patriachy

A Creeping Sense of Distance: Nastia’s Story

HA Editorial Team9 Comments

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Nastia” is a pseudonym.

I knew from a very young age what I wanted to do with my life. “I want to be on obstetrician,” I would tell anyone who would listen. At three years old, it was baffling to me that at least half the adults I met had no idea what that was. “It’s a doctor who delivers babies!” I would tell them, “Like Daddy!” The profession runs in my family. My grandfather and great-grandfather were both OB/GYNs, and my great-grandmother was a midwife. And yet, I have never felt pressured by others to take up the “family business.” It is purely my decision to pursue this path.

I had a rather unusual upbringing in this way. I come from a conservative evangelical family, but my parents are well-educated and open-minded, and they wanted nothing more than for me to be happy and successful.

While for many, “homeschooling” has an emphasis on the “home,” my parents put the emphasis on “school.”

That I was going to college was not up for debate; every step we took was made with the goal of stretching my mind, teaching me how to reason, preparing me for a lifetime of learning and a professional career. At the same time, they pushed me to pursue my own passions and dreams. I had a say in my own curriculum and was allowed to explore any subject I found interesting. While this may sound like an undisciplined teaching style, it kept me at least two grades ahead of my age in every subject and taught me to be self-motivated and proactive about my education.

That mindset was the best thing that I could have learned in preparation for higher education. At age sixteen, I entered community college through an early-entrance program in my state. This program allows students to complete their junior and senior years of high school through the college for free. My parents were hugely relieved that I would be able to earn my high school diploma and get real transcripts before applying to university.

I loved college. My transition was the easiest it could possibly have been. I excelled in my classes and quickly accumulated a diverse and quirky group of friends. Sure, college was a lot of work. I was taking twenty-one credits every quarter in order to finish all the pre-med requirements and earn an Associate’s Degree in Chemistry. There were ups and downs, sleepless nights, and failed experiments. But I had expected that, and my time management skills, self-discipline, and eagerness to learn benefited me enormously. Through diligence, the entire endeavor was highly successful. My confidence and enthusiasm soared.

But I soon found that going to school wasn’t the hardest part.

That came when I had to deal with the backlash of my (and my parents’) academic choices from a variety of different people.

The first came from my aunt, with whom I’ve never gotten along. A vehement socialist (and incidentally, a community college English teacher), she is viciously anti-homeschool, and it was clear from the beginning that she wanted me to fail in college to prove a point to my parents. When it was obvious that I was succeeding, she tried to tear me down emotionally, telling me that I was going to get sick because I was working too hard, that I had a mental disorder causing me to be a workaholic, and that success in school wasn’t worth my time because there was no way I could be successful in the real world.

That hurt, but as my relationship with her had always been a bit antagonistic, I turned it into a motivating factor. My goal became proving her wrong.

The pushback I received from homeschooled families in my church was much less motivating and much more painful. This didn’t really start until I applied and was accepted into a highly-ranked university, directly into the competitive Bio-engineering program.

In the view of many mothers especially, that was the point where I sold out, where I gave up my soul.

Going to community college, where I was living at home and going to school in a smaller, more job-like environment was acceptable. Entering university, where I would be in a co-ed dormitory with non-Christian students and exposing my mind to science and philosophy, was the equivalent of surrendering the battle for my soul. And it was difficult and depressing to deal with that because I was and still am very much a Christian.

The strange thing about it was that the criticism was never overt – it was a vague sum of micro-agressions, a creeping feeling of distance and disapproval that built up over time and poisoned my (albeit not-close) friendships with many homeschoolers in my church. I have a hard time pointing to clear examples, because the gradual alienation was caused by attitudes more than words or actions. I’m not even sure why I felt so hurt by it; I had never felt like I was a part of the “Christian Homeschool Culture.” My closest friends were actually homeschooled kids I met through music, not through my church. I never went to co-ops or conventions, never used A Beka or Bob Jones; I was always an outsider looking in on a culture that was as foreign to me as was the culture of public school. All the same, I had never felt so isolated as I did when I went to university.

I guess I had expected those I had always considered “my people” to be more accepting of me, even proud of me. That was the myth I had told myself growing up – that the homeschooling families in my church were “my people,” even though I was always outside their cliques, and that the reason I was always ahead of them academically was because I was simply smarter or my parents were better teachers. I was naïve; I thought we had similar lifestyles and values. And now here I was, succeeding in the world, spreading my light in the darkness. Isn’t that what those same families had taught me in Sunday School? That I didn’t even have to necessarily talk about Christ all the time – I just had to let my actions speak for themselves? I thought my honest and hard-won success, my healthy friendships, and my clean lifestyle made me a godly example. Instead, I was dismissed. People didn’t talk to me, or would abruptly end conversations when they heard what university I was at or what I was studying.

