My youngest brother posted on his Facebook wall last night, “I’m having a bad day.” That’s it. No whining, just a statement of fact. Did you know, though, that someone’s eternal salvation rests on his never saying he is having a bad day? Check out this comment:

you choose the kind of day you have.your attitude determines how you will meet the victories and the challenges of the day. You actively choose how you react to what happens. Remember Paul and Silas singing in prison stocks! When you choose to rejoice in adversity you impact eternity for good! You release miracle power called JOY! A poor jailor and his whole household are rejoicing in heaven today while we chat on FB because all those years ago Paul and Silas CHOSE to sing and rejoice instead of posting: I’m having a bad day. My stocks are too tight and my wrists are bleeding, my back is raw and bloody and there are cockroaches and flies everywhere. Poor me I’m having a bad day!!!

Rejoice you have power to choose what kind of day you have, and as a Christian you have a responsability to ChooseJoy!!!—someones watching to see if you’ll crash and burn or if you’ll rise and rejoice and shine!!!
REJOICE!!!!!!!

And people wonder why others leave the church or call other church members “fake”… Quote is from a member of my home church, folks! Also was copied and pasted directly–I didn’t mess with the grammar or spelling at all. But I guess you don’t need good grammar or spelling to get into HEAVEN, no?

We’re almost through Matthew! One or two more weeks! If the poll hasn’t changed by next week, we’ll be studying Revelation next. Exciting!

Alright, right to the point:

Matthew 20

Yay, another parable! This one about how some dude hires people to work the field for the day. He hires some in the morning, some at midday, and some in the afternoon. Then he pays them all the same, saying again, “The last shall be first, and the first shall be last.” Umm. Okay. On what planet is it fair to pay people the same for very different amounts of work? If that’s how God is, I’ll find another one, thanks, just like I’d find another employer. What terrible business practices! The only people who will ever show up for work are people who do it last minute. I get his point, or at least the point that was drilled into me  growing up, that people will share heaven equally no matter when they became saved. But what a horrible way to illustrate it! Heaven=eternity, so life is a mere instant. I see it as very different than hours and hours of difference in work. But maybe that’s not even what he meant. Right now, I’m thinking my own bias may be getting in the way of really understanding the point. I don’t really understand this “last shall be first” nonsense. What does that even mean, anyways?  It’s like one of those things that sounds profound and mysterious and super smart, but really isn’t when you stop to think about it. In fact, it doesn’t really say anything at all. Example: “Life is like a sunrise: you are born into the day and die into the night.” Totally just made that up (though I am sure someone has said it before me). Sounds pretty, but it really doesn’t mean anything profound. I bet everyone knows that you live until you eventually die. So it’s not a particularly meaningful statement. Neither is “the last shall be first and the first shall be last.” The disciples don’t ask about the meaning to this parable, so they don’t get a scathing reply nifty explanation for what it meant.

Jesus then predicts his death again, saying he would be betrayed, but don’t worry. He’ll come back to life! Not to get ahead of myself, but weren’t the disciples later surprised when this happened? Why? Peter said he believed Jesus was the Son of God. God just freaking told them that he would come back to life after three days. Why did this end up being so shocking? Well, that’s later in the story, so sorry if I spoiled the ending for you.

Then the mother of the Zebedees (James and John, if I remember right?) brothers asks Jesus to let one of her kids sit at his right hand. Jesus tells her no, and the other disciples get a bit pissed. I would be, too. That’s kind of annoying. At least we know that overbearing, helicopter parenting isn’t a new thing!

Then Jesus heals two blind men. Yeah, we’ve heard this before. At this point, it’s getting repetitive. We get the point: Jesus is a superhero. Yawn. Think I’m going to go watch Batman Returns. At least Christian Bale is kinda hot. Well, you can feel free to take the “kinda” out of there.

End of Chapter 20.

Matthew 21

I am officially sick of Matthew. We’ve gone from crazy Jesus to just plain boring Jesus. Somebody save me. Blargh. Okay, Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. Um, okay. The title of that is “The Triumphant Entry.” Dude, I can sympathize. When I was in high school (in 2000-2002), I drove a sad little 1988 Toyota Corolla to school. The only palm branches set out for me would have been in mocking scorn, too. Oh, wait. I think they forgot to write the part in there where people were actually making fun of Jesus for riding in on the time period’s equivalent to a 1988 Toyota Corolla (there are worse cars, but there were probably worse donkeys then, too). And this is the part where I avoid complete blasphemy by making a joke about Jesus riding someone’s ass. . . oops, I think I just said it. Quick, move on! They quote a prophecy here. I’ve stopped looking back at the prophecies because I started noticing that they weren’t exegetical. How many people actually go back and read the prophecies quoted in the New Testament in their original context? Not many. Because up to the point where I stopped bothering, not one of them made any sense to apply to Jesus. They were all about the Israelites in that time period. Very poor scholarship, and I wonder what it does to more moderate lines of thought in trying to take the New Testament in it’s cultural context. Jesus and his disciples didn’t seem to worry about it much! Just thought I’d reiterate that, as that is a point I have yet to see on any web sites or read anywhere else. I’m sure someone has noticed it, I just haven’t seen their notes on it. It is also important because I heard many times how Jesus fits every prophecy made about the Messiah. But if you read some of the prophecies quoted, they aren’t all clear that they are even talking about the Messiah in the first place, so I wonder how these people who say that know. I think someone just made it up one Sunday in the pulpit and it spread (and yes, that does happen!).

Jesus goes into the temple and gets mad at the people who were buying and selling there (so stop trying to sell Girl Scout cookies to me at church already!). Since Matthew is the “angry” perspective of Jesus, I am surprised at the lack of passion I could have sworn is in the Bible somewhere. Maybe it’s in another version of the Gospel.

Then he gets pissed at a tree for not having any fruit and curses it so it won’t wither again. He’s going back on a manic phase, folks. Because if he could do that, why not make it just bear fruit for him? No need to lose your temper when you could just twitch your nose and make anything you want appear! Oh, wait, wrong fictional character. Anyhoo, Jesus continues into the temple where he proceeds to stump some religious leaders. Then he talks about how prostitutes are getting into heaven before “they” are, whoever “they” he is referring to in this parable. Maybe the same religious leaders, maybe another crowd. Doesn’t say.

One last parable, basically about how he was going to die. The Pharisees want to arrest him, but don’t because of the crowd.

Is anyone else starting to notice a pattern here? Jesus displays certain patterns. At times, he’s nice and he heals people. Other times, he is irritable and seems to perform miracles out of spite. These are the only times he tells parables, too. I was kidding a long time ago when I said he sounded bipolar, but I am really starting to think he is displaying some sort of pattern of mental illness. It’s possible, yes, that it’s Matthew’s perspective, and that Matthew is the one who suffered from something. But I kind of doubt it. Most people who perform miracles and think they are from God do suffer from either bipolar disorders, schizophrenia, or some other biological/medical problem such as seizures, migraines, or tumors. So, very important question of the night: Why do people believe Jesus, but no one else? Why is everyone else a liar, lunatic, or legend, but Jesus is lord? It doesn’t actually make any sense when you study it with a psychological eye.

