Tag: Reading/Watching

I’ve Already Said It

SJ1 Comment

There’s a new Amazon documentary on the Duggar Family called “Shiny Happy People,” which exposes the messed-up theology of Bill Gothard and IBLP. I ought to watch it, but I haven’t. For one thing, I literally wrote a novel about life in a high-control group. For another thing, I haven’t heard Bill’s voice for over twenty years and see no reason to alter that trend. And for a third thing, I dislike doing things just because I “ought” to do them (a natural tendency that turned vaguely pathological after years under Bill’s teachings).

Whatever my opinion of the documentary (I suspect it leans into melodrama, but that’s a completely unfounded accusation), my opinion of IBLP/ATI and other similar groups is easy to find. I’ve filled this blog with my thoughts for the past decade.* Groups like this promise security, train their followers to present a smiling successful facade, and then chew you up and spit you out. The details vary, but the script is always the same. That’s what I have to say.

*I ought to link several posts here, but…. you know…. anyway, search the blog for “bill gothard,” “fear,” “teachings,” or “legalism” to find some of what I’ve already said.

My Weigh or the Highweigh

SJLeave a comment

Back in 2017, I wrote this blog post about the church community begun by Gwen Shamblin Lara. I considered it a handy-dandy tutorial in how to recognize a cult. I’m not the only one who thought so, either: there are, I believe, two documentaries talking about the cult and allegations of abuse that came out of it.

I haven’t watched either one, because I’m less interested in her cult than I was in the way she made a name for herself in the 90s: she designed and taught a Christian weight-loss program. A friend told me about how, at Bill Gothard’s “training center” in Indianapolis, all of the girls in her group—most were teenagers or very young adults—were put on Gwen’s Weigh-Down Diet. “I was nearly anorexic by the time I got out,” she said.

In 2021, I saw the news that Gwen Shamblin Lara, her current husband, and a few other church leaders (including her son-in-law) were killed in a plane crash.

I give all of that background to explain why, when I saw her original Weigh Down Diet+ book in the thrift store, I was curious enough to buy it. I wondered just what thousands of church people—mostly women—were taught about how to lose weight in 1997.

(Note: I often see people give Content Warnings before discussing diets, eating disorders, weight-loss, and other food-related topics. Just in case that’s something you would appreciate, please be aware that these subjects are brought up in a shockingly casual way.)

(Another Note: Every time she mentioned the title of her diet and workshop, she inserted a cross symbol. In order for me to do that, I have to upgrade my WordPress account and activate a plug-in. I’m not doing that. We’ll have to settle for the + symbol.)

On one hand, I’m the target audience for The Weigh Down Diet + I am, after all, a middle-aged woman who carries around extra weight.

On the other hand, I’m not the target audience because I don’t care all that much about food. I like eating, but ultimately what I’m after isn’t the food itself; it’s the comfortable feeling of being full. Food doesn’t have an inherent pull for me. I’d be just as happy if could photosynthesize everything I needed. In this book, Gwen is definitely addressing people for whom food is a major pleasure and pain. Indeed, I’m not sure she realized there were any other kind of people.

But since I’m about thirty pounds “overweight,” that makes me eligible for Gwen’s diet. So I read the book as if it applied to me. It didn’t take me long to come to the conclusion that this woman should never have been giving eating advice to anyone.

She wasn’t unqualified. She was a registered dietician, so she had been educated in food science. But one aspect of her personality came through loud and clear: once she decided on an idea, nothing could shake her from it. She decided at some point that the food-science field had gone badly wrong because they didn’t acknowledge God in any of their studies and recommendations. Since she held that missing key, she felt justified in questioning every conclusion they put forth, and deciding when she was right instead of them. (Which was always.)

But that wasn’t what first stood out to me. What first raised a red flag was how she described her body. She said that extra weight always concentrated around her waist and never to her legs where she really needed it, so she looked like “a potato on sticks.” It made me sad that that’s how she saw herself. Then she moved on to talking about her eating in college, and a whole host of red flags unfurled. She was horrified that she’d put on ten to twenty pounds since her high school days—you know, back before she was a full-grown adult—but at the same time, her university meal card gave her access to food twenty-four hours a day. She could not stop herself from eating all that “wonderful food.”

(Now, I’m speculating here, but I’ve had cafeteria food, even at a university. It’s adequate and sometimes good, but not wonderful. I suspect that she came from a background of deprivation, whether from poverty or otherwise, and it wasn’t so much the amazing food as the unlimited access that she couldn’t handle.)

She tried various diets and “exchanges,” but couldn’t stick to them. She’d often “use up” a week’s worth of points in one weekend. Then came the chillingly casual sentence, “I knew no end to fullness, and I tried throwing up my food after a binge, but I was not coordinated enough.” She admits that despite her light tone, it was a “a very insecure time for me.”

So she sought out nutrition and therapy to deal with her obvious issues… oh wait, haha, no. That’s not what she did. What she did was find a “very skinny” college friend and study how she ate.

This friend—whose only health qualification was that she wasn’t fat—sat down to eat her first meal of the day, around noon. She chose a McDonald’s quarter-pounder and ate about half of it. Then she decided she was full, wrapped up the rest, and threw it away. Gwen was amazed, and resolved that she, too, would be a “thin eater” and would learn to stop eating as soon as she was full.

This was the revelation that finally got her weight under control. She lost those twenty pounds, and they stayed off. She got married and got pregnant three times with very big babies, but always lost the baby weight. She had the secret, and this secret would work for anybody. Anybody. If you are overweight, that means you’re a chronic overeater, and the only solution is to stop eating when you’re full. If you have trouble doing that, God will help you. Stop making excuses. The end.

Of course, it wasn’t the end, because Gwen wrote a whole book and created a whole workshop on this idea. So what, exactly, was the Weigh-Down Diet+? (Never forget to add that little cross!)

To be honest, the basic premise isn’t bad—especially for 1997, when restriction dieting was practically a requirement of womanhood:

  • Eat for hunger, not for emotional comfort
  • Wait until you’re hungry
  • Eat half the portion you’re accustomed to
  • Eat until you are full, then stop
  • Eat anything you want; no eliminated foods, no diet foods (except diet drinks between meals)

The idea is that you separate actual physical hunger from emotional or spiritual needs that you may be interpreting as hunger. As you get to know your body, you can recognize hunger cues and also discern what food your body is really asking for. So you eat to satisfy your body, which means you eat less and lose weight, and you never gain it back again.