Previously-friendly parents would look at me critically and tell me things like, “Well, that’s not what God has in store for my daughter.”

That I was in STEM made it even worse, it seemed.

My parents were not immune to this stigma, and I think one of the most telling instances was when my mother was asked to speak at a monthly “Homeschool Moms’ Night,” when the subject of discussion was “Homeschooling Through High School and What Comes Next.” It was run by a sweet lady who has a very different homeschooling approach than my family does. Still, she wanted to showcase the range of options available to parents of younger kids.

Each of five women gave a speech, and then other moms were told to strike up a conversation with whoever seemed to match their own philosophy. Out of forty people, my mom had one person who wanted to talk to her, a woman from Hong Kong who didn’t like the state of American schools and was relieved that homeschooling could provide a more rigorous and comprehensive path. The other moms completely ignored her. I remember the rejection in her voice as she recounted the story to me. These were people she considered friends, but they completely dismissed her when she spoke passionately about helping her children make the most of their talents and aspirations.

After this, a small piece of a baffling puzzle fell into place for me.

Maybe my mother’s goal was not shared by others the way I had always assumed. Maybe the reason that nearly all the homeschooled girls my age were not going to college was something more than the fact that they just weren’t “ready” or weren’t “book-smart people.” Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that the few who were pursuing higher education were going to community colleges or the tiny local Christian university aligned with our denomination; nobody was going to a secular university or anywhere out of state. It wasn’t an isolated instance that a girl decided to take up babysitting instead of going to college – it was widespread. It became normal to see friends drop out of college before taking a single class, or decide to live at home rather than stay in the dormitory; “she’s scared,” was always the chuckled explanation. It was commonplace to hear about another girl whose main goal of going to a barely-accredited Christian school was to find a husband and become a homeschooling mother.

This is an institutional problem, I realized.

It is still not clear to me whether parents are actively discouraging college for their daughters in particular, or whether the daughters are internalizing the idea that education would corrupt their hearts and minds and distract them from their duty of being wives and mothers. It had never occurred to me that this type of pressuring was occurring, as this is not the mindset of the majority of (non-homeschooling) people in my church. It is certainly not the doctrine that my well-educated and highly-rational pastor holds to. Yet, as I learn more about fundamentalism and about the situations of particular families, I am starting to put the pieces together. Talking with my mom now, there’s a reason that I was never put into co-ops and never used typical homeschooling resources. She realized what this sect was about long ago and tried to shield me from it.

For this reason – strangely – going to university broadened my perspective in yet another way; by putting me firmly on the outside, it gave me a clearer picture of the culture that surrounded me growing up, and an appreciation for how masterfully my parents handled my education. I will be eternally grateful for the unique opportunity they created for me and the generous support they constantly offered (and still offer) in continuing my education.

As for improving the cultural environment for college-bound homeschoolers, I’m not entirely sure what needs to be done, nor what one individual can possibly do. I realize that not everyone is cut out for higher education, and respect the right of families to pursue their own homeschooling path. However, the fact that I am an anomaly in my engineering school (because I was homeschooled) and an anomaly in my homeschool cohort (because I am an engineer) is very telling about the dichotomy that has grown between the academic and Christian communities.

It’s not a healthy divide, as the mistrust between the two groups makes understanding and progress extraordinarily difficult.

I’ve also grown to see that despite the opinions of many in the Christian homeschooling community, gender equality has not been achieved.

“Equal but different” is not good enough; there is still much work that needs to be done in providing the same education and career opportunities to women as are provided to men.

This by nature cannot be a policy issue, but a cultural reform. Parents must be honest with themselves when examining their daughters’ goals, and provide the necessary mental and emotional support for whatever path they are drawn to. It’s not logical to assume that a woman’s only contribution should be in the home, nor is it Biblical.

I’m not sure yet what it will take to bridge that chasm between Christians and academia, or the division between girls’ aspirations and their parents’ ideals. I’m not sure yet what it will take to change homeschoolers’ minds about science, higher education, and a woman’s place in both.

However, as a problem-solver by nature, rest assured that I will be trying, and I hope that some of you may join me.

Created to be His Doormat: Wende Benner’s Story

HA Editorial Team13 Comments

CC image courtesy of Flickr, Ryan Hyde.

By Wende Benner, HA Editorial Team

My lightbulb moment began at the age of sixteen. My family was a part of Bill Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute (ATI) homeschool program. This was the year my father received the call inviting me to live and work at a training center and to also be a part of a brand new training program especially for girls, EXCEL (Excellence in Character, Education, and Leadership). Every ATI teenager knew that receiving a personal invitation to work and participate in an Institute event meant that someone important had seen the light in your eyes and recognized your devotion to God. I was thrilled to be thought worthy to help prepare the newly acquired Ambassador Hotel in Dallas, TX for the first class of EXCEL girls and to also be able to participate in this groundbreaking program.

