A long rant about Jack Hyles and domestic violence

[SouthCarolinaGirl79]

It's been a while since I've posted here. For the record, I still read here almost daily, but I rarely log in or post. I disagree with many on this board politically because I am a conservative, and I do not want to be seen as a troll trying to disrupt the conversation. I'm not trying to start an argument here, but I just wanted to say that I do read here without posting and that this post isn't just coming from nowhere. Anyway, I had an encounter tonight with a member of my former church that has me completely sick to my stomach. It also made me want to post on Free Jinger again because there are people here who may "get it." I've tried to talk to my husband about it, but he wasn't raised like I was and my parents don't have the same perspective I do and they also do not like to talk about our time at this church anymore. A lot of this is just painful to discuss to anyone in real life. If the following doesn't make sense, it is because I'm very upset so apologies in advance.

From what I've been reading on this board, most of you are familiar with Bill Gothard. I never heard of him until I stumbled upon this board after googling the Duggars. I was raised in a church that came to be very influenced by Jack Hyles. I haven't read much on this board about him so here is a little history so the rest of my story will make sense. I know y'all have discussed the recent scandal with his son-in-law, but I need to talk more about Jack Hyles and how I've seen the crap he preached ruin so many lives.

Jack Hyles is considered by many to be the father of the modern American fire and brimstone independent fundamental Baptist church. I met him once when I was very little and I don't remember much, but he was very charismatic. He started his first church when he was very young in Texas and then was asked to pastor a church in Hammond, Indiana in the early 1960s. That church became the First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana. Hyles started his own college, Hyles-Anderson College and had it award him an honorary Ph.d. He then began publishing books on how to raise children as Dr. Jack Hyles. My parents bought them all through the years, but never read them. FBCH grew to over 20,000 members and was labeled as the home of the largest Sunday school in America. He is dead now and may the devil rest his soul.

So much of what Gothard does seems foreign to me even though I guess most of you would lump Hyles and Gothard under the umbrella of Christian fundamentalism. From what I’ve read, Gothard preaches about home churching and is big on homeschooling. Hyles was big on people attending his churches and attending a church school that was associated with a Hyles approved church. Hyles also recommend HAC for men, and women were supposed to attend with a suitable major in homemaking so they could find a husband. For a long time, it was hard for me to see the Duggars as part of a cult because they seemed to be just a big family doing their own thing. There are many similarities between Hyles and Gothard, but I’ll get to that in my story.

I’m trying to be careful in how I’m wording this because the Internet is forever. I’m really wishing I had picked a less state specific username right now, but here goes nothing. I’m trying to be as honest as possible with the need to stay vague. My mother’s family has lived on the same piece of rural land since the family arrived in my state from England in the 1600s. The very normal church I currently attend was founded by my ancestors in the 1800s. In the 1960s when my parents married, they moved to a nearby town where my daddy is from. My daddy was not raised in a church and Momma wanted to keep attending church, so they picked the closest church to their new house. They had no clue on how to select a church or things to watch out for because neither of them had ever done it. Daddy had never done the church thing and Momma's family had been in the same church for long time.

The church was new and from all accounts it had a great pastor. My daddy credits this pastor with leading him to the Lord and changing his life. Soon everybody in the neighborhood started going to that church and it began growing rapidly. Living in a neighborhood was all brand new to my mother. She had grown up on farm of almost a thousand acres so having neighbors and living close to people who weren’t family was a big deal. My daddy’s parents had never taken him to church as a child. He had a rather rough upbringing with a mother who was psychotic and an alcoholic father. In the South when my daddy was growing up, *everyone* went to church so he had always felt left out in that respect, and he really felt like he belonged at this new church. My mother was excited to have all these new friends in the neighborhood, so they both got sucked into this new church very quickly. Unlike the “high church†Momma was raised in, this new church had activities coming out the wazoo and they thought it was great.

They didn’t know it at the time, but the church they had picked was changing from a regular Baptist church into a crazy Jack Hyles influenced church. From what I understand, the pastor they had joined the church under left about a year after they became members and a new preacher took over. This new preacher had attended one of Hyles’ “Pastor Schools.†Jack Hyles was famous for having a level of organization at these so called “independent†Baptist churches. He would give seminars and workshops at churches across America on how to run a church. He printed manuals on everything under the sun- “How to Be A Church Usher,†“How to Run a Sunday School Program,†“How to Run a Bus Program,†“How to Run a Soul Winning Ministry.†In addition to HAC seminary program, the “Pastor School†or preacher boy camps as I’ve also heard them called usually lasted a week or two. Young men who believed they felt called to preach would be bused up to FBCH and would be brainwashed on how to run a church the Hyles’ way. I’ve personally had friends attend those events and they would return either completely drunk on the kool-aid or they would completely lose their religion. I’m talking about going from being straight as an arrow, looking like a young Josh Duggar to being tattooed and pierced within a week of returning from the seminar vowing never to darken the door of a church again. There doesn’t seem to be much of a middle ground for those who return not drunk on the kool-aid.