So in closing, I would just like to say this:

Dear Josh McDowell and others who supposedly converted based on reading the Bible one dark, cold, lonely night: please explain to me what exactly you saw in it that was so powerful. Because I’m not seeing it. Really, I mean that. Jesus either sounds mentally ill or incredibly boring throughout most of it. Sure, he does some nice things, but I’m sure just about everyone has done nice things at least once in their life. If you did it for the money, I promise I won’t judge you. I’ve been down hard enough on my luck to briefly consider staging a re-conversion so I could get lots of love offerings from speaking in churches. And it wouldn’t at all surprise me to learn that you have done this because honestly, at this point, I think this is a ridiculous book and I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. Not that you necessarily have, just that I wouldn’t be surprised. Because like I said, not very moving or powerful. Really, The Time Traveler’s Wife is just as moving despite it’s choppy sappiness, and at least the characters are more likable than Jesus. And some person made that up. I have a hard time believing that a person could be a better writer than God, or that God would ordain anything but his best writers to copy his words. Okay, that is all.

Sincerely,

The Redheaded Skeptic

(Click here for part one.)

I cried quietly into my pillow back at the hotel. Something had changed in the dynamic of our friendship: Bob, Steve, and me. I suddenly wondered what I was doing. Everything felt shaken up and broken. What I felt for Steve, I knew couldn’t be real. At the time still a counseling student, I ran the stats in my head trying to convince myself that the positive feelings I had for Steve came out of the negative feelings I felt for Bob. What I wanted, more than anything, was for somebody to rescue me because I didn’t feel strong enough to rescue myself. And I was tired, really, of being the only person trying to save myself. I needed help, though I hated to admit it. But I didn’t know where to go.

My phone rang. I sniffled as I answered it. Tears immediately turned to smiles when I saw it was Steve.

“Hello?” I answered.

“I-Laura, I, are you okay?” he stammered. “Our conversation didn’t really feel over. Do you need to talk?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I do. I could really use a friend right now.”

“I’ll be right over.”

I cleaned myself up, and watched something lame on tv until he arrived. When he came in, he hugged me. “I thought you could use a hug,” he said.

“I definitely do,” I said, wondering why he was being so nice.

We sat on the bed and talked some more. Somehow, I ended up in his arms, and he held me until we fell asleep.

Tuesday

The next morning, I woke up, sun streaming in the windows. I smiled, feeling much better, but feeling a bit guilty for having Steve stay in the room with me that night. It felt magical somehow. When he woke up, we made small talk, and spent all morning just talking about random things. Not much about Bob, or the crappiness that was my life, but just about things friends would talk about.

Finally, at one point he looked at me long and hard. “I need to tell you something,” he said, “but I don’t think I should.”

Confused, I said, “Why not?”

“It’s just . . . I don’t think I should say it.”

I punched him playfully. “C’mon!” I grinned. “Just spit it out!”

He drew a long, slow breath. “I-I think I love you.”

I stopped. I sat on the edge of the bed for a long time, not knowing what to say. What could I say? I was still a married woman, though I knew I didn’t want to be anymore. I suddenly felt caught in between what was horrible but safe, and what was good but risky. I swallowed. “I-I think I do, too, but I’m not ready to say it yet,” I said quietly.

“I understand,” Steve said, giving me another hug.

Hunger finally drove us out. We ate lunch together and went back to his apartment while I had the oil changed in my car. I watched Super Troopers (something I had never seen–hadn’t been missing much ) while he studied. He put his pencil down.

“I can’t do this,” he stated.

“What?” I asked.

“I can’t love you. I can’t. I am not going to. We’re just going to have to find a way to move on. You’re married, and you aren’t going to leave him. And I am not going to have an affair with you.”

Stunned, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to be married to Bob anymore, but I wouldn’t leave Bob for Steve, either. Too risky.

“I don’t want to be married anymore,” I choked. “I haven’t for a long time. I’ve stayed because I’m supposed to stay. But last weekend, with Mark, I suddenly saw things so clearly. It’s not going to work. I could hang on and try for twenty years, wasting my life with a man who treats me like shit, or I could leave. I am not going to leave him for you, no. Most relationships right after a divorce don’t last. It’s not worth it. So I’m stuck: I don’t have anywhere to go. I don’t have any money. I don’t have a choice. I have to stay.” Tears rolled down my cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said. “I really am. But I can’t do this.”

He walked me out the door and drove me to my car. I don’t know if I ever even told him what happened after he left, but it was the worst night of my life. Like the situation with Mark causing me to clearly see that I couldn’t spend the rest of my life with Bob, this situation showed me that I didn’t want to live my life without Steve. Even when we had just been friends, he had been a pillar in a way. I don’t know how to explain it. Somehow, having him around kept me strong. Even now, I don’t know why and I definitely don’t know how to describe the relationship.

My life felt hopeless. At 23, I had made my choices. I had gotten married to a man who didn’t love me. I had a daughter. I had no friends except for Steve, and he was gone. I had nothing to call my own. Nothing could save me. I realized that this was my life. Bob, Julieanne, and ministry. There was no turning back. There was no moving forward. I was stuck. The thought of spending 20, 30, 50 years like this was unbearable.

So I decided to kill myself.

To be continued after WNBS. . .

I have done my best to be 100% honest in telling my story. I am too afraid that Bob will find the blog and try to start a lawsuit or I will be humiliated like the guy from A Million Pieces to be dishonest. I have changed names and locations to protect the innocent (and not so innocent who could try to sue me, haha), but other than that, it is completely accurate from my perspective (Bob might disagree with me on a few things, but I’m sticking to what I wrote). However, there are some things that I have wanted to share just in the name of getting the entire story out as fairly as possible, but I haven’t been able to figure out how to do that without giving too much information away about these people involved. I have been trying to figure out for months how to do this, but I haven’t been able to. It came up in the comments, though, so I think I am going to try. However. One very important caveat: this is not entirely true. I never did figure out how to be 100% truthful about it, so I have fudged a few details and left some others out entirely. This is about 90-95% true. However, the gist of it is true. It’s to make sure that Bob and Mark stay Bob and Mark instead of their real names. (If you are really lost and have no idea who Bob and Mark are, click here for help.) I also put in some dialogue. I doubt that it is word for word how the conversation went, but again, the gist of it is true.

I’m actually surprised no one has asked me about what happened right after that night and how did I end up separating from Bob, moving, and in with Steve. Well, it went kind of like this (kinda).

The Morning After

This was taken in the bookstore the morning after the Mark and Bob thing

I woke up in kind of a daze. In some ways, well, a lot of ways, I felt good. I had been put on some sort of pedestal for so long, it felt good to hit the ground. I felt like a human. I smiled to myself as I took a shower.

When I walked into the living room, Bob and Mark were awake and dressed and hungry. Over pancakes, Mark grinned at me. “You’ve almost caught up with Bob!” He said.

“What?” I asked.

“With how many people you’ve slept with,” he told me.

I looked at him, completely confused. “No. We’ve both slept with two people now.” Mark glanced at Bob.

“I thought you slept with that girl in Oklahoma,” Mark told Bob.

Bob looked down at the table. “No, he had a crush on her, but he didn’t sleep with her,” I said.

“Oh, I thought you did,” Mark said.

