Class of ‘96

Amalah writes a great piece about dreading her ten year reunion—at a fundamentalist high school.

Add comment May 25th, 2006

Jesus and I broke up

Owen Egerton just broke up with Jesus after a long term relationship. He just wasn’t who Owen thought he was. He writes:

I’m often angry. I’d given him the best years of my life. Turned down college parties for Bible studies, passed on spring break flings just to make him happy. Memorized his words. Voted for his candidates.

He’d like to be in a committed relationship again. He’s tried dating other people. But, even though he’d never go back, he misses the closeness and security he and Jesus once had.

It’s hard to be alone. I’ve let go too much to hold what I had, and I hold on too much to grab anything new. It’ll get easier, I’m sure. Time will heal all wounds. Who knows, in ten years maybe I will have forgotten all about him. But some nights are so long, so dark, that I find myself peeling open my old New Testament and flipping to some of my favorite passages.

“Hey Jesus,” I whisper. “How have you been?”

Add comment April 15th, 2006

Recovering fundies at Easter?

Easter is an awkward time for us recovering fundamentalists. Family obligations are not as frenzied and frequent as at Christmas; in fact, many recovering fundies can opt out of Easter entirely. But should they?

Like Christmas’ virgin birth, Easter’s resurrection presents problems. The responses recovering fundies express about the Christian uber-stories range from mocking incredulity to appreciative mythologizing. It’s worth remembering that Easter was never just about the resurrection. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have all the bunnies and flowers on the date of a Roman pagan holiday, and right after Passover. There are many things we can legitimately celebrate on Easter, no matter what they told us it was about back in the day.

I’ve usually stayed at home for Easter, but this year I’m trying to put myself out there more, to take back the holiday as much as I can. Here are my plans for Easter this year:

• Unitarian Easter service. Expecting heavy symbolic angle and little to no empty tombing.
• Indian food with friends. Who says you have to have ham? Plus, the restaurant is likely to be empty.
• A nap. Maybe in the back yard.
• Unitarian Passover. Expecting heavy social justice angle and little to no angel of deathing.
• Nice long chat with friends.

1 comment April 12th, 2006

Jesus sings in spandex

John Spalding remembers some Stryper wannabes from college, and I have the odd feeling that I knew these Jesus rockers. Whenever the empty beer bottles outnumbered the full bottles at a seminary party, PR photos of the Christian hair band “Sentry” would pop out. I sat next to one former Sentry member in the back of class, and another’s girlfriend sat on the other side. I suppose that made me something of a Sentry sandwich. I’d try not to bring up the subject of spandex during class. I didn’t want to get caught in the middle of that.

We couldn’t help but pull those photos out. Being drunk was part of it, sure. But attending a liberal Methodist seminary (or dating someone—a woman!—who did) was a long ways away from rocking out a sleepy little Nazarene college just outside the sinful big city. By the time I knew them, they had an indie/ska band and parties known for “couch throwing.” I suppose the change was something we were all proud of. When my friend’s fiance brought the photo out for his thirtieth birthday party, oh what a long way he’d gone.

All this is a long introduction to Spalding’s introduction of two new SoMA essays on contemporary Christian music: “Power in the Roots” and “I Hate Christian Rock.” Reading them, I’m convinced all the more that they’re spying on me:

Back when I was a born-again seventh grader, Michael W. Smith and the Newsboys (Christian-) rocked my world. Indeed, when I responded to an altar call with my youth group in October 1992, I was blinded not by the Light of Christ but by the spotlights reflecting off of Carman’s vinyl pants. I trust that other folks who received pamphlets of the Gospel of John that night experienced a real and lasting spiritual conversion. I did not. For the next few months, I threw myself into a Christianity that was all about T-shirts, arguing with my biology teacher about evolution, and fervent prayers that America would repent and start requiring fervent prayers in its public schools.

Let’s hope they don’t have photos of anything else I took up doing in seventh grade.

Add comment April 11th, 2006

New recovery essay: By the rivers of Babylon

The third essay in Healing Hagar’s recovering from fundamentalism series is up and at ‘em. Feel free to leave comments here at this post. (Still working on adding comment functionality to essay pages.)

I want to give a special thanks to Missing the Flock, whose Salon.com letter gave me the umph I needed to get started, and to everyone here who has been pushing me to talk more about what recovery looks like.

(FYI, the “cross cringing” and “dry fundamentalist” essays will probably be folded in to each other, which means the series is halfway done!)

1 comment March 8th, 2006

Respecting the born again experience

Plenty of good horse sense on the born again experience for recovering fundamentalists (and everyone else) at Free and Reponsible Search:

Liberal religion shoots itself in the foot if it pretends that the born-again experience is just a myth or illusion. To the people who have experienced it, the born-again experience may be the most important single event in their lives. When you tell them it didn’t happen, you’re just telling them that you have no idea what you’re talking about. And if your argument against their religion ignores the experience, it is irrelevent. (And much more—chutney.)

1 comment March 3rd, 2006

The adventures of Purple Cowboy Hat Lady, or How I got dogged by my own mother

First story: Long, long ago, in the neck of space-time known as the Oklahoma Oil Bust, my family became charismatic Christians. We started going to “Monday night bible study,” basically a small house church about a mile from where we lived. It started with around a dozen or less but within a few months had grown to close to a hundred.

