Reclaiming Halloween

Somewhere in my parents’ photo archives there is a picture from when I was about 7 years old and my brother was 5. We are dressed up in costumes. I had a large box over my shoulders, with hand drawn buttons and stuff. I’m pretty sure I was a robot, but maybe a computer. It is hard to tell - my artistic ability wasn’t top notch at that age. My brother has a mask made from a paper bag and a printed frog face. I believe it was a promotional thing at the grocery store in our neighborhood. To go with it, he had aluminum foil on his arms, legs, and body, and a cardboard sword my mom made. I remember that he was a “Famous, Fierce, Fighting Frog.” (My mom was and is skilled at wordplay, including alliteration.)

We were dressed up for Halloween, for trick-or-treating. I remember this specifically because it was a year I really worked on my costume. (We never did commercial costumes - that wasn’t in the budget. I still love the idea of using creativity rather than lucre.) I also remember it because soon afterward, my family stopped trick-or-treating all together. For a couple of years, we did “harvest festivals” at a church. Then we stopped that, and my mom just bought candy for us to enjoy. Eventually, as we got older, that went away too, and we just spent Halloween with the lights off and the curtains closed, ignoring any kids that came to our door.

There were a couple of reasons why we did this. The first was the 1980s panic about tainted candy. (Good lord, the 1980s were full of panics, moral and otherwise…I think I have spent a lot of my adult years deprogramming from all the crap I was taught that stemmed from these panics.) Unsurprisingly, the panic was based nearly entirely on a myth. (And the one documented poison was the murder of a child by his father looking to collect life insurance - not a stranger.) Yep, “alternative facts” are nothing new.

But the other reason was based on a panic of a different sort. A moral panic. Despite the previous generation’s enjoyment of the whole trick-or-treating experience, the 1980s brought with them the beginning of the Culture Wars™, and that meant a new focus on cultural separation from the unwashed masses, and the discovery of a demon lurking behind every door. And that meant that Halloween (which actually has a Christian origin) now became “the devil’s holiday,” and thus verboten. Crucial to the acceptance of this myth in my own family were the tracts by Jack Chick (who among other things, was virulently anti-Catholic). His tracts condemned all kinds of things, from rock music, to belief in an old earth, to Dungeons and Dragons. (The last I realized was false the first time a fellow law student explained the game to me, when it became clear it was mostly nerdy in the extreme.)

My memory fails me, but the latest we would have actually gone trick-or-treating in our neighborhood would have been when I was 9, and it may have ended a year earlier. After that, no more. (My wife grew up even more Fundie than I did, and is younger by a few years, so she too missed out on a lot.)

Now, nothing against “harvest festivals.” They can be fun. I remember a few with cool games and bounce houses and stuff, and going with friends or cousins was a blast. However, I think something is missing compared with the trick-or-treat tradition.

That something is engagement with the community. Even in comparison with my childhood, neighbors do not know each other as well. Some of this is due to the ever-expanding extra-curricular activities that prevent kids from playing in the street like we did. Some is the very way our homes are constructed these days, with everyone’s car in a huge garage and nobody out in the front yard. With those changes, it is already harder to meet the neighbors and their kids. The shift from going door to door to a “safe” environment with a more exclusive group is significant, in my view. This isn’t the only cause, but it is a factor in the shift from finding a social group from those one lives next to, to finding it in those with similar theological and political beliefs, from one’s own socioeconomic strata, and often mostly with one’s own race.

The other thing that I think has been lost in the transition is the embrace of the spooky and macabre. One near-universal rule of “harvest festivals,” at least in my experience, is no “scary” costumes. Or, perhaps, no traditional death or terror related costumes. While I do not necessarily chose macabre costumes for myself, and my kids have been all over the map on this, I do think that part of the point of a holiday like halloween is to enjoy some good clean fun at the expense of our fears. I mean, death sucks enough as it is: might as well learn to laugh at it once in a while. Likewise, we defuse our monsters when we make them part of a silly ritual. Humans have done this since the dawn of civilization. If we could not laugh at terror and death, we would be paralyzed by our mortality. On the flip side, it is good to look death in the face seriously too. I am reminded of the many old portraits where the subject has his hand on a skull - a reminder that we all die. So both of these are represented in human culture, in our rituals and observances. We soberly remember our mortality, and make light of it in turn. 

For what it is worth, my kids seem naturally a bit macabre, as evidenced by their love for Neil Gaiman. 

During our kids’ youngest years, we didn’t observe Halloween. Mostly, when we had infants, we were too tired to want to add yet another thing to the list. We also lived on a busy street, so we didn’t have kids come to our door much at all. Also, I often had a rehearsal that night, so it just didn’t happen. Once life got less crazy, though, we decided to go back to trick-or-treating. Often, with friends. The kids, naturally, loved getting dressed up - and planning their costumes well in advance. My wife is a fantastic seamstress and fabricator, and can make pretty much anything.