I stared at him. “Did you?” I asked.

Bob cleared his throat. “I told you,” he said.

Completely confused now, I replied, “No, you didn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” he apologized.

He’d told me he’d slept with one girl before we started dating. I have no idea why he lied to me. It’s not like two is so much greater than one. It’s not like it was a big deal to me that he’d slept with one person. To this day, I have no idea why he lied about it. And yes, he did lie. He said one person: Crystal. And he’d said he’d liked this other girl, but he never said he slept with her. With our conversations on the matter, to this day, I don’t believe that he honestly thought he’d told me.

I wasn’t mad, just confused about why he would lie to me. So we hung around the bookstore before we headed back to our crappy town and our crappy life.

“So what did you think about last night?” Bob asked as we pulled out of the parking lot. Sunshine spilled everywhere, and the cool weather made it hard to stay in a bad mood.

I didn’t really know what to say. On the one hand, I felt a bit liberated. On the other hand, I felt completely betrayed. So I told him the good part hoping the bad part would melt away. “Good,” I answered. “I had fun.”

He smiled. “I’m glad.” He paused. “Think you might want to do it again?”

I didn’t really know what to say. I did have fun. I wanted to be a good wife; a fun wife. I wanted to be what he wanted. But I didn’t want this to be what he wanted. Did I say that? No, I did not. I said, “Yeah, probably.” So really, I don’t blame him for being so surprised later when I told him how betrayed I felt.

Somehow, the conversation turned to me doing things with other men when Bob wasn’t around. “I don’t care what you do,” he said, “as long as you tell me about it and you don’t kiss them.” Yeah, someone watched Pretty Woman a few too many times. And he told me this multiple times. He told me this before that night when I brought it up as a potential future problem. He told me this after that morning. He said he didn’t care. And really, at that point, I didn’t feel like he had a right to care after putting me in that position.

I don’t remember how it happened, but somehow, I ended up going to Fayetteville that Monday and Tuesday night to have some alone time to think.

Monday Night

It is important to note here for those who don’t know that Bob and Steve knew each other. I think I’ve said it on here before, but they were roommates in college and I met them both the same day. They became best friends, so I saw him frequently even though I didn’t really like him. We became friends while I was pregnant with Julieanne, but as I was married and trying to adjust to motherhood and deal with the joys of ministry and a fun marriage, and he was off enjoying bachelorhood, we honestly never had any sparks. There was nothing latent or suppressed. We just didn’t think of each other that way. Really. But over the preceding months, we had gotten to be pretty good friends. Not best friends, but I started enjoying it when he came over. Bob and Steve mostly played video games, so it’s not like I was really one of them, but there were dinners and conversations. We were kind of like family. Steve brought a girlfriend over to meet us once. He was like an uncle or something.

Anyways, he lived in Fayetteville at the time, so when I spent a couple nights there, I asked him if he was free for dinner because I didn’t want to eat by myself. This wasn’t out of the ordinary, as when I was pregnant, we ate dinner together a lot while Bob worked. He would kind of watch out and make sure I was okay while Bob was gone. We used to joke about how we were dating, but we really didn’t think of each other as more than friends. Anyways, Steve said yes and we met at Chili’s.

Over dinner, I told him the story of what happened with Bob and Mark. His eyes grew wide. “Bob didn’t tell me all that!” he exclaimed. I looked down at my food, desperately wanting to ask a question that had bothered me. Finally, I mustered the courage.

“Would you have done that to your wife?”

He stopped. “I-I-no.” He finally stated. “I’m sorry, but no.”

I nodded. We finished dinner and walked around Wal Mart. I forgot what we were looking for, but on our way to the checkout, Bob called. “Hey, I can’t find Julieanne’s blanket,” he said.

“It probably slipped under her pillow.”

“Oh, okay. Hey, is that Steve with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. What’s he doing with you?”

“What? We just ate dinner,” I exclaimed, completely shocked at the accusation I heard in his voice. He said okay and I hung up the phone. It was really weird because he’d never acted even the slightest bit jealous before. Obviously he didn’t care what I did with whom!

Steve looked at me. I think we both sensed that something had changed. Walking by a rack of movies, we started exploring. I found a copy of Kill Bill. “Oh, I’ve been wanting to see this, but Bob won’t let me,” I laughed.

Steve stopped. “What? You want to watch Kill Bill?”

“Yeah, but Bob always tells me I’ll hate it!”

“He told me you didn’t want to see it and you didn’t even want it in the house.”

I stared at him dumbfounded. I think that is the moment it all hit me: Bob lied to me and about me. “Does he tell you about when he’s mad at me?”

Steve looked at me a bit confused. “Yeah, why?”

He told me he didn’t, that’s why. Then it all came crashing down.

“What do you guys do when he’s at your house?” I asked.

“Mostly play video games.”

In a thin, timid voice, I asked, “Porn?”

“Yeah, sometimes he looks at it when I step outside for a cigarette.”

That was the moment I knew our marriage was officially unsalvageable. Not because of the porn itself, but because of the lies. He told me he didn’t look at it, but I suspected he did. I’d had a sneaking suspicion that he had cheated on my while he worked at Pizza Hut, but blew it off, blaming it on pregnancy hormones. He would come home incredibly late. Way later than made sense for a 10:00 closing time. We’re talking 1, 2am. Sometimes later. He would say he went to Steve’s house on those days, though. And suddenly, it all flashed before my eyes: those late nights, the manager who texted him on Christmas and called him (instead of her perfectly capable boyfriend) to drive an hour to rescue her from car trouble. There was also the girl he said had a huge crush on him once and was back in town. I remembered a conversation we’d had once. He came home laughing. “Steve thinks I’m having an affair!” he grinned. I laughed. “Steve’s nuts. I trust you completely!”  Now it didn’t seem so funny. If I was right about the porn, was I right about the affair, too?

“Do you think he was having an affair when he worked at Pizza Hut?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Yes, I do.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“No, he didn’t. But it just seemed like it.”

I still have no idea if he did or not. Part of me says, nah! Another part of me says he did. I am not accusing him of it, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised, either.

Interesting to note here that I didn’t entirely trust Steve, either. My world came crashing down and I was full of conspiracy theories. Maybe Bob wanted out of the relationship, so Steve was telling me all these things so I’d leave. Maybe Steve wanted to be with me, so he was telling me all of these things so we would get a divorce. It took me a long time before I could trust Steve. I still have trouble trusting him sometimes, just because I was let down so hard and in some ways, he was part of it.

Somehow that night, though, things changed with Steve and me. It was like knowing that Bob didn’t really care that much about me opened up some floodgates of emotion we honestly had no idea was there. Relaxing together that night at dinner, shopping, and a movie (Brave One) was somehow different than all the other dinners and movies we had before. I didn’t really know what to make of these new feelings, but I mostly ignored them. I was a married woman. No way was I going to destroy my marriage for a crush! Especially not with a one year old in the picture.

Anyways, after dinner, movie, and shopping, we headed back to Steve’s apartment. And I confided in him. I hadn’t confided in anybody in a really long time, and it felt good to be completely honest about how I felt about the ministry, religion, my marriage, motherhood, everything. For once, somebody noticed that I was about to fall off the edge. Even better, they cared. That night, I became visible for the first time in a long time.