[sorry this is so long, but I want to let anybody who has made it this far know how two sane people not raised in this mess wound up involved in an IFBC. ]

Under this new preacher, things began changing in this church. There began to be church activities constantly. This is a hallmark of a Hyles church. He wanted people constantly involved in the church and not to have outside activities. The church started a soul winning program and my parents became very involved. My daddy believed that finding the Lord had changed his life and he thought he was trying to help people like him. My momma mainly enjoyed visiting with people. I completely understand how someone who is not a Christian finds soul winning offensive, but my daddy honestly felt like his life had been changed by being saved and he thought he would be helping others. From what I understand, people at the church were expected to form teams of 4 and you would drive to houses of people who you knew were not in a church and visit with them and convince them to check out your church. If they were responsive, the soul winning team would even pray with them and counsel them. Keep in mind this was happening in a very small town in the South in the 1960s/1970s so everyone knew who went to what church and who didn’t attend church at all. This town is and was very WASPy and Christian. We have every flavor of high church, to mainstream Christian, down to some Pentacostal Holy Rollers. We do not even have a Roman Catholic parish here. The nearest synagogue is over 40 miles away, and I had never even met a Jewish person until college and only 1 Catholic as a teenager. These people weren’t atheists either. They were people who for whatever reason believed in God but weren’t currently attending a church or hadn’t accepted Christ as their personal savior. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with other religions or no religion at all. I just want to be clear that my parents weren’t trying to convert people of other faiths to their church or trying to offend atheists.

A few years later this church started a school that would make the Duggars’ homeschool look rigorous. I think they started with good intentions but it turned into doing something called paces. Basically every student has to finish x amount of booklets before graduation. Most finish around 15. It used to be done on paper, but now after third grade all of the work is done on computers. Learning about the Bible is the main focus of the school. They refuse to teach evolution. They believe that evolution=man came straight from apes. I’ve heard teachers at that school say if evolution was correct then there would be partial man/apes walking around in mid-evolved form. Most of the girls at the school marry straight out of high school or attend college to find a husband only. Now Hyles did preach that girls should attend college and have a back-up “feminine career†like being a teacher or a secretary if she had to support her family due to widowhood, but being a homemaker was always the ideal. If college is attended, it is HAC, Bob Jones, or Pensacola Christian in Florida. Jack Hyles preached that public schools would lead to children being influenced by secular teachers who weren’t “Bible-believing Christians.†This is code for KJV only and attending a Hyles’ approved church.

[i’m sorry this is becoming so dang long! I tried to type this without rehashing all of this other stuff, but the words wouldn’t come until I started at the beginning. I’ve seriously kept this bottled inside for so long that this is therapeutic. I’m getting close to the point.]

Before I was born, my parents left the neighborhood they had lived in as newlyweds and moved back to the land where my mother was raised. They were at this point they were about 15 miles away from the Hyles influenced church and far closer to the church my mother’s family had attended for generations. My daddy however still had his business in that town and they saw no reason to switch churches. I was born over a decade after they were married so some time had passed and the church had changed greatly. I remember enjoying going to Sunday school when I was very little, but I remember things getting weird when it was time for me to start kindergarten. My mother had plans of enrolling me in the church school. Where we live in SC, the public school system is not that great so it was never an option. In my parents’ point of view, they are only a last resort after all other options have been exhausted. I’m not saying this about public schools in general, but about the specific ones where I live. When my mother was in the process of enrolling me in the church school when I was 5, there was a wonderful teacher who was actually in the process of leaving the school and church. She told my mother do not enroll me there under any circumstances. My mother listened to her, but never found out the reason why that teacher was leaving the school. I’m so thankful my mother took her advice or my life might have ended up very differently.

It was actually at the age of five when my life in that church started to become weird. I was an only child, living on a big farm. The only children I had been around at this point were children at that church. My parents enrolled me at a private school. I’m not saying this to be snobby. It is just a fact. This was a real college prep private school where I was receiving a real education. The children at the private school were very different than the children at my church. Until I started private school, I never wore pants in public. My mother knew that the church people thought that little girls should only wear dresses. She didn’t want me to stand out so I started to wear pants and jeans to school and it became normal to me. My mother got involved in my school and made friends and she wanted to fit it too, so she started wearing pants again. My daddy didn’t care one way or the other. He just wanted us to be happy. My mother had started wearing dresses and skirts only when she started the Hyles influenced church mainly to fit in. She says that she never felt convicted about it either way, and also felt that God had bigger fish to fry than what she put on in the morning.

At this point, no one had told me that girls shouldn’t wear pants that I could remember. I knew that wearing pants was a new thing for me, but I didn’t know anything else. What I do remember is feeling really embarrassed when people from my church would see my mother and I uptown shopping when I got out of school. I would have on my jeans and my friends from my church would have on long khaki shirts and white dress shirts- their school uniform. I remember the first time it happened. I was in the grocery store with my momma and I went to speak to a girl from Sunday school and she looked at me like I had three heads.

Some of the same teachers from the church school were also the Sunday school teachers. They wanted the church school to grow and they started saying things like all of us should be going to the church school or we were endanger being under wrong influences. I told my mother this and she told me they probably meant the public school. I knew they didn’t though. I was one of the few children who weren’t attending the church school and I knew they were talking to me.

