This is incredible and drawing the parallels between your life experience and the hold Trump has on evangelicals totally tracked with me. Thank you for putting this out there.
The mainline needs to be a soft landing spot for those beaten up by this rhetoric. I'm so glad to know that have found your way forward. Your wisdom here is needed and appreciated!
Your authenticity is breath of fresh air. In many ways your journey mirrors
aspects my wrangling with life, faith, and politics, but with different circumstances. I definitely sense the “whole of me” doesn’t fit in a neat package. And, therefore, I often feel l don’t easily fit in most spaces.
For me, the cultism of Trump goes hand in hand with the cultism of the evangelicals. The denial of truth, the greed, the fear of the “other”. One and the same.
"I knew that choosing to get a divorce would stigmatize me. It would provoke dozens of uncomfortable conversations. It would make me the subject of whispered 'concern’. It would embarrass my missionary parents, heroes in that world. It would further bar me (I was already constrained as a woman) from various roles and functions in the church (and it did do that, years later, after I had two kids with my now husband)."
Upon reading this, I wondered, why the unbearable stigma for some and not others? Granted, Pentecostals were not historically counted as Evangelical, and the prosperity gospel is formally denounced by even Evangelicals as heresy (despite its propensity for sneaking into Evangelical culture – I suppose if it weren't a persistent problem, there'd be less need to denounce it) – but Paula White exists, is twice divorced, and occupies an exalted place in the MAGAsphere, one Evangelicals seem to have made their peace with.
"How I really felt... was immaterial. In evangelicalism, one’s feelings always are. You are trained to discount them, to ignore instinct, experience, intuition, even logic."
The Spirit's call, on the other hand, should not be ignored.
I'm Mainline, not Evangelical, by upbringing, but participated weekly in Evangelical parachurch ministries in college, around people who at least sometimes acknowledged that there is no surefire way to tell the Spirit's voice apart from our own inner voice, and that teasing apart God's call from our own selfishness cannot be done without resorting, at least sometimes, to reasoning, intuition, and so on. We weren't to pursue merely what feels good, but, especially when we consider those who make extraordinary claims about their own calling (such as when candidates claim God has called them to run for office), it's obvious people rely on... some sort of feeling... to discern. "I didn't know if I should run, but when my whole family gathered for prayer with my pastor and church elders for an answer, the answer was yes," relies on receiving the supposed answer within us somehow, like with... feelings.
Evidently, calling can overcome both stigma and the injunction against letting our emotions influence us. Unfortunately, who feels called isn't merely a matter of who really is called, but also of self-regard. Scrupulous souls of tender conscience are naturally more doubtful that God's calling will be congruent with their feelings, while those high on their own supply are more likely to perceive their own desires as, not just their own, but God's.
Power already tends to attract the self-regarding. When a system cuts those with lower self-regard off from their own feelings, while tacitly licensing the feelings of the self-important as "calling", it seems even more likely to cultivate self-regard in its leadership.
Your story in many ways, is my story. Thanks for your honesty. Learning to be authentic to oneself, and maintaining some kind of faith in the Jesus of the Bible, is quite a balancing act. At least for me.
Thanks for sharing so courageously. You go straight to the heart of it all. I think a lot of people have versions of yr story. We were in a strict Bible believing missionary group. We were ejected for questioning things. It’s not pretty, there are lots of losses n costs, some you never quite recover from. But on the outside is freedom, authenticity, real personal relationship with God
Sad that all extreme religious groups learn to rule their people from the same book.
Regarding Trump, i think (and hope) that they see him as a tool to get their means, and when he will stops or will hurt them, like cutting social security or other social benefits some of them get, things can change.
"The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it!" - I've heard that one before, and you have exactly the right words for calling it what it is. Thank you for writing!
Thank you for sharing your story and experience. The holier than thou types always cherry pick verses from the Bible to justify all kinds of bad deeds and contradictions.
This is helpful to me in my thoughts about the Church, and my church. I have a lot of complicated feelings with the current political actions of Christians today. It is very disturbing. I do not understand. Thank you for sharing.
Fundamentalists want to control the world and eliminate the threat of modernity. Progressives want to control the world and eliminate the threat of fundamentalism. See any similarity? Every human being, no matter what survival approach may embrace lives in a world they cannot control.
This is incredible and drawing the parallels between your life experience and the hold Trump has on evangelicals totally tracked with me. Thank you for putting this out there.
The mainline needs to be a soft landing spot for those beaten up by this rhetoric. I'm so glad to know that have found your way forward. Your wisdom here is needed and appreciated!