But I headed back to my hotel room at 11pm feeling lonelier than I ever had.

To be continued…

(Oops, I accidentally screwed up the posting schedule for this post, and my internet went down for about 20 hours to boot, so my apologies on it’s tardiness!)

I keep having problems with the “what do you want to study next” poll. Hopefully, it’s fixed, so if you haven’t voted, please do! Revelation is currently winning.

For any new readers, if you want to see all of my thoughts on Matthew up to where we are now, click on “WNBS” at the very top of the page.

And without further ado, on to Matthew 18. (And per my new policy, I will link to Bible Gateway and Skeptic’s Annotated Bible, but I don’t read SAB while I’m writing the post so that I will have as little bias as possible.)

Matthew 18 (Clean. Annotated.)

Jesus flies all over the place, covering treatment of children, humility, sin, and hell, all to the answer of the question of “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He’s actually pretty rambly, but at least this time we don’t have to read a confusing parable about how our poop relates to God. This is also the troublesome passage where he says, “if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off, and throw it away!” I remember covering these verses at great length in my New Testament class. Why? After all, it’s pretty obvious that it’s just hyperbole! Well, apparently it’s not so clear if you are an evangelical and note the lack of hyperbole around it. And really, Matthew isn’t really a funny guy. Neither is Jesus. However, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who takes that verse seriously. (Now Romans 1, on the other hand. . .) Real life attempts to take these verses literally have landed people in the mental ward (click on that link. Seriously. And then please tell me where the Bible implies anything about a microwave, and is there anything in the Bible that condemns me to hell for laughing when I read that article?). Now if they could just realize that taking the rest of the Bible literally is also good cause for lock up . ..

I think Jesus has reached the time in his life where he is kind of thinking kids are cute. Because he keeps talking about kids in that same sort of voice you hear in people who are ready to reproduce. Then he talks about how his Father loooves all of his children. Which are the True Christians, by the way. Oh, wait, that’s not in there. He doesn’t really say who his Father’s kids are. Maybe Jesus is an only child after all. He says,

If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.

Oh, really? Um, anyone feel like they just kind of ran away despite God desperately begging them to come back? No? Me either. Maybe God is still lookin’ for me. But I kinda doubt it. He is omniscient, ya know.

Blah, blah, blah, a bunch of common sense stuff on how to deal with conflict and forgiveness. The thing is, Jesus isn’t really that radical. Trying to work out a conflict is the mature thing to do! I wonder how he made it sound so profound? He tells one more parable, and that’s the chapter. Pretty boring, really. It’s some of the “good stuff” of the New Testament–as in, some of the passages Christians commonly point to and say, “See? This is better than that Old Testament!” But really? I see nothing I couldn’t have figured out myself without a Christian upbringing. Any lifelong atheists on here not know that the best way to handle conflict is to go to the person and try to work it out? Well, now you do. And that may be the most helpful thing I’ve seen in Matthew yet. Not so good, Jesus!

Matthew 19 (Clean. Annotated.)

So according to Jesus, Bob is committing adultery because he divorced me and remarried. He doesn’t say anything about women remarrying, though, so score! Jesus loves me best. Of course, Bob likes to say that I was maritally unfaithful, and he was therefore justified, but, um. Anyone agree with him?

Moving on from Bitter Ex Wife Syndrome (hehe, sorry, explaining it that way was more interesting than the actual passage),Jesus says, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

And to tell you the truth, I don’t have a clue what that means. Is he talking about accepting the single people and the eunuchs? Or what? And who has been given the word? What word? Ah, Jesus, you’re talking in riddles! I think you should let your words be simple: your yes be yes and your no be no as opposed to letting your yes be a long monologue on about twenty subjects and your no be a condemnation of everyone to hell! (Jesus totally would have failed Sermon Prep and Delivery at Williams Baptist, btw!)

Back to child loving Jesus again. This is a favorite verse of Christians because Jesus is so kind and tender toward children. Unlike his Father.

Then you have the story of the Rich Young Ruler. To tell you the truth, I don’t even want to read these verses because I have heard them so many times. I’ve even been in a skit called “The Rich Young Ruler”, which was a more humorous take on this story. (I’m trying to remember if this is the one where the props people in the front row threw rubber chickens at us, but it may have been another one with the same guy who played the Rich Young Ruler. I can’t remember. I used to be in a traveling Christian drama group and we did a bunch of skits most weekends.) Yes, I am beyond sick of this story. Probably because it’s another “nice” story Christians like to tell. Ever notice how certain passages get beaten into the ground while others are hardly spoken of at all? Yeah. Matthew 18-19 makes me want to cry. From boredom.

But for anyone who has never even heard of church, a Rich Young Ruler approaches Jesus and asks what he needs to do to get to heaven. For the sake of the skit to follow, let’s name the Rich Young Ruler Joel Osteen (who is one of the leading proponents of the prosperity gospel).

Osteen: What do I need to do to get to heaven?

Jesus: Works, works, works! Namely, the ten commandments! (Later note: Skeptics Annotated points out that Jesus only lists six commandments, and the sixth isn’t even one of the original ten!)

Osteen: (Ignoring the fact that Jesus is obviously wrong. After all, the Bible is clear that it’s faith that gets us into heaven. Jesus must not have studied Ephesians very hard.) I’ve done lots of works!

Jesus: Oh! Then sell everything you have!

Osteen: No way! (Tears.)

Jesus: (to the crowd) It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

I never understood this. Why is Osteen, er, the Rich Young Ruler, treated differently than everyone else? Why does everyone have to do good works, but RYR must sell everything on top of it? I was always taught that it was Jesus’ way of looking into his heart, but they ignore the fact that selling everything still has nothing to do with faith. And getting into heaven vs. hell is a pretty important topic for the Bible to be so unclear about. Why doesn’t Jesus say, “You have to believe that I am the Son of God to get into heaven”????

The disciples apparently see this, too, because they get pretty dismayed:

When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

W.t.f kind of answer is that? Jesus basically just said, “Whoever God damn well wants to save!” No works, no faith. Or maybe he clears it up with further dialogue.

Or maybe not.

Peter answered him, “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?”

Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.

Therefore, we are all doomed. The 12 disciples and Jesus will judge the Jews and those who actually quit their jobs and left their families will be saved. Gentiles and those of us who work for a living and love our families are just kind of screwed. This is the best salvation plan Jesus himself came up with. It makes me think Paul maybe didn’t know what the hell he was talking about with all that faith nonsense . . . Not to mention evangelicals don’t know what the hell they are talking about either, with all this family values nonsense. WWJD? He wouldn’t get married or be a Gentile in the first place! So there!

It’s strange to watch you now, now that I am no longer one of you. I see things more clearly than I did before. It seems there are two camps: those whose lives appear to be perfect, never letting frustration dealing with the ministry seep through your Facebook posts, blogs, or emails; and those who are nearly to the end of your ropes to the point where you don’t care who sees the pain anymore as long as they see you so you no longer feel invisible. For the former, are things really so perfect? If they are, I am glad you are happy. If not, do you realize how much you make the rest feel like such failures? Those happy smiles–that’s what we all wanted when we started the ministry. Can it really be like that for anyone? Before we were in the ministry, we looked up to you and those like you. We saw what it could be, and were then in no way prepared for a life that was nothing like what you portrayed. To you, I say, it’s okay to be human. It’s okay to admit that things aren’t perfect. In fact, it’s helpful both to you, to those who may come after you, and your peers who feel like their world is on the brink of destruction and have nowhere else to turn.