Around this point, I really think my parents began turning their brains off over what was coming out of the pulpit at this church. Now I’ve done a lot of research over the past decade on Jack Hyles and I’ve read all of the books he has published. I can say with 100% certainty that everything that was coming from the pulpit at my local IFBC was a direct result of what was being preached by Hyles in Hammond, Indiana. My daddy was very involved in getting his business off the ground during this time in my life and he wasn’t paying much attention to the sermons. My mother has always been the type who is very religious and reads the Bible daily, but she makes her grocery list out in her head during services. I, on the other hand, listened carefully to everything that was being preached. Since they no longer lived in the neighborhood where the church was located, they weren’t involved in any of the activities for adults, but they would still take me to the youth group activities.

A lot of people have read Hyles’ books and sermons and get a rosy picture of what his family’s life was like. I know now after hearing one of his daughter’s speak that he beat his wife and tormented his family. She tells all of this in a video that can be found online. Hyles’ set himself up as a god in the eyes of those who followed him and he thought that he could do no wrong and should not be questioned. I imagine that Gothard is much like this. His son turned out much like him and broke up a church after committing adultery with women in the church. He is also a wife beater, and had a child die under very strange circumstances.

It was very weird for me going to a private school with normal children who went to normal Episcopalian, Presbyterian, normal Baptists, and Methodist churches during the day and then being around the increasingly wacky folks at my IFB church. Again, this was a church that my parents would have never joined if they hadn’t moved to a neighborhood they were unfamiliar with when they were newlyweds and fell in love with a great church that evolved into a wacko church. It was almost like a cult. We were increasing told in youth group that we needed to invite our friends to church. I never did this because all of my friends went to their own churches. I didn’t feel the need to pressure them to come to my wacko church. I had attended their normal services many times and didn’t want them to know that I went to a wacko church in another town where the pastor would scream at the congregation and pound his fists on the pulpit. It gave me nightmares. The message was clear though. Being a Christian wasn’t good enough. You had to attend a Hyles’ church in order to be really saved.

I remember around 7 or so, hearing it preached that women should only wear dresses because that was more ladylike and modest. I couldn’t figure that out because I knew that at recess I was pretty modest when I swung from the monkey bars in my jeans. It seemed to me that the immodest girls were the ones doing it in their dresses so the boys could see their panties. What I didn’t know until years later was at church school, the little girls weren’t allowed to play at recess because they had on dresses and would be immodest playing. They spent their recess being ladylike and watching the boys play.

I knew that none of my friends at church took ballet lessons like I did with my private school friends. What I didn’t know what that they were being taught in school that dancing was sinful. Hyles also taught that girls should not be allowed to ever do a solo activity or she would get used to being in the spotlight and would crave that and not be able to be in the background after she was married and just support her husband. Even playing the piano solo was wrong for a girl and she should only accompany a choir.

Things really became completely crazy when I turned 12 or 13 and I had to start attending children’s church. This was an age when teenagers were pulled out of regular services with their parents and sent to hear an “age appropriate†sermon after Sunday school. It was led by the assistant pastor who was a HAC graduate. This was the first time I had ever been around the person and the first time I had ever a male for teacher at this church. At this age they feel that boys should only have to answer to men and not to women. They do not think it is right for even a teenage boy to have to be under the authority of a female teacher because it will damage his manhood and the natural order of the universe.

Anyway, this man would make the PP look all warm and cuddly. He made the boys and the girls sit on opposite sides of classroom. I had never been around him before because I didn’t go to the church school and he was a new teacher, but the other girls in the class knew the deal. During all of his lessons he would ask questions and only call on the boys. If only the girls raised hands, he would answer the questions himself because we were invisible to him. The first time he asked a Bible trivia question, my hand shot up and I was surprised when one of my friends didn’t raise her hand because I knew that she knew the answer. When he didn’t call on me, I thought that he didn’t see me. I tried to get his attention and he told me to shut up. I was in tears. I didn’t know what to say. I was only 12 and no one had ever treated me like that. It wasn’t long before I figured out that he didn’t think the girls counted. Now, this man would have been a jackass no matter what because I believe he is just that kind of a person, but people like him are susceptible to the kind of garbage that men like Hyles preach.

If you write and sell copies of a book saying a girl shouldn’t try to upstage a boy because it will make it him feel bad, or that a girl should be “smart†when she is trying to get a boy’s attention and not act like she knows more than he does about a subject, some people will take it to the next level. Hyles even preached that a woman should marry a man who is smarter than she is because the husband should be smarter than his wife and if she messes up and marries a man who isn’t as smart as she is then she should just keep her mouth closed and not let him know. Imagine being a 12 year old girl and not being allowed to answer a question because it might make a boy feel dumb. It makes you feel like a second class citizen. I tried telling my parents, but they thought I was making it up.

I had never given it much thought before, but it was in his class I learned that women couldn’t be preachers in an IFBC. It makes you feel like even God thinks you are second class citizen if He doesn’t think you are worthy of preaching.

The other major thing that happened in the class was that he went from teaching us that girls who cared about modestly would not wear pants to if a woman was wearing pants and was raped then it was her fault for enticing the man. Yes, he said that to group of teenage kids. He said that women who wear pants are whores and are asking for it. It went from that to anything that a woman does that entices a man gives him the right to rape her because men can’t control their urges. He said that any woman who wore pants would go to hell. There is a lot more that happened in that class that I have thankfully blocked out over the years. But I do remember that was the moment that did it for me. I know that for weeks before that I had been refusing to go to church and trying to play sick. I couldn’t make my parents understand how bad it was in that class. They honestly thought I was making stuff up. That day, when he said that, I remember jumping up and told him that he would be the one going to hell. He chased me out of the building as I was running into the church to find my parents. He was screaming that when he caught me he was going to paddle me. I ran into church screaming my head off and when my mother saw him running behind me, she ran for me and we left that day. The next week we started attending the sane, normal church where my mother was raised and I did my best to forget about that place. I probably could have used therapy, but my mother thought it was best to just forget about the situation and my daddy has never been totally filled in. He just thought my mother wanted a change so he went with the flow.

