Past Tense, Present Progressive

I still remember the person I used to be.  Dedicated, sincere, very securely walled-in behind my black and white beliefs: an entanglement of Republicanism and Fundamentalist Christianity that was all I knew. I was that person, listening to the sermon at church, who heard that President Bill Clinton had covertly sold our country to "Red China", and that increased persecution of American Christians was in our future...The threat of this persecution seeming more vivid and horrifying due to publications at my church like Voice of the Martyrs , with its photos of tortured Christians in China. I was that person who prayerfully voted for George W. Bush as a newly-registered voter, affectionately framing a newspaper photo of him so I could remember to pray for him to do God's will as president. I was that person who volunteered her time for pro-family activism, convinced that homosexuality was inherently wrong and destructive to society... lobbying at the State Capitol in Califor...

If I had stayed within the constraints of fundamentalism and Christian Patriarchy, my husband and I would absolutely not be happily married today.  Our relationship from the very beginning consisted of many departures from the teachings I grew up with.  Each of those departures furthered the development, health, and mutual happiness of our relationship. The first departure: As a single woman, I moved out of my parents' home to get a college education .  What is a completely ordinary step for many North American women was a  desperate and terrifying  leap for me.  My family's homeschooling church, led by  Reb Bradley , promoted  a very restrictive view of gender roles  along with a strong suspicion of the " liberal bias " of higher learning institutions.  Within the church culture, daughters were obligated to stay home under their father's authority until marriage; once married, they would be housekeepers and stay-at-home mothers. ...

Sierra from The Phoenix and the Olive Branch has just started a very interesting series about sexuality, structured around survey questions of participants who were influenced in some way by fundamentalism or Christian Patriarchy.  It's very encouraging to see that people who grew up with the strictest beliefs about sexuality are capable of becoming more accepting and open-minded as adults.  I was very happy to be able to participate in the series; I hope you'll read it along with me and add your voice to the conversation! Sexuality Project: Sierra's Introduction to the Project Sexuality Project: The Participants' Introductions Sex Education and the Body, Q. 1 --feelings and attitudes toward your own body Sex Education and the Body, Q. 2 --dealing with puberty Sex Education and the Body, Q. 3, 4, 5 --sex education received from family, church, and reading Sex Education and the Body, Q. 6 --first time hear...

Libby Anne from  Love Joy Feminism is currently doing a blog series about the adult children of Quiverfull/Christian Patriarchy, and I'm excited to be a part of it! Why did I choose to participate?  First of all, I think it's important to let other children from the Quiverfull/Christian Patriarchy culture know that they are not alone.  As a child in that culture, you are trained to blame yourself for any problems and to see yourself as a bad person for daring to question anything.  It's a big risk to break away from that culture, but hopefully these stories from Libby Anne's series will show you that it is possible to make it through.  And hopefully these stories will encourage you to share your own experiences as well. Second, I think that a lot of parents who raised their children in that culture are in denial about its effects, even if the parents are no longer participating in that culture themselves.  I hope this series will help to break throu...

I was not the type of daughter that my mother wanted.  I was a tomboy. My hair was very short and I preferred blue clothes.  I wanted to run faster and climb higher than anyone.  I wasn't afraid of slimy frogs and worms, and I could kill a spider without batting an eye.  I looked with confusion and disdain at the passive little girls with their hair-bows, sitting and talking about clothes and boys.  If I had known the term "badass" back then, I would have applied it to myself with pride. When I was young, my mom was more tolerant of this.  After all, in the early days, there were mostly boys in my age group in our small homeschooling community.  So I was free to run wild with the boys and join their sports games during our weekly park days. However, puberty was looming, and it signaled the end of my adventurous life.  It was time for me to learn to act like a "lady", and the means of teaching was through one sentence: "That's not very l...