To the latter, I want to say, there are worse things.

There are worse things than failure. I don’t think you fail if you decide ministry is not for you. Jesus himself only managed three years of ministry. It’s okay to walk away. It’s hard, yes. But it’s only hard because it feels like failure. When you do it; when you make the decision to finally break free, you feel relief. And that relief helps you smile and shake your head when someone tries to make you feel like you failed. I’ve noticed that the only ones who try to tell me I have somehow failed are the ones who desperately want out but are afraid of failing themselves. So they try to make it seem like they are better somehow, for sticking it through. To them, I have nothing but compassion. I’ve been there.

There are worse things than divorce. Some ministers are truly dicks. There just isn’t a better word. For those of us who grew up in the conservative church, we were taught from an early age that divorce is just the worst thing. But guess what? There are other ways to rip families apart just as hard, if not harder than divorce. Sometimes, staying together is the worst thing. Sometimes, allowing yourself to be abused or simply unseen at all is worse than divorce. Divorce is hard. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever gone through. I don’t recommend it. But I also don’t recommend allowing yourself to feel like you have to stay or you’ve failed, or displeased God, or whatever. Honestly, the worst thing about separation was telling my parents it was happening. Once I did that, there was no going back. And there have been extremely hard moments since then, but I know, I know it was the best thing for me. It was the best decision I could have made in a very horrible situation. Divorce is hard. But it’s not the end of the world. It’s the start of a new one.

There are worse things than losing your religion. Some of you doubt. Some of you are afraid where those doubts will lead if you don’t shut them up right now. But you know what? I walked away from the ministry, my husband, and my religion all at once and I’m still alive. Yeah, you see on my blog how hard it was. That’s nothing. You should have seen me before I did all of those things. I was so depressed, I couldn’t write to release it. All I wanted was to stay curled in a little ball and forget the world existed. I cut myself once. Once, I took sleeping pills when I woke up in the morning because I couldn’t stomach the thought of getting through one more day.

You know what’s worse than leaving the ministry? Staying in it and dying because of it. You know what’s worse than divorce? Staying in an abusive marriage and feeling like less of a person, an invisible person, because you don’t know how to get out or are afraid of displeasing God and/or going to hell. You know what’s worse than losing your religion? Trying to keep it when it’s already gone. Not to mention a long, long list of other things that are worse: misery, depression, suicide, spending your one life completely miserable, starving children in Africa, etc.

There are worse things than admitting that you’re struggling. And that is struggling alone. Speak up. Speak out. Let others know they are not alone and find some comfort yourself. And never be afraid to admit you need a break or something else. It’s okay. The world won’t end. Your life won’t end. Instead, you may find that it begins anew.

I mentioned several weeks ago that I had some problems with Julieanne’s doctor’s office that involved a call to my lawyer (who is super, btw! If you ever need a lawyer in NW Arkansas, I can give you the name of a good one!).  That Wednesday night, I watched an episode of 18 Kids and Counting, and lo and behold! Josh and Anna use the same doctor. I about barfed. Not because I can’t stand to be in the same room a Duggar has ever graced, it just puts me on edge even more. That probably makes no sense; just too many bad memories, I guess. I suspected some fundamentalism when I receive glares at the mention of my divorce and the lack of cooperation from the office staff has shown regarding some information I needed for mediation. Before, I thought I was imagining it, but between that and eyeballing the Creationist magazines today around the office, I thought maybe not.  Here’s what happened:

Julieanne’s dad lanced a blister on her foot because he said it was infected. Of course it became even more infected! You could see the laceration from the knife. Really, how dumb do you have to be to lance an infected blister on the foot of a 3-year old? Cutting it can release the infection into the blood stream. It did cause the infection to spread. I noticed some streaking, and took her to the doctor’s office that Wednesday. Here, I should note that I hate this doctor’s office staff, and the medical staff is ho hum. They label their office as “urgent care”, but one Friday morning when Julieanne, two years old at the time, had a fever that skyrocketed to 104.something, they refused to set up an appointment for her. And by “they”, I mean the same lady on a power trip who seems to either think she’s wonderful or I’m terrible or both.

A doctor who was not the normal physician saw Julieanne and prescribed antibiotics (later prompting a defensive phone call from Bob wondering why I had taken her to a different doctor!). On the way to the window, I looked over the chart and saw that Bob had filled out some information in a way that seemed to contradict the divorce decree, but I wasn’t sure. It was right on the line. This made me angry because it had been right, but apparently, he filled out a new form. We’d had this problem before, hence one of the reasons we’re arranging mediation. I needed it to show my lawyer and for evidence in case it was wrong, so I asked the receptionist to please make a copy. She glared at me. “What do you need it for?” It wasn’t any of her business, so I said, “I don’t need any of the medical part. Just this information here.”

She stared at it. “This is just the information you provided us.”

I felt aggravated. “I know. I didn’t. My ex husband did. I need it for some custody things.”

She closed the file. “We’ll need your lawyer to request that.”

Confused and angry, I said fine, and walked out. I didn’t know what I could threaten to do, and I didn’t know the law on this issue. Angry at myself for forgetting my cell, I drove home and called my lawyer, who told me they had no right to force me to spend hundreds of dollars on a subpoena to get records for my own child when I am the primary guardian when it comes to medical. That’s what I had figured, but I didn’t know for sure. She advised me to take a copy of the divorce decree, Julieanne’s birth certificate, and my own id to prove who I was and that I had a right, and to get a copy of the entire file. If they refused, we would file a complaint with the medical board.

Since Julieanne had just had an allergy shot, too, I decided to wait until Monday after the holidays. I dreaded, dreaded going up there and making noise. I am not a “make noise” kind of person. I hate doing crap like that. But I’m tired of this office giving me crap. I am tired of Bob giving me crap. I am tired of Bob going around pretending to be the only parent who cares about Julieanne, filling out forms and putting my name down as an afterthought (if at all), and leaving me out of decision making so that when I do show concern, I have to fight. I am so, so sick of it.

But then I had a month’s worth of drama with my tooth and Make a Wish, and I just didn’t have time to go down there. I got my chance today, today, though, with Julieanne needing a follow up appointment for an ear infection she had last week (that was somehow my fault, just like the blister was somehow my fault. Anyone sensing a theme?). So this time I made sure I grabbed my cell phone, my ID, and a copy of the divorce decree. And this time, I asked the doctor directly instead of his snotty office staff. I told him I needed a copy.

“Is it wrong?” he asked.

“Well, part of it is. The address here is right, but the phone numbers are wrong.”

He glanced over it. “Do you have it written down somewhere that it’s supposed to be this way?”

I handed him a copy of the decree and showed him where it said I am supposed to be the primary person on medical stuff. “Like I said, the address is right, but the phone number should be mine, too.”

He nodded. “Yep, that’s what it says. And this should be you here,” he pointed out. Oh, yeah.

