{"id":9849,"date":"2012-10-31T05:19:24","date_gmt":"2012-10-31T09:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=9849"},"modified":"2012-11-05T11:03:16","modified_gmt":"2012-11-05T15:03:16","slug":"fear-and-the-fundamentalist-chil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/10\/fear-and-the-fundamentalist-chil.html","title":{"rendered":"Fear and the Fundamentalist Child"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>Today is Halloween. Sally is giddy with excitement. I\u2019m taking her trick-or-treating this evening, and she\u2019s been asking every day for a month now if it is \u201cHalloween Day.\u201d Bobby will be going too, his first Halloween, in the matching outfit Sally picked for him. The thing is, I remember experiencing Halloween as a child raised on the border between evangelicalism and fundamentalism. I loved wearing a costume and attending our church\u2019s Harvest Fest, but I also believed that Halloween was Satan\u2019s high holy day, complete with sacrifices by covens of witches and increased demonic activity. Halloween scared me to death<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Of course, demon anxiety wasn\u2019t just a one-day-a-year thing. There were nights I could barely go to sleep<\/a> I was so scared of demons. I was taught that God had put a \u201chedge of protection\u201d around our house, but I also heard my parents talking about how that \u201chedge of protection\u201d could be compromised by things like rock music with sinful\u00a0lyrics.\u00a0This concerned me greatly. Was a sinful thought enough? What about disobedience to my parents, would that let demons in? These were questions I pondered most frequently when I was in bed at night, and the house was dark and quiet. Every little noise made me jump. One night I was sure I heard a demon moving around the room, and, my eyes held tight shut in terror, I eventually fell asleep out of pure exhaustion only to wake in the morning and find it had been the cat.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been told that this sort of fear as a child was only normal, and that if I hadn\u2019t been afraid of demons I would have been afraid of wolves, or monsters under my bed, or some other nighttime bogeyman. The problem with this argument is that no parents teach their children that there really are<\/em> monsters under their bed, or that wolves really could<\/em> break into their homes and get them. In contrast, my parents and my church taught me to view demons as literal beings. They told<\/em> me that demons were real, and out to get me.<\/p>\n

As a short anecdote, one evening this summer as we got Sally ready for bed, she told us she was afraid a giant spider would get her. She had just watched one of the Harry Potter movies, and it had giant spiders. So we explained to Sally that spiders that size don\u2019t exist \u2013 that they\u2019re just pretend \u2013 and that in any case, our house is safe. She went to sleep without a problem. I can\u2019t help but imagine that if we\u2019d told her that giant spiders are real, and could materialize in her room at any minute, the result would have been very different.<\/p>\n

Now of course, I was taught that, as a follower of Jesus, I could cast a demon out if I saw one. In other words, I was taught that I had the perfect weapon for fighting demons \u2013 Jesus\u2019 name. If I ever saw one, I could say \u201cbe gone in Jesus\u2019 name\u201d and it would have to leave. There was one problem with this, of course. For that to work, you had to be saved, really truly saved and not just pretending to be saved<\/a>. And this brings up another point of fear: salvation anxiety<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>My parents always made salvation seem so simple \u2013 you just pray the sinner\u2019s prayer and you\u2019re in. The trouble was that you had to really\u00a0mean<\/em> it<\/a>. Saying the words wasn\u2019t enough. Given this, I was constantly second guessing myself. Had I really<\/em> meant it? I prayed the sinner\u2019s prayer dozens of times, each time afraid that I hadn\u2019t meant it before.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t help that when a Christian \u201cfell away\u201d it was often suggested that he or she had never been a Christian to begin with. This indicated to me that someone could think<\/em> they were a Christian, could live<\/em> like they were a Christian, and could yet not actually mean it, not actually be saved. Of course, the alternative wasn\u2019t much better. I was completely aware that if someone could lose their salvation, that would mean that I could truly mean the sinner\u2019s prayer one day, and then somehow not mean it enough the next day. The prospect horrified me. Did I mention how many times I prayed the sinner\u2019s prayer as a child and teen?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Of course, this anxiety about salvation resulted in another concern: rapture anxiety<\/a>. What if the rapture were to happen and I were to be \u201cleft behind\u201d? This is something I actually worried about. I\u2019ve said this before<\/a> and I\u2019ll say it again \u2013 there were times when I came upon a pile of clothing on the floor and freaked, thinking that it was the clothing left when one of my family members had been raptured.<\/p>\n

I do want to be clear on one thing. Most of the time I felt entirely confident in my salvation. Most of the time I felt confident in my ability to cast out demons if need be. Most of the time I was sure I would be among those raptured. I was taught to have a \u201cpersonal relationship\u201d with Jesus, to have him as my best friend, and I did<\/a>. I was taught that God was absolutely wonderful and that I should bask in his love, and I did. But the cracks in this\u00a0facade, cracks I often worked to hide, were there. The times I was afraid I wasn\u2019t truly saved, was afraid a demon might laugh in my face when I tried to cast him out, and was afraid that the rapture might come and find myself \u201cleft behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

And there were also some things I didn\u2019t experience that other children growing up in similar communities do experience: being told that your illnesses are caused by demons, for example. While my parents always prayed for us when I was sick as a child, they never tried casting demons out of me or told me that I was under demonic attack. And while I overheard them talking about how things like rock music with bad lyrics could allow demons into the home, they put little emphasis on that and instead emphasized the \u201chedge of protection\u201d God put around our home. If they had spend a great deal of time emphasizing the ways this hedge of protection could be broken, I almost certainly would have felt less safe.<\/p>\n

The interesting thing is that my parents never seemed to be affected by this sort of anxiety. They were always confident of their salvation. They never acted like they were afraid of demons. They knew they would be raptured. I\u2019m not sure whether they were just good at hiding underlying fears from me, or whether they had different temperaments from mine and so didn\u2019t have the fears I did, or whether the fact that they had spent their formative years in more mainstream Christian traditions made the difference.<\/p>\n

Regardless, I am reminded once again this Halloween how glad I am that, because I no longer believe in God, heaven, hell, or demons, Sally and Bobby will be growing up without these fears and anxieties. Childhood is difficult enough without extra things to worry about.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[275,24,171,37,44,195],"class_list":["post-9849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicalism-fundamentalism","tag-anxiety","tag-children","tag-demons","tag-end-times","tag-fear","tag-rapture"],"yoast_head":"\nFear and the Fundamentalist Child<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"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. 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