Fleeing Fundamentalism Read online

  The first voice to speak came out of a lifeless face that looked like a waxwork in candlelight. “As a minister’s wife you must always display a meek and quiet spirit. It’s best to keep your voice soft and nonthreatening. No matter how upset you feel, resist the temptation to raise your voice in front of anyone in the congregation.”

  “Remember that at all times every eye will be focused on you,” a portly young lady, looking barely twenty-five, added. “People will look to you to set an example for every Christian woman in the congregation.”

  “The most important advice I can give is, do not make any girlfriends within the congregation,” said a dark-haired woman wearing large-rimmed spectacles.

  With that, the entire panel nodded their heads severely. “The other women will become jealous, and there will be no end to your grief,” added the portly one. “And God forbid that you might slip and tell them something that could tarnish your husband’s reputation.”

  Afterward Jean said, “I would never forfeit my freedom that far. It’s why I’d rather be a missionary out in the bushes of Africa than a preacher’s wife.”

  It was the funniest thing, because that first day in seminary when I thought about Jean my throat constricted and tears welled up in my eyes. I excused myself to go to the bathroom, and thank goodness David was so enthralled in conversation with another student that he didn’t see me back up and slip out, wiping my eyes. I stayed there, where I knew it would be safe, considering that there were never any women in the building. I missed Jean terribly at that moment.

  But I did have to be thankful that seminary had caused David to become more like his old self again. Driving to class each morning, we discussed theology and quizzed each other over our Greek syntax and Hebrew vocabulary. Even the fact that we lived so close to his parents didn’t seem to bother him as much, because we spent every spare minute reading volumes of systematic theology and preparing for our church history and apologetics tests.

  Then one morning I woke up in a black sea of nausea. The flu, I thought. However, after two weeks of projectile vomiting, I knew I had something more than a common illness. By that time it was also obvious that I wasn’t going to handle pregnancy as David’s mother had, who loved to say, “Oh, heavens, I never felt better in my life than when I was carrying my first baby!” I, on the other hand, had never felt worse. Each morning I would wake up feeling like Lazarus on his fourth day dead. I’d force down crackers and Mountain Dew and finally, by two in the afternoon, feel that soup for dinner might be a possibility. Since attending Greek class with a bucket at my feet was not a real option, I dropped out of school to concentrate on caulking the windows and finding garage-sale baby furniture.

  It was hard being left behind just when David and I seemed to be back in sync. His time spent at school and studying in the church library increased, and so I filled my days with long walks along a dogleg dirt road bordered by rustling willows and poplars. In the evenings I did my counted cross-stitching and thought about all the interesting discussions Jean and I used to have and what I would tell her if she were here now. Then one evening David’s mother showed up at the front door and said she wanted to talk to me about something. She sat down as I banged nervously around the kitchen, making coffee and trying to find a spare biscuit. “I’m worried about you, honey,” she said. “David leaves you alone far too much in this creaky old house.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind. I know he’s got tons of research to do, and Joe, that guy he carpools with, always wants to stay late at school.” In truth I missed David terribly, but then I thought about how love can be intensified by absence. Long ago men went to sea, and women waited for them, standing at the edge of the water, scanning the horizon for a black dot to turn into a tiny ship and sail into the harbor. It was my time to wait for David. Besides it was my duty as a Christian wife to put aside my own desires, now that my husband had chosen to follow God’s call into the ministry. David would face great challenges ahead; I needed to be supportive and not put a drain on his time.

  And then a miracle happened. Jean and her new husband, Doug, moved into a house down the street. They were headed for the mission field in Mexico but were going to live in our small town for a while to raise their monthly support from churches in the area. Doug had attended Big Sky Bible College with us, but Jean had never dated him there. Where Jean had been an outstanding student, Doug was, well, less than an outstanding student. He had goofed off most of the time, barely getting passing grades in his classes. A missionary’s kid himself, he spent his childhood in the jungles of South America bouncing back and forth between Brazilian boarding schools and the Amazon rain forest. It wasn’t until after we had all graduated that Doug called Jean and asked her out. After only a few dates, they both decided to accept God’s call to the mission field, which made Jean confident that God would bless their union. I was happy for Jean, who had finally found a partner as committed as she to leading natives to Christ.