Once I arrived at the beautiful, historic Ambassador Hotel I worked long, hard hours with little sleep preparing for hundreds of girls to arrive. We were to spend eight weeks learning how to be godly women. Since this was a brand new program, I was unsure of what subjects we would be covering until I received my giant, white binder. Some of the things we were going to learn were the womanly arts of sewing, dressing, hospitality, courtship, and submission. But the most exciting thing to me was the discovery that Elisabeth Elliot would be coming to speak with us. Mrs. Elliot was a bit of a hero of mine. She was a woman who God used through writing and speaking to reach others. And she would be talking to us about how to write, something I dreamed of doing one day. Her sessions with us were scheduled for the second week of EXCEL, and I couldn’t wait.

Our sessions began with learning about God’s design for us as women. God created us to be wives and mothers that raised the next generation for God. Then we moved to all the ways that we could mess up God’s plan for us.

There were so many sins women were prone to falling into it seemed, and just one of them could not only destroy our lives but the lives of our husband and children.

Things such as having expectations from life or loved ones only led us to be contentious and ungrateful. This of course could destroy a family or lead to something even worse- bitterness. Bitterness would give Satan a piece of our soul and was even known to be the cause of certain illnesses (like arthritis) and depression. We finished the week of sessions by concentrating on how wrong priorities could destroy our lives. But first we needed to understand God’s priorities for women were a relationship with him first, then to put the needs of our husband’s second, and the needs of our children came next.

These sessions made it clear to us God’s only purpose for women was marriage and children (as many children as possible).

If we had any other desires or dreams we were sinning.

Of course these weren’t exactly new ideas for someone who had been in ATI for a while, but hearing these things everyday with verses to back them up started to take a toll. From the time we got up at 5:30 in the morning till we went to bed at 9:30 we only studied verses instructing women on how to be godly wives and mothers. That with the added knowledge that my parents had never once disagreed with anything said through Gothard or ATI began to make me feel as if my future was already decided for me, and it was a future that had never really been a part of my dreams or even what I felt had been God’s calling for my life. It was a future where my desires and thoughts were never to be considered, a future where subservience not partnership was required.

I felt trapped.

And then I felt shame and guilt. I felt I was so selfish to have other dreams and to not want what God’s design and purpose for me.

The point of this first week of sessions was to help us understand the purpose of EXCEL and what we were there to learn. Now, we were going to begin “practical” training to help us meet these goals. And we were all excited that Elisabeth Elliot would be the one to start this part of our training. Learning about writing and ministry from one of the most respected Christian women of our time was something I knew would be useful. It was something that could even help me reach the goals and dreams I felt God had given me.

Mrs. Elliot first informed us that she only taught under the authority of the Institute leaders and of her husband, Lars. In fact, Lars stood to the side or in the back of the room every session to show her submission to authority. Then she spoke about loneliness and suffering. She told us that just as Jesus had suffered and died, we were called to suffering and to die “little deaths” by sacrificing ourselves for others. This was especially true in marriage she told us; we are “married but alone”. “It is the mercy of God that gives us the chance to die”, and for women this chance comes through marriage.

The picture of marriage Mrs. Elliot painted was one of loneliness and loss-a place where women were created “gloriously unequal” to men.

In fact, she informed us that equality was a political construct, but women were created to be “lesser than” men in order to symbolize the mystery of Christ and the church. The only way to be “truly womanly” was to “surrender” to Christ and our husbands. With that final pronouncement Mrs. Elliot handed out a page of helpful hints on writing and asked if we had any questions about her talks.

A few girls asked questions about specific situations in their homes. How does submission look when parents are quite possibly being abusive or even asking one to do something wrong? With each question Mrs. Elliot seemed to become more and more impatient. She reiterated the fact that God called us to submit and surrender. There were no exceptions. I became increasingly uneasy. Then, a very brave girl raised her hand and asked a question that is burned into my memory. In an almost challenging tone she said, “Mrs. Elliot, are you saying that God made women to be doormats?”
There was silence for a few moments. You could tell everyone was waiting to hear how she would respond to the confrontation.

Mrs. Elliot then replied, “Well, I have always said since God made me to be a doormat, I will be the best doormat I can be.”

I didn’t hear anything else that happened that night. I was too stunned. Never had I heard my role in life put that plainly. This world I was growing up in believed women were created to be doormats. Something within me rose up in protest.

I was not created to be a doormat, to be walked over, ignored, abused, and used.

My life was meant for much more than this. I knew in that moment their whole paradigm of how the world interacted and related was fundamentally flawed. Everything from now on must be questioned for truth.