Because of what we didn’t get to do, my wife and I have also dressed up for fun. The candy is just for the kids, but there is a lot of fun to be had in going out in costume. I have noticed a lot of parents are doing it these days, which is a positive development. Fun doesn’t end with adulthood, and kids should see their parents let their hair down once in a while.

Along with our decision to have fun trick-or-treating, we also have decided to let the kids have significant discretion in choosing - and creating - costumes. So, one daughter and one son have gone with vampires over the years. My eldest the last couple of years has gone as a Dia de los Muertos skeleton. My wife made me a Victorian outfit - originally used for a party in which we went as Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. Fun for my wife to create stuff, fun for all of us to wear them.

Basically, we decided to reclaim Halloween. Reclaim it from the falsehoods propagated by Fundamentalism and the Evangelical-Industrial Complex. Reclaim the fun. Reclaim the thrill of safe fear and horror. Reclaim the reminder of our mortality. Reclaim the truth that fiction helps us understand that the real dragons and monsters in our world can be defeated.

***

This year, we also did something rather different. Our local Hispanic Chamber of Commerce puts on a Dia de los Muertos festival at the Kern County Museum. My eldest daughter has adored the Muertos aesthetic for years, and talked my wife into making her a dress for it last year. (See pictures below.) The date worked for us this year, so I took the kids.

Let me start with a caveat: my parents both grew up overseas (in Mexico and the Philippines), and, depending on where you are, both the Hallows Eve and Day of the Dead celebrations can be somewhere on the creepy/disturbing/superstitious continuum. (My dad and his siblings used to dress up in sheets and flashlights and scare the crap out of people coming back from mass. It runs in the family. His dad used to pull real pranks on Halloween, and he and his buddies would tip outhouses over. He really caught it, however, when he tipped his own over - with his mother in it. Considering my genes, it is a marvel that I am such a square…) How one experiences Day of the Dead does vary, depending on how devout (or superstitious - depending on your worldview…) the celebrants are.

Here in Bakersfield, at least, I don’t find much to object to. One of the ways the festival is financed is through family memorials (“altares”) displayed in a designated area. These were surprisingly (to me) touching memorials with poignant snapshots of what was important to the families honoring their departed. Family and community were central to many of the displays, and I felt a human connection through them, even though all of them were for perfect strangers.

The kids got to paint sugar skulls, and we listened to a local mariachi group, Mariachi San Marcos. (The Bakersfield Symphony did a concert with them last year. They are fine musicians - one of the members used to play in an orchestral group I played in 20+ years ago - and a microcosm of Mexican-American immigration and assimilation, from the elder generation who mostly speak Spanish to the grandchildren who are totally Californian.) My kids didn’t grow up with mariachi like I did. The neighborhoods in which I was raised were predominantly minority, with lots of Latino immigrants. On big occasions - weddings, quinceaneras, etc. - live mariachi bands would be hired. And the whole neighborhood could hear them. It was a beautiful thing. Even though I never did learn Spanish - I know some words, and that is about it - I know music, and mariachi is music.

Although it wasn’t the only reason, one reason I did want to experience Muertos this year was that, in our nation these days, immigrants, particularly Latino immigrants, have been in the crosshairs of a reinvigorated white nationalism. Bakersfield is a weird town. On the one hand, we have a large Latino population. (Agriculture is big here, so migrant farm labor, but also, we have many who have been here since California was part of Mexico…) On the other, we had an active KKK well into the 1980s, and we still have certain parts of town infested with white supremacist gangs. We also skew very Republican - the whites at least - compared to the rest of California. Unfortunately, this has meant that many shockingly racist things have been said before and since the election. A number of my Latino friends’ kids have been subjected to racial slurs and threatened with deportation (including kids at school), never mind that their families have been Californians longer than many of the creeps threatening them.

So I wanted to show a little solidarity with the local Hispanic community. My kids mentioned that we were the only white people there. That wasn’t really true, but we were in the, ahem, minority. I think it was good for my kids to experience that. (Hey, I grew up that way…) Experience of other cultures is good for everyone. Also, street tacos. Need I say more? Okay, tamarind sodas. Which my kids love almost as much as street tacos with all the goodies. Dang, they were good! I pity the poor folk elsewhere in our country who do not have access to street tacos.

Anyway, also Aztec dancers, traditional Mexican dances, plenty of people in imaginative costumes, and a fun afternoon.  

***

I know our parents, like most, were acting as they thought best. The sad thing is that in so many areas, from the horror of Halloween to the cults we suffered through in our teens, the decisions were not based on sound evidence or an embrace of Christ’s radical message of love. Instead, they were based on fear, which is the opposite of love. It has been sad - and sobering - to realize that pretty much everything negative from my childhood - and even long afterward in dealing with my family - that I look at seems to be rooted in this fearful cultural Fundamentalism. So many avoidable conflicts, lost opportunities, and so many hours spent in needless worry. It makes one wonder what might have been. Fear is a powerful motivator, particularly when it is a fear for one’s children combined with a call to “purity.” It so quickly becomes a fear of contamination by “undesirable” people. (See e.g., the last election…)

***

I won’t duplicate all of this, but an Orthodox Christian blog has a fantastic set of articles on all things Halloween related. When my wife and I started seriously reexamining our beliefs after the kids were born, this was a crucial resource in understanding just how much modern Fundamentalism/Evangelicalism has engaged in historical revisionism.

