter and verse on every horrible decision I made and how I should have done x and y instead of j and z and on and on. Why, he asks, would I decide x? I should have known better than to choose y! Now with the benefit of hindsight I can see he was right in some areas, I did make stupid choices sometimes.
Everyone does. So we can ask, 'Why did you join this religious group?! Why didn't you leave sooner?! Why weren't you thinking about your children!!??' Well, I think most of us were making what we thought were good choices at the time, choices that would benefit our children. And for folks that went along with it passively I don't think that the future of the children was much in their thoughts, it was more the present of their own lives. As it is for most people. Parents tend to choose for their own lives first and if they are good enough parents try to make sure they aren't messing up their kids while they are at it. But they tend to follow the path that is right for them and the children follow. As long as it isn't something actually harmful (to their way of thinking at the time) to their kids then I think most people will do what they think is right for them and for their marriage at the time.
That the decision turns out to have been harmful to their children is an unfortunate and unpleasant fact understood only later on when it's too late.
I think that is the base out of which most people operate. YMMV of course.
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Post by arietty on May 28, 2010 20:20:18 GMT -5
Brad: Don't feel you have to apologize and explain "Christianese". This forum is primarily for people coming out of abusive religious systems with a focus on the QF movement. Sometimes people react to certain language because they find it triggering. Sometimes people were never "in" that kind of culture and feel the need to educate those using this language as to how sexist or classist or some other ist it is. Just keep telling your story in your own words, it will resonate the most with the people who NLQ is hoping to reach
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brad
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Post by brad on May 28, 2010 20:21:49 GMT -5
Uh, so... Was this supposed to be a reply? Because, actually, it only answered one of my questions. Sorry, hadn't done this in a while (forums). Messed up.
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Post by km on May 28, 2010 20:29:51 GMT -5
Concerning "christianese" - It's more than just a religious thing, it's also a cultural thing. If you watch certain movies that tend more towards the black experience, you will hear Christianese all the time alongside of cuss words, drugs, etc., because it's the way we speak. It is our culture. Just watch some episodes of Showtime at the Apollo. Amazing Grace next to a raunchy comedian. In my experience, black culture doesn't draw such hard lines all the time between the sacred and the secular. So if I use Christianese, it is not meant to offend. Also, the article was originally a Facebook email that I shared with Vyckie before we realized that this would be published on her blog. I didn't feel the need to not speak it because I knew she would understand. And for those who may wonder, I spent time with my wife going over what I posted because I did not want to misrepresent her. She was the one who encouraged me to share my experience with Vyckie. My wife still has some QF beliefs and we don't always agree. But now we talk and discuss things. I would love for her to share her experience too. She eventually began to see the problems in the movement when some of her behavior no longer lined up with the belief system and some personal painful things happened to us both. We woke up to it together and realized we had a lot of fixing and forgiveness to do. But for the record, I am a evangelical Christian, spent years as a music pastor, and actually still sing gospel music. Christianese is in my vocabulary. :-) So if I say something that seems too religious to you or make a reference you don't understand, please feel free to say, "what do you mean by that?" I don't mind at all. And there are a lot of non-QF people who are evangelical Christians where I live. P.S. I will try to take the time to go through all the posts here and answer some of the questions. Thanks for this. I think the South is also less rigid about separating the secular from the sacred, by the way. At least, it is in my experience of the South. The religious is in many ways part of the culture, as you say. This helps clarify where you were coming from for me quite a bit, so thank you. And I'm not an evangelical and never will be, but I love gospel music and all of the musical traditions it influenced. Even after all of this, that's still the music that speaks most deeply to my soul. So, I can also understand those kinds of connections. Of course, I can't understand completely because I'm a white woman, but I grew up in the South in a culture that has many of the attributes that you describe. I would be quite...surprised if you'd seen "helpmeet" used in a gospel song rather than hearing it mostly in QF culture, but then... Eh, I guess anything is possible. Thank you, also, for clarifying that you went over this with your wife. You're not personally responsible for my triggers, of course, but it means more to me that you went through this with her in order to make sure you were representing her well. By the way, I didn't realize from your first post that you were black (possibly because I read it too quickly, in which case, I apologize for reading too quickly). If you ever have time, I'd be interested in hearing more about being a person of color in a movement like QF. Most of the people I have known in the movement have been white, and I am always reading about the history of QF--and the possible connections that it has to "white anxiety" about becoming a national minority in the US. I don't know enough about it to assess the accuracy of this kind of claim, but I'm very interested in knowing more about it. Not that it's your job to educate a white person, just... You know, I live in a very integrated community, and many of the African-Americans who I know are religious as you say, but not involved in QF or the homeschooling movement. I would imagine that race probably has something to do with the kinds of pressure that you experienced as well. I mean, we live in a white-dominated society, and QF is a pretty white-dominated movement. And if you listened to gospel music throughout this time, then I imagine you heard the "voodoo beat" business from the Gothardites and other kinds of claims... So, I want to scale back my criticism to a degree and admit that, as a white woman, I don't know jack shit about what it's like to be black in QF. I mean, I noticed certain things, but yeah... I haven't experienced it, so I apologize for the assumptions that I made about your experience.