It has been a long journey of unraveling the lies and truth since that moment. In many ways I have needed to tear everything down and rebuild my beliefs and views of life over again. But, every moment of hard work has been worth the freedom of knowing it is acceptable for me to be my own person, to have my own thoughts and desires, and to know I do not have to sacrifice my whole self in order to love my family.

*****

“A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more.” ~John Steinbeck, East of Eden

We’ve called these stories, “light-bulb moments”. They are stories of awakening….spiritual, emotional, and deeply personal. We were, every one of us, to some extent or another, asleep, in the dark, and complacent. Then, something happened to wake us up, turn on the light, stir our souls. Some incongruency that didn’t fit our boxes. We discovered a world far bigger and better than we’d imagined. People that were multi-dimensional and complex. Thoughts and feelings within us we didn’t know were there before or maybe we did and they scared us. We got angry, we grieved, we ranted to each other about how we were lied to, how we were sometimes complicit in our own darkness, choosing what was safe over what was true. Some of us walked a harder road than others, but we all walked them. We all, in one way or another, realized the world was open to us, in full color, and that, contrary to what we had been told, it was very good. And there are now no limits to anything. These are our stories. Glimpses into our awakenings. I’m sure we’ll have many more before we walk our last path.- Darcy Anne, HA Editorial Team

My Life as an Unmarried Woman Among Fundamentalists: Katia’s Story

HA Editorial Team2 Comments

CC image courtesy of Flickr, Ryan Hyde.

Scripture talks about the great sower sowing the seed of the word of God.

When I look at my journey away from fundamentalism, I see that same sower preparing the soil of my heart in preparation for that “lightbulb” event that set me free from fundamentalism.

The great sower began preparing the soil of my heart before I was born.

On Mom’s side, I am descended from Anabaptists, Quakers, and other free thinkers. Mom grew up in a Grace Brethren church that encouraged its members to study the Bible, and when she became an adult, she did. The more she studied scripture, the less she wanted to go to church.

On Dad’s side, most of the fathers were either absent, sick, or died young. Both his maternal grandparents were illegitimate, a fact his mother concealed. Eight years after her death, I learned the truth, and it helped set me free from the purity culture.

How could I breathe fire on fornication when I would not have been born had it not been for fornication?

In addition, the story of how my paternal grandmother’s paternal grandmother basically died of a broken heart after the father of her baby paid a fine and fled seized my heart and has not let go.

Mom and Dad were engaged the day Jim Jones murdered* hundreds of his followers in Guyana. In processing the tragedy, Mom noticed how Jim Jones’ followers had blindly followed him and decided that it was dangerous to blindly follow religious authority. Partially as a result, I grew up knowing that it was okay to question religious authority.

As I grew up, I began dislike religious authority aside from the knowledge that it was okay to question them. The pastors I knew were heartless, arrogant, lazy, fake, and distant. They only seemed to care for us if they wanted something. Dad is a genius with his hands, and the only time any of the “men” in the churches he attended took any notice of him was to get him to do something.

Growing up, my family never fit in church and the homeschool community because Dad is not a leader and was not involved with my brothers and I spiritually or educationally. I desperately wanted to fit in, to belong. Besides, the outside world scared me.

According to everything I heard and saw from the religious community, the only way for a woman to do that was to be a wife and mother.

And being a wife and mother would protect me from that scary world.

The year I turned 18, my older brother left the GARBC Baptist church my family was part of, and I followed him to his new church. Then Mom left the GARBC Baptist church, and Dad refused to attend without her. Several weeks later, a series of circumstances forced older brother to work on Sundays. Without a driver’s license, I had no way to attend church.

Even when I did get my driver’s license nearly a year later, I refused to attend church because I did not think organized religion was Biblical and I was hurting from previous bad church experiences. For three years, I refused to attend church.

In those three years, without me realizing it, an amazing thing happened.

My walk with Christ became something I wanted to do, vs something I was expected to do. My faith grew far more in those three years than the 18 before them.

A desire to be part of a community drove me back to church.

In the years that followed, I had one bad church experience after another.

In addition, I was struggling to find a career and live the unexpected life of autism, singleness and childlessness. During that time, without me realizing it, God was releasing fundamentalism’s grip on me.

Finally, in 2010, I asked God in desperation to either give me a husband or make me content to be single.

God gave me contentment to be single and much more. Via J Lee Grady’s books 10 Lies the Church Tells Women and 25 Tough Questions About Women and the Church I was introduced to the egalitarian truth along with some blogs God put into my path. Because of God’s careful preparation of my heart, it was truth I joyfully received.

Yet I was not fully convinced.