  My loneliness was over. Jean and I did our grocery shopping together and even started team-teaching a women’s Bible study at our church. Her presence revived my spirits, and the pregnancy didn’t feel so much like an eternity. Interestingly enough, I stopped worrying so much about whether I’d make a good mother, which had occupied my thoughts when I was spending most of my time alone.

  In August 1979 our first child was born: a beautiful dark-haired baby girl. We named her Carise—the Greek word for grace. And grace was exactly what Carise brought into my life from the day she arrived. My secret apprehension of motherhood vanished with her first cry, as the doctor whipped the tangled umbilical cord from around her neck and cleaned her flawless face. I knew my life had been transformed the moment I saw the miracle of her miniature fingernails, the lips like a tiny rose, and the toes lined up in perfect little rows, and felt her fierce intent to root nourishment from my swollen breasts. I had no warning that with my daughter’s first breath a deep mothering instinct would envelop me or that vigilance for her welfare would become the star that guided my way.

  David was smitten by his baby daughter too, and he started to spend more time at home, talking about how we needed to protect her from the evils of this fallen world. This concern naturally led us to pay attention to the upcoming presidential election, in which our pastor had taken a great deal of interest. From the pulpit, he was keeping the congregation updated on the work of a preacher named Jerry Falwell, from Lynchburg, Virginia, who was crisscrossing the country, urging America to repent, arguing that the nation had fallen from greatness because it had turned its back on God and abandoned the beliefs upon which Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin had founded it.

  “The ‘I Love America’ rallies are turning out to be a superb success!” Pastor Bill hollered from the pulpit. “At each stop Falwell is registering thousands of supporters and convincing Christians to become involved in the political process. God bless Jerry Falwell!” he shouted, banging the pulpit with his fist. “He’s showing us that political involvement is a duty, not an option!”

  How strange, I thought. In the past, our Fundamentalist leaders had viewed politics as a pursuit not so different from drinking, dancing, and card playing. But the change Jerry Falwell was suggesting was a welcome one to me. It made sense that if Christians were going to lead the unsaved to Christ, a great place to start was the political arena. Falwell, like John the Baptist, was a hero of sorts, a voice crying in the wilderness. For far too long Christians had neglected their duty to be a testimony to the secular world.

  “All across America,” the pastor shouted, “the Moral Majority movement is catching fire.”

  Pastor Bill went on to tell us that many big-name Christian teachers were joining Falwell on his crusade: Pat Robertson, Tim LaHaye, and Jim Bakker. Even Hal Lindsey had come aboard, still insisting that the Rapture was just around the corner, although in the meantime, he conceded, Christians were still expected to work toward righteousness in government.

  “Tune in to KGNW tomorr
ow at 10:00 a.m.,” Pastor Bill urged us. “The station will be broadcasting one of Pastor Falwell’s stirring messages.”

  I’d never heard of Jerry Falwell before, but he sounded like a pretty inspiring guy, so the next morning, after David left for school, I turned the radio on, already set to AM820 KGNW. “In reclaiming America for God, we must have three priorities,” a startlingly loud voice proclaimed in an accent like no preacher I knew from the Northwest. Ah, this must be Falwell, I thought. “Number one: get people converted to Christ. Number two: get them baptized. Number three: get them registered to vote!” he shouted.

  Falwell went on to say that the purpose of reclaiming the political process for God was for Christians to use secular law to reestablish the biblical family structure that America had so completely abandoned, as evidenced by the nation’s divorce rate, support for the Equal Rights Amendment, disrespectful children, homosexual rights, and the teaching of evolution in the schools. The other indisputable proof of society’s downfall was that its men were suffering from a feeling of impotence, a lack of self-esteem, and a failure of leadership, all of which could be traced directly to the new self-assertiveness of women.