***

Pictures, of course:

 

Fritz, 2017. Costume by my amazing wife.

 The kids, 2016. Lillian as a penguin (costume off the clearance rack), Ella as a Muertos girl (costume by Amanda, makeup by her friend Marina), Cordelia as a vampire - she is my macabre child (costume by Amanda), Fritz as a mad scientist (costume cobbled together from stuff we had), Ted as Uglydoll "Wedgehead." (Costume by Amanda.)

 

The kids, 2015. Cordelia as a Dalak ("Exterminate!") (costume by Amanda), Ella as Princess Leia...plus cat ears for reasons I forget (costume by Amanda), Ted as Wedgehead (Costume by Amanda), Fritz as an explorer (a rare commercial costume - it was on clearance...), Lillian as Anna from Frozen (costume by Amanda - her Disney princess costumes are mostly designed freehand by her - did I mention she is amazing?)

 

Amanda and me, 2016. She made my costume originally for a Valentine's Day party in which we went as Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett (from Pride and Prejudice) - I even shaved the beard down to mutton chops for that occasion.) The hat is from The Village Hat Shop. Amanda is a Tardis (from Doctor Who.) Yes, she made that costume too. And the shawl, which is a fairly accurate representation of the star chart for the northern hemisphere.

 

Ella in her Muertos costume. I just had to include one of her alone, because the dress and the makeup are so perfect on her.

Learning the Words: Legalism

This post is revised and expanded from a guest post I wrote for the blog Defeating the Dragons back in 2013. After discovering (and reposting) my post on Reconstructionism, Samantha Field solicited me to write for a new series she was doing on language and fundamentalism.

The premise of Samantha’s series (which is worth a read) was that Christian Fundamentalism engages in a redefinition of language very similar to that described by George Orwell in his novel, 1984, which describes the way that totalitarian systems such as Communism co-opt language and thought to serve their own purposes. (Side note: Raymond Aron makes a compelling point that Stalinism and Nazism are religions - cults, actually. Here is my review of The Opium of the Intellectuals, which I believe should be required reading.) Orwell may have targeted Communism - and Stalinism in particular - but the redefinition of language is hardly unique to political systems such as Marxism. Religious cults and cult-like organizations likewise twist and pervert the very nature of language to create their own version of “newspeak.”

Simply put, fundamentalism, like its fellow cults and cult-like groups - including Communism (in its actual real-life form) - redefine the language. He who controls the language can often control everything else as well. The amazingly prescient George Orwell invented the term “newspeak” in 1984. In it, words were redefined, and language itself was twisted in order to suppress dissent and stop free thought and discussion.

Christian Fundamentalism also has its “newspeak.” This is a different breed from “Christianese,” which is more of a religious shop slang. There is some occasional crossover, but Christianese is really just a subgenre of nerdspeak. It binds a group together with common language, and helps to identify insiders and outsiders. Many of us Christians actually kind of like laughing about Christianese.

In contrast, “newspeak” is aimed at redefining words to end discussion and thought. And also to mislead as to the real meaning and effects of those words.

In my own experience, these words were “conversation enders,” trump cards that shut down any attempt at logical thought or discussion or empathy.

And, it starts with this one, which was a word that was so re-defined that it could only be applied to Mormons and cults and maybe Catholics. But never, never to us.

***

Learning the Words: Legalism

***

My family had been attending Bill Gothard’s seminars for a year or so, I believe, when my parents decided that we would join his home schooling program (we had homeschooled for many years prior to that– I had only one year of high school left by that time).

I objected to this decision for several reasons. One was that I had only a year left and didn’t want to make a change (I was allowed to finish my previous course of study, thankfully). One was that the program, which purported to make all learning based on and flow out of scripture, seemed to lack any clear academic organization and vision. It was more about indoctrination than real schooling. These objections were easy for me to articulate. I had the words for these concepts.

My bigger, overarching objection was more difficult. There was a word for it, but I was not allowed to use it, because it had been re-defined.

That word was legalism.

In the ultra-conservative, fundamentalist Christian world, legalism has been re-defined to apply only to an extremely narrow concept: a belief that salvation can be earned.

It’s not that this definition is exactly wrong, but that it excludes much of what legalism really is. Conveniently, the narrow definition allowed us to say that other religions were legalistic, because good deeds would be weighed in determining one’s fate after death. Perhaps even Roman Catholics were legalistic. But “true” Christians could not be legalistic, because they acknowledged that only Christ could save.

But.

