Since I took my mother’s maiden name years back, this seemed especially fitting.

Both my husband and I agree that for a woman to take a man’s name means that man is branding her as a herd owner brands his cattle with a branding iron. My parents are both re-married, Mom changing her name, Dad’s new wife taking his. I changed my name after Dad got married, because I just could not abide by a new woman wearing “our” name. It became “her” name, and I took my mother’s maiden name so as to escape the branding tradition, and to embrace my Danish culture.

I LOVE my step-mother dearly, it’s the naming tradition with which I have a problem.

Anyway, here are my husband’s and my rings, against the background of my red wedding dress. I have mine on my 3rd finger, because it fit that way, and I did not want to change their rings by getting them re-sized.

http://www.gather.com/viewImage.jsp?fileId=3096224744882659&nav=MyGather&memberId=56566

You’re very right about the “us-vs.-them” worldview. Fundamentalism was full of it, naturally, and it did cause a ton of unnecessary anxiety and total fear of those on the “outside”. Said anxiety got even worse when much of what I had been taught about “the world” turned out not to be true. It’s extremely difficult to examine beliefs critically and spot errors within any authoritarian system when all other views have already been marked as poison. What finally got me out wasn’t skilled argument, but genuine love and care from those on the “outside”. In my case, love really did win.

I left Fundamentalism for a conservative evangelical church in order to get away from such mindsets, only to have them come right behind me and create the same situation I left behind. AFAIC, the Southern Baptist churches are as bad for women as the Independent churches I left. Oddly (and fortunately), though, the IFB church I grew up in now has a female music minister. It’s like the IFB and the SBC switched places when I wasn’t paying attention.

My husband and I are currently in an emerging church which has been so far neutral on the comp/egal debate. It’s not completely my thing, but it’s a much safer place to be than in regular churches in this town right now. I’d give anything for some of the conservative egalitarian denominations up north to come where I am, but I can’t hold my breath.

In other circles, it is getting better for women – it is almost like a reformation. (house church movement, some emergent churches, some denominations are making strides).

I can’t remember the title of the book but the author analyzed the culture of fundamentalists and evangelicals and found a high degree of us versus the world thinking. That frame of reference is a kind of guide that creates serious anxiety and fear of anything that will challenge their “biblically” fixed world view.

I used to think this way. I know the fear and the pain of the emotional/spiritual abuse.

I am not a whole lot older than you… As a young bride, the backlash reaction to feminism was just beginning. I heard less from the pulpit and more from folks who attended Basic Youth Conflicts. It was big in my location and everyone was going. The sad part is the pastors did not challenge Gothard’s teachings biblically and theologically. Who would challenge a guy who could fill stadiums?

They also are not biblically challenging current teachings like the church for men stuff and the masculinity/femininity teachings. (teachings based on the flesh and not the Spirit)

Faith: I know this kind of stuff is seen as “normal” and the way it always has been, but actually it seems to be getting worse. It’s as if the more women gain in secular society, the more the patriarchs must tighten the screws on women in the church. It’s the same kind of progression I’ve seen in the King James Only movement, with each version of the teaching getting stricter and more away from both mainstream Christianity and Scriptural teaching.

I’m not even 40 years old (still a few years to go), yet I’ve seen more major and negative doctrinal and behavioral shifts in the church since I became a Christian than I ever want to admit.

It has been hard though within the church and Christian community because we are misunderstood by many who perceive us as not relating ‘biblically’ The Bill Gothard teaching and similar ones have done such a lot of damage for all these years and it is taking a lot of re-education.

The upside is that we can now teach biblical equality and hopefully permeate the Christian community in the same way the other teachings have. Trouble is, many churches are still thinking we are heretical and not following God’s rules for living. (When I say ‘we’, I’m, not just thinking of ourselves but all of us who would want to pass on the good news of true equality in Jesus.

“Paramount among these is the terrible picture of the chain of command in the family with the husband as the hammer, the wife as the chisel and the children as the gems in the rough. (In my Red Notebook, this is page 3 of the “Chain-of-Command” Notes). The ghastly picture is that he beats on her and she chips on them. If ever there were a reason for a women’s movement in the evangelical church — this is it. This illustration is simply not reflective of biblical theology; it is a parody of patriarchalism.”

here’s the link to the article with a picture.

http://www.midwestoutreach.org/02-Information/02-OnlineReference/02-UnorthodoxyGuide/105-IKnowSomething/Gothard-IBLP/Allen-IssuesOfConcern.html

TOXIC faith at its best

Let’s go test out this hammer theory on some little houseplants. Do they grow better when hit with hammers? *prepares to swing* Hey, wait, I can’t even think of swinging a hammer on a plant without cringing and feeling a little ill. Ugh.

No room for love and intimacy in that kind of a relationship!