Every year, I read through my one year Bible. At the beginning of 2011, I decided to write down every reference I could find regarding women to see what the Bible really said about women. On July 29, 2011, I read Rom 11:29: “For the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable”. The verse hit me like a rock between the eyes. I had seen how some women had the gifts of teaching and leadership while some men did not.

That verse showed me that God would never give a woman gifts and callings he did not expect her to use.

I felt like a bird set free.

I was every bit as valuable to God as a single, childless woman as a married with children woman!

I had a voice in the church and could be a church leader! It was okay to be assertive and independent!

Later in 2011 I said my final goodbye to organized religion. I could not find it in scripture and could not endure feeling like a freak and misfit in church because of being single, childless, and autistic.

Today Christ and women’s equality are my top passions in life. I still suffer from the scars of fundamentalism, but they are nothing compared to what family members and others are suffering from it.

Despite the struggles, I have much to be grateful for.

One of those blessings is being set free from fundamentalism.

*Contrary to popular belief, most of those who died at Jonestown were murdered and did not deliberately commit suicide.

What Fundamentalism Taught Me About Being a Good Mom: Evie’s Story

HA Editorial Team9 Comments

CC image courtesy of Flickr, Ryan Hyde.

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Evie” is a pseudonym.

After becoming a new mom, I have been realizing how many bad mom- good mom rules have been thoroughly ingrained into my being because of my fundamentalist upbringing – whether intentionally or unintentionally. While some of these are complete foolishness, I can see the love but misunderstanding that many of these started with.

Yes, I have taken many of them to the extreme to emphasize my point- but I feel like many of the beliefs were extreme, and although very few people actually stated them verbatim the undercurrent of the messages was definitely present. This realization led me to compile the list below.

I’d love to hear what others remember and realized.

GOOD MOM

• Looked good/attractive – did not cause her husband to have an affair/use porn
• Always responsive and available for her husband
• Soft, submissive, gentle
• Cooked from scratch as close to nature as possible (i.e. garden, grind wheat for bread)
• Kept house clean
• Dutifully taught kids’ school. If she didn’t know the subject she was teaching, spent her time reading ahead to learn it.
• Only needed college education so that she could teach her children better – [and, really, is that a good investment of money?]
• Didn’t spend money on herself or her family [all the way down to groceries] so that she didn’t stress her husband – the sole breadwinner.
• Didn’t cost anything and, instead, found a way to make money while staying at home.
• Got up early and went to bed late to take care of her family.
• Quietly agreed with everything
• Never missed church
• Only had one emotion – joy
• Just a tiny bit less intelligent than her husband and never “rubbed it in” [accidentally let it slip that she might know something]
• Did not run for any leadership position – unless it was only females
• Was careful to phrase everything she said so that she didn’t accidentally teach a man anything

BAD MOM

• Made her children eat “unhealthy” [not home cooked] because she was lazy.
• Let her body go
• Looked overly feminine
• Sent her children to organizations where they would be abused or indoctrinated (i.e. daycare, regular church)
• Did not properly protect her children and let them get abused
• Allowed their daughters to get raped
• Spent money on “expensive” [new/ good quality] clothes.
• Was too busy to take “care” [always be in the physical presence] of her children
• Had a dirty house
• Was confident and competent in the workplace
• Worked for any other reason other than her husband left her or died [in which case she would be pitied]
• Had an opinion on anything other than the appropriate church doctrine
• Disagreed
• Had personal boundaries
• Became exhausted (because she wasn’t trusting God” – who will give you the strength you need to do what He [aka the men and/or church] needed you to do)
• Struggled with depression or mental illness
• Was smarter in anything than her husband
• Sought intelligence (although this was ok as long as she didn’t learn more about anything than husband because this would be prideful)

Warning Fairy Lights: Irina’s Story

HA Editorial Team6 Comments

CC image courtesy of Flickr, Ryan Hyde.

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Irina” is a pseudonym.

There never was just one “aha” moment for me as a homeschooler. Maybe it had to do with how deep and how isolated my parents had us. Maybe it had to do with the fact that I was keeping my head down. Maybe it had to do with the fact I was looking for any way out that I’d just tuned out so much. Perhaps.

As a homeschooler, my parents used very conservative materials to school me for six grades.

The first light bulb moment I had was when I was not yet a homeschooler. Teachings from various conservative Christian authors were shared with my parents. Of course, I was very familiar with “Jack Chick”, and many of those “Chick Tracts” were substitutes for comic books when visiting my mom’s parents. We were introduced to teachings by authors such as William Schnoebelen and Caryl Matrisciana, and my mom started to read Frank Perretti novels. You can imagine what followed.

Two years prior to homeschooling, my parents outlawed Easter and Halloween.