I don’t think that’s such a bad outlook. Granted, everybody approaches food differently, so you’d have to take into account allergies, tastes, coping mechanisms, miseducation, etc. But it seems like a good baseline approach. If Gwen had stopped here…

…but she didn’t stop here. The Weigh-Down Diet+ (that cross starts to look kind of weird after a bit) goes astray almost immediately.

The first glaring problem is how Gwen regards thinness. “The motivation to be thin is not vanity,” she explains. “It is natural. God has programmed us to want the best for our bodies.” So if we just let our bodies be our guide, then we’ll naturally lose weight. Because – you’re following this logic, right? – because everyone’s natural ideal God-ordained weight is “thin.” Your body “knows that you are overweight and, therefore, will only ask for small amount of food.” Your body “loves the decrease in volume of food!”

If you’re not thin, it’s because you’re ignoring your body’s design. You overeat, and you need to stop that. Gwen did! She wrote that she got to the point that she found the thought of overeating “repulsive.” And that’s not all she finds repulsive. The terminology she uses when talking about how “we” or “you” overeat is very telling:

  • “Try to stop guzzling from sixty-four ounce thirst busters.” Note that overweight people don’t drink, they “guzzle.”
  • “Before the Weigh Down Workshop+, your stomach did not know if it was going to swallow 10,000 calories, or just swallow a liquid diet drink…” Ten thousand calories? If someone is eating that much, it’s probably due to factors that a mere “workshop” is not going to address properly.
  • “If you are looking for good health, then know that the single most related factor to disease and even early death is overeating.”
  • “Try looking up from the food. Enjoy the company. Have you ever been at a dinner where all you saw was the tops of people’s heads as they had their faces buried in their plates?”
  • “Instead of ripping off the top of the package and then throwing your head back and dumping the M&Ms down the hatch…”
  • “Don’t tell me you haven’t broken in a buffet line or jumped out of the car to get ahead of the next group of people going into the same restaurant.”

She insists that all food is good, but only when physically necessary. The first step of the Weigh-Down Diet+  is that you don’t eat until you feel a real hunger cue. This, she explains, can take anywhere from forty-five minutes to thirty-six hours. If you haven’t felt a hunger cue in three days, she suggests eating a small meal anyway. She also touts the spiritual benefits of fasting (tossing off the casual note that if you have anorexia, you shouldn’t skip meals). She reminds her followers that it’s okay if they feel a hunger cue but can’t eat at that moment; it’ll come back, don’t worry! If you wake up hungry in the night, try praying instead. While she does have special (short) sections for conditions such as diabetes, hypoglycemia, and medication, her overall attitude is that not eating is better than eating. What could possibly go wrong with this idea? Nothing, because less food means more thin!

She absolutely shuts down any suggestion that a person’s weight could be linked to genetics, or that personal trauma might make it difficult to overcome unhealthy eating habits. These ideas merely trap a person into giving up, because what’s the use of fighting against genetics or trauma? No, Gwen clears out all this modern permissiveness with her workshop and book and weird cross symbol, to inform you that it’s just a matter of loving God more than you do food.

That’s the second very big problem with this diet. Gwen proclaims that it will work for absolutely everyone. But a key concept in her method is that the way you learn to resist emotional eating is that you turn to God instead of food. If you feel tempted to eat when you’re not hungry, you should pray. You learn to replace the pleasure and fun you associate with food, by cultivating pleasure and fun in God. Her recommendation for those who suffer from bulimia, for instance, is “Replace the intensive desire to eat with an intensive desire for God, and the bingeing will end. As a result, the bulimia will subside.”

I’m sure that, somewhere along the line, at least one person pointed out that none of this works if you happen to not share her faith. But Gwen decided that it was the right answer, so everybody else is wrong. In Gwen’s world, thin people loved God, and loving God meant you became thin.

There’s no middle ground, by the way. Either you’re a “thin eater” who can stop in the middle of a candy bar if you feel full, or you sneak food and binge until your stomach hurts. Either you’re unselfish with your food and time and love, or you’re a totally self-centered cretin who takes the biggest and best food for yourself and doesn’t care about how anyone around you feels. Either you love God to the point that you have flirty conversations with him, or you worship the refrigerator and don’t care about obeying God.

(She claims in the second half of the book that she discovered this secret of weight loss when she started obeying God. But, um, Gwen? I read the first part of the book. You discovered this secret because you wanted to be skinny.)

The second half of the book actually has very little to do with food, and everything to do with bringing your thinking into alignment with Gwen’s particular brand of 90s Christianity. She’d start out talking about eating, then veer off into how we should accept trials and suffering, including in a marriage with an unloving spouse or a miserable job. She brings up addictions and depression, then she wanders into a rant about how “self-care” is really just an excuse to be selfish, and how women are natural caregivers and will never get tired if they’re doing what they designed to do. Then ZIP we’re back to overeating again! It’s dizzying just to read it. I imagine it was a whirlwind to hear her in person—an intensely cheerful woman with small-framed body, tall blond hair, and utter conviction in everything she said.

She tackled enormous subjects such as dysfunctional families, trauma, addiction, demon possession, and depression. Well, “tackled” is the wrong word. She threw her thin little body into them, bounced off, and then skittered around them by saying that all it took to find freedom was to love God more. For instance, she said that it was illogical that past sexual abuse could manifest as overeating, and it was just “an excuse” for people who didn’t want to give up their love for food—if that gives you any idea of the skill and finesse with which she handled these topics. I skimmed the last couple of chapters because there was no reason for me to read someone talking about things she had no business addressing.

Throughout the book, she cites no sources for any of her claims, but reassures her followers over and over that all this really works. She says, rather confusingly, “How do I know if I am right about this? Just try it for yourself,” and that’s pretty much all the support she offers for her ideas. She talks about how content she is, and her close connection with God, and her happy family. But I’m 46 years old and a weary recipient of many a grandiose promise from smooth-talking speakers with something to sell me. I now keep one thought uppermost: You might be lying.

I also have the benefit of hindsight. I can see how she careened out of the mainstream and created her own church based on being thin and obedient. At least one child died from “discipline” in that church. I also know that she divorced her first husband and remarried. So tell me how all this solves All the Problems?

