The Story of Liz Franklin, Installment 3 - Beware of All Sins, Even Imaginary Ones

In Installment 2, Liz told us how she moved from public school to church school and how the rules were rigidly applied with severe consequences if broken.  She spoke of how she was "ripe for the picking" at her young and impressionable age.  Let's listen in as she tells about how life continued to head downhill.

*****

While at school, I had the rules in my face, now, at church things were heating up, too.  The new pastor was old and cranky and loved the rules.  Until this time, we'd been having Sunday School picnics regularly.  It was a fun time, and was intended to strengthen relationships in the church, as well as reach out to the unsaved that came to church for Sunday School, then left before the preaching.  This group had more young people than the church did.  In fact, we three kids and another girl my age were the young people of the church.The picnics were in part to try to convince the Sunday School crowd that normalcy (fun even), was achievable in the church.  The new pastor stopped these short.  Young people didn't need fun, they needed Jesus.  This was indicative of the way he was to rule the church.

As a young child, I'd prayed for salvation twice that I can remember.  Once as a very young girl (shortly after Luju's friend "bought the farm" (Installment 2), as a matter of fact), and then when I was in the 3rd grade.  The first time, I remember only praying with mom and dad, but don't remember my life changing much.  The 2nd time, I do remember how free and joyful I felt after, but happiness was too transitory in my life too last long.

The church held several revival services during the year, and evangelists would come to school to preach during the day.  I'm sure there were sermons on god's love, and things more positive, but what I, and my sibs, remember most were the hellfire and brimstone sermons.The preacher would sometimes stand up there and yell at us, and spit and froth at the mouth.  

One of the traditions of revival and camp services was The Story told on the last service.  This was a story about, well, Liz.  (it was intended to scare the hell -literally!- out of people, so it was very personal to me).  Liz, the story always went, was raised in The Church.  She had been given The Truth since her childhood.  She resisted god's calling on her life all her life.  Someday, she'd say. Someday, I'll get saved. (I hate that term!  It makes my skin crawl).  Right now, though, I want to live my life.  I don't like the restrictions I have to live under if I give myself to Christ.  So, some day, Just not today.  Then one day, Liz was in a revival (camp, church... whichever the current setting was). meeting, and god moved on Liz's heart. She was miserable under conviction, but she fought against the holy spirit.  "I'm not ready to live under all the rules.  I'm having too much fun living my life.  Later, I'll get saved."  So Liz left church that night, and on the way home, she was in an accident, and died and went to hell.  I laugh at this now, but at the time, it scared me every single time I heard it.  In black and white, it is kind of humorous, but there was more theater and emotion involved when the story was told on the last day of services.

So, shortly after starting church school, I got serious (favorite church phrase) about my salvation and sanctification.   Because I felt so dirty and unlovable due to my home life, I knew I'd have to try extra hard to get god to love me.  This is why I loved the rules, and invented some of my own. The preachers reinforced this by saying we were worms, no good, etc, etc, etc.  In fact, we weren't allowed to exclaim "My goodness!" because we had no goodness.

So I sat through services at both church and school in which I was told I was a terrible sinner. 

My descent into spiritual madness was gradual.  I was stuck for awhile on obeying my parents.   During the summer months, my grandparents lived with us, and they were to be obeyed, also.  I remember my grandma telling me to be sure to rinse my hair thoroughly to get all the soap out.  I had long thick, curly hair, and it tangled frequently.  Dad didn't spring for conditioner, and at the time we didn't have a shower.  I wasn't allowed to wash it in the sink, so rinsing became a problem.  I asked my grandma several times to check to see if it was rinsed right, and it never was.  I ended up in the tub for half an hour trying to get it right.

We lived in the country, and had apple trees.  One Sunday, I was out walking in the orchard praying, and picked an apple.  Dad saw me, and yelled at me for working on the sabbath.  Then he consulted with the pastor, and the pastor agreed that that was work, which broke the "Remember the Sabbath Day" commandment.  The sabbath became a prison for me.  The rules regarding it were so restrictive!  There was a busy intersection near my home.  We'd cut through the shopping center there to avoid the light.  Except on Sunday, because what if someone saw us coming out and thought we had been shopping on The Lord's Day?  Eventually, I wasn't allowed to walk around our yard.  We went to church, ate, then took naps till evening service.  Came home, ate again, then went to bed.