Yes!!!
Your authenticity is breath of fresh air. In many ways your journey mirrors
aspects my wrangling with life, faith, and politics, but with different circumstances. I definitely sense the “whole of me” doesn’t fit in a neat package. And, therefore, I often feel l don’t easily fit in most spaces.
For me, the cultism of Trump goes hand in hand with the cultism of the evangelicals. The denial of truth, the greed, the fear of the “other”. One and the same.
"I knew that choosing to get a divorce would stigmatize me. It would provoke dozens of uncomfortable conversations. It would make me the subject of whispered 'concern’. It would embarrass my missionary parents, heroes in that world. It would further bar me (I was already constrained as a woman) from various roles and functions in the church (and it did do that, years later, after I had two kids with my now husband)."
Upon reading this, I wondered, why the unbearable stigma for some and not others? Granted, Pentecostals were not historically counted as Evangelical, and the prosperity gospel is formally denounced by even Evangelicals as heresy (despite its propensity for sneaking into Evangelical culture – I suppose if it weren't a persistent problem, there'd be less need to denounce it) – but Paula White exists, is twice divorced, and occupies an exalted place in the MAGAsphere, one Evangelicals seem to have made their peace with.
"How I really felt... was immaterial. In evangelicalism, one’s feelings always are. You are trained to discount them, to ignore instinct, experience, intuition, even logic."
The Spirit's call, on the other hand, should not be ignored.
I'm Mainline, not Evangelical, by upbringing, but participated weekly in Evangelical parachurch ministries in college, around people who at least sometimes acknowledged that there is no surefire way to tell the Spirit's voice apart from our own inner voice, and that teasing apart God's call from our own selfishness cannot be done without resorting, at least sometimes, to reasoning, intuition, and so on. We weren't to pursue merely what feels good, but, especially when we consider those who make extraordinary claims about their own calling (such as when candidates claim God has called them to run for office), it's obvious people rely on... some sort of feeling... to discern. "I didn't know if I should run, but when my whole family gathered for prayer with my pastor and church elders for an answer, the answer was yes," relies on receiving the supposed answer within us somehow, like with... feelings.
Evidently, calling can overcome both stigma and the injunction against letting our emotions influence us. Unfortunately, who feels called isn't merely a matter of who really is called, but also of self-regard. Scrupulous souls of tender conscience are naturally more doubtful that God's calling will be congruent with their feelings, while those high on their own supply are more likely to perceive their own desires as, not just their own, but God's.
Power already tends to attract the self-regarding. When a system cuts those with lower self-regard off from their own feelings, while tacitly licensing the feelings of the self-important as "calling", it seems even more likely to cultivate self-regard in its leadership.
A very thoughtful and well-put comment. Thank you.
Thanks :-)
It's longer than I meant it to be. But who feels entitled to act on emotion and why (since evidently some do) seems relevant to why MAGA.
I have so many thoughts—an entire section of the book—on calling. Yours right here are great.
Your story in many ways, is my story. Thanks for your honesty. Learning to be authentic to oneself, and maintaining some kind of faith in the Jesus of the Bible, is quite a balancing act. At least for me.
Keep up the great writing.
Thanks for sharing so courageously. You go straight to the heart of it all. I think a lot of people have versions of yr story. We were in a strict Bible believing missionary group. We were ejected for questioning things. It’s not pretty, there are lots of losses n costs, some you never quite recover from. But on the outside is freedom, authenticity, real personal relationship with God
amen amen.
Thank you for sharing your story.
Sad that all extreme religious groups learn to rule their people from the same book.
Regarding Trump, i think (and hope) that they see him as a tool to get their means, and when he will stops or will hurt them, like cutting social security or other social benefits some of them get, things can change.
Holly, I relate to your life experience. Thank you for sharing.
"The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it!" - I've heard that one before, and you have exactly the right words for calling it what it is. Thank you for writing!
Thank you for sharing your story and experience. The holier than thou types always cherry pick verses from the Bible to justify all kinds of bad deeds and contradictions.
I hear you!
This is helpful to me in my thoughts about the Church, and my church. I have a lot of complicated feelings with the current political actions of Christians today. It is very disturbing. I do not understand. Thank you for sharing.
Perfection Holly. Needs to be published!
It is—right here :)
HA!
Fundamentalists want to control the world and eliminate the threat of modernity. Progressives want to control the world and eliminate the threat of fundamentalism. See any similarity? Every human being, no matter what survival approach may embrace lives in a world they cannot control.