There were all kinds of rules in the Gothard system (and in the similar ultraconservative systems). These rules were called principles or standards— and they were necessary to achieve “God’s best.”

So, in the Gothard universe, Christians should never send their children to public or private school; girls must wear skirts, not pants (or pick your own version of “modesty”); women shouldn’t work outside the home; Christians should only listen to certain music and read certain books; and on and on.

Of course, this wasn’t legalism. We just wanted “God’s best” in our lives. Never mind that we were encouraged to judge those that did not adhere to all our standards as probably not being real Christians.

So, I couldn’t use legalism to describe a legalistic system or belief. The closest I could come was rigid. That word was inadequate because it allowed the focus to shift from the problematic system, which insisted that “God’s way” included many man-made rules beyond the commands of Christ, and placed the focus on other people within the system who were perhaps a bit “rigid” in their practices. We could be a little less “rigid” than them.

The real problem was the legalism, which insisted that following Christ was really a bunch of rules and cultural preferences. (And, if we are honest, an idolatry of the cultural preferences of past white European and American upper class cultures.)

But I couldn’t say that, because legalism had been taken away from me.

***

When I wrote this originally, I had yet to really explore the degree to which “Christianity” in America has become the idolatry of a particular socioeconomic status which maybe never really existed except for a few privileged people in the 1950s - or 1850s. If anything, my further research has indicated that the Gothard (and to an extent, the entire Evangelical Industrial Complex) has substituted a very white, middle class, 1950s understanding of the world for the gospel of Jesus Christ, in a way that denies true “godliness” or “morality” to pretty much anyone who doesn’t have a certain degree of privilege and the ability to pretend to adhere to gender essentialism and hierarchy. I’ve blogged about this since, and will continue to discuss the substitution of Christ’s teachings for an idolatry of a past that never was.

Clarifying note:

My parents didn’t adopt all of Gothard’s “standards,” or even all of the ones I listed. However, for the ones they did, the loss of the word “legalism” hampered discussion. Even well into my adulthood. By intent, Gothard removed most external cultural preferences from the realm of Christian freedom and placed them in the category of God’s “standards” for all people at all times in history.

(For what it’s worth, the top areas of conflict, in my observation, caused by legalism: food, music, clothing, and gender roles.)

Newspeak: I still think “ungood” is a useful word, even if it was used by Big Brother.

Modesty Culture Part 12: Amanda's Story

In the next segment, I am going to tell the story of my wife’s experiences. I do this with her permission and her assistance. I do it because I believe it is a necessary cautionary tale about the dangers of gender essentialist, Patriarchal Christianity in general and Modesty Culture in particular.

My Wife’s Experience With Patriarchy, “Modesty Culture,” Slut Shaming, and Sexual Assault

I write this post with some trepidation. I know it will cause pain to some of the people involved, especially my in-laws, who are really great, good-hearted people. I have been blessed greatly by them in many ways, personally and professionally, and it is not my intent to assign blame. None of us parents are perfect, and we all make mistakes. 

They have also done what is often hardest for parents to do, which is to let their adult children make different decisions than they did, without shaming, nagging, or attempts to control. I am grateful to them for this, and cherish our relationship.

Rather, it is my intent to sound a warning. The Patriarchal philosophy - Modesty Culture in particular - is a siren song. It sounds so sweet and so good and desirable. More than anything else, the vision of “clean cut, sweet and innocent” teens draws people into cults. But it draws people on to harm and destruction, and leads to pain and heartache for many of the children raised in it.

***

I want to note a few things at the outset.

First of all, my wife has assisted me in putting together her story, and she has consented to and approved my disclosure of her past experiences. She didn't want to write it herself, but did want her story to be told.

Second, I realize that recollections of events and conversations vary. (Of all people, a lawyer would understand this.) Some of the people involved will undoubtedly have different memories of the events - and different interpretations.

However, I think that the late great Maya Angelou makes a good point here.

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Amanda’s experience was real to her, and the way she was made to feel was also very real.

***

Very early in our relationship, we stayed at her parents mountain home with them for a weekend, and spent an evening looking through old pictures and a few old home movies. I was madly smitten (still am), and found it endlessly fascinating to see the young Amanda. It was striking to me that even at a very young age, she was recognizable not just by her appearance, but by her way of talking and her gestures. The self-assured 20-year-old I knew was already visible in the self-confident 6 year old.

I also noticed something else, however. Up until her teen years, she was dressed like a typical California kid in the 1980s. Shorts. Jeans. T-shirts. Tank tops. Even swimsuits.

But then, something changed. For a number of years, from age fourteen or so, pretty much up until I met her, she was dressed in homemade prairie style dresses. Never pants or shorts. Few items if any would have been worn by a normal teen girl of the era.

As I have noted in the introduction to this series, my wife spent these years in Jonathan Lindvall’s home church.

There was a very detailed and very strict dress code based on a concept of “modesty.”