But she really did claim that. She dazzles the Wei+gh Down+ W+orksho+p devotees with this picture of success:

…You feel more at peace. Someone at work said your face looks different, you are reading your Bible more, and you are communicating with God a lot more. Anger is leaving, and your marriage is better as you are able to love more and think about the needs of others more. You are starting to go through church doors again, and suddenly the preacher has improved his sermons. Even God’s creation looks more beautiful—especially the sunsets.

Gwen Shamblin Lara proclaimed that she was setting her followers free from the tyranny of diets and food. All they had to do was line up for a hefty serving of spiritual guilt and oppression. And really, that’s a pretty small price to pay to be thin.

Gallery of Infamy

Some of the more bonkers quotes from this book.

God did not accidentally leave the Four Food Groups out of the Bible!

*

The stomach is a pouch made out of three layers of muscle, and it is located right below your sternum bone—the bone that is broken open in heart bypass surgery. [Note: this is the only mention of heart bypass surgery in the entire book.]

*

I even rate bites in each category. For example, I searched around in the pork for the juiciest pieces. Since I was approaching full by the time I got to the brownie, I ate the bites that had the most pecans in them. I left some of every food category on my plate, but the juiciest, best morsels were in my stomach. My plate looked like it had been dissected! And what was left was not appealing. Skinny people eat this way. [But most people… don’t.]

*

Skinny people are well aware of their unpopular position in life. [Because people like Gwen hold them up as effortlessly conforming to beauty standards AND Godliness!]

*

Ironically, I know the world tells me that I should be dying from eating beef and putting real cream in my coffee, but I am a-l-i-v-e! In turn, some nutritionally-obsessed people who shop in or operate health-food stores look like they are dying! Why? It seems to me the more we try to monitor our health, the unhealthier we get! … Sensitivity to volume is the dietary habit of most ninety-year-olds. You may know some overweight sixty-year-olds. But how many overweight ninety-year-olds do you know?

*

Death to self, or our will, is the core of obedience: ObeDIEnce.

*

We are not what we eat! God has programmed cows to crave grass—does that mean cows turn into grass? No! They not only remain cows, but they produce more cows and produce calcium-rich milk. … Cardinals are programmed to eat sunflower seeds, but they turn into cardinals. Robins eat worms; mockingbirds eat grasshoppers, and they all live to sing about it.

Found Things

SJ4 Comments

I’m still emerging from the long dark tunnel of winter. It’s taking longer than usual because this year, instead of having a completed second novel as I expected, I’ve just got a shambles of a story that I have to rework from the ground up. That isn’t to say that I’m not writing at all. I have another little project in the works that I hope to say more about soon.

Meanwhile, here are a few writing-related things that have crossed my Shire lately.

By the way, I utterly despise inserting links. It’s tedious. So while I’ll link a few of these items, some of them I’ll just trust that you can cut-and-paste search terms.

Possessed by Passion. A friend, Tracy A. Ball, contributed to this collection. Full disclosure, this isn’t a genre I enjoy. Instead of finding the characters and the situations exciting, I just want to recommend counseling to everyone involved. But you might like it. Click through to the site and you’ll know instantly whether it’s the kind of thing that appeals to you. You should check it out.

Half a League Onward Press. I haven’t read This Do in Remembrance by Dave Dentel because, again, it’s not a genre I enjoy. However, Dave is a friend and I’m very excited that he’s putting his work out there. It might be something you like. You should check it out.

The Legend of Zare Caspian by Abigail Cossette is a web serial with adventure, intrigue, romance, and a “strong female character” who actually is strong and female — not just loud and obnoxious, and not just a man with boobs. While I haven’t read every episode, I have seen the behind-the-scenes work she puts into her stories. (As is possibly apparent by now, I happily support friends even when I’m not a dedicated fan of their genres.) Abigail, by the way, also does all her own artwork. You should check it out.

How Not to Write a Novel, Mittelmark and Newman. A friend sent me this book with the caution, “It’s pretty frank in places.” Well, yes. Definitely an adult audience. But said audience should enjoy the book’s ironic angle. It purports to be advice on how to remain an unpublished author, and goes through some of the best ways to derail your story. I’ve had this book for many years, so it didn’t exactly come to my attention “lately” — except that I recently cleaned up my bookshelf and rediscovered my TWO copies of it (one to lend, one to keep). It’s my favorite writing-advice book. You should check it out.

Go On Write. This is the best site I’ve found for pre-made book covers. He also does custom work—in my case, the cover to my short stories, Go Right. I drop in on the site periodically to see what new offerings he has. You should check it out.

Dominic Noble on YouTube. He’s a young Brit in California whose channel compares books-vs-movies. I found him a couple of years ago when he did a long series on Fifty Shades of Grey, which was highly entertaining, informative, and chock-full of profanity because of his passionate objection to the series. He doesn’t just take down books, though; he sometimes dedicates a video to books he loves. His appreciation of Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted — one of my all-time favorite books — convinced me that we’d get along. You should check it out.

Bad Movie YouTubers. These channels aren’t specifically related to writing, but it’s informative to discuss why some stories don’t work. That’s my excuse, anyway. The truth is that I just love a good takedown of a bad movie. Jenny Nicholson, Kennie J.D., Fanboy Flicks (Weird Movies with Mark), and Good Bad Flicks — you should check them out.

My own books. Okay, this isn’t something I just “found lately.” But maybe it’s a discovery waiting for you! I’ve written a novel, The Fellowship, and short stories, Go Right. Both are linked to the right and also under the “Writing” heading at the top. I, too, am supported by friends who very possibly haven’t read the books — but you should because they’re really good. As mentioned above, as I mourn at the graveside of my ruined second novel, I’m also working on a new project which I’ll definitely update you on. You should… well, you know by now.

Book Review: Jesus and John Wayne

SJ1 Comment

“Hey, guess what,” DJ said to me last week. “Jesus and John Wayne came in!”

What he meant to say was this: “Remember you asked me to look for the book Jesus and John Wayne for you? The library called to say it came in today.” But my first mental image was of Jesus and John Wayne popping in to DJ’s office, as if they were in the area and decided to come by and say hello.

But I was glad to hear it, even if the reality turned out to be less exciting. I was looking forward to reading it, in my ongoing to attempt to understand exactly how the white evangelical church got to where it is now.

