An Update on BJU

BJU and GRACE are back together again. Read more here.
Most importantly, GRACE announced this through social media: “greatly encouraged this morning to be notified by B.J.U. of its decision to accept our offer to reinstate the original agreement with no changes.”
Had BJU reinstated GRACE with new terms, we would all be left wondering what was potentially lost. Thankfully, everything will stay the same. I've read mixed reactions from people across the web - some feel it was a publicity stunt by BJU, others feel BJU caved after all the public outcry. Whatever the case, the whole world is now waiting to hear the results of GRACE's investigation. May the truth be told.

Help Bring Accountability and Change

Samantha over at Defeating the Dragons is working on a piece about sexual abuse and Pensacola Christian College (PCC) - read it here. In light of what has happened at BJU, I am not surprised to see more and more stories popping up from all over the fundamentalist education world. If you have any relevant information or stories to share with Samantha, please do! These institutions cannot be held accountable - and nothing will change - without the honest truth coming out.

Pairs Figure Skating... Sermon Illustration?

This article, which was shared with me by a friend, began to pop up in my twitter feed today: An Olympic Lesson for Husbands and Wives.


 Rachel Held Evans replies:

Egalitarians: Urging female figure skaters to toss male figure skaters through the air since *never*. (http://t.co/IKMuzsyrF3)
— Rachel Held Evans (@rachelheldevans) February 12, 2014

Dianne Anderson replies:

What? https://t.co/IWfBojhZJB I mean, seriously, WHAT?
— Dianna E Anderson (@diannaeanderson) February 12, 2014

I mean, if you're basing your marriage philosophy on ice dancing I…I don't know what to tell you.
— Dianna E Anderson (@diannaeanderson) February 12, 2014

BJU Scandal: Do Right 'til the Stars Fall

Bob Jones University (BJU) has made the news recently, after firing the group (GRACE) they hired to conduct an investigation into the school's handling of sexual abuse.  To get up to speed on what led up to this investigation, please read this very thorough article:

How the 'fortress of fundamentalism' handles sexual assault by Claire Gordon at Aljazeera America

The investigation began in January of 2013. One of the tools used was an online survey, as outlined here. GRACE posted an update on the investigation in November of 2013. At that point things were going well, students had responded, and some 80 in-person interviews had been conducted. GRACE's final report was scheduled for sometime in March of 2014. Then, on January 27th, 2014, BJU backed out of the contract and sent GRACE this message. On February 6th GRACE publicly announced the situation (much to BJU's chagrin, judging from the response given by BJU) in this update:

With a very heavy heart, GRACE announces that on January 27th, 2014, we received a ‘Notice of Termination’ from Bob Jones University.
This ‘Notice’ took GRACE by complete surprise as there had been no prior indications from BJU that termination was even being considered. Furthermore, this termination occurred days before GRACE was to conduct the last interviews of this 13-month investigation and begin drafting the final report scheduled for publication in March.
Despite repeated requests, GRACE has not been informed of why the agreement was terminated.However, due to the fact that GRACE certainly wishes to keep all options on the table in order to complete what has been started, we have spent the last week in communication with BJU and we remain open to continued dialogue.
At this point, we are most concerned about the potential impact of this termination on those who participated in the investigation and are waiting for the final report. We grieve with those whose hopes will be crushed should this independent process remain incomplete. Please know that we heard your voice and it was not spoken in vain. GRACE offers its assurance that we will do our utmost to protect your confidences in the interviews and surveys from unauthorized use or disclosure. You have honored us with your courage and trust. We are privileged to have sat with each of you.
GRACE will post updates should the current situation change. Above all, we continue to have hope in the One who makes all things new and never lets us go.
The GRACE Team
February 6, 2014

BJU had this to say in reply:

Trying to Get Out of the Mud of IFB

The road to recovery out of fundamentalism is long and painful. Sometimes I feel the pain more keenly and I wonder how people who didn't start as fundamentalists became fundamentalists. Why did my parents, for example, pick IFB as the place to get involved and raise a family? They both have alluded to troubled pasts, particularly during their college years, and seem to carry continued guilt from whatever went on; I think perhaps fundamentalism offered them a way to absolve their sins and feel forgiven. Once we kids came along, I'm sure they thought that they were doing us a great service by raising us in the "nurture and admonition of the Lord," because we wouldn't be exposed to all the stuff they were exposed to in the past. They probably hoped our lives wouldn't get screwed up because we would be raised in church, in the Bible, etc. I understand wanting to do the best you can for your kids, so I won't fault them for their good intentions, but I must say that things didn't work out as well as they'd hoped.

I am 100% certain that being raised/heavily involved in the world of IFB screwed me up in numerous ways. Many of the things that I struggle with today or have struggled with in the past I can easily trace back to something I was taught or influenced on by a particular teacher or pastor within the IFB. Here are a few things that come to mind:

• Constant preaching about the end times, the rapture, and how terrible the current state of the world was = anxiety about the future and an impending sense of doom, distrust of humanity, "whatever will be will be" attitude towards the condition of the Earth, our government, and all global affairs.
• Vilifying of self, self-awareness, meditation, personal experience, any spiritual experience considered Pentecostal = hatred and distrust of self, anxiety and depression, sense of disconnect and confusion, inability to relax and simply experience, need to control/fear of losing control.
• Rigid rules and strict discipline for not adhering to the rules, rules for everything, persons in authority often needed to assert authority in heavy-handed ways = control issues, fear and suspicion of authority figures in general, and a constant need to defend myself/stay on the defensive.
• The state of childhood viewed as a lesser state of being, children as willful brats deserving of punishment (even hellfire), adults put so far above children as to allow for easy abuse of power, children should always be obedient, happy, and controllable = I viewed the jump to adulthood as important and sought to reach it ASAP, I internalized the negativity towards and treatment of children as the right way to do things, I have a hard time not thinking I am obligated to control the behavior of children simply because I'm an adult and they aren't.

Between the rules, the teachers, and how authority was or wasn't used, the atmosphere of the church school I attended (all the way through) was hardly one of love and Christlikeness. Church/Christian schools don't have very good reputations, though. Kids can be so awful to each other, as can teachers to kids. I think it was within the realms of school that I learned to keep up a constant defense. I worked hard to control myself and my surroundings to keep myself from messing up and becoming the subject of ridicule. I was an A student, so teachers rarely had reason to ridicule me; it was the other students who seemed to thrive off the misfortune of others. Leaving yourself open, relaxing, just enjoying life and who you really were was a recipe for being torn apart by the other kids. So, I closed up and learned how to put up walls. By the time I hit fourth grade I discovered the pain of betrayal, ridicule, and being left out; I graduated from that school still feeling those some things. How might I have turned out differently if I'd gotten my education in a different setting - one where religion and hellfire weren't mingled with rules and expectations?

New Life

At the end of December my partner and I confirmed that we were expecting a baby; we were both overjoyed! Now, 11 weeks into the pregnancy, I'm finally emerging from the awful symptoms of the first trimester. I don't feel like I'm in survival mode all the time now, which is wonderful. I've been able to enjoy reading and thinking during the past week or so, so hopefully my creativity is returning and I'll be able to write more. The reading and the thinking has certainly taken a new direction due to the fact that I'm pregnant.

I'm assuming that my parents as well as my partner's parents are hoping that this new addition will magically transform our hearts and we'll come running back to the fold. The thought of getting involved at a local progressive Christian church has briefly crossed my mind, actually. Not because I want to be involved in Christianity, but because of the community and support such a church would bring. We're far away from all family and friends of the past, and our lack of community is scary to me as I imagine life with a new baby. There's a great UU church we've attended a few times... but we haven't been able to attend very frequentlye. We keep missing services due to sickness, morning sickness, weather, my partner's work schedule, etc. I sincerely hope that things will improve as we draw closer to Spring. Speaking of Spring, it's fun to think about how the baby will be growing inside me right along with the growth of Spring, and then be delivered towards the end of the growing season in August.