During that time, she was singled out for what I believe was “slut shaming.” (See the Wikipedia definition if you are unfamiliar with the concept.) 

Things you need to know about Amanda:

1. She is fiercely independent. She has, from a young age, been a natural leader, strong in personality and in her own assurance and ability to tell right from wrong. She has not, and never will, consider herself inferior to a man in any way. She fully believes in interacting with men as full equals. (And that includes the former CEO of her hospital, BTW, who tried to be condescending to her.) She knew from age three (long before her Patriarchy experience) that she wanted to be a nurse. She pursued this goal and continues to serve her community in that capacity. She is a competent and capable shift leader, and is often called upon to lead in crisis situations. Recently, she ended up in charge of all three ICU units at her hospital due to the illness of the other charge nurses. I've also seen her administer and direct CPR out in the field. Her gifts and contributions to the good of humanity outside of our family are great. I greatly admire her gifts, and would gladly follow her lead in a natural disaster.

2. If you actually met her in person, you would know that she is the exact opposite of a flirt. She does NOT want to have sex with you. No way. No how. She can give the “back off, asshole!” look like nobody’s business. Unless you are me - and you aren’t - she is not flirting with you. And she sure as hell doesn’t want to have sex with you. :)

3. She has a fashion sense, and has since she was a toddler, when she informed her father what did and did not match. She has sewing and design skills to match.

Of the MANY pictures I could have chosen, here is the one of Amanda and me as 

Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice for a costume party in  2011. 

She modified and sewed both costumes. 

My eldest in her Rapunzel costume. 
Amanda designed this from scratch, as the commercial patterns didn't really match the original. 
Yeah, she's good.  

***

Two major events occurred in Amanda’s life around the time she went through puberty. First, the family moved from the big city to a small mountain community. This move took her physically away from her friends to a place that was occupied primarily by weekend vacationers and retirees. There weren’t many children, to say the least.

The second occurred around the same time, when they joined Jonathan Lindvall’s home church. This essentially limited her in-person interaction with other people her own age (other than rare occasions) to a very narrow group of people, all of whom shared a specific worldview - and specific beliefs as to what women should and shouldn’t be allowed to do.

It was a complete shift from an ordinary life and ordinary clothing to a strict requirement of long dresses and skirts for girls at all times, combined with all of the “defrauding” teachings I described earlier in this series. That was the last time she wore pants or shorts until after we started dating. For a girl barely coming to terms with having breasts and a period, this was difficult. What had once been her girlish body had now become a source of sin to be covered and hidden as much as possible.

And not just that. This group believed that college was to be avoided, not just by females, but males as well. Men were to (ideally) be self employed, and women were to - without exception - get married, have as many children as they could, and keep house. I’ve also noted elsewhere that fiction and literature was viewed with suspicion, with some families insisting on only reading the Bible and missionary biographies. I also mentioned elsewhere that they believed that only men could participate in the church services (other than the singing) because women were to remain silent in church.

So, not only was Amanda’s body now considered a source of sin, her very aspirations were considered sinful by the adults - and the other teens - in the group. The fact that she wanted a career was horrifying. So she couldn’t talk about that. Literature too - which Amanda loves - couldn’t be discussed, because it was evil to many in the group. These were her only opportunities for in-person friendships.

***

It didn’t get better from there. A certain middle aged man in the homegroup committed a sexual assault. He grabbed the butt of a stranger at the mall, and was arrested. (Presumably, she was wearing something less than a burqa, so I suppose in this worldview, she asked for it…)

Amanda was never told about this incident. Indeed, it never came up within context of the full group - and there were certainly no repercussions for the offender. (Amanda and I found out about this a number of years later, after she had left the group. She certainly was never warned to avoid him, and, as far as I can see from subsequent interactions involving him, that there were no restrictions ever placed on him about being around women or children.)

This same man had a habit of standing far too close to Amanda (age 16 or 17 at the time) when he talked to her. She would back up, but he would persist, and she would often end up backed against a wall or a bookcase. She clearly remembers that during one incident, she was even wearing her most modest (and least attractive) jumper. Fortunately, it never went further than this. She was young, and naive. (In fact, she didn’t get a real sex education until her college courses. And an explanation of sexual harassment was out of the question.) So she tried to avoid him to the degree possible, but she did not feel free to complain. She didn’t really realize that he was sexually assaulting her in a mild degree. And really, it would have done no good for her to complain anyway, in light of what happened to her earlier. If she had complained, she would have been blamed for what occurred.

Amanda was away at a religious conference with her grandparents for a week; when she returned, she fiound that she had been the subject of a big meeting in the group.

Apparently, she was now viewed as a serious threat to the young men of the group. Why?

Well, she wasn’t really interested in talking about homemaking or the care of goats. The young ladies of the group were not allowed to read literature, which was her great love, so she had NOTHING in common with them. Nothing to talk about.

So naturally, she gravitated to the young men. They might talk about classic cars (which she knows enough about to best my knowledge), roller coasters, math, or other topics that actually interested her.

