Your Sins Are Forgiven, Now Take Your Clothes Off

Good.  You're most likely reading this because the title drew you in and you are convinced I am off my rocker.  Now, while I wouldn't mind at all if roughly half the population followed my "rhema", "eureka", "Word from the Lord", or whatever you want to call it, I'm simply being facetious.  Bear with me while I explain.

Adam and Eve sinned in Genesis 3.  They ate the cumquat fruit that was forbidden and it says their eyes were opened, meaning they realized something - they were naked as the noonday sun.  Oddly, nakedness had no meaning to them until they disobeyed God, who tempted them, even though he doesn't tempt mankind, until they sinned.  Thus they frantically sewed hula skirts together with fiberglass rope and created the first Scottish kilts for men.

When God came back to the garden, knowing everything, and yet not being able to find Adam and Eve, he cursed all he could find to curse and then made proper pantaloons for Adam, and a pastel blue, triple breasted, plain dress for Eve.  Adam was also given a button-down, long-sleeved shirt with crisscrossed threads clasping the collar shut, in lieu of a button.  For undergarments, Adam was allowed to wear none whereas fashioned for Eve was a burlap petticoat and large elastic granny undies.  Adam was allowed to go barefoot but Eve wore wooden clod shoes with pointed toes.

Then, the two were whisked out of the garden and made to live in misery until their death.  Unfortunately for them, all humans were cursed with sin.  Obviously, it had to be that way, being that any human being, when told NOT to touch something, doesn't even give that forbidden thing a second thought.  Thus, Adam and Eve were exceptionally sinful and we had to bear the stupidity of the first humans.  If only God had done a better job of creating the first humans. 

I know I would have slapped my rebellious wife if she had offered me the cumquat.  Then, what would have happened?  Only women would have been sinful?  Or, God would have offed Eve (or allowed Adam to) and then created woman from a second rib, leaving men with two fewer ribs than women, rather than just one?

Anyway, let's move forward.

So, man was all dirty and unrighteous and could do nothing to get all clean and righteous.  Lo and behold, along comes this guy named Jesus, God's son according to a gospel or two and not according to other gospels.  He dies on the cross to take away the sin of the world.  Some say we have to believe in that, while others say it was completed for all, so just live in the moment (or was that a 50's rocker?).  Still others claim that God only picks a few people that he likes and allows them to have a free pass to heaven while the others have to burn in hell for eternity.

Whichever camp you pick, or better yet, if you're lucky enough to be born into the right camp, you come out on the other side of the sins forgiven at the cross part, smelling like a rose.  You have no more sin!

Adam and Eve sinned in the garden and had to wear clothes.  Your sins are now forgiven - forever - which obviously means clothing is optional.  No, not optional...wearing nothing is the sign of a righteous person!

So take off your clothes and enjoy your righteousness.

Now, back to reality.  You, reader who still reads something and does not think before you accept.  Yep.  You, the follower of Bill Gothard, Doug Phillips, anything quiverfull or patriarchal, heck, any school of thought, for that matter, religious or otherwise.  Don't stop asking why.  It isn't wrong to ask questions.  To inquire as to where any basis of truth originated from.  A leader or teacher is never infallible or inerrant.  People do get things wrong and many follow them.

I trust you.  Now put your clothes back on.

Love,

I.C.

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.
 

Answer to My Critics: My Childhood Opened My Eyes

UPDATE: 7/27/2015:9:01:34

The last few paragraphs end as a sort of sermon. I was a devout Christian when I wrote this piece. I am no longer religious and have no interest in ever being so, again, yet still have a deep appreciation for religious discussion. Bear in mind that this does not take away from the importance of the message of this post.

Recently, I was accused of only speaking out against Billy Boy G. and his patriarchal ilk because I have a vendetta against my life as a child.  While I do not disagree that half of my childhood was pure torture, I vehemently disagree with that accusation.

Here's a summing up of my childhood:

When I was seven years old, my parents divorced.  At the time, my mother convinced me, through the most holy word of the god man Billy Boy G., that divorce was pure evil - the cardinal sin of mankind.  The only sin (other than being a woman, women wearing pants, men having long hair, women cropping their hair, women working outside of the home, children being curious, not hitting your child whenever you pleased, not obeying all authorities without question the very first time, not taking the word of your pastor as if it were the word of God, even though the only word of God was supposed to be found in the Bible, questioning the inerrant nature of the Bible, questioning the holiness of the "inspired" canon, being suspicious of the counsel at Trent and other men gatherings, being a feminist, women speaking out in church, farting out loud, listening to rock music, using more than three sheets of toilet paper per bowel movement, answering a phone call without permission, not sharing the gospel to at least five people a day at school, playing sports in school, going to college, women not being homemakers, believing that a doctor was a good thing, immunizing, treating chiropractors with disdain, not accepting all weird eastern alternative "medicinal" therapies without question, while ignoring the obvious contradictions in religious philosophies, reading the words of Ghandi, studying evolution, saying anything bad about Ken Ham, not having a verifiable "biblical" world view, not swearing on a stack of Bibles that you would carry out your given "role" in life, drinking city water that had evil teeth rotting and population controlling fluoride in it, sex outside of government sanctioned marriage, sex for pleasure, masturbation, any sex that deviates from the missionary position, using birth control, desiring money, etc., etc.....sheesh!....seems to me patriarchy has some notion of paranoia) that disqualifies you from serving in a position of authority in the church - provided you're a man.  A woman is always S.O.L.


The divorce didn't affect me then.  I hardly knew my dad, something I blame my mother for completely.  She made a point to keep him away from my siblings and I at all times.  Even before she fell in love with Big G. (she told us many times that she wanted to marry the guy, Bill Gothard, once my father died and she was free to marry again) she had a notion that her way was the only righteous way and my father was always wrong.


She disciplined him on a regular basis.  The details, for privacy sake, I will not go into.  She also beat us from the age of...well...we actually had no age when she started,  She started in on my oldest sibling when she was just a small baby.


When the divorce happened, my father tirelessly went to court to gain custody of us.  My mother and our church pastor fought tooth and nail against him.  The state sided with her and my father had to go away empty handed.


She discovered Big G. very soon afterward and soon had us all converted to the "us vs. them" philosophy that kills all freedom and love in a life.


She had always beaten us.  One day, she found a pink pamphlet that taught her how to hit us the "proper" way.  Yes, there must be a proper way to hit a child.  Hitting, alone, isn't okay at all.  You have to hit, then pray a lot, then hug a bunch, then...well...I can't think of any more extra-biblical ideas, but these morons and the Swine Beads and Ezz-skimos that came after have built an empire out of beating children by dreaming up this bald faced lie.


She sat us all down that day and read us the entire skinny, four-page piece of trash and then told us all that she had to practice to get it just right.  So, she lined us all up on some soft black couch cushions that were lying on the dining room floor in front of the full-wall bookshelf and lit in to each of us.


Spank!  Hug, hug.  Spank!  Hug, hug.  Span....


Once all seven of us had been fully practiced on, that was the last time she ever hugged us after a beating.  After that, everything was fair game.  With a hardwood, boar-bristle brush, beating us on the head, back, shoulders, legs, bare bottom, six times, then eighteen, then thirty six, then it doesn't matter anymore because you lost count and it just hurt like hell.  She made my sister eat dish soap and toilet paper on a regular basis because she was a poor eater.  She kicked, slapped, bit, made us lay on our face on the floor for hours, forced us to stand in a corner for hours, even days.  Sleep deprivation was the norm.  Forced Bible readings for hours, sometimes days. Rubbing and massaging her legs and feet was my own personal punishment.


All of this in the name of love and obedience to god-given authority.  Yes, small 'g'.


Now, you know why I speak out? 


Don't even try and come at me and tell me that my mother was the exception to the rule.  I won't even give you the time of day.  That doesn't even matter.  Her way of doing things was simply her way of exemplifying the doctrines that propped up her way of doing things.  The exact doctrines that prop up everything in the false lifestyle of patriarchy. 


I learned from my childhood.  It was harsh and I ignored it for years.  Tried to push it away with humor.  But I can't do it anymore.  Not because I care about me, as a victim.  I don't give a rat's rear end about myself.  I care about my wife and kids, the kids and young adults (even old ones) that are forcefully involved in this controlled and evil lifestyle, and those who are in it and yet have questions of what the hell they are supposed to believe in.


And now the kicker.  I don't care at all for those that are inflicting the pain, the spiritual, physical, and emotional abuse on the least of these.  Sure, I want them to change, but I've met them.  I've hung with them.   Patriarchy breeds the most prideful, arrogant, pompous, self-righteous, pharisaical, holes of arses I have ever met.  God can deal with them.  Others who care more can deal with them.  But I will not.


I will follow Christ's words to do what is right to the least of these.   I am at peace and yet yearn for the freedom of controlled souls who have not tasted true freedom in Christ.  Or even, freedom at all.  Freedom without Christ is better than the prison these hurting souls find themselves in.


Maybe not sufficient, but I don't care.  Don't cheapen my message, if that is what this is.