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Post by km on May 28, 2010 20:37:03 GMT -5
You're right, I don't have children. But here's what bothers me... Adults not taking responsibility for the pacifying choice when *children* are often wise enough to see what is going on. I was. I knew from the age of about eight that my parents needed to get divorced, and many of my peers who came out of abusive situations tell similar stories. If we knew how unsustainable the situations were... With no experiences of the world... It's frustrating when adults don't take responsibility, when they don't put us first. I try to believe that people do the best they can in the circumstances they're in, but... Some people are adults when these things happen, and some are children... It's not easy for anyone to leave, but it's not possible for children to do so *at all*... And it's structurally more difficult for women. Why is it problematic for me to say this? I never said anything about you having or not having children. And of course it looks simple to children! Of course they see conflict and bad behavior and wonder why adults continue on in that way! That is a very simplistic view, the view of a child. The child does not see.. fear of being alone, debt, years of investment in a family unit, that family unit's place in their social world, weakness and addictions.. adult life is not simple at all. When I was a child I saw my parents bad marriage very simply. Now that I'm adult I see 10,000 nuances there and I know that my simple solutions wouldn't have touched on the deep issues at work. I hope you have read Brad's last post in this thread in which he expands on how passivity can seem like the right response, the good, kind response. I did read Brad's post, and it was very helpful, but I have to say that your posts just feel like lectures and admonitions in this thread. I can kind of see what you're saying, but... I would point out that the debt had skyrocketed, and things had become far more complicated when my parents finally divorced about sixteen years after it became apparent that they had to. Maybe this is a simplistic view, but my own experience has been such that... The passive response is what crushes you. I know that adult life is complicated, and I knew it from the time I was very small, and it's why I'm so paranoid about adult commitments and marriage and bringing children into the world now. Until I have proven that I won't fuck them up as much as my parents did their children, I have no right. Probably not ideal to be this cautious, but I will be damned if I make the same mistakes they made. And I get that everyone always does the best they can in bad circumstances, but I mean... What if one of your kids came to you and said, "Why did you let that happen to us?" Do we have no right to wonder about this?
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Post by km on May 28, 2010 20:37:56 GMT -5
Brad: Don't feel you have to apologize and explain "Christianese". This forum is primarily for people coming out of abusive religious systems with a focus on the QF movement. Sometimes people react to certain language because they find it triggering. Sometimes people were never "in" that kind of culture and feel the need to educate those using this language as to how sexist or classist or some other ist it is. Just keep telling your story in your own words, it will resonate the most with the people who NLQ is hoping to reach I find this incredibly condescending. ETA: And, arietty, I don't think you know nearly enough about my history to position me in either of these two groups. I was a part of QF, yes, but I chose to leave it when I was still a teenager.
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Post by Ex-Adriel on May 28, 2010 20:38:53 GMT -5
This may totally miss the point, but there's another parent's perspective to see as well - my mother thought she was saving our souls. We were going to be "the elect" "with Jesus" "raptured away" to sing God's praise in huge congregations of people for a thousand years while the new earth was made, and then sent down to live in grace and holiness and repopulate the new earth in God's image.
It's pretty powerful stuff. To think in terms of eternal salvation, everlasting glory, what's a little pain and suffering now? Besides being petty, any pain is nothing compared to what Jesus suffered. Any humiliation or uncertainty we feel now will be washed away in that moment of glory when 'we see his face again.'
I STILL can't have a rational discussion with my mother about her choices when I was a child, because she honestly still believes that she was acting in our best eternal interests.