  “Quoting my friends Tim and Beverly LaHaye,” he shouted, “men in America are being ‘feminized’—‘castrated.’ The integrity and survival of society can only be restored if women are returned to the traditional role of submissive helper.” The fiery preacher continued, voice strained, “The only way to redirect this catastrophe is with radical change: America must start with replacing its current president!” Falwell went on to say that even though Jimmy Carter claimed to be a born-again Christian, his political liberalism said differently. Carter supported the Equal Rights Amendment and abortion. He refused to champion the teaching of creationism in the public schools, condemn homosexuality, or clamp down on pornography; he had even done an interview with Playboy, for heaven’s sake. The air in the living room was electric with Falwell’s anger, his voice bouncing off the walls. Carise, who was nestled in a fluffy cotton baby blanket on the couch, let out a distressed sob. I ran over to the radio and turned it down.

  “That guy is pretty loud, isn’t he, sweetheart?” I said as I rocked her to sleep.

  Months later, on the evening of November 5, 1980, I was restless with pent-up anticipation. David was studying at the library, and Carise and I were cuddled up on the couch with the radio tuned to KGNW. The fire in the woodstove crackled as the voice on the radio announced, “The presidential election is too close to call.”

  “Let’s keep our fingers crossed that we can get this nation on the right track again,” I said as I kissed Carise’s fat little cheek. In my mind, the presidential election manifested a shoot-out between good and evil, with Reagan wearing the white hat. When the results finally came in, I was elated. Not only had Reagan triumphed, but the election had also resulted in further gains for the Right—conservative candidates had dethroned Democrats across the nation. Now that Ronald Reagan was at the helm and we had a conservative House of Representatives as well, Fundamentalists were assured of a godly America. I was relieved beyond words because I was beginning to suspect that Carise might soon be sharing her tiny bedroom with a new little soul.

  I came home from the Walgreen’s pharmacy that week and scurried into the bathroom, where I yanked open the pregnancy test kit and peed on the long stick, then used it to stir the chemicals in the little plastic test tube. Setting it on the living room bookshelf, I grabbed the latest issue of Christianity Today and sat back on the couch to wait out the five minutes. If the liquid remained clear, I was not pregnant. If it turned blue, I was. I had conflicted feelings about being pregnant again. David had one more year to go before completing his master of theology degree, and I knew that another child would put greater pressure on us financially and emotionally. But after being at home so much during Carise’s first weeks, he had once again begun spending more time away, studying late in the seminary library, buried behind theology books. Having another child would be great company for Carise and me. Out on the edge of my peripheral vision was a flash of teal. I focused quickly on the test tube, a tiny, ominous column of turquoise flushing slowly to royal blue. Another baby.

  Micael’s birth completely contrasted with that of her sister. Whereas Carise seemed reluctant to leave the safety and quiet comfort of water and womb during the twenty-six-hour labor, Micael tumbled out in mere hours, slapping her tiny arms and legs against my thighs as she swam from my body. Wide-eyed and determined, she came out like a woman on a mission. And unlike Carise, who politely refused to drink from a bottle, Micael quickly recognized the freedom it afforded and enjoyed switching between bottle and breast. Fierce independence was Micael’s style from birth. I marveled at the difference between my two happy daughters and at my own powerful love for them both.

  After graduating from Northwest Baptist Seminary a year later, David decided to earn a second master’s degree and enrolled at Trinity Evangelical Divinity Seminary in Chicago. I was four months pregnant with our third child when we packed a trailer Dad had welded together for us from parts of an old pickup bed, hitched it to a green ’68 Ford Mom and Dad bought for us at a Forest Service car auction, and headed out to Deerfield, Illinois. Across the Midwest we drove, with Carise and Micael peeking their tiny heads up through our piles of belongings looking like baby robins in a nest. Although I had been a bit apprehensive about taking off across country with two small children and one on the way, I did not object. I knew that God would bless our family as I supported David’s ministry.