“Let’s get a copy of the decree so this doesn’t happen again, and you can have a copy of this.”

Hooray! Reason! It was ridiculous that I had to go through that, but that was Bob’s fault, not theirs (that time). He gave me a new form to fill out so it was ALL correct. And that’s when I noticed that Bob wrote down that it was okay for the office to release information to him, Beth, and me. No Steve. Which was annoying but not against the decree. So I left both Steve and Beth off the new form. There are two of us, so no need to play the game of whose spouse gets to see what.

I smiled triumphantly at the lady while she copied the forms and handed me a new one. But of course, they couldn’t let it go easily. Two minutes after I left, they called me and griped that the divorce decree wasn’t signed. (I don’t have to have a decree to get a copy of the form–my name was on the release, so it was ridiculous and unnecessary. I only needed the decree to fill out a new form.) I told them it was the copy on file at the courthouse, and they could call if they want.

Anyways, I don’t know if what Bob did truly crossed a line or not. I will hand it to my lawyer and let her decide. Definitely tricky in a way it wasn’t supposed to be, but not as blatantly wrong as a school form he filled out. I don’t know if he did it on purpose or not, but I can guess.

Divorce sucks.

(I didn’t want to say anything before because I wanted a copy of the form in my hand before I talked about what happened. That way, it wouldn’t mysteriously disappear!)

Christianity really can be like a drug. And when it’s not, people insist that it is. Take the widespread distrust of psychiatry and counseling found throughout the religion. No, psychiatry is not perfect and has its problems. Big problems. But untreated mental illness has even worse problems.

Both my parents got sucked into fundamentalism after growing up in abusive homes, though in radically different ways. Ways I don’t fully understand because we do not talk about unpleasant pasts in my family. Most of what I know has been gleaned from over 25 years of conversations. However, I do know that neither of them had happy childhoods.

Nowadays, most people have the option of going to therapy and getting on medication if they need it. My parents have both suffered from depression at multiple points in their lives. But they don’t seek help of any kind because they believe in having faith and because they are afraid of getting in the “system.”  This has wreaked havoc on our family life and all of our personal lives. They became Christians to avoid the dysfunction they faced in their own families, but we became dysfunctional in our own way.

On My Dad

My dad checked out for most of my childhood. I know many of my blog readers better than I know my father, who to this day has said not one word to me about my divorce or my remarriage. I say that not out of bitterness because I am used to it, but to show how small of a relationship we have. (But it’s something, which is more than what many people have. It’s an illustration, not a complaint.) When I was very small, we did many things together, but the fading out of those things through my childhood and teen years became a point of contention. My mother worked part time evenings (meaning shorter shifts, not fewer days) and she would leave the house soon after we came home from school, leaving me with my father and younger brothers.

Dinners were disorganized. Sometimes, my dad did nothing but stare at the computer all night, leaving us to snack all evening long (I knew nothing about nutrition until I was 20, and it’s been really hard getting on track). When he did cook, it was often not well put together: fried potatoes with tuna cakes, or whatever he happened to be in the mood to cook. I don’t remember how often he cooked vs. how often we grazed. But there were nights he cooked and did stuff with us, and other nights where he did nothing but stare at the computer all evening long (this was before internet, so he played solitaire). We kept our computer in the kitchen. One night, my youngest brother, Dave, found a bottle of amoxicillin in the refrigerator, or something else that was pink, and drank the entire bottle while my dad sat literally five feet away from him. My dad called my mom at the hospital, and once they determined he didn’t need immediate hospitalization, my dad proceeded to spank Dave. I cried and told him I didn’t think that was fair because he should have prevented it. Dad told me he needed to learn not to do it again.

In frustration and depression, he often lashed out to us. I received my fair share of welts from spanking, but was told frequently that it wasn’t abusive, and I believed them. I confronted my mom about this in Colorado last summer, and it didn’t do any good. So whatever. They “spanked” us in anger, but said it was done in love. Watching an episode of Supernanny where the parents frequently spanked their children with wooden spoons made me feel horrible. That was nothing compared to our house. But Supernanny was horrified. So were many people on a few of the blogs/message boards I frequent. For the first time, I realized that even though many parents spank their children, the way I was raised wasn’t mainstream normal.

The thing is that they did love us. But they were both depressed and refused help. I shouldered random bits of responsibility. My brothers fought constantly. Horrible fights. If I stopped the fight, my dad would become angry at me, insisting I should have minded my own business. If I did nothing, I got in trouble because I was the oldest and I should have done something!  Sometimes, I was able to stop the fight by whispering that if they didn’t cool it, Dad would come in. Once my dad got mad at me and drug me around the kitchen floor, screaming at me. When I tell them stuff like this now, they tell me I was a hard kid and I deserved at least some of it. I was a hard kid, yes, but I had untreated, undiagnosed ADHD. More on that later.

As a teen, my relationship with my father became either yelling or nothing at all. I have no good memories of my dad through my teen years. Seriously. I am digging deep here, and I am coming up with nothing. Everything that started good ended badly. Like, when I was 15, we started playing tennis together. That lasted a few times until he stopped wanting to play with me. But later, my mom told me it was my fault he didn’t want to do anything with me because I never wanted to do anything with him. ?!

On My Mom

My mom suffered from depression as she tried to get what she needed out of my dad. And I am sure there are some other things that went on in there, but I don’t know about most of them, just some. She literally acts high when she talks about Jesus and going to heaven. Revelation is her favorite book in the Bible because she can’t wait until she gets to live with Jesus. (I have always been terrified of Revelation. Terrified. I still occasionally will have a Revelation-related nightmare. They did an in depth Bible study on Revelation, taking everything literally, when I was 13. Doesn’t sound bad?  Keep in mind, we weren’t allowed to watch any movies rated over PG, and we didn’t watch television shows at all. So it was kind of like taking a sheltered five year old who has only seen Disney movies  to see Event Horizon and telling them it’s a true story and it will happen to them if they don’t trust Jesus. And even if they do, it might still happen if they are wrong about when the Rapture will occur! But I’m getting off track and I’ve talked about this before, so I’ll stop.)

When she talks about religion, she gets dreamy, and her voice raises in pitch while becoming softer in volume. She can’t wait to die. Religion has become a drug to her. There is no reasoning with her about religion. There is no honest discussion. It’s all about feelings. She knows her brand of religion is real because she knows. Without a shadow of doubt. The Holy Spirit has revealed it to her. According to her, she has never ever questioned it in a way that my brother Nate and I have. The way most people do at least once. Not that she hasn’t had questions or doubts, just nothing serious. I don’t really know how to explain her. A lot of denial as she “trusts Jesus” and pretends certain things don’t happen or she is/was powerless to stop them. Because only Jesus could. Lots of defense mechanisms, I think.

With her, she didn’t let her depression come between her and her relationship with us. She saved religion for that. Our relationship now is very surface. It’s getting better. As long as I don’t talk about religion or the past, we’re okay. But I don’t think she’s really okay. When I worked at camp, I remember telling my boss in tears that I thought she was depressed. About this time, we got the internet, and she would spend hours online playing Scrabble and escaping. For awhile, she and my dad would lock themselves in their bedroom and argue for hours. They weren’t loud, so I was the only one who picked up on it. I did all of the childcare on those days. I can’t remember how old I was. Not too young. Anyways, she still fights it. I feel kind of bad for her because the only thing she wanted for us kids was for us to be happy loving Jesus. Two out of three of us are atheist, and the third isn’t out of the house yet.