So yeah... a new baby definitely has me thinking about my community, my home, my family, our spirituality, what the future looks like... so many things. I know this pregnancy will be life changing. One way it is already changing me is by reshaping my spirituality and refueling my desire to learn more and grow. I think I know where I'm headed - to a point - but my IFB background is holding me back. It's so hard to let go, let loose, and simply feel and do things... because of fear. The IFB instilled within me many fears, one of the chiefest being to fear what other people think. My interactions with other Baptist kids (school, camp, and college) taught me to fear how I look and whether or not what I'm doing will seem stupid or silly. Now I still battle with fearing what others think, how they'll see me. I also battle with a fear of not being in control, which is heavily tied in with my fears about how other see me. Early on I did my best to hide all tears, possibly even all emotion, in public because it opened me up to ridicule and pain. I never liked being asked to do things out of my comfort zone because I feared failure, feared how I would look. I missed out on a lot of opportunities thanks to all this; it's only been since I left Christianity that I began finding the freedom to loosen up and have fun. I look forward to being further changed by the experiences of this pregnancy, giving birth, and holding my baby.

Article from Elizabeth Esther and My Experience with Fundamentalist Christian Camp

The false, glittering promise of Christian conferences by Elizabeth Esther

I know exactly what she's talking about, and I've never been to a Christian conference (unless a ladies' retreat counts as a conference). The Christian camp I attended and worked at for several years created the same environment Elizabeth described. Everyone was on some kind of high by the end of a camp week, and as a worker you hit high after high throughout the summer, only to pack up and go back to reality in August. So many people I knew - both campers and staff - went home after their time at camp and crashed. They had made friends, made decisions, felt the rush of spiritual experience... and then when they went home it was gone. They eagerly came back the next year, hoping to regain the spiritual ground they had lost and yet again strengthen their resolve to do better. The term "camp decisions" exists for a reason....

Christian camps seem uniquely geared towards creating this phenomenon: campers/staff are completely bubbled in from the rest of the world, repeated doses of indoctrination through devotions and services, and everyone is tightly bound by strict rules and expectations that further the sense of being in a bubble (like the military, you always have someone to tell you what to do and where you can and can't be, etc.).

Now that I think back, I know a lot of fun was had at camp, and it helped me grow as a person in many ways, but the world of fundie Christian camps is not a healthy one.

Fundamentalist Christianity And Self Injury

I saw something tonight that took my breath away. This:

 

Article: Shaking the faith of my students with honest truth

Read it here.
Kudos to this teacher for being up on his history and mythology. :-)

Spiritual Experiences

When I discuss religion and faith with other people, I find myself most interested in why they chose their particular path. For some their decision was greatly impacted by their family and heritage. For others, it was a spiritual experience that led them to choose a particular religion and/or deity. Spiritual experiences fascinate me.

While I was a Christian I had very few spiritual experiences, perhaps because the IFB world I was raised in downplayed personal experiences and the Holy Spirit. I suppose that's why we were fundamentalists, though, because we stuck to what we perceived to be the fundamental teachings of the Bible - people of the Book and all that jazz. I had a friend in school who was a member of a Pentecostal church, where the Holy Spirit and personal experience was emphasized more heavily. I never attended any of their services, but the stories I heard were certainly interesting! I imagine the ecstatic fervor that is a hallmark of Pentecostal services would have been scary because it was so far from what I thought was normal. I've been to several church services (of varying denominations) over the years that made me very uncomfortable because the church members felt comfortable enough to show honest emotions while worshiping. I'm secretly jealous of how genuine they allow themselves to be while in public.

After I left Christianity I began to study other religions more in-depth than I had previously.