It infuriates me, but she's doing the best she can, with her own worldview. I don't agree with it - it hurt me deeply, but she literally CAN NOT see that. She sees that I'm hurting, and she wants to help, but she can't see that she's involved with it. She loves me, but she's not capable of seeing my childhood in any different light than her own. So I have to leave it alone. There's nothing to gain there.
Sometimes people are not able to meet at a place where discussions do any good. It doesn't mean they're being obtuse out of a need to cause pain, or to be deliberately unhelpful - just the inevitable result of two very very different worldviews that can't really mesh due to their differences.
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Post by arietty on May 28, 2010 20:46:08 GMT -5
I did read Brad's post, and it was very helpful, but I have to say that your posts just feel like lectures and admonitions in this thread. I can kind of see what you're saying, but... I would point out that the debt had skyrocketed, and things had become far more complicated when my parents finally divorced about sixteen years after it became apparent that they had to. Maybe this is a simplistic view, but my own experience has been such that... The passive response is what crushes you. I know that adult life is complicated, and I knew it from the time I was very small, and it's why I'm so paranoid about adult commitments and marriage and bringing children into the world now. Until I have proven that I won't fuck them up as much as my parents did their children, I have no right. Probably not ideal to be this cautious, but I will be damned if I make the same mistakes they made. And I get that everyone always does the best they can in bad circumstances, but I mean... You are quite right km, my post to you was an admonition. The very first response to Brad's post was to call Brad to account and your subsequent posts hammered away at that. I'm glad you feel you have a better understanding of his position now. Who suggested we had no right to wonder about this? You can wonder anything you like about your future reproductive choices, lol. And yes my children HAVE come to me and asked just that uncomfortable question. And I made damn sure I gave them a truthful answer and let them vent their anger about it, something I certainly was never able to do with my own parents. And the fruit of that honesty in our family has been a very good thing.
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Post by arietty on May 28, 2010 20:53:46 GMT -5
Brad: Don't feel you have to apologize and explain "Christianese". This forum is primarily for people coming out of abusive religious systems with a focus on the QF movement. Sometimes people react to certain language because they find it triggering. Sometimes people were never "in" that kind of culture and feel the need to educate those using this language as to how sexist or classist or some other ist it is. Just keep telling your story in your own words, it will resonate the most with the people who NLQ is hoping to reach I find this incredibly condescending. ETA: And, arietty, I don't think you know nearly enough about my history to position me in either of these two groups. I was a part of QF, yes, but I chose to leave it when I was still a teenager. I didn't even know it was you who was talking about the Christianese km. Reacting to Christian language has been a continual theme here and I find the reactions tend to fall into one or both of those categories.. either from being triggered or from a perceived need for correction. I want this forum to be a welcoming friendly place for QF people and in order for that to happen we cannot have them called to task over christian culture language. People will not stay, they will not read, they will form the opinion of this place that we see contributed to the shutting down of comments on the True Womanhood blog (afraid they were turning into NLQ). It will feel hostile to their culture and christianity.
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Post by nikita on May 28, 2010 21:12:54 GMT -5
If I may interject, I did bring up the term 'christianese' in an effort to ask for tolerance for those who use the language of christian culture, especially evangelical christian culture. And I did it for the reason you mention, that I want to be sure that people feel like this is not a place hostile to people who are still believers who are simply trying to work their way out of QF/P and even Reformed groups. That sidetrack is on me. I love all the voices here and enjoy the give and take but I worry when the voices that are loudest are the ones who seem hostile to a christian worldview, although I understand why that may be so. I guess I trigger off of that. It's all pretty exhausting.
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Post by journey on May 28, 2010 21:22:52 GMT -5
Brad, I LOVED YOUR POST. Thank you for taking the time to write it.
I was one of the women who had an "iron fist" husband, a man who found a refuge and home w/in the movement for the kind of control he wanted to have over me (and I, for my part, found a refuge in the movement because at least there were other women there who would affirm me, instead of being "feministic" and saying I was married to a dickhead.....around the QF women, I didn't have to hide the fact that my husband required me to ask his permission for this and that, etc)...
But during my time there, I saw many of the opposite kinds of marriages, ones where the woman was VERY much in charge and the man was just there as a showpiece...
In the end, I think that "biblical patriarchy" just draws the kind of conservative Christian people who see the world through the lens of hierarchy. Hierarchy, position, power, submission, "order," (a place for everything and everything in it's place...only, in this case, it's a place for everyONE)----those are all the Big Things in that world, so it's naturally going to draw people who are big into power, place, order, position.