  I did worry a little about our sex life, though. Although we seemed to be doing a pretty good job of it, considering our reproductive rate, David often seemed to be thinking about something else. Our lovemaking had become mechanical and detached, like driving a car on autopilot. And when we weren’t in bed, David often seemed to have mislocated himself, holding his book and staring off into the back of beyond. And then, when his theological journal got too heavy, with a start he’d jolt back to reality. I assumed that this small problem with absentmindedness would improve once he was through with seminary and the pressures of school were gone. I hoped also I’d see a lessening of his desire for control.

  “The fridge looks pretty dirty these days,” he’d say on his way out the front door, heading for the library. “And I also noticed last night that you bought Jif peanut butter instead of Western Family. You should know that we can’t afford that name-brand stuff,” he’d call back over his shoulder without waiting to hear if I had any defense.

  I was sure his increasing domination was also just a passing phase: the pressures of school, two small babies with another on the way. He probably felt trapped by this third pregnancy, I decided, trapped by the necessity of making a home—not just for a young couple but for an entire family: Dad, Mom, and now three kids. Within four years David had gone from footloose college student to father of an entire clan, shackled by the needs of his dependents and by his grave Christian responsibility to assume spiritual leadership of the family and be a stellar example, especially since he was going to enter the ministry. It was comforting when several of the other seminary wives confided in me that their husbands were also going through a similar unwelcome transformation.

  I got to know two other wives at Trinity Divinity School. The first, Dianna, was a strong-spirited Midwestern girl, a gorgeous red-haired athlete who had run cross-country while in college at Kansas State University. She was strong and slim, with an athlete’s self-confidence. There was no hemming or hawing with Dianna, a ruddy, take-no-prisoners beauty. From the very first time I met her in the atrium of the student union building, I noticed her blue jeans hugging her long sleek frame and wondered how she would ever survive the ministry. I hoped her husband, whoever he was, would end up in a liberal denomination, where the pressures were easier on pastors’ wives.

  “Hi, I’m Dianna,” she said, holding out her hand. “I saw you moving your stuff in upstairs. How far along are you—pregnant
, I mean?” She smiled.

  “Five months,” I said, “but it feels like eight.”

  “Aw, you look great, but I know what you mean. It’s so tiring when you’ve already got other babies to care for.”

  “Yeah, like a gravel truck has just run you over,” I said.

  “Mommy roadkill.” Her eyes, blue as glacial ice, sparkled as she threw her head back and laughed at her own joke. “You have the sweetest little girls—maybe we could get them together with my two little hellions, Tommy and George.”

  “I would love that.”

  “How about tea, then? Tomorrow at ten? I’ll invite another one of the girls I saw moving into A320. I don’t know what her name is, but she looks nice,” Dianna added.

  Amber was just as nice as Dianna but in a different way. She was a pretty, peach-skinned blond with a delicate oval face, and although she was smart, she seemed a little like a permanent traveler in outer space. She wore pressed slacks even on Saturday mornings and had a calm, almost sedate voice, which I thought would serve her well in the ministry. She and her husband would probably be just fine in a conservative Baptist church.

  Dianna, Amber, and I started meeting to do our counted cross-stitch together, calling ourselves the Seminary Widows’ Club (secretly, of course). As soon as our husbands left for class, we would settle our gang of toddlers, George and Tommy (who were actually very nice little gentlemen), Carise, Micael, and Amber’s twins, Kami and Kerry, brew strong coffee, and chatter the mornings away.

  “Tim is gone so much, I’m beginning to forget what he looks like,” Dianna said one day. “But I’ll tell you, this new form of nit-picking is even worse. He keeps telling me that if we’re going to be successful in the ministry, I’m going to have to keep the kitchen surfaces shinier. Can you believe it?” She grabbed a dishcloth and swirled it in the air. “Wash and polish, wash and polish. God, it’s like I’m a private in the U.S. Navy.”