This, apparently was a huge nuclear threat to the young men. After all, she was attractive, smart, and shamelessly confident. She clearly did not have the right attitude for a woman. She also didn’t have the proper “shamefaced” and “downcast” glance. She looked the men and boys right in the eye.

Now, they couldn’t complain that she was “immodest” in the traditional sense. She strictly adhered to the dress code at her parents’ insistence.

Actually, let me give you the two best examples of this. First, once I started dating her, I told her she had to buy a pair of jeans. Because all she wore were dresses and skirts. Not good for hiking, in my opinion. She actually did not own a pair of pants at that time, much less a pair of shorts. She bought and wore her first (uncovered) swimsuit after she moved out of her parents’ house, so that she could use the pool at her grandparents’ retirement community.

Second, she actually went cross country skiing in snow pants with a skirt over them. Really? Um, yes. No, it wasn’t practical or comfortable. Yes, it made her look like a total freak. (A really cute freak, but a freak.) Yes, it was in response to the batshit crazy dress code of the group. The thought of a woman in actual puffy snow pants was unthinkable.

The unthinkably “immodest” attire of snow pants without a skirt. Picture from Overstock.com. 
Are you not titillated?

(Actually, if you want to put a fine point on it, women were NOT really permitted to engage in physical activity, but her parents wisely decided to allow it. Too bad they didn’t give the finger to the perverts in the group that minded her wearing pants while doing so.)

SO….

She came back to find that a decree had been issued about her:

She was NO LONGER to interact with boys. Because she had been deemed to be flirting with them. She was a sexual danger to them.

She was to confine herself to her proper place, and talk to the girls about homemaking and goats.

I do not know if her body was mentioned at the meeting, because I strongly doubt her parents would have relayed that to her.

But the message was clear:

She was sexually DANGEROUS to the young men of the group.

Oh, and I should mention that she was told on the way to a home church meeting, and thus had no time to process this or prepare herself.

So yes, I believe that, stated or not, she was believed to be “immodest.” Actually, given the Rebelution survey, she would have qualified as “immodest” somehow. Because something she did caused a perverted old man to lust. And it may have caused ordinary young men to feel sexual desire. (Goodness knows, when I first saw her, I desired her.) So she MUST have been a slut.

And note the ultimate result of all of this.

The man who committed criminal sexual assault was permitted to remain in the group - and continue to be part of the leadership - without consequences. The young lady who had no intention of having sex with anyone in the group had her friendships sharply curtailed, because she was considered sexually dangerous.

She had to pay the price: to sacrifice her clothing, her friendships, and indeed her very self for the sexual insecurities and dysfunction of the adults in the group.

[As side note: like most home churches - particularly patriarchal ones - all of the male heads of household share to a degree in the governance of the church. Someone may have the final say - like Lindvall - but the idea is a sort of democracy in emulation of the early New Testament church. Needless to say, women could only act through their husbands if married, and through their fathers if single. In this particular instance, there was never any indication that the predator was ever denied a full male vote. It was the 16 year old girl who was subjected to church discipline.]

This incident also sparked an increasing restriction on male/female interaction within the group. Originally, boys and girls played badminton (the recreational game of choice) together. The girls had to wear long skirts, of course, but both genders could play. Next, the girls had to stay on one side of the net, and the boys on the other. Can't have them getting too close. Eventually, the games were segregated by gender. And so, an individual slut-shaming spread to increasing paranoia about gender mixing. 

The Coup de Grace

At age eighteen, Amanda returned to the city to live with her grandparents while she attended college. When she did, a number of the parents in the group instructed their daughters to cut off contact with Amanda, lest they be contaminated by her wickedness - that is, her decision to attend college. And with that, her rejection and vilification were complete. She was now the great Satan.

I’ve talked to a number of others who have come out of patriarchal cults, and most of us can think of some incident or incidents that were a turning point. At some point, one realizes that this isn’t going to end well, that there will be no happy ending, that the only option is to leave, even if it means severing relationships.

At that point, all that can be done is to withdraw into oneself to avoid further hurt, keep quiet and do the things necessary to keep the peace, and count the days until one can get the hell out of Dodge and never look back.

***

In the next installment, I will explore the uniquely American history of moral panics, snake oil (spiritual and otherwise), and make my argument that “Modesty Culture” is really just yet another manufactured crisis.

Modesty Culture Part 1: Introduction - "Whaaat?"

Modesty Culture Part 2: How "Modesty Culture" became a "Thing"
Modesty Culture Part 3: "Modesty" in Practice
Modesty Culture Part 4: The Concept of "defrauding" and Rape Culture  
Modesty Culture Part 5: The Faulty Definition of "Lust"
Modesty Culture Part 6: The Real Meaning of I Timothy 2:8-10 
Modesty Culture Part 7: Maybe Christian Women Should Buy Their Clothes at WalMart  
Modesty Culture Part 8: Sexism and Misogyny
Modesty Culture Part 9: Inconsistent Application of Rules 
Modesty Culture Part 10: Social Signaling  
Modesty Culture Part 11: "Others May, We Cannot" is a Lie
Modesty Culture Part 12: Amanda's Story

The Convent:

We came to find out years later that a significant driver of the decision to join the Lindvall group was a fear that Amanda (and her siblings) would end up like the son of a friend, who knocked up a girl at age 14 - not a parent’s favorite result.