I remember my husband scoffing at the idea of me standing by his side. No, no. In his mind, marriage was the man in front, woman following behind. That I would want to stand by his side was yet another indication of my rebellious heart.
There aren't words to express how glad I am to be away from that man and the movement he found that gave him the vehicle for the power, control and position that he always wanted.
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Post by km on May 28, 2010 22:36:14 GMT -5
This may totally miss the point, but there's another parent's perspective to see as well - my mother thought she was saving our souls. We were going to be "the elect" "with Jesus" "raptured away" to sing God's praise in huge congregations of people for a thousand years while the new earth was made, and then sent down to live in grace and holiness and repopulate the new earth in God's image. It's pretty powerful stuff. To think in terms of eternal salvation, everlasting glory, what's a little pain and suffering now? Besides being petty, any pain is nothing compared to what Jesus suffered. Any humiliation or uncertainty we feel now will be washed away in that moment of glory when 'we see his face again.' I STILL can't have a rational discussion with my mother about her choices when I was a child, because she honestly still believes that she was acting in our best eternal interests. It infuriates me, but she's doing the best she can, with her own worldview. I don't agree with it - it hurt me deeply, but she literally CAN NOT see that. She sees that I'm hurting, and she wants to help, but she can't see that she's involved with it. She loves me, but she's not capable of seeing my childhood in any different light than her own. So I have to leave it alone. There's nothing to gain there. Sometimes people are not able to meet at a place where discussions do any good. It doesn't mean they're being obtuse out of a need to cause pain, or to be deliberately unhelpful - just the inevitable result of two very very different worldviews that can't really mesh due to their differences. I don't think this misses the point at all. It's exactly what I was getting at. My mother no longer believes any of these things, but she has always refused to talk to me about it--or reflect on how it happened at all in the first place. It *is* painful to children who are trying to get past these things when parents refuse to deal honestly with what happened--or trivialize it or any of the rest of it. She isn't as bad about blaming the children (like my dad does), but she won't speak about it with me either. She won't think through any of it with me, and she won't venture to talk about what her motivations were during that time either. She would rather just move on, and she finds it too painful to talk about. I guess I find this really unjust, and when my own parents refuse to do it... I look to other people who were parents in Christian fundamentalism to try and find out what they were thinking. I think people who blog are prone to reflection in general, so I look for it in places like this, just hoping to glean a little about it that can help me to understand the motivation. Of course, I'm not their children, so this can be a little overbearing, I guess... But I still think it's important to point out that we were children, and we didn't have a choice in any sense. And thank god my family got out earlier than some, but yeah... It's vexing, I think, not to understand what was happening. One of the most insightful posts here (in terms of what my parents' generation must have been thinking) was one that jwr wrote about his own involvement in Christian fundamentalism--how it started out as something nice that had to do with love and acceptance but quickly devolved from that.
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Post by dangermom on May 28, 2010 22:40:16 GMT -5
Hi Brad, I really appreciate your post and replies to questions. I'm very interested in your story.
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Post by km on May 28, 2010 22:50:39 GMT -5
Who suggested we had no right to wonder about this? You can wonder anything you like about your future reproductive choices, lol. You did, of course, when you informed me how overly simplistic a child's view is, lol. And that I didn't really have the right to ask the same questions that I asked as a child, when I didn't have to worry about debt or poverty or anything Adult and Important and Complicated (And I did, by the way, have to worry about all of those things, because my parents wouldn't do it themselves. It's not so simple to be the child when you have to parent the adults.). And yes my children HAVE come to me and asked just that uncomfortable question. And I made damn sure I gave them a truthful answer and let them vent their anger about it, something I certainly was never able to do with my own parents. And the fruit of that honesty in our family has been a very good thing. How nice for them and you. I'm glad you're all so evolved. I really am...even though you have really offended me tonight, and made all kinds of presumptions and essentially done the same things you accuse me of doing... I'm glad it worked out for you. Please try to keep in mind that we are not all afforded explanations by our parents, of any kind.
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brad
New Member
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Post by brad on May 28, 2010 22:51:16 GMT -5
Brad, from your article: Brad: So should we just try to figure out when you might get pregnant and avoid those times?