On Me

I had ADHD that went undiagnosed until I was 24. I get angry looking back. Yeah, my room was a mess. Yeah, I couldn’t sit still. They thought ADHD was a synonym for “undisciplined.” They thought they could spank it out of me. This led to my own depression as I could never be the child they wanted. I could never sit still in class until I hit the 8th grade and I shut down completely, locking myself in a shell that I am only recently starting to come out of. (This is common for girls with ADD.) Now as I try to navigate a world I am unprepared for, behind in several developmental areas and still an odd mix of reserve, I find myself fighting an occasional bout of depression as I feel utterly lost in social/coping skills.

I am resentful sometimes. If my parents had taught me as much about nutrition, science, and math as they did religion, I would be in a very good place. I am smart, but my head is full of Bible studies and facts. Some families play Monopoly on game night. We played Bible Trivia. A game of regular Trivia ended in tears once when Steve and I played together when we first got together. We haven’t played Scene It since the first few weeks we lived together, either. My game piece is always at the front of the game board when his hits the finish line. I don’t know anything from the 90’s. The only news I know I remember learning about in school. Yeah, we didn’t watch the news, either. Sometimes I think of the places I could be if I weren’t so behind in math and science. Now that I am out of religion, I have developed a deep appreciation and liking for the two subjects, but I am so far behind, I don’t think I will ever get to do anything in them like I would like. I failed my physics and calculus classes last semester. I couldn’t keep up, trying to learn everything brand new with not much to build on. (Not to mention that I graduated high school in 2002 anyways.) I feel like I could have done well, I just don’t have the tools.

These things are why I get upset when people tell me evangelicals are harmless. Fundamentalism certainly harmed me. It harmed my brothers. It’s harmed many. What if I’d had bipolar or schizophrenia instead of ADHD? I would probably be dead. Freedom of  speech is not freedom of criticism. Freedom of religion is not freedom to religiously and emotionally abuse your kids. Tolerance is not staying silent while people hurt other people. People need to be aware of what fundamentalism is all about. The more voices that criticize it rationally; the more people who speak out with the consequences fundamentalism has had on their lives, the more maybe hurt people like my parents will think twice before getting involved in it.

To make up for missing a week of WNBS, thought I’d catch us up today. It is Sunday, after all, and every good person should be about recovered from their Saturday night hangover by the time they’re reading this! (Though if you haven’t ever read the Bible while drunk, you are missin’ out!)

Someone on Wednesday suggested the Skeptics’ Annotated Bible to me. I’d been to the site, but I completely forgot about it. I also discovered when looking at my stats that they put people who discuss the chapters at the bottom of the page of that chapter. That probably made no sense, but scroll down to the bottom of the page linked, and you’ll see what I mean. Anyways, I am going to link to the Annotated version, but I’m not going to actually read it until after I read and comment on the “clean” version so I can be as unbiased as possible.

Matthew 17 (Clean. Annotated.)

Oh, yay, the Transfiguration! This is a fun story. Not that all of Matthew hasn’t been fun. Never thought of the Bible as a comedy before now, but parts of it are actually pretty funny. The Bible itself is bipolar: it either makes you laugh hysterically or cry out in anger. The only in between passages are the ones that bore you to tears, like genealogy.

For those of you who didn’t grow up Christian, the transfiguration is when Jesus takes a couple of his most favoritest disciples (Peter, James, and John–guess Matthew found out about it second hand. Wonder if he was jealous?) to a mountain.  Suddenly, Jesus’ face bursts out in light like the sun! Ahem, is it just me or is anyone else sensing a t-shirt?

Instead of:

You get this:

Any takers? (That’s a Twilight reference, for anyone who lives in a cave!)

This is so cool! According to the Bible, vampires aren’t the only mythical beings that are sparkly. Zombies are sparkly, too. Except Jesus isn’t a zombie yet. That we know of.  Hmmm…

Moving past Sparkly Jesus to verse 3, where Moses and Elijah appear and talk to Jesus. What they said wasn’t important. What’s important for Matthew to record is how Peter stuck his foot in his mouth again. Somehow, he didn’t realize he was seeing ghosts, and offers to build a shelter for Jesus, Elijah, and Moses. God interrupts him, though, and does the whole “This is my son, in whom I am well pleased” thing again. If it sounds familiar, it’s because he said the exact same thing when Jesus is baptized. Only this time, instead of a dove, God does it in a swirly cloud. Swirly clouds, glittery Jesus. Matthew forgot the part where Elijah vomited a rainbow and Moses farted fog, but I just know it happened. The disciples just didn’t know it because as soon as God spoke, they smashed their faces on the ground. I would have liked to see this talking cloud.

And, holy Flying Spaghetti Monster! For once, Jesus doesn’t ridicule them for being afraid! He touches them, and tells them not to be scared. I guess I would be a good mood if I was sparkly and clouds talked to me, too. I wonder what drug that was? Must have worn off fast, because when the disciples looked up, Elijah and Moses had poofed out of existence.

Jesus tells his disciples not to tell anyone what happened until Jesus is raised from the dead. Um, okay. And then the disciples ask a question that makes no sense. After Jesus said, “Don’t tell anyone,” they say, “Then why is Elijah supposed to come first?” Huh? What does that have to do with not telling anyone? But I guess we can make some allowances since this is a secondhand account.

Jesus gives a verrry interesting answer. It makes no sense, but guess what? It’s not a parable!!!

“To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.

Silly Christians. Apparently, there is a such thing as reincarnation. Okay, I don’t usually add in a bunch of theology to these posts because you could write an entire book thoroughly conducting an investigation on the context and theology of each chapter, but I did get curious about this one. I’ve heard pastors and professors read this passage, but never explain it. It’s self explanatory, after all! Duh! John the Baptist=Elijah reincarnate. So I did some research. A website with a pretty swirly cloud background said that, well, a bunch of mumbo jumbo. You can get away with it though, because Christians are supposed to be like Jesus. Which means give a bunch of incoherent answers. Because every site I found that talked about it said the same thing. Nobody really connected the verses together, choosing to talk about them separately and assigning separate meanings to them. (But I did learn that I am not the first to make the reincarnation connection. Damn. There goes my ego. I also learned that this passage in no way teaches reincarnation. Snort. Um, reincarnation: rebirth of the soul in a new body. Can anyone explain how this does not teach reincarnation?) The thing that doesn’t make any sense is how exactly did John the Elijah fulfill all things? What things? Didn’t Jesus fulfill all things? Anyone else hear a better discussion of this passage?

So, whew. That was a lot on just a few verses. But wait! There’s more! A man comes to Jesus, saying his son suffers from seizures. The disciples have seen Jesus cast out demons, so they think they can do it, too! They can’t, so Jesus casts out the demon for them. Hear that, epileptics? You are really demon possessed! The disciples are puzzled as to the reason why they can’t cast out the demon. Jesus tells them it’s because they don’t have enough faith. This leads me to wonder exactly how much is enough because Jesus goes on to say that all you have to have is a mustard seed’s worth to move an entire mountain. So I would think casting out demons would be worth just half a mustard seed. Right? So maybe they just had a quarter of a mustard’s seed worth. Yeah. Let’s go with that. Jesus then predicts his death in kind of a random placement.