As Amanda puts it, she feels that the isolation by geography and limited contact with normal children was the Protestant equivalent of a convent with 12 foot high walls. A way to preserve her virginity at the cost of her freedom. 

Amanda’s contribution to #yesallwomen:

Despite being pretty much the opposite of the typical “victim” type, Amanda experienced another instance of unwanted sexual inappropriateness. Because all women really do experience this.

The incidents occurred at work, when this jerk with a reputation for harassing others made repeated inappropriate comments to her about her body and her pregnancy. She followed the sexual harassment procedure, and her employer took care of it.

Yes, even the self-confident, strong women have to put up with this crap from time to time. She experienced it at work, and at church. Guess which one was the place she had no recourse? Guess which one instead decided that she was the cause of sin on the part of males?

A similar story on slut shaming:

Of the many stories of Bill Gothard’s sexual abuse that have come to light, this one in particular struck me with some similarities to Amanda’s experience.

Most notably, once a perverted old man took a particular interest in the victim, those around her called her out as a slut. I’ll also note that those singled out for “modesty” violations are often the ones that the perverts find themselves attracted to.

My Own Experience at being the Great Satan:

I don’t think anyone other than my own parents and my wife have ever heard this story. When I was a young boy, I’m guessing no older than seven - maybe five or six, we had some next-door neighbors with a couple of young boys, a bit younger than me - the older was my brother’s age, I think.

We used to play with their kids regularly, as was natural in those heady days when kids actually played outside in the street. However, something went wrong one day. In the course of some rough play, I pushed one of the neighbor kids. I was small anyway, and no harm was done, and I didn’t mean anything by it. I was freaking seven or younger. I had no ill will, and, honestly, nobody got hurt. The kid didn’t even complain. It was mom, looking from the window who freaked out.

If I had been asked, I would gladly have apologized. I probably did right when it happened. But mom freaked out. (I think she had some emotional issues.)

So, whatever the cause, from that point forward, I was persona non grata. They were not allowed to play with us any more.

Worse than that, when I would play in my own yard, their kids would taunt me from the second story window (presumably at the prompting of their mom). “Hey there, Satan!” And so on. So I know first hand what it is like to be vilified with no chance of defense. I tried not to let it affect me. But it did.

Note on Jonathan Lindvall:

One thing I do want to clarify. Neither my wife nor I believe Lindvall is a pervert. As a person, he is basically harmless, and a guy with good intentions. In fact, he lacks the narcissistic personality and empire building obsession that most of the other partriarchists have. No extravagant lifestyle or outsized ego.

The problem is that he is extremely gullible, whether it is to my father-in-law’s practical jokes (which were hilarious, particularly the one where he impersonated a Muslim extremist who called Lindvall to make common cause) or to theological bullshit. 

His exegesis, to say the least, is utterly awful, with the proof-texting and out-of-context hyper-literalism that plagues the Christian Patriarchy movement - and the rest of fundamentalism in all its forms. I would link to his website, but since the Matthew Chapman story hit the internet, he has taken it down. (Wait, another case when an inconvenient truth comes to light and is simply removed without explanation or apology? Come on, Lindvall! Explain why you glorified child marriage while slut shaming an older teen for having friends of the opposite sex...) 

Lindvall’s teachings reveal a serious lack of judgment and a disconnect from the real world.

The man should NEVER have been accepted by anyone as a spiritual leader. Had this never happened, had he never been place in a position of leadership, he might have lived life as an eccentric but lovable schoolteacher.

However, the philosophy itself is evil, and leads to the tolerance of perverts and the decision to slut-shame innocent sixteen-year-old girls rather than deal with the real problem of lust. The bad philosophy combined with a serious lack of judgment and leadership combined to make a toxic combination.

Amanda and I don’t have personal ill will toward the Lindvalls. They were even invited to (and attended) our wedding.

However, he has made his living selling spiritual snake oil, which has damaged many. Amanda was one of the lucky ones, because her parents ignored his teachings on college and careers and facilitated her escape from the group.

Many other young women were not so lucky.

It would be a great relief to me if he were to get out of the business altogether, before more lives are damaged.

A Lack of Peer Friends is a feature, not a bug:

While in this case, Amanda’s lack of friendship opportunities was probably an unforeseen consequence, for Lindvall, it is a positive result. I kid you not.

Before he took down his website, the following could be read. Fortunately, a Patheos writer copied the text.