Each meeting would start with several renditions of praise choruses intended to sound like authentic Jewish music, if by “authentic Jewish music” you mean a half-remembered rendition of Fiddler on the Roof. After blowing the trumpet in Zion, the Bible study would begin, followed by the laying on of hands and the talking of tongues. (Try it yourself! Just yell quickly: “Who stole-uh my Honda? Come and tie my bow tie!”)

We kids would stick around for the singing but then move out to the den to watch “Gospel Bill” videos. Gospel Bill—with the help of his dog Barkimeus—would run El Diablo out of town by shouting scriptures and rebuking him in the name of Baby Jeebus. Minimum time required for Monday night bible study: three hours.

But, looking back, the most interesting part of it all was the family who ran the thing. The father was a Flanders-esque physician who, we later found out, slept regularly with the father of two who lived across the street from us. (That family’s children were taken away because the father was abusive and because they had gone without running water for months and had started using the bathroom in a spare bedroom.) The son seemed to have a variant of autism (perhaps Asberger’s, I wonder now). And the daughter still used a bottle at three and didn’t like to be touched.

Then there was the mother. I’ll refrain from mentioning her name and instead call her Purple Cowboy Hat Lady. The reason for that being not only that she wore a purple cowboy hat but also that she wore purple clothing from head to foot. Always. The reason for that being that she was a King’s Kid. And the color of royalty, as anyone knows, is purple. (I haven’t checked into the royal lineage of cowboy hats yet.) She claimed it was a witnessing tool, because people would come up to her at the grocery store (or the neighborhood pool, or a funeral service) and ask why she dressed that way. I’m sure it was very effective.

Even after we left Monday night bible study, Purple Cowboy Hat Lady would stop by the house unannounced, daughter in tow, to pray in tongues with my mother for marathon prayer warrior sessions. In time this became irritating. In time, my brother and I would start to hide in our rooms and do a little praying of our own. (”Please Baby Jeebus, make her go away.”)

I tell you that story to tell you this story: This weekend I told my mother that I was now ordained in order to do my sister-in-law’s wedding. She asked who ordained me, and I told her.

Then she said this: “Oh, that’s the same people who ordained [Purple Cowboy Hat Lady].” Silence at both ends of the phone.

And then my mother laughed at me. (At least she volunteered she’d been planning this one out.)

(Originally posted at Making Chutney.) 

1 comment March 2nd, 2006

Defining “recovering fundamentalist” (a first attempt)

Following up on the previous post’s attempt to define “fundamentalism,” this post will try to make some headway toward defining “recovering fundamentalist.” I’ll do this by way of an unfunny Bizarro World version of Jeff Foxworthy.

1. If you or yours were never spiritually, emotionally, physically or financially abused by fundamentalists, you might not be a recovering fundamentalist.
2. If your mental illness wasn’t caused or exacerbated by fundamentalism, you might not be a recovering fundamentalist.
3. If you didn’t need professional help to adjust to being an ex-fundamentalist, you might not be a recovering fundamentalist.
4. If you have never been bitter, enraged, or distraught at what they did to you, you might not be a recovering fundamentalist.
5. If they didn’t twist or stunt your sexuality, you might not be a recovering fundamentalist.
6. If you can laught it all off, you might not be a recovering fundamentalist.

If you have more, please add them in the comments section below.

By “might not be” I mean might not be. I’m not willing to bet the mortgage against this definition yet, either way.

When I first launched this site, I considered making the tagline “be bitter, it helps.” But I decided that would dwell overmuch in one particular stage of recovery, even encouraging the stuckness of the “dry fundamentalist.” (Sorry, these essays aren’t written yet…)

It’s entirely possible for someone to leave fundamentalism without being a recovering fundamentalist—because they were lucky enough to have none of the experiences above. But the nature of fundamentalism (I fear) stacks the deck against this happening for anyone who lived as a fundamentalist for any length of time.

Still, it’s a matter of degrees. If you were sent off to Bible College, say, your need for recovery will be much greater than someone who merely warmed a pew on Sundays.

12 comments March 1st, 2006

Happy “Chocolate Hurts Jesus” Day!

Today marks the offical start of Another Nail in the Hand of the Savior Month (otherwise known as Lent). Remember, every time you eat chocolate or order that latte, it’s like Jesus is crucified all over again. Except Sundays, you get those off. And only until Easter—then you can eat ice cream again without killing Jesus.

Don’t drive the nail!! Why do you like to make Baby Jesus cry?? Don’t you know the nails hurt him?? He’s just a baby…

Many years ago I watched a minister berate someone for not giving up anything for Lent. He angrily accused, “Well, why don’t you just give up being Christian for Lent??”

And it worked so well, I decided to stick with it year round. Thanks for the tip, preacher!

3 comments March 1st, 2006

New essay—Ground zero: Weeping for Ishmael

The first full essay in the Healing Hagar recovery series is now complete. Please check out “Ground zero: Weeping for Ishmael.” (I can’t do comments on essay pages, so please leave any comments here.)

I’m planning to release a new essay about every two weeks.

1 comment February 4th, 2006