Jesus and John Wayne by Kristen Kobes Du Mez wasn’t really a revelatory book for me. I grew up Southern Baptist and spent my teenage years in Bill Gothard’s ATI program. Our house was full of material from Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, Rush Limbaugh, and Eagle Forum. During my introduction to HSLDA in the late nineties, I brushed shoulders with pre-Vision Forum Doug Phillips. I wasn’t just familiar with the white evangelicalism that this book talks about, I was one of those white evangelicals.

What this book does, however, is lay out my own religious history in a way that I never understood before. It showed me patterns of ideas and behaviors that still hold true today. And it also showed me just how far I drifted from my roots in the early 2000s, which was why I was shattered by the white evangelical church’s overwhelming support of Donald Trump, instead of expecting it as an inevitable outcome.

In fact, if I’d read this book before the January 6 breach of the Capitol, I wouldn’t have found that event nearly as shocking.

The book isn’t a dense read, especially for someone already familiar with most of the major players. Yet every time I try to discuss it, I get tangled up in so many thoughts that it’s hard to have a conversation. So what I’ll do here is highlight the patterns that struck me as significant.

Pattern #1: Evangelicals have always courted political power. I was taught that a real Christian doesn’t “put confidence in princes,” that we trust that God will work His own will no matter what. In practice, however, the leaders in my life were all about currying favor at the White House. It’s why Ronald Reagan is practically a saint in evangelical circles — he was very cozy with the powerhouse of influence, James Dobson, and other church luminaries. Billy Graham was instrumental in getting Richard Nixon elected. Both Bushes knew to appeal to the evangelical vote. Had I known all this, I’d have known that when Dobson, Franklin Graham, and other leaders fell over themselves to line up at Trump’s feet, they weren’t selling out principle for power. Their principle is power.

Pattern #2: Evangelicals create and then believe myths. From the first, John Wayne has been an evangelical icon of “real manhood.” The strong, rugged cowboy lives by his own code of honor, is indomitable in battle, doesn’t take guff from wimpy men or any woman, and earns the respect of everyone he encounters. He’s a real man. Of course, it’s a completely fictional construct. Wayne himself wasn’t a cowboy, never served in the military… heck, even the name “John Wayne” was fiction, replacing the much less craggy “Marion Morrison.” Yet the fact that the ideal has no roots in reality does nothing to diminish it. This myth is so strong that the evangelical concept of Jesus himself has been shaped to fit into this mold.

Similarly, ideal womanhood is built on the same myth-making process. The two examples of great evangelical women in my younger years were Phyllis Schafley and Elisabeth Elliot. Both were outspoken women, household names, and inspiring to young evangelical women. Both pushed hard the idea that a woman’s highest calling is as a mother, wife, and homemaker. Yet neither of these women lived up to that ideal at all. Schafley poured her energies into politics, not “staying home and baking cookies,” as Hillary Clinton was famously reviled for saying. After her missionary husband was killed, Elliot spent her life writing books, hosting a radio show, and traveling around the country to speaking engagements. She married twice more, but never took those men’s names for her professional life. In both cases, these women were able to fulfill their obvious gifts for leadership by reinforcing the idea that they supported “traditional” women’s roles. And just like in the case of John Wayne, evangelicals agreed to believe the myth instead of the reality.

Although it’s still astonishing how quickly the John Wayne myth sprang up around Trump, now I can see why so many evangelicals eagerly believed and invested themselves in it. It’s part of a long pattern.

Pattern #3: Evangelicals feed on fear. There’s always got to be a bad guy for these John Waynes to fight. In fact, I remember the moment when I was 18 and listening to David Barton (a problematic “historian”) at a Bill Gothard conference in Knoxville. We’d spent all week being reminded that America was on a path toward destruction because we, the small remnant of faithful, couldn’t keep her true to her Christian roots. Barton was telling how the Library of Congress was transitioning to digital files, and “destroying hundreds of books.” He implied that it was an Orwellian book-burning designed to erase the Christian foundation of the US, allowing evil people to snatch the country away from us. And all of a sudden my exhausted mind shut down and I thought, “I am so tired of being scared all the time.”

But like any subculture, evangelical leaders need something to keep their followers focused. For many years, the Communist threat was enough to keep the troops galvanized. Yet when the Soviet Union collapsed, it left the army at a loss. So evangelical leaders focused on domestic threats, such as feminism, homosexuality, and religious liberty. Not saying that there are no reasons to be concerned on any of these issues (have you read 1960s feminism? It has venom-dipped fangs), but evangelicals aren’t famous for their nuanced take on issues they oppose.

Then came the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Evangelicals quickly coalesced around this new external enemy. Anti-Islamic panic was high. Reading this section of the book, I realized that these were the years when I was drifting away from my roots. I was vaguely aware of what was being said and passed around as facts about Muslim beliefs and behavior (much of which was highly exaggerated or sensationalized), but I rejected it as unChristian prejudice and racism. I suppose I assumed that most other people did the same. I was wrong, which I found out painfully enough about fifteen years later.

Du Mez keeps a narrow focus in this book. In describing the evangelical response to various events, she doesn’t give much room to presenting a well-rounded view. For instance, she discusses the evangelical distaste for Hillary Clinton, both as a First Lady and as a presidential candidate. Briefly she touches on concerns about Clinton’s policies and possibly corruption — which are valid, non-sexist, non-partisan considerations for any candidate — but she mostly focuses on the overblown rhetoric and rumors that evangelicals passed around among themselves. If you want more than just the evangelical reaction to any given person or incident, you’ll have to go back and fill in the gaps yourself.

I found this a helpful book on a very personal level. Intellectually, I left evangelicalism years ago. I gave up on political activism because I don’t like rallies and canvassing for votes and writing emails to Congress. DJ and I revamped our entire understanding of the “essential” doctrine of creationism. Once we saw the damage that “traditional” gender roles (man = leads, woman = submits) inflicted on our marriage, we cultivated a relationship based on mutual submission. Early in our marriage, we considered joining the Catholic church, but ran into too many theological roadblocks; instead we made our way into the Anglican church, with its focus on liturgy and social awareness. I’ve become sharply aware of the national sin of racism, and the need to for the white church especially to repent. I haven’t voted Republican in a national election since I opted out of the 2008 election (and now I wish I’d participated in the historic event of electing a black president). I’ve revisited and refined many opinions which, in my evangelical days, came pre-packaged with inflexible answers.

