My parents didn’t allow Harry Potter books in the house, but read both Narnia and the Lord of the Rings aloud to us. My parents didn’t let us watch Power Rangers because, demons, I guess, but were a-okay with us watching Star Wars and Star Trek. As a reader recently asked, isn’t this inconsistent? Well yes, yes it is. Let me see if I can hash out a few of the factors involved here and offer some explanation.
After the website Ladies Against Feminism suggests that the son of Liza Long, who penned the viral post “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother,” is possessed by demons, I try to figure out what’s up with the competing evangelical/fundamentalist narratives of inexcusable sin and demonic possession and conclude that the country’s focus on mental illness in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting is, while overdone, nevertheless a good sign.
Today is Halloween. Sally is giddy with excitement. I’m taking her trick-or-treating this evening, and she’s been asking every day for a month now if it is “Halloween Day.” Bobby will be going too, his first Halloween. But today, I can’t help but remember experiencing Halloween as a child raised on the border between evangelicalism and fundamentalism. I was taught that Halloween was Satan’s high holy day, complete with sacrifices by covens of witches and increased demonic activity. Halloween scared me to death.
Do you remember that after the Aurora shooting happened this summer some Christian religious leaders suggested that James Holmes might have been possessed by demons? I have to say, I wasn’t surprised. Evangelicals – or at least the ones I grew up among – believe that demons are alive and well in this world, fighting [...]
Growing up, I was taught that there was no possibility that there was actual extraterrestrial life out there, because God created the earth special and sent Christ to die for us in particular. The whole center of everything, the whole point, is our human existence here on the earth. In that context, extraterrestrial life makes no sense. [...]
I recently received the following email: Just wanted to preface that I’ve been following your blog “Love, Joy, Feminism” for a while. While I did not grow up quiverfull, I did grow up in a fairly conservative evangelical church. I left Christianity in college after an experience with abuse and domestic violence blasted my views [...]
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 laid in my bed terrified, my eyes tight closed. I was afraid, petrified of what I would see if I opened my eyes. Everyone else was asleep, and I could hear their quiet breathing. My ears strained, listening for any sound out of the ordinary. All was still. And yet, I could not shake [...]
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