Then a temple tax collector asks Peter whether or not Jesus pays his temple tax. Peter says yes. Jesus tells Peter he really should be exempt because he’s God’s son, but he doesn’t want to offend people (he DOESN’T?!?!?!??!), so he tells Peter to go fishing. In the fish’s mouth, there’s just the right amount to pay for the temple tax! Guess we know where Jesus got his money now. Though, Jesus, I gotta tell you, it’s way cooler to pull it out from behind someone’s ear. Less work, too.

So there’s Matthew 17. Comedic yes, but at least Jesus was nice in this chapter! He does come across as bipolar in Matthew. I am not kidding. I don’t diagnose people via the internet or through thousands of years of history, but he definitely shows some symptoms of some sort of mental illness as conveyed through Matthew’s eyes. Sorry, Southern Baptists. I know that Jesus being completely clear of any sort of sign of mental illness is one of the surefire ways you know he’s God’s son, but theologians aren’t psychologists.

I will leave you with this, just because I love Explosm:

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

A National Enquirer article came out a few days ago, talking about the darker side of the Duggar beliefs. The article accuses TLC of downplaying the scarier aspects of the Duggar beliefs. Good!  It’s about time. I grew up in a Gothard home, and it’s very scary what goes on. It’s quite true that they want to take over the government, though they wouldn’t phrase it that way (see the dominionism section for more info on that). QF philosophy is to outbreed the competition, though they probably wouldn’t phrase it like that, either. They would say their goal is to raise as many children for Jesus so they can win people for Christ, too. A euphemistic phrasing for what it is.

People were shocked when they heard Michelle and JimBob say they would have more children if God allowed. I wasn’t shocked at all: The Duggars are not about loving children so much that they have a pathological need to reproduce like rabbits. It’s about dogmatism. (Don’t  believe me? Why are they so anti-birth control? A misused condom won’t cause a miscarriage, and the Duggars know this. There’s obviously more to why they keep having children than what is shown on TLC.) But in the article, the Duggars deny that they are part of any such cult or the Quiverfull movement. I know why, so let me clarify a few things.

1. On Quiverfull

Michelle and Jim Bob deny they are part of the Quiverfull movement, saying that they are only evangelical Christians with a large family. Well, that’s what Quiverfull is, they just don’t call it that (it’s not just the large family aspect, but the fact that they don’t use birth control and trust God with the size of their family). There are two major Christian organizations that push the Quiverfull movement (though note that not every QF family is associated with either of these organizations): Doug Phillips’ Vision Forum and Bill Gothard’s  Institute for Basic Life Principles (IBLP). Vision Forum is even more extreme than Bill Gothard, with beliefs such as women are under the authority of all men, even their brothers and sometimes even sons once they reach a certain age. Gothard and VF are tied, but there are subtle differences. Many people deep within Gothard circles also ascribe to Vision Forum ideas. I don’t know a whole lot about VF, so I may be wrong, but I think that those in VF often have no problem calling themselves QF. I haven’t ever heard VF mentioned on 19 Kids, so we can assume that maybe the Duggars don’t go with VF ideas. They are instead like my parents, and are into Gothard.

I was raised in a Gothard home, as I said. But my parents had never even heard of Vision Forum until I asked them a few weeks ago. Gothard does not call his beliefs Quiverfull, but he advocates the exact same beliefs. He has a chart that shows how many descendants you will have in X amount of generations if you have more children. He uses the same Bible verses. He doesn’t call his beliefs QF, but a rose by any other name is still a rose. The Duggars do not call themselves Quiverfull, but they ascribe to the same beliefs. So yes, they are Quiverfull. So why do they say they are not QF? Like fundamentalism in general, people in the QF movement ascribe to different beliefs. I think QF is a fairly new term to describe what’s been going on for awhile, hence why so many people shy away from the term. It is a-religious. Some sects of Jews are QF, some Muslims (particularly in Europe right now, as I understand it). It may even be primarily a sociological term as opposed to a religious one.

2. On dominionism:

Even if they weren’t Quiverfull, that doesn’t mean they aren’t part of the dominionist plan to takeover the government. It’s couched in prettier terms. Christian dominionists believe that the country was founded on Christian principles, and want to put God back in the government. This means on the surface: prayer in schools, Bible study as part of classes, anti-gay rights, no more abortion, etc, etc. How far it goes depends on how far into the belief system a family is. My parents aren’t Quiverfull, but they are dominionist. They attribute the evils of the public school system to taking prayer/Bible reading out of it. They attribute abortion, crime, etc, to God being “pushed” out of the government. They want to win back the government for Christ.

One of the ways dominionists are trying to accomplish this is through brainwashing the young people. I used to be one of those people. Since I left home, something called Teen Pact has surfaced. My parents recently sent my brother to Teen Pact, which is “a comprehensive leadership experience that brings kids closer to Jesus Christ, makes them better leaders, and positions them to impact public policy in their state.” “Impacting public policy” means establishing ultra Right Wing conservative values in the government.

At least that’s voluntary. Some public schools and workplaces are using  Gothard’s Character First curriculum. Dominionism isn’t something far away that might happen in 10 generations if we don’t nip it in the bud. It’s already happening.

(For more information on what exactly dominionism is, click here, here, or here.)

3. On the cult:

Gothard is a cult. Having grown up and survived it, it is. One way you can tell is through the dishonesty he displays in presenting his ideas through his seminars. Here’s how it works: you must take the basic seminar before you take the advanced seminar. In the basic seminar, he talks mostly about how to improve your life. His examples are very mainstream. He uses an illustration where a woman wears pants. In his Advanced seminar, suddenly, women should dress modestly (a la the Duggars before TLC gave them a tv show). In fact, even wearing a bit of lace at the collar is immodest. So why couldn’t he be honest about what he believes women should wear upfront? It’s because you get more and more radical as you go. Why do the Duggar kids look so happy? Because you aren’t allowed to be angry in the Gothard belief system. Anger =selfishness= sin. You must always keep a joyful countenance, especially if you are in a position to minister to the people around you. Like on a tv show. So that the Duggar kids look and act happy means nothing. Maybe they are, but you wouldn’t know if they weren’t just by watching them. Fundamentalists, women especially, are great actors.

So:

This is why I criticize the Duggars. I am all about tolerance, but there are some things that should not be tolerated. There are some things that are evil, and it doesn’t matter how happy people are in it if their goals are bad. A radical group that wants to establish a theocracy is not something to take lightly, especially as they gain ground through inoculating people to their beliefs through shows like 19 Kids and Counting. People watch it and think, “Oh, how happy they are! Oh, how well behaved their kids are! We shouldn’t criticize them for that!” It’s dishonest to hide certain aspects of your beliefs (and yes, they do hide them. You don’t get to speak at a Gothard event unless you espouse their ideals). And we will tolerate them all the way to the White House, leaving us to wonder what happened.