Yet I still love the people I came from, and I didn’t realize how far away I’d traveled until the rift became impossible to ignore. That’s why I have so many knots and tangles when it comes to discussing my thoughts on this book.

Your experience reading this will vary. The book might enlightening, uncomfortable, or disturbing depending on your relationship with white evangelicalism. I think it’s valuable regardless. If you’re at all interested in understanding the white Christian Republican devotion to Trump, then you should read Jesus and John Wayne.

Just be aware that you have to say the title very carefully. Not only does this dynamic duo make the rounds at DJ’s office, but I found myself asking, “Did anybody see Jesus and John Wayne in the living room?”

The Best Name Book Ever

SJLeave a comment

But not, surprisingly, by Richard Scarry! (Parents of small kids will probably get that joke.)

The Baby Name Wizard, 2019 Revised 4th Edition: A Magical Method for Finding the Perfect Name for Your Baby by [Laura Wattenberg]

When I was a teenager, some of my favorite reading was baby name books. Not only did I have characters to name, but my family shared a general interest in names and naming trends. It took me a while to figure out that not every dinner table perked up at the mention an odd or trendy name you came across last week. That, in fact, some people didn’t even care about the difference in spelling a name Michaela or Makayla.

I also learned that I needed couch my hobby in the proper terms. An 18-year-old reading a baby-name book gave rise to two immediate assumptions:

  1. I was pregnant.
  2. I was not pregnant, but so looking forward to having babies that I was already thinking of names for them.

Neither was accurate.

I grew up, got married, and for a while I read baby names books with actual babies in mind. (Although I found our third child’s name long before I got pregnant with her — I just thought of it one afternoon, called DJ at work and asked if he liked the name, and it went on the list.) Yet it was also simply because I love the subject. It was during these years that I first discovered The Baby Name Wizard by Laura Wattenberg… only the best name book ever.

The Baby Name Wizard was a revolution in the world of baby-name books. Most of them tended to just be a list of names with dubious definitions attached to them. (Many name meanings are uncertain or irrelevant anyway; our culture doesn’t generally choose names for their meanings. And in a world where you can build names like Abralyn and Jaycee, name meanings don’t even exist.) Some of the better books would give you a short commentary about a name, or list famous people who have the name.

TBNW does way more than that. In one small entry, you get:

  1. Name pronunciation
  2. Variations in spelling
  3. Common nicknames
  4. “Brother” and “sister” names. These are names that the author has decided match the name in style and association.
  5. A graph to show its popularity trend, especially which year it was the most popular
  6. A short blurb about the name — its sound, its origin, its associations
  7. A brief mention of well-known people who have the name

Here’s the entry* for my name:

And it sure doesn’t hurt my feelings that she gives “Sara” its own entry, separate from “Sarah.” When I was 13, my very first stories featured a character named Sarah Robsin who was not in any way a fantasy version of myself, since Sarah is such a different name from Sara.

Beyond the actual name listings, you also get sections that group names according to certain styles — African-American, Brisk & Breezy, Mythological, Nicknames… Y’all. It’s just good reading.

I’ve used this book extensively while writing my current novel. I needed to know what a woman would be named in the 60s (so, naming trends from the 40s). This book lets me find a name, then follow it to other, similar, names. I can see from the graph whether the name “Brittany” would have been cutting-edge, trendy, or passe depending on how old the character is. For someone who finds it jarring when a contemporary teenager is named “Judy”(and nobody remarks on it as unusual) or 35-year-old man in 2011 is named “Tristan” (and he wasn’t tormented in middle school in 1991?) — or, heck, who thinks it’s wildly convenient that all of the Twilight Cullens have trendy old-fashioned names like Edward and Rosalie and none of them are named Herbert or Flossie — this book has been an enormously helpful resource.

The 2019 (fourth) edition just came out, and I just got my copy. It’s familiar and fun, and good quarantine reading. You should pick one up! Just be prepared to explain to people that you aren’t actually pregnant.

*(Not the whole entry, just in case, and here’s hoping Laura Wattenberg doesn’t object to me posting this. Or maybe she’ll track it down, realize I’m a longtime loyal fan, and become pen pals with me.)

Fifty Shades of Fiction

SJLeave a comment

pexels-photo

Am I coming out as a secret fan of Fifty Shades of Grey?

Well, the books began as a fan-fiction retelling of Twilight. I will say that I don’t like Fifty Shades as much as I liked Twilight. 

And I utterly despise Twilight.

No, I’m not a fan. I did try to read the first book. The writing was abysmal, the characters were intolerable, and having been fed toxic patriarchy in my younger years, the forced-submission stuff made me want to cry. A good sex story shouldn’t make you cry.

So why have I linked to the video below? Well, sorry, it’s actually not as salacious as secret sex dungeons and thinly-veiled abuse. I’m linking to one section of it where he talks about fiction vs. reality, because I think this is an area where people haven’t really thought through things.

I’ve heard many times, “How can a woman support the #metoo movement against sexual harassment when she reads things like Fifty Shades of Grey?” Or any erotic fantasy, really, because the genre so often blurs the line between consent and compulsion. This argument frustrates me. What people enjoy in fiction is often exactly the opposite of what they want in reality. In fiction you want conflict, drama, danger, and uncertainty. In real life, you want trust, reliability, peace, and security. Granted, I look askance at the fact that Fifty Shades was ever so popular because, really, it’s a very terrible series on many levels. But I don’t think that enjoying erotic fiction means a woman has no say in whether her boss can pat her butt or require sexual attention for her to keep her job.

The video explains it better, though. Why do we look for situations and stories in fiction that we don’t want in real life?

If you’ve got time, I recommend watching the whole thing, because he goes on to take apart 50 Shades (book and movie) and explain why it doesn’t work even in the context of fiction.

(Note: I have friends who like Twilight and Fifty Shades. Especially for Twilight, it really seemed to hit people on some deep level while they were dealing with difficult issues in their lives. I have no idea why, mostly because they can’t tell me either. They like it, I don’t, we’ve agreed to disagree.)

A Bride By the Book

SJLeave a comment

You are married now.

You have just taken the name of the most wonderful man in the world and are happier than you have ever thought possible.