Dawn: No that’s still trying to control God. And I would cry if we used a condom or did anything like that. I couldn’t violate my principles.So, of course, there you go. You are NOT allowed to "figure out when you might get pregnant and AVOID those times (abstain from sexual relations), but it's perfectly fine and dandy to figure out when you have the highest probability of becoming pregnant (ovulation) and make sure to have sexual relations then. NO, that's not trying to "control God", no sirree. God is in control, ya know. God is keeping an ovulation calendar and telling you when you need to have sex. Yeah, that wouldn't violate any principles. It's the QF double-speak that really gets my goat. Basically, unless you're fully entrenched in QF "think", don't even think about it. That actually was my primary problem. Let Nature take its course? But I would watch some families go to great extremes to make sure they did get pregnant: and that included fertility treatments. If prevention was considered trying to stop God's hand, wouldn't fertility treatments be seen as trying to force God's hand? To me, if you held that one was incorrect, shouldn't you hold to the other being equally wrong?
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Post by nikita on May 28, 2010 23:11:14 GMT -5
Km -- One father's day my sister gave my dad a card that said, "You have everything it takes to be a father! Me!" I think part of the problem is the basic belief that children turn parents into something other than people in their own right. I know you know that intellectually that isn't true but as a child it seems as though without us our parents don't exist. Before us our parents didn't exist. When we have kids we don't turn into something called 'parents' although we are parents. We are still people who are living our lives and who now have kids. That's what is so disturbing when you are older and find out that Mr and Mrs Jones down the street who used to give you cookies and lemonade and coach baseball were also swingers. As a kid they seem like they just fold up each night and sleep in a 'mom and dad box'. I am exaggerating but that is kind of how we view adults as children. As a teen I became a christian in family that was appalled by my sudden extreme faith. I did not think how my future children would feel about it. My future children would be given to me by God on loan for a season, to raise and to love and to hopefully be good christians too. Which would have been fine if I hadn't also been in a cult, but I didn't realize that at the time. It seemed like the TRUTH and a BLESSING that not many other people were able to have. Fortunately my entire group blew apart explosively when my oldest was two and a half so my kids weren't really raised in it although they were influenced by the fallout and friends who I still saw. And my son is still wounded for all of my having left so early in his life. But it was also my life, and I did what I could and made the decisions I could make and loved him and tried to give him the best life I knew how. I think we all do that as parents. It's just that what we see as good and right is influenced by our values and belief systems at the time. We all are on our own journey, even our parents. I can't explain or excuse your parents. I don't know them. But I do know this: my mom was a horrible mother of children. I had a terrible childhood with her. But when I grew up she also changed her life for the better and there has never been a woman who was a better mother of adult children than my mom was. Everyone I know was in love with my mom, as she was after my childhood, and rightly so. She earned every accolade and loving wish sent her way. You'd hardly know it was the same woman. But she had always had a trouble 'remembering' anything negative. She would not admit to anything at all that was negative in our lives, she would just say 'I don't remember that!' and wave us off. She had a philandering husband who ultimately refused to work, a mother with dementia living in our home, had to work a crappy job just to keep us all in hearth and home, and daughters who were difficult to say the least. My oldest sister made literal serious attempts to murder my second oldest sister (twice!) when they were both elementary school children. (My oldest sister could have been the model for that movie The Bad Seed.) My mother admits vaguely to remembering those events, but just barely. It's her M.O. And ultimately it all didn't matter any more, because she was who she was and my life wasn't so bad in the end of it all and everybody got over it and lived to grow up and she was so easy to love by that point. I could enjoy loving my 'new mother' and relegate the old mother to the past where she lived. I wasn't going to let that old mother ruin what I could have now with the new one, even if she couldn't 'remember' anything bad. My oldest son is completely devoted to his grandmother, she is one of the greatest joys of his life. I shake my head and wonder 'where were you when I was growing up?' but she's here now for the good. I am happy for that. She lived her life as best she could, as poorly as some of it was, and journeyed on until she righted herself and became beloved and a happy grandmother and great grandmother. I hope my kids will see me the same in the end of my life. That's all we can hope for really, because none of us are going to do it perfect, we're gonna make our own mistakes. And for some of us weird religion was part of our mistakes. That's what I think, if it helps at all. If it doesn't, then no harm done I hope.
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Post by km on May 29, 2010 1:05:11 GMT -5
And for some of us weird religion was part of our mistakes. That's what I think, if it helps at all. If it doesn't, then no harm done I hope. No, none whatsoever. You seem like a very insightful person, and I appreciate you taking the time to type all of it out just to explain it to a stranger. It helps to read perspectives like this.
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