We modified Christmas greatly. We did gifts on Christmas Eve, but we were to have “church” on Christmas Day. Easter now no longer had bunnies, eggs, chickens, ducks or anything related to the secular holiday. We no longer did special cakes and whatnot. We still did have ham for a good long time, which I never understood. We also went to sunrise services… it seemed wishy-washy. Halloween was totally verboten. No dressing up. No candy. No scary music and sound effects any longer. We started having “Fall Festivals”. It took a while, but I started questioning it entirely.

At another duty station, I happened upon BJU materials and thumbed through them at one of our pastor’s houses. I don’t remember what all was in it, but I remember recoiling, shaking my head, wrinkling my nose and asking if “this was what my parents planned on teaching us now that they pulled us from school.

My third light bulb moment had to do with the growing infiltration of Bill Gothard’s materials into our church.

It was seemingly small things here and there. The “Umbrella of Authority”, the forbidden music other than Hymns, whispers of people that said “anyone who listened to rock music is seriously backslidden…”, the introduction of some Character songs, Patch the Pirate and so on. We had a new dress code instituted at our church that required dresses or skirts for every female family member of those men in every position of leadership, even at home. My dad turned down a position of leadership due to this new legalism.

We moved twice, and I found myself ever more isolated. Our pastor, at the time, was homeschooling four children and had a fifth on the way. We visited often for various reasons, including the fact that my parents were serving in various offices at the church, at the time.

I started seeing homeschool curricula that taught that Dinosaurs and mankind lived together once upon a time.

This is how we got the mythology about dragons!

Some materials even went so far to say that the dinosaurs we know today in museums were just put together mish-mash by archaeologists because they have never found complete skeletons of some of these creatures. This is why some dinosaurs, such as the Tyrannosaurus Rex have impossibly teeny tiny arms and can do nothing with them.

I noticed that my homeschool material was swiftly changing in tenth grade. It went from generalized teachings to segregated “Girls do—” and “Boys do—” and that any mixing in between either set of the other sex’s jobs or enjoying any of those tasks was sinful and to be avoided. I complained again, of course, and my mom said to just answer the materials how they like and she’ll grade it appropriately.

We began attending homeschool youth meetings. and I was being exposed ever more to Vision Forum materials and teachings, Bill Gothard’s ATI/IBLP materials, CBMW (Counsel on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood) … and I kept questioning everything everywhere.

I noticed more and more quiverfull families and that the oldest daughter or daughters were always missing meetings or outings with us because they were in charge of watching the babies or toddlers at home. I kept asking my mom and dad, “If it is so biblical to keep having so many children, why can you not take care of them on your own? Why is it that the teenage girls who should be going to college are being told to stay home and that they can’t go anywhere else, they have to stay at home until they get married?” There never was a satisfactory answer to that.

I felt like all my light-bulb moments were snowballing. I started experiencing anxiety, but like everything else, I had to shove it all deep down and follow along unquestioningly.

We moved again, began attending another Non-denominational church that had high influence by the ATI/IBLP, Vision Forum, CBMW and Family Integrated Church model. My dad somehow connected into that group and I balked. I shut down and then found a way out with the youth group. It worked out alright for a while, until I realized I’d never be accepted as a homeschooler, as there was a clique formed at that church. The main clique were the kids who attended the church school The second clique were those who went to local public schools and the third were the homeschool rejects who refused to go to the FIC services, like myself. The more I read the FIC model materials, the more I woke up to the sickness that was patriarchy which seemed to permeate every little bit of my life.

We had two shotgun weddings occur within our local homeschool group. This occurred not long after some parents found out that their courtship model failed with their darling daughters. The girls were found to be pregnant, and since they were extremely pro-life, the logical conclusion to them was that the girls needed to be married off. There would be no baby shower. The girls would be removed from their position of influence, no longer serve in any office in their church, and would apologize publicly to us girls that they let down. I was extremely angry at the injustice of it all.

I questioned a homeschool culture that would basically sell a girl to a boy who either raped her, or at least only had a short-lived fling and shackled her to him while shaming her, removing them both from school and forced them both to care for a child they neither planned nor had means to provide for.

Don’t get me wrong, I was staunchly anti-choice, but pro birth control. I did (and still do!) believe that mothers have a limit to what their health will allow and that parents need to be able to care for their children on their own or with their family, but that children should be children. Yes, they should pitch in and help out, but they definitely shouldn’t be treated like lesser sister wives and Cinderella.

We moved one more time. We attended three different churches, but it seemed like the homeschool umbrella group that was involved in all of them seemed to have a circle that was just like our previous group at my dad’s last duty station. We plugged into a girl’s bible study, which I now recognize as being highly influenced by Debi Pearl, Above Rubies, Vision Forum, Elisabeth Eliot and various affiliated authors. At this point, I shut down for a time.