If anybody is still reading this mini novel, I’m sorry this has been so long and gushy but I’ve been holding this stuff in for so long that it has been pouring out.

This brings us up to tonight’s episode. There was girl at that church who was a few years older than I am. I think when I was about 11 or so she was 16. She was related to the pastor of the church and her mother and she moved into the parsonage after her father had died. She was from another state and I thought she was so beautiful. She had the shiniest blonde hair, a pretty figure, and the prettiest clothes. Within a few months, I noticed even as a child that she didn’t look the same any more. She started to gain weight, her hair began to dull, and she didn’t take the same care with her appearance as she used to. I was just a kid and I noticed and remember what a drastic change it was. I shudder to think what happened to that girl to make her lose the light in her eyes. We still keep in touch with a few families at that church and over the years we learned that she married young, right out of high school, to a man that didn’t seem to have much of a future. She had a few kids and for a while she was a stay-at-home mom. The past few years she has had to get a job in retail because it is all she is qualified for and I don’t think that her husband works too regularly by choice.

Tonight I was out shopping with my adorable son at the store where she works. I haven’t seen her in months and we were never close when we attended the same church because of the age gap. She isn’t that much older than I am, but she looks decades older because she has had such a rough life. I spoke to her and when she turned around I tried not to gasp because I could see that she had a black eye that was in the process of healing and it looked like a chipped tooth or two. I feel 99% certain that her husband is the reason for her injuries. I went into the dressing room to try on clothes and I started to cry for her. If my family had put me in that church school and stayed in that neighborhood, for all I know I could have been sucked into the same life she is in. When she was ringing up my purchases, I thought about gently letting her know I was here for her if she needed a friend when my son informed me that if we didn’t hurry up he would miss his movie. I had promised him I would make my shopping trip quick and take him to see Paranorman. At the mention of the movie, I could tell that her whole demeanor changed. I had been feeling bad for her, but I know that she was also judging me. Not only was I going to take my son to see a Hollywood movie, but a movie about ghosts and witches too! It was then that I realized what I dealing with. Here is a woman who is barely getting by, stuck in a dead end job, with children who look uncared for, being beaten by her husband, and she was judging me because I was taking my precious son to a movie and I was wearing jeans. Yes, after I took a step back I remembered what I was dealing with and I noticed that she was reproachfully eyeing my jeans while she was wearing a baggy, floor-length denim skirt. I also had on a stylish, fitted top, a modern haircut, and make up. Yes, I know that I was being judged for looking too worldly.

It is really odd for me because the friends I still have from my old church think that I turned out like they did in many respects. I, too, married young at 20 after my second year of college, but I finished college and didn’t start my family until after graduation. I also went to graduate school. I’m a stay-at-home mom myself now because I am homeschooling for reasons completely unrelated to religion. Because some of them homeschool for religious reasons, they probably assume that I do as well. My wonderful husband is fine with my staying home, but he would be fine if I wanted to work some too. My private school girlfriends think I am just like them because I have degrees like they do, but most of us who are married with children are doing the stay-at-home thing by choice. What they don’t know is that if my parents didn’t sent to a school where I was encouraged to think for myself and was made to believe as a little girl that I was just as smart and worthy as any boy, I would have never had the courage and the gumption to walk out of the church all those years ago.

I'm so grateful my parents made sure I received an education so I would have choices. Although I'm choosing not to work, I can't imagine being trapped in an abusive relationship and not having the skills to find a job that would pay a decent salarly. I think it is really dangerous for all of the young women who aren't being educated to support themselves and their children if they had to because the death of the a spouse or some other reason. The young men who aren't going to a real college or learning a trade are also being handicapped financially.

Because of my background, I have a hard time with the Bible verses on wifely submission. I do try to follow the Bible and I believe that the husband is the head of the house, and the wife is the heart of the home. What I do know is that it is dangerous to take those verses too far and out of context. People who want to talk about wifely submission most of the time ignore the part about the husband loving the wife as Christ loves the church. I know that Paul spoke those verses, but I believe that he meant it in the context of a loving marriage between two sane people. I know that if a husband is abusive, no amount of wifely submission is going to change his heart.

What Jack Hyles and people like him do is so dangerous because when you speak from a position of authority and focus only on wifely submission and forget the part about a husband is supposed to love his wife more than his own body, you not only implicitly give an abusive husband a misplaced Biblical authority for mistreating his wife, but you also convince abused women that it is somehow their fault and if they would just be more submissive then they could make it stop. This whole system sets women up as second class citizens, and it makes men feel like they are superior. There is a reason why domestic violence is higher in Hammond, Indiana than it is in the rest of Indiana. Yes, there are other factors in play but studies have shown that violence towards women in Hammond varies in direct proportion to how involved a family is/was with FBCH. There is a reason why domestic violence is high in IFB churches. It is the same reason why that beautiful girl I remember from long ago has a black eye and chipped teeth tonight. I know she won't leave because she believes she can change him, and I know he won't change no matter how long she wears her hemline.

