Books I will read, if ever my TV breaks.
Posted on February 27th, 2006 by catalyst into the Politics category(Actually, after reading the above title, I realized that if my TV breaks, I am much more likely to just go out and buy another TV rather than pick up a book, but you get the idea.)
There is a terrific book review in yesterday’s Washington Post. The book is titled My FUNDAMENTALIST EDUCATION: A Memoir of a Divine Girlhood by Christine Rosen. Essentially the book is about growing up in a fundamentalist Christian home and attending a Christian school. The review makes the book sound spot-on. And the reviewer (who had a similar upbringing) captures many of the core experiences; experiences which were eerily similar to my own.
Here are a few:
To those of us who grew up in and around fundamentalism (while I didn’t go to a Christian school, I lived through 18 years of Baptist church, Sunday school, youth group, retreats and camp), the tale rings true in a way that is at once simpler and more profound than that. Rosen, now a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, didn’t become a right-wing fanatic; nor did she break from the church in dramatic and rebellious fashion. She presents instead an account of what it’s like to be immersed in fundamentalist ideas as a child, slowly sort out your own beliefs and eventually learn to balance faith and inquiry.
Ahhh, Faith and Inquiry. How do the two coincide? If your pastor says it, it must be true. What’s to inquire?
So Rosen was not relieved but discomfited when questions about fundamentalist beliefs and teachings began to worm their way into her world. While investigating potential conversion targets, Rosen developed a sympathy for Mormons and their tales of persecution, despite the fact that she was supposed to think of them as cult members.
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February 27th, 2006 at 3:40 pm
I’d be curious to get a look at this book, too. Thanks for posting about it. It makes me think of a moment I had with a certain Dr. Conlon, the husband of a teacher of mine in graduate school, when people had been asking about my background. I described the sense I still have sometimes that something is “bad” (in the “My Little Pony and the Smurfs are bad because they’re from the devil” kind of way) and the slowing-down-to-consider process that follows as I decide what’s really my instinct and opinion, and what’s merely based on 17 years of fundamentalist conditioning.
In response to that, Dr. Conlon looked thoughtful for a moment and finally said, “You know, what you’ve described is the experience of a person who is bilingual or bicultural and is experiencing re-entry (or initial entry) culture shock.” I’ve thought about that a lot ever since, and I think it’s really pretty profound….the fundamentalist community really can be a comprehensive sub-culture where the language (buzzwords), customs, etiquette, etc., form a truly self-contained society that makes the secular world seem very strange and frightening. The “logic” on the inside and the “logic” on the outside are two completely different things….it’s as if one day you found out that the color you see as blue and have always been told was blue is actually orange to the eyes of 95% of the population….and you just had never talked to them about it.
Obviously, I’m a little fascinated with this sort of thing, and maybe even more so in this case because, like me, the author of the book didn’t really go through some huge hellraising rebellious phase, but just thought about it and eventually walked away. Definitely food for thought.
February 27th, 2006 at 3:41 pm
This is so true. The more I distance myself from City Bible, the more I emphathize with Mormons.
Screwtape wins again
February 27th, 2006 at 3:47 pm
I do not imagine they thought this blog would be the result of their teaching,
Please. A few people post on a web site and you think your some kind of star.
“Tonight on Letterman we have the comedic genius and co creator of the City Business Church blog”.
February 27th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
Great post Jiminy. That Dr Conlon described it perfectly. I was raised in the church and went to Christian school K-12. And while I haven’t “walked away”, my perspectives and attitudes certainly have changed (undoubtably for the better). I will definitely buy this book. Thanks for the plug Catalyst. And by the way, I think of Catalyst more as a hero than a star. No, what the heck, can I have your autograph?
February 27th, 2006 at 4:26 pm
Lets take a poll. And please be honest.
In the large sceme of things ,what do you think is better: tithing , or not tithing?
February 27th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooring
bo-ring
boooooooooo-ring
BORING
boRing
oh my sweet lord hare krishna BORING
this is John Nelson Darby boring
this is Tony Danza boring
this is Wilco boring
this is info-mercial boring
blessings (financially, of course)
February 27th, 2006 at 5:33 pm
Jiminy,
You’re pseudo-intelligence is like a fake Louis Vuitton clutch being sold in a Taiwanese market….easy to spot, too flashy to be real, brand-spankin new, and untreated. That’s just the truth. If you can’t minimize your intelligence into smaller bits, then you’re just another rambling idiot with nothing quotable.