You are sure of many things about your marriage. It isn’t going to turn sour and commonplace. The years will be vibrant and alive, exciting adventures of love. Christ is going to have first place in your home. The spiritual roots will be deep and strong. you are going to keep your home what it ought to be by being a sweet, agreeable, efficient wife and homemaker.

So begins The Bride’s Book of Ideas: A Guide to Christian Homemaking by Marjorie Palmer and Ethel Bowman.

The whole reason I have the book is because of a Facebook photo that makes the rounds occasionally. It purports to be advice to a 1950s housewife, and is incredibly blatant about the fact that the wife’s entire purpose is to make her husband’s life comfortable and stress-free. That was the job of a good wife, definitely; but I wonder if it was ever really stated so baldly. Someone said that the advice was from a Better Homes and Gardens bride’s book, so I went looking for it. Couldn’t find that book, but I did find The Bride’s Book of Ideas and ordered that one instead.

20170814_221126

Then I found out that I’d gotten the 1985 version. I developed a burning need to read the 1970 version — so I got that one, too.

20170814_221153

I was looking forward to comparing the two volumes and soundly mocking all of the advice therein. The updated version has a much-improved layout and design, with a few wording changes here and there; but the substance is the same as the earlier one. The first part contains advice to new brides on such practical matters as choosing insurance, finding a family doctor, first aid, kitchen essentials, how to set a table to entertain guests. The rest of it consists of easy recipes to get a new wife started in the kitchen.

So it’s with some disappointment that I report that, by and large, The Bride’s Book of Ideas is fairly tame and actually kind of useful.

But it is of its time, and I can poke a little fun at that.

(Note: I’ll refer to both volumes as one book unless I’m quoting from a specific edition.)

Marriage Advice
Naturally, the book has some space devoted to motherly wisdom, The Precepts of a Happy Home. Most of the points under this heading are unobjectionable:

Be content with what you have (1970 warns against buying too much on “the installment plan.” 1985 cautions against credit card debt.)

Treat your husband with courtesy and respect and expect the same from him. Despite this even-handed heading, the actual advice is aimed only at the wife, reminding her not to take advantage of her husband’s love by giving way to anger and frustration, and to practice the Golden Rule. Obviously it’s a bride’s book, so it’s talking to her; and I don’t disagree with the advice at all. But this is an example of the kind of wifely advice that persists even today in Christian circles, directed only at the wife with no discussion of her husband’s behavior toward her.

Don’t let disagreements and differences go unresolved. This is probably the area where my husband and I have had to do the most work. We don’t fight, therefore we don’t face conflict, therefore we don’t resolve problems.

(The book concerns itself quite a lot with keeping home like “sweet and harmonious,” which sounds great. But sometimes “harmonious” really means “not facing conflict.” Trust me on this.)

The two points that irked me were ones that I heard as a bride myself, but haven’t found to hold entirely true.

Give the Lord his rightful place in your marriage. “If you want God’s help in making your marriage successful, you must give your lives completely to him.” The authors warn against a new couple being so caught up with each other that they let church attendance become sporadic, and daily Bible reading and prayer turn meaningless and indifferent.

No argument that this can happen to a new couple — but because they’re too in love with each other to let God in? Seriously? What a way to instill insecurity in a new wife, by telling her not to love her husband too much or God won’t bless her marriage.

And, of course — Remember that your husband is the head of the home. The two editions have an interesting little wording change:

1970: Some brides resent a subordinate role and are determined not to allow this antiquated precept to have any place in their lives.

1985: Some brides resent what they view as a subordinate role and are determined not to allow this “antiquated” precept to have any place in their lives.

Note the 1985 version implies that it’s really just the woman’s perception of subordinate role. By the time I was hearing marriage advice as a teen in the 90s, teachers fell all over themselves to explain how it’s not really a subordinate role at all! It’s a blessing! It’s an honor! I kind of prefer the straightforward 1970s version.

Both versions put these upstart brides in their place by adding, “But God charges the husband with the responsibility for making major decisions and being the spiritual leader of the home.” I can see some basis for the “spiritual leader” argument, but where exactly does God state, “And husbands are to make all the major decisions, because I won’t bless a marriage where the wife has an equal say.” Hint: he doesn’t.

So, anyway, if you “practice these precepts,” your marriage “will be happy and will bring honor and glory to God.”

Housecleaning
They cheerfully advise the new wife to do some special cleaning in addition to her regular cleaning — and remind her not to neglect the out-of-the-way areas because she’s building good habits for the rest of her life.

“If you have a job, as so many of today’s brides do…”

Then your husband should pitch in and help? Ha ha! Nope..

“…the [housework] must be condensed into after-work hours.”

My friend Karen pointed out that it’s actually very nice when a couple can split the earning duties and life duties between them. But I thought it was interesting how these authors never stopped to re-evaluate a woman’s responsibilities in the case of an outside job. The house is the woman’s responsibility, the end and amen.

Cooking for Husband
This is a different heading than just “cooking” because the book makes it very clear that a “sweet, agreeable, efficient wife and homemaker” will feed her husband well.

And let me say that in nearly 17 years of marriage, the fact that I feed my husband well has contributed strongly to our happiness.

But this book gives menus not just for suppers… but for breakfast and lunch, too. Like, complete menus that include a beverage and dessert. I laughed out loud when I saw the breakfast menus. DJ and I agree that we don’t think I have ever cooked him breakfast. If he worked close enough to come home for lunch, I’d have something for him — but to be honest, I’m pretty glad I don’t have to worry about it.

The authors acknowledge that in this day and age, the wife might herself work outside the home as well. So they provided the menus so…

… So she and her husband could take turns doing the cooking?

Ha ha! Nope.

… so the good wife can get these meals cooked and on the table. After all, the book admonishes, “You may not be able to prepare a large meal every night, but it is wise to do so as often as possible.”

Wise to do so. They don’t say it, but everybody knows a hungry husband might go astray or something.

Entertaining
I found this section interesting mostly because of the obvious change in social rituals. There’s a discussion of the proper places to seat guests at the table. I’m not sure DJ and I ever worried about where we placed guests. In fact, we’ve always preferred to eat in the living room because it’s more comfortable.