[debrand]

I haven't finished your post but I will. However, I wanted to say that I understand. You need to tell someone what happened and I'm sorry that it can't be your husband. As someone who entered fundamentalism for a few years before, thankfully, realizing how idiotic I was being, I know how important it is to talk through the process of leaving. FJ does a very good job of giving exfundamentalists a safe space to discuss the craziness. Most people do not understand why it is such an emotional rollercoaster to leave fundamenalism.

Under this new preacher, things began changing in this church. There began to be church activities constantly. This is a hallmark of a Hyles church. He wanted people constantly involved in the church and not to have outside activities

The church that I attended in Iowa was similar. The deacon who taught our adult Sunday School wondered how a true Christian could not want to be at church as soon as the doors opened. We were expected to be in church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night and for all the many church activities. At first this was nice and welcoming to newcomers to the area but soon this constant need to have us at church became overwhelming and intrusive.

[debrand]

. They do not think it is right for even a teenage boy to have to be under the authority of a female teacher because it will damage his manhood and the natural order of the universe.

Anyway, this man would make the PP look all warm and cuddly. He made the boys and the girls sit on opposite sides of classroom. I had never been around him before because I didn’t go to the church school and he was a new teacher, but the other girls in the class knew the deal. During all of his lessons he would ask questions and only call on the boys. If only the girls raised hands, he would answer the questions himself because we were invisible to him. The first time he asked a Bible trivia question, my hand shot up and I was surprised when one of my friends didn’t raise her hand because I knew that she knew the answer. When he didn’t call on me, I thought that he didn’t see me. I tried to get his attention and he told me to shut up. I was in tears. I didn’t know what to say. I was only 12 and no one had ever treated me like that. It wasn’t long before I figured out that he didn’t think the girls counted. Now, this man would have been a jackass no matter what because I believe he is just that kind of a person, but people like him are susceptible to the kind of garbage that men like Hyles preach.

If you write and sell copies of a book saying a girl shouldn’t try to upstage a boy because it will make it him feel bad, or that a girl should be “smart†when she is trying to get a boy’s attention and not act like she knows more than he does about a subject, some people will take it to the next level. Hyles even preached that a woman should marry a man who is smarter than she is because the husband should be smarter than his wife and if she messes up and marries a man who isn’t as smart as she is then she should just keep her mouth closed and not let him know. Imagine being a 12 year old girl and not being allowed to answer a question because it might make a boy feel dumb. It makes you feel like a second class citizen. I tried telling my parents, but they thought I was making it up.

I had never given it much thought before, but it was in his class I learned that women couldn’t be preachers in an IFBC. It makes you feel like even God thinks you are second class citizen if He doesn’t think you are worthy of preaching.

Although my daughters were very young when we left the Iowa church, they still have a tremendous amount of resentment toward it. I suspect that they absorbed messages about being women that I didn't realize were taught to them.

[Jana814]

What in intersting story that you have. Thanks for sharing it. I do not know what I would do if I had someone tell me what that teacher told you. I probably would have ran out of the room screaming and crying as well.

[SouthCarolinaGirl79]

Thanks, debrand. I still can't believe I posted all of that last night. I feel bad for you and anyone else who has tried to read through it. I guess that is what happens when you hit the submit button after 4 am. I was really upset, and still am. I tried talking to my mother last night. I told her that I was sure the woman's injuries were the result of DV and she agreed, and we discussed how awful it was but I didn't feel like dumping everything else I was feeling on her. My husband is wonderful, but he is gone on a business trip this week so I just needed a place to vent.

I've tried to tell my husband over the years about the wacko church I grew up in but there are some things I just don't feel comfortable discussing face to face with anyone. Also I know that while he believes me, he doesn't really *get* it. Some of the stories I have and didn't throw up on the board last night are just too mind boggling. I do really appreciate you "listening" and making me feel like I'm not crazy.

It is just so bizare. My parents don't really get it either even though they were there because by the time I was born they had left the neighborhood where the church was located and had stopped attending many of the adult events, bu we would still attend Sunday morning and evening services. They would also take me to all the youth events because they thought I needed to be around other children. The people leading the church wanted my parents there because they were contributing a good bit of money to the the church. It just so happened to be at the time when I was growing up was when the church really started to change, and my parents didn't realize it because they weren't as involved anymore but kept attending out of habit.

I know things at the church are worse than ever. The man who was over the youth program when I left is now the head pastor. He married one of the former preacher's daughters and now is he over the church. We have friends whose family members still attend that church and it sounds like they are really going over the deep end now.

[MamaJunebug]

SCgirl, if I'm ever in your beautiful state I'm gonna give you a big ole hug. Never apologize for the length of, nor history in, your post. All the details of how your folks settled on a Baptist church (I presume) that eventually morphed into IFB, and their respective histories in church and not-in-church, help to explain why they thought your 12-year-old self was just exagerrating when you told about the youth pastor leader schmuck.

One personal thing, and I'm probably your parents' age: your logical reasoning that if God does not want women to preach, then God must also think we are second-class beings, spelled out my troubles with that tradition better than I've ever done it in 59 years. Thank you for that, alone.