I had moments where I tucked away information and just secretly questioned it, but for the most part, I was like a secret agent on a mission to not be found out.

My mom fell in love with books by Francine Rivers and teachings by Beth Moore. She began sharing them with me, and ever so quietly, I started research (a little here, a little there) on the internet asking questions about the model “biblical womanhood” in her books. I never could quite put my finger down on what it was that bothered me, but I kept questioning.

It wasn’t until after I had graduated that the big names in purity culture gained prominence and my youngest sister was falling in love with the teachings of Joshua Harris, Stasi and John Eldredge… She started to hand me the books and asked if I would give them a read.

I’ll preface this with this fact: I’m a bibliophile. I love books. I would never do harm to any book, or at least, I thought I never would, until I read those books. I’ve never thrown a book so hard or so far until I had those in my hands.

Every single fault of the relationship was laid at the feet of the woman for whatever squidgy reason. If sex happened before marriage… if the male was tempted…

It was like my brain broke after that. I wasn’t going to take it anymore. But, the cognitive dissonance was so very strong. Inside, I was screaming at it all and hated it. I knew it was wrong. It was upside down. The theology was poor, at best. On the outside, I was dressing more and more like a proper stay at home daughter. I was even trying to be submissive. It was KILLING ME.

I cried almost every single night.

I hated my life, but I had no way out.

I had co-workers who obviously wanted to help, but had no idea how to even reach into my world and give me some sort of scaffolding or support to crawl out.

I never let anyone in or close enough to know what I was living with. I’m sure I harmed some people by things I repeated and didn’t believe in, but felt forced to parrot. I am so very sorry for that.

After leaving, I was so stuck in the mentality I was raised in that I actually could not function very well in the real world.

This was compounded even more with the fact I had moved to a foreign country and was dealing with the very real effects of culture shock, learning a new language, new laws and a completely different political structure from the United States.

It took having my children to see how evil all of it was and how it all just snowballed downhill into one great big pile of irredeemable poo. Everything that has happened to me up until moving out were, themselves, that pivotal light-bulb moment that woke me up to the fact I needed to tear everything down to the foundation and begin building again.

It was not just one light, but a string of little fairy lights that kept blinking at me the entire time I was in the homeschooling movement.

I hope that all of the people I have met who were hammered down by these teachings have also found themselves to be free like I have. I may have had many starts and stops like Rapunzel in the latest Disney film, but thank God, I’m free at last.

Gothard’s ATI and the Duggar Family’s Secrets

HA Editorial Team71 Comments

Jim Bob Duggar and Bill Gothard at an ATI conference. Source: http://www.duggarfamily.com/.

By Wende Benner, HA Editorial Team

Content Warning: Spiritual Victim Blaming

The recent revelation that Josh Duggar admittedly molested five young girls as a teenager has taken over social media for the last two days. There has been a wide array of reactions and speculations. But, for many who were raised in the same quiverfull and patriarchal homeschool world, this has been a time of reliving their own traumas brought about by that dysfunctional culture. Those who lived it know all too well how the teachings and attitudes that are part of the Duggar family’s life affect families, victims, and even offenders.

The Duggar family’s involvement in Bill Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute (ATI) homeschool program adds complexities to this story which are unknown to the average person. The underlying principles and beliefs the Duggars have built their lives around actually help groom and shame victims, help hide grievous abuse, and even keep offenders from receiving needed help.

The lessons learned from birth in homes like the Duggar’s strip children of their voice and agency. Starting with blanket training babies and toddlers understand quickly that disappointing a parent leads to swift and painful consequences. As they grow, it becomes clear that simply doing what is expected is not enough. It must be done instantly and cheerfully. Children are even forbidden to seek out the logic behind the request, as kids are prone to do, because that is seen a making excuses or delaying obedience. The consequences of failing to meet these expectations are severe. Gothard and the Duggars believe that spankings are necessary to save a child from their inborn nature to do evil, and these are not just any spankings. The Duggars endorse the child abuse methods taught by the Pearls. Growing up in an environment of fear, where questions are seen as rebellious, eventually makes children unable to speak up for themselves. They become unable to trust their own judgment of what is right and wrong. These children are the perfect targets for abuse; they do not know how to advocate for themselves.

Also, from a young age the children are instructed in God’s plan for their gender. Strict gender roles are the foundation of a patriarchal system. Girls learn their role is to be wives, mothers, and keepers at home. Most people know that for the Duggar family this includes the expectation of having as many children as possible.  Michelle Duggar is also outspoken about her beliefs on a wife’s subservient role and need to be sexually available to her husband. Children learn by watching their parents that men hold the power. This is detrimental for both boys and girls. Neither learns to have a healthy relationship without the power differential already in place.