There was also some helpful advice about what to keep on hand “in case of unexpected guests.” I discussed this with DJ, and we agreed that we have no idea why this is a big deal. Did people really just drop in unannounced, stay till suppertime, and expect to be fed? Plus think badly of the housewife who didn’t have enough food on hand to feed them? Judging from the book, this was a real source of anxiety to some women. The authors suggest keeping some staples on hand for quick meals, namely:

Instant mashed potatoes
Small box of dried milk
Tin or two of canned meat, ham, Vienna sausages, or tuna
Can of baked beans
Box or two of fancy crackers
Cake mix
Canned pie filling to top the cake
Can of fruit cocktail (You can leave this in the freezer for weeks; remove both ends of can, slide out fruit, slice thick or thin, put on salad plate, top with a dab of mayonnaise, and NO GUEST WILL EVER WANT TO SHOW UP AT YOUR HOUSE UNEXPECTEDLY AGAIN. Ahem. I added the last part.)

Cooking
Most of the book is devoted to recipes for everyday meals. And it’s very useful in that respect — assuming you crave mid-century Midwestern American food.

Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, grilled cheese, canned tomato soup, fried halibut, buttered frozen peas, orange-cream jello salad, macaroni-tuna salad, hamburgers, ham sandwiches, broiled franks wrapped in bacon, tossed salad, celery and lettuce wedges, baked green bean casserole…

This book is not one of culinary adventuring. The one section devoted to “Foreign Dishes” (1970) or “International Dishes (1985) lists five recipes, one of which is “Italian Spaghetti” and another of which is “Vera’s Chow Mein.”

I can laugh at the food, but this book was written by women who had grown up in the Depression and married sometime around World War II. Good, solid, easy-to-store food was what they prized. My grandmother cooked this way, my mother somewhat, and I still do a little.

Still… a snack of chocolate-covered Wheaties is kind of sad. And I’m not really tempted by “frank boats,” which appear to be hot dogs filled with American cheese and topped with a sauce of pickle relish, “catsup,” Worcestershire sauce, and dry mustard. Is there a more of-its-time recipe than Chicken a la King, a casserole consisting of chopped chicken and cream of mushroom soup?

On the other hand, I’m pretty sure that Marjorie and Ethel would get a real kick out of today’s recipes, like this Cauliflower Spanish Rice:

1 large head of cauliflower
1 tbsp olive oil or avocado oil
1/2 cup diced onion
3 cloves garlic minced
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt + more to taste
2 tbsp tomato paste
1/4 – 1/2 cup chicken or vegetable broth
Fresh cilantro for garnish optional
1 lime, juiced optional

Yes, 10 ingredients to create a dish that isn’t even actually what the title says it is.

The Bride’s Book of Ideas is dated and, in these days of Googling whatever information we need, obsolete. Still, I’m glad I have both volumes. They take me back to the world of a bride whose priorities were a vibrant spiritual life, a happy husband, a clean house, and friends over for good food. And what do you know — that’s really very  much the same life I want.

“Using [this book] should help make you a gracious hostess and a better, more efficient wife.”

So there you go.

Untwisting Scripture: A book for you

SJLeave a comment

Yield your rights.

Don’t become bitter.

Don’t take up an offense on behalf of someone else.

If these phrases kicked you in the gut… do I have a book for you!

If, however, you nodded along, knowing they are true Biblical principles… well, then, I definitely have a book for you.

Untwisting Scriptures by Rebecca Davis takes a few “Christian” teachings that have been used to confuse and silence abuse victims for many years, and shows how they’re not even valid Biblical concepts. The book grew out of blog posts that Davis wrote as she learned more about people — mostly women — held captive by abusive theology.

Her tone is quiet and straightforward; she doesn’t indulge in snark or personal attacks. She doesn’t have to. All she has to do contrast actual Biblical context with actual teachings, such as this quote from the once-vaunted Bill Gothard from his 1984 Basic Seminar:

“Just because you are alive, you probably believe you have the right to be accepted as an individual, to express opinions, to earn and spend a living, to control your personal belongings, and to make decisions. You expect others to respect your rights.”

Spoiler: Gothard and the others quoted in this book don’t think you have a valid argument. Also spoiler: many of the people who teach these things either protect abusers, or are abusers themselves. Not a coincidence.

In this small book, Davis untwists a lot of strands. From the difference between human rights and human desires (looking at you, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth) to the fact that the Western church doesn’t know how to deal with grief and therefore labels it “sinful,” to the fact that we are supposed to take up the causes of the weak and abused and oppressed—there’s a lot to take in.

(And it’s not her fault that the chart on Page 59 made me want to fling the book away from myself in self-defense. I saw so many charts and graphs in my Bill Gothard days that they just look menacing to me, like the king snake that’s colored like a coral snake.)

Davis made one layout decision, based on early feedback, that vastly improves the reading experience. She set off the false teachings in gray boxes. It’s easy to identify the quotes she’s disproving… or, as she suggests, easy to skip over them entirely if you just don’t want to read the words. Even I, years away from that bondage, still felt the weight as I skimmed those twisty teachings.

I will say that this book targets a specific subculture. Those of us who sat under the teachings of Gothard, Bob Jones University, Nancy (Leigh) DeMoss Wolgemuth, and their ilk will recognize the phrases and terminology. Those outside of this small circle won’t find them as immediately recognizable. But these ideas permeate American evangelicalism. It’s a good bet you’ve encountered the teachings even if you don’t know the names and the terms.

Untwisting Scriptures came out in 2016, not even a year after I released The Fellowship. I mention the timeline because that’s why I didn’t pursue the book when I first encountered it. I was weary after years of struggling through twisted Scriptures. I thought, “So glad somebody is addressing these problems. I’ve already dealt with them. Time to move on.”

When Davis and I connected this summer over our books, I had “moved on” enough to come back to these concepts with renewed passion. So many others are still hurt and grieving. They need to hear a voice that untwists the bonds and gives freedom.

Rebecca Davis’ book is a voice like that. Check it out.

Women Deserve Better than Equality

SJLeave a comment

balance-1172786-1279x867

I have a friend who deliberately trolls his own Facebook page. He’s like Elizabeth Bennett, to whom Darcy remarked, “you find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which in fact are not your own.”* 

The other day he posted “To nobody’s surprise, the new Doctor Who is a woman.”**

TWO HUNDRED COMMENTS LATER

My friend pointed out that the decision to feature a female Doctor in the upcoming season of the show is consistent with the established storyline, it was time for a change, it could be fun, etc. But one Random Internet Person came back with argument after argument. This person*** approached it from twenty different angles, all of which tended inexorably toward the conclusion that it was a bad idea to cast The Doctor as a woman.