There's so much I want to respond to. What's top of mind is the former childhood acquaintance, now retail clerk with marks of physical abuse on her face. That she looked down at you because of your "worldly" appearance, while she drudges on in menial work and a violent home (very likely) speaks more than volumes about how we - men and women - can lose our rational minds if we don't stop.

She, for instance, appears ... contented? happy? satisfied, that's it, satisfied with her life, a life which frightens the tar out of any thinkig person. Or enrages the person. I don't judge her. Whatever happened to turn her from a shining young girl to a frowzy, inhibited thing back in your childhood probaby opened the rodent warren of poverty and abuse into which she's descended. Unnecessary poverty, that is, because her husband could work steadily and provide if he were a true man about it.

But unless I go too far afield ... even without a traumatic event, we humans can become lax in our thinking, reasoning and acting, and wind up mindlessly bullied, as people (especially women people) in IBP etc. do.

I'm proud of you for acknowledging your conservative beliefs, too. I'm all over the map: conservative fiscally but liberal socially, and even I find myself out of my element a lot of time here on FJ. Reading here, and occasionally posting, means that you are thinking; as are all the people, I believe, on this board.

It's when we stop thinking and just agree with the loudest or most persuasive that we are in trouble. I'm so glad that you and your parents never did stop thinking, never did stop acting.

OK, rambling now, it's been too long since I've written anything. And this isn't about me, it's about you. I thank you interminably for your story! It's one that merits much reading by many people. Bless you.

[mebeforee]

Thanks for sharing your story. I did read the whole thing (though it took me a little while! Don't be discouraged if it takes people some time to respond, because it is pretty long and you have to account for some 'processing' time, too.) and I really feel for you.

I think sometimes it's harder for young people who grow up in these situations. I mean, you're there in church school during your formative years... the very time that you're coming to understand who you are and how you feel about your life. Your parents were involved in the same church, but as an adult who already has a firm idea about their role in the world, who already has some strong values and ethics about how they treat others, they are at least a little more stubborn in how they behave. Children and young adults are so susceptible to this kind of theology, because it gives them some rules of behavior while also validating those behaviors by saying God has ordained them.

I think it's incredible that you were strong enough to break out of this mindset, especially as a young person (who are always being told they don't really understand the world). I'm grateful that you shared your story, because I think it can encourage others to get out of bad situations. It's really unfortunate that people you knew and admired are still stuck there, but sadly, when a person truly believes what they're doing is right, they aren't easily swayed. But I think you should be very proud of yourself for escaping this situation.

[Loveday]

SouthCarolinaGirl, thank you for posting your story. Yes, it was long, but because it was so well-written it was very easy to read.

The church that I attended in Iowa was similar. The deacon who taught our adult Sunday School wondered how a true Christian could not want to be at church as soon as the doors opened. We were expected to be in church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night and for all the many church activities. At first this was nice and welcoming to newcomers to the area but soon this constant need to have us at church became overwhelming and intrusive.

This stuck out for me, too. There was a priest at my Catholic parish once, an elderly Austrian man who seemed very forbidding to approach (he was very shy, plus he just had a solemn sort of face that made him always look stern even though he wasn't, really), and who was somewhat difficult to understand because of his accent. But it was always worth it to really try, and not let your mind wander during his homilies, because he often had very profound things to say in a very simple and straightforward fashion. One Sunday he talked about how 'busy' so many Christians feel they have to be, and how they feel they can't be perfect Christians if they're not at church all the time. He looked around at everyone and said, 'If you find yourself at church four nights out of five every week, plus Saturday afternoons and all day Sunday, you're neglecting your family and friends. Go home. We don't need you here as much as your family needs you at home' (paraphrased, but that's very close to verbatim). I don't know how many people took his words to heart, but I noticed a few uncomfortable-looking faces around me that morning.

[FeministShrew]

Hi, South Carolina girl! I'm in SC too! :D

I read your post, and there are so many things I'd love to comment on, but lunch is over & I have to get back to work.

If we all tell our stories of the craziness that really is fundieland (even fundie-lite land), then maybe someday people will listen & see these crazies for what they really are.

If a post here keeps one person from drinking the kool-aid, or makes one fundie start thinking for her/himself, then it's all worth it!

[hoipolloi]

Thank you, SCGirl79 - great post. Well-written & thoughtful.

It is always good to have these personal histories about the various fundie cults. When you're not in them (or not of that religious mindset, like me - born & raised UU!), it's hard to understand how people can be sucked into them. Conversely, as others have said, it's also important for those escaping these cults to read success stories like yours - to know that one can leave & thrive.

[Guest Anonymous]

I am very sorry that you went through that as a child, SouthCarolinaGirl79. It's wrong for women and girls to be treated as less than simply because they are women. It is painful, it does suck, and it does often have lasting effects on people. Been there, done that, never going back.

That said, you seem super determined to not blame your parents at all for anything that happened to you, even though you said you told them and they didn't believe you. You obviously love your parents very much and think the world of them, and that is fine. You can do that and still acknowledge that they made mistakes and should bear the responsibility for doing so. It doesn't make them bad people, everyone makes mistakes, but they should have listened to you and they didn't. They should have paid attention to the messages that they were endorsing and they didn't. That's a problem.

Also, the number of times you qualified that your parents were "sane" and that what was going on in that church was "insane" was disturbing. The problem was not mental illness, the problem was religious fundamentalism. They are not the same thing. There are plenty of non-neurotypical people who are not sexist, fundie, jerkwads, and there are plenty of neurotypical people who are.