This is an exchange between Lindvall and a person who sought his advice:

Writer: We noticed that she [his daughter] doesn’t like to play with the other kids as much now and prefers to play alone. Any idea what could be happening?

Lindvall: That’s GREAT! I often hear from new homeschoolers that their children are preferring to play with the parents, siblings, and alone, soon after beginning homeschooling. In my opinion, that’s part of the goal. Congratulations! She was becoming addicted to interaction with her peers, who were, perhaps unintentionally, stealing her heart from you. She had already started down the road to becoming peer-dependent. But now, she is preferring being with you, being with her little brother, and being alone. I think that’s really healthy. Many people worry that this will make children unable to relate to others. In fact, it makes them less intimidated by others’ acceptance/rejection of them. She will be less likely to be pressured into conformity with the world (Rom. 12:1-2). And as you spend time with her, her emotional focus is turning to you. God is “turning the hearts of the children to the fathers, and the hearts of the fathers to their children” (Mal. 4:6). Ultimately this will make it easier for [the daughter] to give her heart to you (Prov. 23:26) in preparation for fully yielding and trusting her heart to the Lord.

That’s right. Having friends one’s own age is “addiction to interaction with her peers.” Family should be all in all, and children should be emotionally focused on their fathers.

As an attorney, this sort of talk is all too familiar. This is how abusers (and cults) isolate people from their family, friends, and anyone who could help them escape. The cult becomes all in all, and no contrary ideas are allowed to penetrate.

It is disturbing to me that anyone could hear this and not realize how awful it really is. 

Likewise for the teaching that young people are to find a spouse "entirely on God's will confirmed by our authorities," and that any emotional relationship or romance was to occur only after an irrevocable betrothal was entered into by the parents. You can read about the way this negatively impacted our own romance here. We thrived despite the teaching, but it took deliberate rejection of the theological bullshit.

Note on the cult:

While Lindvall doesn’t qualify as a cult leader, there are enough cult-like tendencies in the group that I believe it has crossed the line.

For some reason, Lindvall’s group attracted a lot of people with serious issues. From what I have seen, heard, and experienced, there was a high degree of sexual dysfunction. Whether the teachings caused problems, or whether people with problems gravitated toward the teachings is an open question.

It also attracted conspiracy theorists and die-hard reconstructionsts. Amanda noticed (through a mutual friend) that the kids of one family received a complete Rushdoony set when they turned eighteen, for example, and there was plenty of involvement with the “militia” and the John Birch Society. Rushdoony’s son, Mark, officiated at one of the kids’ weddings. You can also find liberal references on the blog to Steve Wilkins, one of the founders of the White Supremacist group League of the South. (Also a good buddy and co-author with Douglas Wilson.) These are people who were (and are?) part of the Lindvall group. They blog publicly, so I believe a link is fair game. 

Also I should mention the Campbells. They were welcomed for over a year, because apparently White Supremacist beliefs and affiliations were acceptable in a way that a feminist teen girl was not.

The Campbells now lead a “church”/cult that has close ties to the League of the South, a well known White Supremacist group. In fact, the “church,” despite its small size, has been listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group. And with good reason, once you read what they teach. I strongly suspect we shall hear more about them as perhaps the next Branch-Davidian type catastrophe.

After reading this, I do wonder if I have finally found an opportunity to use “antidisestablishmentarianism.”

It’s a bit embarrassing to admit it, but I have a relative (no, I’m not disclosing the identity), who is solidly connected with the financial scam mentioned in connection with Kaweah - and did Federal prison time as a result. You can read a bit more here.

What I find disturbing about all this is that adherence to racist teachings and teachers never raised an eyebrow, but a 16 year old girl with feminist leanings who wanted to be friends with boys warranted a big meeting and what was, frankly, church disciplinary action against her.

One bright spot:

We wanted to say something nice about the one person in the group who actually treated Amanda like a real person, not a “female,” or a hussy. That would be Lindvall’s mother, who passed away last year. She was one of the sweetest, kindest people ever, and was the one source of love (outside of her family) for Amanda during those years. One of our daughters bears a tribute to this woman in her name. If she is able to watch us, I want her to know that her kindness to Amanda is not forgotten, and it is one of the best things she ever did. May she have her reward.  

Links:

One of the best things I have ever read on why intelligent, decent people join cults. 

The whole post is excellent, but this line is so very true:

People join cults because they fall in love with a beautiful dream.

They see something they desperately want or need.

They feel like they’ve found The Answer to life’s problems.

I’ve gone back and forth on whether to post the next link. Few links have struck as close to home or choked me up as much as this one. Darcy had a worse time of it than Amanda did, and much worse than I did. However, she says what so many of us who have left the Patriarchy cult feel, and she says it so well. It cuts really deep, which is why I hesitated. 

Still, if our parents are to read one article on how we feel, this is it.

http://darcysheartstirrings.blogspot.com/2014/05/letter-to-our-parents.html

On that note, Amanda discovered this song recently. It expresses her feelings on the experience.