When I was a Christian, Halloween always terrified me. Now don’t get me wrong, I loved dressing up in costumes for our church’s Harvest Fest, where we played games and got candy. What terrified me was Halloween itself, which I was taught to associate with witches and demons. I grew up believing that there were [...]
I’ve been thinking recently about my feelings toward my parents. Several readers have interpreted my criticism of Christian Patriarchy/Quiverfull and fundamentalist religion in general as anger or bitterness toward my parents, and have said this in their comments or on their blogs. This bothers me not so much because it’s inaccurate as because if that’s [...]
Have you ever noticed the way conversion narratives are created? If you’ve ever been a fundamentalist or an evangelical, you know the pressure there to “tell your testimony.” Yet weirdly, these testimonies all seem to conform to the same pattern. It’s like someone handed in an outline and they just filled in the details. What [...]
I was reading No Longer Quivering this morning, and the latest entry was especially poignant and thought provoking. I spent hours trying to decide on a purity ring. I wanted one with meaning, and I wanted it to be pretty. Besides, the more time I spent there, the more likely I was to convince my parents that [...]
When I first left home for college, I wasn’t afraid to stick out. I still shared my parents’ beliefs, and there was something satisfying about the shock on a person’s face when she learned that I had twelve siblings. I don’t think anyone could have known me for five minutes without knowing that I was [...]
The Quiverfull system pushes daughters into marriage before ever giving them a chance to figure out who they are. Given the admonition against having “teenagers” and the interpretation of any difference in thought or practice as “rebellion,” Quiverfull daughters have no chance to grow up or mature. Then they marry. Then what happens? A growing [...]
There’s something rather scary going on in the Republican presidential primary. It’s as though the candidates are having a contest to see who can be the most extreme. One area where this competition is on in full force involves sex, abortion, and birth control. Rick Santorum has decided that it’s not enough to be against [...]
Do you have any idea how nice it is to meet someone who understands? As in, someone who really understands? To most people I’ve met since starting college, I’m just the girl with the crazy background. I’m the girl with a million siblings, the girl who had a weird upbringing, the girl who doesn’t quite [...]
It’s called Higher Ground. Wikipedia describes it as following: Pregnant, married, and awkward at eighteen years old, Corinne Briggs grows more and more interested in Jesus, eventually giving herself over to a radical New Testament church. Amidst her community of self-described “Jesus Freaks,” Corinne’s daily life consists of hours of Bible study, alternative family practices [...]
Evangelical and fundamentalist positions on what happens to those who die as infants or children are all over the map. Some follow the Calvinist line that God has preordained where we are to spend eternity, and that therefore some children who die go to heaven while others go to hell. Some justify this by saying [...]
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