You said yourself that if your life had taken a very slightly different turn, then you could be in the shoes of the woman that you suspect is being abused by her husband, but what came through was more smugness that you weren't instead of compassion that her reality is quite possibly hell on earth. Also, the changes you describe in her are pretty much a textbook description of a young person who is being abused. Once you've been raised in a situation where abuse is the norm, it is not easy to correct. That's without accounting for religious brainwashing, which it seems was also a factor. If you know that could be you, a little more understanding when a woman with chipped teeth and black eyes silently "judges" you for your stylish top, modern haircut, and makeup might be in order.

I do have compassion for you, but you still advocate men being above women, only not as much as some other people do. It's a slippery slope when you set one class of people above another because of their sex. In context of your previous posts, it does seem very much like you're saying that to follow the Bible is right but only as far as you follow it, and that men are above women, but only as far above them as you think they should be. Heck, you say you are a fundamentalist, but I guess you're one of the good ones.

Some of the stories I have and didn't throw up on the board last night are just too mind boggling.

I wouldn't doubt that for a second - but a large part of why I don't doubt it is because many of us here at FJ were raised in churches that were similar or worse. It is sadly not unusual. Getting out of that mindset is sometimes a lot like trying to dig your way out of a hole. It does boggle me that you consider yourself a fundamentalist, considering your background and how harmful it was to you.

[SouthCarolinaGirl79]

Lissar,

Thanks for the words of support and let me try to clear to things up. I really don't blame my parents. I'm an only child and they love me to pieces and unconditionally. I know they would have never intentionally done anything to cause me harm. To me, the word blame implies intent and that was not the case. They did not seek out to join a church like that. They joined a great church that slowly changed. After they had left that town, they kept going to the church out of habit, but they were much less involved and tuned in by the time it got to be where it was influencing me. My mother knows now she should have been more tuned in, but hindsight is 20/20 and we had a lot of other things going on in my family at the same time. I really think MamaJuneBug was right when she said they had not grown up in that environment and really missed the signs.

If you thought I came across as smug, I'm very sorry and that was not my intention. The reason for the post last night was because my heart was and is breaking for that woman. I can't begin to imagine the hell her life is. I know now that the changes in her appearance as a teenager had everything to do with her being abused. That was my reason for including it.

What made me sick to my stomach and why I mentioned that she was judging me is because I realized that she is still brainwashed, and there is nothing I can do for her. I was seriously crying in the dressing room and debating if I should try to tell her that she didn't have to keep living like she was. When she rang up my purchases and I saw her reaction when my child mentioned that we were going to a movie, it was then that I realized it would be useless. The only reason I mentioned the contrast in our appearances was not to be smug, but to show I had been upset for her and how her life is in this world and I know she was judging me for how she thinks I'm going to burn in hell in the afterlife. I have the utmost compassion for her, but I know that she won't listen to me because she thinks I'm sinning because I was taking my child to a movie and wearing jeans. That is what sickens me the most. She felt as bad for me as I did for her. Does that make more sense?

Now for the term Fundamentalist. The church I was raised in only called itself an independent Baptist church. It wasn't until I was in my early twenties when I really began trying to unpack everything I had experienced and I came across the term IFB. That wasn't an expression I was raised with. As such, I don't mentally ssociate the term fundamentalism with what I grew up with. It was a complete perversion of true Christianity, and I usually just call it that wacko church. I'm also still trying fully to understand how some posters use that term on this board. When I first started posting on this board, I didn't have a real good feel for what it meant on this board. To me, the root of word is fundamentals, which means a back to basic approach to understanding the Bible and Christianity. Specifically, I mean a more literal interpretation and the inerrancy of the Bible. To me, fundamentalism and legalism are not the same thing. I hope that makes it clearer. While I do believe that my husband is the head of the our home, I do not believe that men in general are higher than women. I’m not sure where you got that from. Part of that has to do with just being raised in a traditional home in the South and nothing with religion.

I’m just speaking for myself here and trying to clear up what I believe. I’m not trying to offend anyone on this board. In college I also had the chance to really study other faiths and traditions. It was a long road for me to accept that non-Christians were not doomed to burn in hell. I was raised in a very fire and brimstone type of church with regular sermons on sinners literally burning in hell. I used to have nightmares about it as a child. I was even taught that to be a “real Christian†you had to attend a church like mine. “Normal†protestant churches didn’t count. Hyles even preached that a person wasn’t really saved if the KJV wasn’t used. It was a long road for me to be able to distance myself from what I was taught as a child. The best thing I ever did for myself was minor in religious studies in college. It wasn’t my intention, but I ended up with the minor because I kept signing up for the classes because I was trying to learn more about other faiths. Living where I do and attending private school, I never really met anyone who wasn't WASPy. I came to really believe that no matter what a religion calls the divine power of the universe, they are all responding to the same higher power. Reading mystical writings really helped me to understand and believe that. I still label myself as a Christian because that is what is most familiar to me, but I do not believe that is the only path. I strongly believe there is a higher power in the universe, and different traditions refer to that power with different names.

