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Post by Sierra on Jul 5, 2010 10:34:38 GMT -5
That does make sense. Between ages 7-12, I really did enjoy a lot of the 'prairie lifestyle' and even wore aprons everywhere for several months one year. The tea parties were fun! Heck, I still like a good tea party.
I think I might have a hunch as to the difference. As a kid, even around the age of your eldest, I was picking up on lots of cues that said I wasn't wanted and that I was a corrupting influence. That's because the family that 'recruited' us to the Message probably expected my father to go along with it. It turns out they got my mother (and, by default, me) without him, and without her 'head' my mother was a dangerous woman. Your girls would have probably felt very welcomed, as Cecilia and her husband were clearly trying to win your entire family over at once. Once my church realized they were only getting my mother and not my father, they turned hyper-critical and almost tried to get rid of her (a fact of which she was aware, but she persisted, believing God had brought her to the church despite everyone else).
There's nothing wrong with enjoying the traditionally 'feminine' arts like needlework and tea. It sounds like you have a great relationship with your daughters.
I'm also looking forward to the results of that google... ;D
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Post by quivery on Jul 5, 2010 22:24:52 GMT -5
If Bill Gothard is a Godly, God-fearing man, I'll quit playing chess...
*plays chess* *for the next 40-50 years*
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Post by hopewell on Jul 6, 2010 9:39:42 GMT -5
"sir"--wow! How'd I miss that in all my reading!!!! Even Princess Diana got to call Charles by name AFTER they married! One of the many things that squigs me out about the Duggars/Bates etc is the puke-inducing gaze of devotion the wives give their husbands when they are talking--even talking about nothing. Yuck. And frankly, having dinner while someone is rubbing her hubby's back in a gentle seductive way is not so cool either.
The recruiting strategy is straight from the Amyway playbook. If they're too dumb to want something so great then dump them and they'll come begging for it. Sick.
Of course the children are robots when Daddy-dearest is home. God knows what type "rod" he'd take to them if they weren't.
I now join the chorus of "more, more!!!"
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Volly
New Member
Posts: 13
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Post by Volly on Jul 6, 2010 22:36:37 GMT -5
Wow -- "Stepford Wife" sums it up better than anything. There is no freedom quite like escaping the bonds of fundamentalism. And isn't it interesting how many hymns feature that notion that you're not truly "free" until you become a believer? Bleahhhhh!
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Post by nikita on Jul 6, 2010 23:37:38 GMT -5
Wow -- "Stepford Wife" sums it up better than anything. There is no freedom quite like escaping the bonds of fundamentalism. And isn't it interesting how many hymns feature that notion that you're not truly "free" until you become a believer? Bleahhhhh! I can understand how you would feel that way. The whole wifely adoration thing makes my skin crawl when I see it. I don't mind a more natural loving attitude but sometimes you can watch someone doing that 'submissive wife adores husband thing' right in front of you and start to itch, you know? Like, they seem human, but really they're 'other'. In a pod way. However, I don't think that fundamentalism in and of itself is an abusive system or an erroneous one for those who choose to believe and worship that way. It is no longer my religious outlook, as I left it for a more formal mainstream worship, but I do understand it. I think it lends itself to abuse rather easily when you mix it with the wrong teachers/preachers/leaders and their idiosyncratic interpretations of scriptures and 'truth' as they see it. And when they go down the patriarchal/quiverfull road they have definitely made a left turn into the county of religious abuse. What is sad (and maddening) is watching religious fundamentalism make such huge inroads in populations around the globe, and be led and taught by some extremely narrow, mean-spirited, and angry people. It doesn't necessarily have to be like that. I hate to see it. Those old hymns still make me smile. I sang them so often that I know them all by heart, and even now could sing them through all their verses. I'm the only person I know who knows all the verses to 'Joy to the World'. We never stopped at verse one or two, those songs got a major working through in our congregation.
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Post by egalgirl on Jul 7, 2010 8:29:50 GMT -5
Nikita, I agree with you, and would add one more thought:
"Fundamentalist" is a relative term. I'm pretty "middle of the road," and so I am considered an extreme fundamentalist by my liberal atheist friends because I believe in Jesus and go to church.