SCHOOL IS IN!
Catalyst,
The blog is on fire; it’s not boring. I’ll tell you whats boring–your hair–that’s boring; your posts–almost all of them–real boring.
Pope,
Save Our Blog….SOB, man….SOB. I’m sending out an SOB to Pope. I like Pope cuz he’s funny. Oh and did I mention witty. he’s a real SOB too.
(some wank is gonna comment about my failure to capitalize) that’s boring too.
blessings (financially, of course)
February 27th, 2006 at 5:37 pm
With PBC being my first college experience, I definitely felt like Ken Malmin and the other staff taught me to think, reason, and question for myself. In fairness, though I wasn’t “in the thick” of Bible Temple life enough to know whether this critical thinking was accepted outside of the college walls.
For me the struggle was not in “beliefs” per se, so much as in following authority. I’ve always felt free to think for myself (although this was somewhat slighted at the MFI church), but my struggle came in DOING for myself. I fell into the trap of thinking that if a leader “spoke it into my life” then it was GOD speaking. If a leader thought I should do this or do that, then it was GOD’s WILL because after all my authority said it and Im supposed to follow my authority. Once my leaders actually told me to go home and go to bed (I was 35? at the time) because they were concerned that I would be too tired to work and I DID.
Wierd enough that they told me, wierder still that I obeyed. That was a big wake up call, and I have to say OBEY is not in my vocabulary much anymore.
February 27th, 2006 at 6:37 pm
>> With PBC being my first college experience, I definitely felt like Ken
>> Malmin and the other staff taught me to think, reason, and question
>> for myself. In fairness, though I wasn’t “in the thick” of Bible Temple
>> life enough to know whether this critical thinking was accepted outside
>> of the college walls.
This is interesting, becuase I can understand, and partially agree. It was people like Larry Taylor, who *first* prompted me to seriously and “scientifically” analyse and deconstruct what I believed and why.
Look what happened to him.
I do think people like Ken Malmin also promote “free and independent thinking”, but it is limited up to a point. As long as you generally agree with what *they* teach and believe and eventually come to see things *their* way… then all is good.
But if you express disagreement, or eventually conclude that perhaps their stance on [insert issue here, like tithing] is not necessarily the “right” way… then you’re going to find yourself on the outside of the party. Sure, you’re still “accepted”, but it’s in the same way that CBC “accepts” drunk homeless people to sit on the front row of the church…
February 28th, 2006 at 4:57 am
Who is the financial blessings kid i hate him the most.
February 28th, 2006 at 9:13 am
He is most unpleasant. I don’t like him either. I wish he would shut up. And why is he so threatened by Jiminy?
February 28th, 2006 at 11:50 am
What’s the hardest part about being an anonymous blogger?
Having to tell your parents that yer gay.
February 28th, 2006 at 12:53 pm
this subject is huge in my life too… all the conflicting ideas in my head came to an end when I decided; if I willfully follow any teaching or philosophy, Im always going to be shaped and molded by something or somebody. Its natural. I did have culture shock. I was so lost and lonely I joined the military. Thats how much growing up in a fundamentalist home messed with me when I had to confront the world as a man. Once you “leave the fold” and go out and really strip all your thoughts and reasonings, you have to sort of rebirth yourself. I don’t know how to explain it real well. All I know is that the “fold” that brought me into the world wasn’t going to accept somebody with doubts or alternative ideas. I had to leave my family and old friends and now I attend City Business Church where I can vent, hate, love, smile and laugh at fb’s odd structure.
This blog is seriously a great thing and I feel it has improved my life substantially. How often do people with such similar, and at the same time different, backgrounds end up here? One could say it is Divine Intervention.
February 28th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
Financial Blessings, I’m gay? YOUR MOM, take that, sting, burn, diss.
Grow the hell up. And one last thing mmmmooooooooooowwwwwwww
February 28th, 2006 at 6:45 pm
I mistakenly posted as anonymous. (anon 9:13) My name is Lydia Lundy. I still think financialblessings is a punk.