[jjmennonite]

I can't get over the image of you running screaming into the sanctuary and the guy chasing you and threatening to paddle you. Reminds me of my earliest memories (we left that church when I was 5) of children yelling 'I'll be good, I'll be good' while their parents carried them out to the outhouse, where they were to be paddled, for not being able to sit still and quiet for a whole 2 hours, at the age of 4 or under.

I don't remember being spanked in the outhouse - mom was an expert in making all sorts of hankie animals, to keep me amused.

[Guest Anonymous]

Now for the term Fundamentalist. The church I was raised in only called itself an independent Baptist church. It wasn't until I was in my early twenties when I really began trying to unpack everything I had experienced and I came across the term IFB. That wasn't an expression I was raised with. As such, I don't mentally ssociate the term fundamentalism with what I grew up with. It was a complete perversion of true Christianity, and I usually just call it that wacko church. I'm also still trying fully to understand how some posters use that term on this board. When I first started posting on this board, I didn't have a real good feel for what it meant on this board. To me, the root of word is fundamentals, which means a back to basic approach to understanding the Bible and Christianity. Specifically, I mean a more literal interpretation and the inerrancy of the Bible. To me, fundamentalism and legalism are not the same thing. I hope that makes it clearer. While I do believe that my husband is the head of the our home, I do not believe that men in general are higher than women. I’m not sure where you got that from. Part of that has to do with just being raised in a traditional home in the South and nothing with religion.

I’m just speaking for myself here and trying to clear up what I believe. I’m not trying to offend anyone on this board. In college I also had the chance to really study other faiths and traditions. It was a long road for me to accept that non-Christians were not doomed to burn in hell. I was raised in a very fire and brimstone type of church with regular sermons on sinners literally burning in hell. I used to have nightmares about it as a child. I was even taught that to be a “real Christian†you had to attend a church like mine. “Normal†protestant churches didn’t count. Hyles even preached that a person wasn’t really saved if the KJV wasn’t used. It was a long road for me to be able to distance myself from what I was taught as a child. The best thing I ever did for myself was minor in religious studies in college. It wasn’t my intention, but I ended up with the minor because I kept signing up for the classes because I was trying to learn more about other faiths. Living where I do and attending private school, I never really met anyone who wasn't WASPy. I came to really believe that no matter what a religion calls the divine power of the universe, they are all responding to the same higher power. Reading mystical writings really helped me to understand and believe that. I still label myself as a Christian because that is what is most familiar to me, but I do not believe that is the only path. I strongly believe there is a higher power in the universe, and different traditions refer to that power with different names.

"True Christianity" = No such thing. Everyone thinks their version is the right one, and there is no way to prove one strain is more correct than another. The Bible can be used to justify liberalism, conservatism, and everything in between. The hyper-patriarchialists can make a good Biblical case for what they believe, as can the egalitarians.

I'm not particularly offended by anything you wrote, with the exception of the ableism/mentally ill comparisons that I think are out of line. I hate that you went through the things that you did because no one should.

I don't understand at all how you can believe in the inerrancy and literalism of the Bible and that there are other paths that are equally valid, since the Bible strongly disagrees with that. Lots of liberal Christians would agree with you that people of other faiths (or none) aren't going to burn in hell, but they wouldn't 1.) Call themselves fundamentalists 2.) Say they believe in the inerrancy of the Bible.

Whether you call it "traditional" or justify it with the Bible or whatever, saying that your husband is the boss of you is putting men above women. You can live that way if you want, I can think it's fucked up. My opinion has been formed by this post and your previous ones, which I did glance over to make sure I remembered you correctly. You obviously get that what happened to you was not okay, but you came into FJ pooh poohing the effects of the Duggars raising their kids with those same ideals that hurt you. (And saying that the Bible is against abortion, etc. I generally disagree with you on a lot of things - calling women "manly looking" in a disparaging manner, commenting on them for wearing "manly" accessories, your general hostility towards feminism and desire for gendered Legos.) I think that you're against things that harmed you specificially but you let it go otherwise. It's all part of the same beast that grinds women down, sometimes it's glaringly obvious and sometimes it's hidden behind a pretty facade, but it's the same creature. Giving in to it here and there is what can lead to the out of control mess that you described in your OP.

I hope that you can find healing and that you can get any and all support that you need for that to happen, but I'm way the hell away from agreeing with you about much of anything else.

[formergothardite]

So are you still a Duggar defender who thinks that they are a wonderful family?

ETA: I don't have a problem with members who are conservative politically jumping into conversations. Now, you have to be able to logically support your beliefs and explain why you belive what you believe, but if you are conservative and want to state why you disagree with something, go for it. Jericho is called a troll because A) he only posts in threads to stir up drama, he doesn't even attempt to become a real member of the board by posting in other threads B) he usually doesn't support his beliefs logically and just flounces when threads don't go his way.

[Closed Womb]

Thanks for sharing your story, SCGirl.

I think judgement is pretty natural. Even though I make an concerted effort NOT to judge people, I still do it (hence, finally registering on a snark board; yes, I judge the fundies.) It looks like her judgement of you does not nullify your concern for her, which makes you the better person. I hope she gets some help and you continue to heal from your past.

All best, CW

[Sulamith]

Hi, SCGirl!

You might find this website http://www.stufffundieslike.com/ helpful. The site is for ex-fundies/IFB. I have read about Jack Hyles and his ilk there. You might find support there from people who have been in your shoes.

Best of Luck