All of this is accompanied by one of Bill Gothard’s 7 Basic Principles, Authority (these principles are the foundation to his Institute in Basic Life Principles seminar). This concept is taught with a diagram of umbrellas, which represent protection.

Umbrella of ProtectionNotice the man has authority over the entire household. The teaching claims that as long as the father has no holes in his umbrella-sin in his life, then nothing bad can happen to the rest of the family. However, any member of the family can step out from under the father’s protection if they sin. Then all manner of evil can happen to that person. Therefore, if something bad, like a sexual assault, happens to you and your father hasn’t done anything wrong, it must be your fault. Knowledge of this fact keeps many from even disclosing their abuse. They are aware that questions about sin in their life are likely to follow any revelation of their violation.

In Gothard’s world there are many other ways in which sexual abuse can be the victim’s fault. At the ATI student’s Counseling Seminar students are taught Gothard’s method of helping victims of sexual assault. The handout pictured here is part of the teaching material. Counseling SAStudents are taught to question the victim if they had any fault in the assault. The most obvious way they would be at fault is if they defrauded their attacker. Defraud is Gothard’s favorite word for any dress, actions, or manners that cause someone to lust. This teaching is further backed up by a handout on moral failure released in the 90s after an ATI boy was caught molesting his sisters.

ModestyWith this teaching a case can easily be made to blame the victim in some way. The feelings of arousal the offender felt must have been caused by some fault of the victim.

Defrauding is not the only way a victim can be at fault. Gothard also teaches that if a victim fails to “cry out” or be alert (one of the 49 required character traits everyone should have) enough to have anticipated the assault, then the victim bears responsibility. The story of Tamar, daughter of King David, is used to illustrate this point. It is easy to see how these teaching have set up a system where the victim bears the blame. Anyone raised with these beliefs is set up to struggle with a lifetime of shame and guilt while still bearing the scars of their abuse.

Before the victim has a chance to make sense of what has happened to them or deal with the chaos of emotions, they will also be reminded of another one of Gothard’s 7 Basic Principles-Suffering. This principle emphasizes the necessity of forgiveness and has dire warnings about the consequences of unforgiveness. If a victim fails to forgive, bitterness will take root in their heart, and bitterness causes pieces of your soul to be given to Satan. Satan will then build strongholds on this piece of your soul.

BitternessThis teaching is also echoed in the handout from the Counseling Seminar. Victims are to be reminded that their soul has more value than their bodies, so forgiving the offender must be the priority. Any suffering caused by the assault is then brushed aside.

The Duggars assured the public Josh’s victims have received counseling. Yet, the type of counseling taught in their world does not promote healing. It teaches shame. How can these young people be expected to heal from such a violation with these principles guiding the process?

The Duggars also claim that Josh received counseling. It is reported this counseling was done over three months at an old VA hospital in Little Rock, AK. While there he did construction work. The old hospital was donated to Bill Gothard for use as a training center. The Integrity Construction Institute was at that time a part of this facility. Evidence that manual labor is an effective treatment for sex offenders is hard to come by. Construction work alone would be a disservice to someone seeking help.

It is important to note that any counseling received from someone associated with ATI would be driven by the belief that mental disorders do not exist. This approach to counseling would be ineffective to address the very nature and needs of a serial molester.

Any counsel Josh did receive would probably be similar to the counsel noted earlier, in the handout on moral failure from the 90s.

Moral FailureWith close examination it becomes clear that the boy referenced learned a lesson on shifting blame. The victims were blamed for their lack of modesty. The parents were blamed for their lack of teaching. The offender learned to see how others have failed and have caused his problems. This approach would not bring any lasting change in someone needing serious help.

Josh Duggar’s situation as a teen was critical. Studies show that young offenders who are able to get the right kind of help reduce their probability of reoffending by more than 50%. Yet, as far as we can tell, that kind of help was not available to him. The ATI system of counseling not only fails the victims but the offenders as well.

This toxic system of beliefs originated with Bill Gothard, a man who had to resign from his own ministry last year when faced with dozens of allegations of sexual harassment and abuse. Even though Michelle and Jim Bob were aware of this, they still continued to use these teaching in their home and promote them using their fame. They also continued to speak and teach at the annual ATI family conferences. They have failed to see how their own system of belief has contributed to the devastation in their own family and in the ministry they promote.

The secrets the Duggar family hid all these years have tragic and devastating effects. The lives of five victims will be permanently altered. ATI only helped cover their abuse. ATI also was unable to provide the necessary counseling that Josh Duggar desperately needed at that time. The consequences of that failure could have changed to course of his life.

Bill Gothard’s cult creates a world in which abuse thrives in secret, and those that need help the most are silenced and shamed.