Focusing so stringently on the outward was hard for me, but I could have dealt with that.  It was when thoughts and feeling, and temptations became sins that my personal hell began.  Anger was the big "feeling" sin.  I don't remember being very angry yet, but the pastor and his wife were convinced I was. I would become in time!  One of the pastor's wives favorite sayings was "Only dogs and donkeys get mad."  That makes no sense at all.  Even at the time, it didn't make sense to me, but I bought it.  I got mad, that was a sin, I was a dog.  So the race was on for me to obtain the second work of grace, sanctification.  Then, all would be well.  I'd be perfect, holy, and happy to be miserable.  What more could a girl who only wanted god to love her want?

*****

Installment 4 will find Liz trying her hardest to "remain saved".

The Story of Liz Franklin, Installment 1 - The Only True Church

Hi!  My name is Liz, and I found this blog while researching the Duggars.  Before watching the show, I'd never heard of “Quiverfull”, “patriarchy”, Bill Gothard...any of it.  I was raised in a legalistic church that strangled any freedom, grace, and love even, so these blogs stirred up a lot of stuff for me.  I reached out and was asked to share my story, so here goes.

I was raised in the Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist (Original Allegheny Conference) Church.  (Gotta get the name right; the church sued for the right to use it after a VERY IMPORTANT split with a part of the church that began disagreeing about some of the rules.)  It's wrong to sue people generally - says so right there in the Bible - but over the name of the church, well, that's different!  Especially when it's the One True Church.  Only the members of the Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Church (AWMC) will get to go to heaven.  Everyone else is lost.

AWMC was built on the teachings of that great and good (*snort) John Wesley.  I'm 43 years old, and it has never dawned on me until just now that the very name of the church is basically Wesley's methods.  Methods to bring salvation, keep it, keep the people submitted and bound up.  Maybe you'd think The One True Church should be built on Jesus' teachings, but you'd be wrong. The one I was born into was built on John Wesley's.  Just an accident of birth, I guess.

I'm going to share the beliefs of the church, then get into my story:

AWMC believes in two works of grace: First, salvation. When you confess that you suck, and always will suck...I mean…when you confess your sins.  This is best done at the altar at church, where you get to parade your “suckiness” in front of everybody.  Salvation can be lost with a sneeze, by the way. 

The second work of grace is sanctification.  This is where the roots of sin (the very thing that makes you sin) are removed.  After this you'll be a holy robot…er…person.  The roots of sin are evidenced by anger (the big one), jealousy, pride...all the negative emotions we exemplify as humans.  To be sanctified, you have to "be willing."  While sometimes you are given specific things you have to be willing to do, for the most part, it means denying all of your natural feelings, denying your person-hood, and denying any rights you have to that person-hood. Since this isn't easy to do, you'll be encouraged to "pray clear through", which was never really explained.  Basically, you have to make yourself miserable in prayer any way you can.  Self-punishment, if that is what it takes, is encouraged, also.

While the church was vaguely patriarchal, women did have rights – as long as we stayed in our place. The husband is the head of the home, and women really have no thoughts worthy of being expressed, but it wasn't the blanket oppression I've found while reading other stories of ultra-conservative Christianity and patriarchy.  It was expected that young women get married, keep house, and have kids, but we could choose to do something else without endangering our souls.  The church also didn't care how many kids we had.

The big oppression was the outer standards, and the denial of the right to be a well-rounded, feeling person.  According to the church's standards, the Duggars are LIBERAL.  The church I was raised in took the Duggars' standards and ran with them.  Yes, we had to wear dresses or skirts.  We had to have long hair, but it had to be up in a bun.  Sleeves had to come past our elbows.  Just the women's.  Men were exempt.  Back in the day, somebody, John Wesley maybe, declared that our elbows looked like breasts.  There must be something wrong with my breasts!!  Or maybe it's my elbows, I don't know.  At any rate, they look nothing alike!!  We weren't allowed open-toed shoes.  We had to wear panty hose.  We weren't allowed to wear any kind of stretchy material for shirts without a blouse underneath.  Those pesky elbows…er… breasts, had to be bound at all costs. 

These standards became our "fruits", and it was the way we knew whether or not others were going to heaven.  This wasn't considered judgment because doesn't the Bible say "by your fruits you will know them"? 

Speaking of Bibles, God Himself wrote the King James Version, and other versions were of the devil.  The fact that maybe the KJV was harder to understand added to its appeal.  If it was harder to understand what god wants of his children, we'd have to work harder, and works are where it's at, after all.

So now you know a little of the mindset of the church I was born into.  In the next installment, I will begin to tell you how it started to affect me – from the age of three.