But the people I would consider fundies think I am pretty liberal because I am a female pastor and don't think Barack Obama is the antiChrist [when did politics and faith become so interwined, anyway?].
Regarding Shelly's post, I actually had a similar experience. I thought I was making friends with a lady from church. I knew she was more extreme in her beliefs - was a homeschooler and all that, but I am of the mind that people with diverse beliefs and opinions can be friends [like I said, I have buddies on both ends of the spectrum!]. I genuinely enjoyed my conversations with her.
But after I attended a homeschool convention with her and didn't respond the way she thought I should [keep in mind that I don't even HAVE children yet, and my husband was unable to attend with me, so I do like to talk to him about major life decisions, anyway], she was like the Ice Queen.
I really got the whole "selling a product" vibe, and was told that she had done that with other younger women as well. Unlike Shelly, I had not invested a lot in my relationship with this woman - nor did I think she was "perfect," but it still stung a little bit to be completely cut off by someone that I thought was becoming a friend....
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Post by jillrhudybarrett on Jul 7, 2010 9:01:27 GMT -5
I think I'll google "Bill Gothard" just for the fun of it.
There is a common thread for many of us: these "girl crushes" of a sort. We meet the Perfect Godly Wife and Mother and we want to be with her, be like her, be her.
It's a sort of weird idolatry; we do everything but set up a shrine in the living room of our Cecilia. We don't even notice her vacant expression--the lights are on but nobody is home. We don't even notice that her considerable gifts and talents (even genius, in some instances) are being frittered away making whole wheat fritters.
Maybe I was attracted to parasitic women when I was young because I was afraid of the hard work and hard decisions of messy real life. I wanted to attach myself to a man and to Jesus like a limpet, bat my eyelashes, and check out. Feminism, whatever it was, scared me. It demanded too much of me: that I grow up and become a real person.
Jill
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Post by grandmalou on Jul 7, 2010 18:47:59 GMT -5
I think I'll google "Bill Gothard" just for the fun of it. There is a common thread for many of us: these "girl crushes" of a sort. We meet the Perfect Godly Wife and Mother and we want to be with her, be like her, be her. It's a sort of weird idolatry; we do everything but set up a shrine in the living room of our Cecilia. We don't even notice her vacant expression--the lights are on but nobody is home. We don't even notice that her considerable gifts and talents (even genius, in some instances) are being frittered away making whole wheat fritters. Maybe I was attracted to parasitic women when I was young because I was afraid of the hard work and hard decisions of messy real life. I wanted to attach myself to a man and to Jesus like a limpet, bat my eyelashes, and check out. Feminism, whatever it was, scared me. It demanded too much of me: that I grow up and become a real person. Jill WOW! Jill, this explains a LOT in a few words! Like a whole bunch of ladies on automatic pilot! I have seen the expression you describe far too many times... Thanks!
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Post by humbletigger on Jul 7, 2010 19:52:17 GMT -5
If Bill Gothard is a Godly, God-fearing man, I'll quit playing chess... *plays chess* *for the next 40-50 years* Haha, quivery! Reminds me that I once read in a fundie book by Elisabeth Elliot that woman were lesser than men and the fact that there had never been a female grandmaster in chess was proof! I read this the year that Susan Polgar earned grandmaster status, a fact I was familiar with because my husband (not me) played a lot of chess. We both had a huge laugh over that, and I quit reading that book immediately. ;D
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Post by juliacat on Aug 5, 2010 7:31:24 GMT -5
Come on, what did you find on Google? I have been waiting on the edge of my seat for a whole month now!
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Post by lucrezaborgia on Aug 8, 2010 16:05:25 GMT -5
I looked through some of Hopewell's blog links to Gothard and his various institutions and some of the comments from his supporters was of much interest to me. They would typically write about how they had meet Gothard and that he wasn't the scary man that people make him out to be and that this proved that Gothard was really just a kind old man who was misguided from time to time. Can you really judge people based on their countenance? Ted Bundy was considered charming and harmless by people who knew him. Women who have shared their stories on NLQ have said over and over about how their abusive spouses were highly thought of in their particular social circles. I've seen people defend other "leaders" by saying that there are some gems of truth to what these "leaders" say and that intelligent people will obviously know what is good to follow and what to jettison, but that does not seem to be the case in practice.
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