The Random Internet Person’s last gasping attempt — or, at least, the last one I read before getting on with my life — was a classic patriarchy  move: Women Cheapen Manhood

“It is bad writing and alienates female fans who liked the male archetype the Doctor filled, young male fans looking for a role-model, and older male fans who are trying to relive their childhood.”

You see what’s at stake here. Women need men to admire. Young men need men to look up to. Old men need men to look back on. Only a man can satisfy these deep desires! Set up a woman for men to admire and emulate, and manhood will suffer.

But most people who make this argument are dimly aware that it’s kind of insulting to women, maybe suggesting that they are inferior or something. So the Random Internet Person jumped to another classic patriarchy trick: Women Deserve Better Than Equality

“Women deserve strong original female characters rather than rehashes of male characters.”

See? Women are so special and so precious–so not inferior to men–that they should exist in their own specially-created sphere that doesn’t threaten the established male world.

If you spend any time around patriarchy, you’ll discover that it’s a widely-held belief that patriarchal men are extremely fragile. No one can shatter that brittle manhood faster than an incautious woman who thinks she walks on equal footing with him.

Watch any argument about women’s roles in life, and I guarantee you’ll find these two tricks played with infinite variations. So thank you, Random Internet Person, for so baldly stating what other, more polished patriarchy people manage to disguise more effectively.

__________________________________________

*This friend, although a man, actually wouldn’t mind being compared to a sharp, witty, and honest female character.

**I’m not a Doctor Who fan because I don’t watch shows. So I honestly don’t have much of an opinion on this new development. I am, however, friends with lots of Doctor Who fans, and am interested to find out how the new season goes.

***I’m not identifying whether Random Internet Person is a man or a woman because either gender can adhere to patriarchal teachings. In fact, in my experience, it’s the women who enforce it most stringently on a personal level.

 

The Parable of the Hidden Figures

SJ1 Comment

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie Hidden Figures. I thought I’d state that outright before I got into my detailed discussion of it. (Otherwise known as “SJ can’t watch a movie without completely picking it apart.”) (I’m a terrible movie date.) (But I don’t give spoilers.) (And DJ still loves me anyway.)

Hidden Figures is a parable for white people.

Granted, it’s based on black people’s experiences. Katherine, Dorothy, and Mary were all actual black women who achieved success in the halls of NASA, which in the 60s was simply clogged with white males. The reason I say it’s a parable — a fictionalized story meant to illuminate truth — is because the movie shows what ought to happen rather than a strict adherence to what probably really did.

The black community knows exactly what life was like in the early 60s. They don’t have to be reminded of segregation, demonstrations, violence against them, and the quiet but suffocating refusal to allow black professionals to advance in their careers. The white community is the one who needs to see it and feel the futility and injustice. This movie does that. By giving the viewers three good women to sympathize with, we “become” those women and understand the obstacles they faced. This is the power of fiction.

But, being a Hollywood parable, we get the advantage of seeing it play out before our eyes. The entire movie takes place over a period of about two years. In theater time, of course, that’s about two hours. So in two hours we get to see these women pursue their dreams, demonstrate their capabilities, and win the respect of those around them. I’m not saying it didn’t happen. Just that the results weren’t so gratifyingly immediate.

Another “parable” aspect was that the movie showed several white characters who saw their error and paid due respect to their black colleagues. It made the movie easier to watch for those of us who have a sneaking fear that we would have upheld that system had we lived then. The white community of that time, while definitely top-dog, was also under pressure. They lived under the regime of a segment of society that truly despised anyone who wasn’t white; for the ordinary, peace-loving person, it was a risk to cross racial lines.

So really, the white response in that movie was much more mid-21st century than mid-20th. And while it’s not exact history, I think it was a good way to show how we today ought to respond.

(Another 2010s vs 1960s aspect of the movie was that nobody smoked. In reality, you probably couldn’t walk into any of those offices, men’s or women’s or white or colored, without forcing your way through the smog of cigarette smoke.)

All that said, I truly enjoyed the movie.

It follows the storylines of the three women, all with different ambitions. Dorothy wants the title and pay that comes with the supervisor job she’s already doing. Mary wants to become an engineer, a near-impossibility for a negro woman in segregated Virginia. Katherine — who is really the focal character — is a brilliant mathematician assigned to calculate the numbers that will get John Glenn into space.

Apart from the story, the movie is visually fun to watch. They recreated the 60s in good Hollywood style. The dresses, hair, decor (all that ugly dark paneling!), and technology looks just right. Which probably just means that it looks like what I vaguely remember of “old lady houses” and other Hollywood sets, but anyway.

The family life is portrayed as warm, with young black men who want the very best for their wives and children. Religion is present, acknowledged but not overdone. The pale colors of the surrounding set often highlighted the brown skin of the women. A few camera shots managed to communicate, “Look at aaalll these men! White men! It doesn’t look quite right, does it?”

It’s easy to see the frustrations these women faced at work, from Dorothy’s sweet but chilly white superior, to Mary’s sassy fashionista facade covering her stifled ambition, to Katherine’s half-mile hike to the Colored Bathroom every day. (The director is furious when he finds out her plight. “At NASA, we all pee the same color!” is one of the best declarations of equality in the movie.)

The story touches only lightly on the oppression, violence, and injustice of the era. And I think that some people were happy to ignore that reality yet again. I saw one comment about the movie that said,

“Those women were facing real issues. But they were faithful and stayed on task, and presto! It all worked out.”

No, honey. The “presto” part is because this movie isn’t history, it’s a parable. If you come away thinking that they had it “kind of bad,” then you need to do a little research. Ever browsed photos of of riots, attacks, and black men hanging from trees? They had it “kind of bad” in the same way that cancer makes you “a little sick.”

These women were extraordinary, and it leaves me wondering how many more black men, black women, and simply women in general, didn’t manage to break through with their gifts and abilities. It was a time of smothering injustice, and it’s not all resolved yet. I hope this movie, with its funny moments and gentle indictment of white superiority, can inspire the white community to understand and acknowledge the wrongs of the past, and show them a way to amend the wrongs of the present.