The more I learn about this time in Evangelical history, the more I understand my parents. They were raised by racist, white supremacist parents who were deep into fundamentalism. It’s taken me years to detox from and undo my indoctrination. But I’m still shocked when I read the truth about how awful it was.
I find knowledge / information to be so helpful for myself to process but it is also so overwhelming sometimes. It's really hard to process being born into a white reactionary movement, but I am glad we can all do this in community!
“What happens to a family dynamic when domination, rather than understanding, is viewed as a godly and even patriotic act?” One answer, I suspect, is that the use of authoritarian strategies to control and dominate backfires on those in power, be they parents or, as we are witnessing this week with the protests at Columbia University, institutional leaders, elected officials, and the police.
I read your third installment right after reading Judd Legum’s latest in Popular Information, “Columbia University protests and the lessons of ‘Gym Crow.’” He draws parallels between the unwise and unjust decision of arresting 108 pro-Palestinian protesters and suspending many of them and the protests of April 1968, when the then Columbia University president called the NYPD on student protesting the school’s planned take over of an adjacent park majoritarily used by the local black community and the school’s involvement with an organization fueling the war machine. In 1968, the result of using brute force to punish and quiet young people asking better of their leaders backfired on the administrators and the conservatives putting pressure on them as the school moved to democratize its policy making process and value political activism in the following years. Legum surmises that the involvement of the NYPD and the draconian punishment of those saying no to the genocide will probably backfire in a similar fashion and only foment solidarity and further action. I sure damn hope it does.
The part that angered me the most in the article was the Christian supremacist audacity of congressman Rick Allen of Georgia who asked Shafik, Columbia’s president (who is Muslim) if she wants God to curse Columbia, because apparently it is clear in the Bible that those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed. There is no difference between representative Allen’s use of religion to instill fear or conformity and what parents sold RAP in white evangelicalism did (and still do) to ascertain that their kids would be obedient to God, authorities, and never rock the boat of the patriarchal, racist, exploitative capitalist status quo.
Neale’s article followed William F. Buckley Jr.’s (father of modern neo-conservatism) own New York Newsday opinion piece in which he criticizes both the students for getting out of line (don’t they know Harlem is about as safe as the DMZ?) and the university president for perhaps being too permissive, or in his words, “too calm.” The hatred of young people claiming agency and a stake in local and global politics is evident by both. As it is in many opinion pieces produced this week by those who tow the Zionist and pro-American empire line or are ignorantly afraid of anything remotely connectable with antisemitism.
I don’t really have anything major to add to what is being stated, other than pointing out the connection between your thesis and current events. We see in real time the impact of RAP (and of expanding the police state). And it is odious. Time to abolish both.
Yes, I almost cannot believe how prescient this chapter ended up being -- in a way it makes me feel comforted. We have seen these battles waged in the US before, and more and more of us are able to name the authoritarian tactics and patterns and learn to fight back!
Thank you thank you for undergoing this project!! It’s validated my experience as a child growing up in this environment and has given so much context as to why
Thank you so much for this comment. I really want to validate folks who grew up in these worlds (since we so rarely get that from the communities we were born into).
“What’s it like to grow up in a home where every day family life also functioned as ground zero for a culture war intent on reclaiming political power?”
This type of theology about culture, faith and life creates a lot of fear about the “secular” world and, therefore, creates a very controlled and sheltered environment.
Just like many of you, my media consumption was very controlled. I, along with my siblings, were only allowed to listen to Christian music and watch limited shows/movies. I was also homeschooled from 2nd-5th in order to keep me “in the world but not of the world”
Just like we see today with the Far Right, faith and politics were tied closely together in my house. Paradoxically, I wasn’t allowed to watch shows like the Rugrats, but constantly heard Rush Limbaugh playing from our radio. I wasn’t allowed to listen to “secular” music for fear of its worldly message, yet I was forced to watch Carmen music videos that scared the shit out of me.
Thank you for pointing out the political and religious climate of the 1960s that primed our parents to fearfully and strictly raise us in the Christian bubble we were raised in. It definitely sheds light on how Evangelicals got to where they are today.
None of this is super new or surprising to me, but I looooove the way you're laying it all out and explaining it so thoroughly in such an interesting way. THANK YOU.
I feel like now that I see evangelical Christian nationalism as a patriarchal, white, colonial, attempt to hold power, I can’t unsee it. I see it in the Zionist literature and rhetoric that was consumed in my home growing up and the ideologies now being used to justify Palestinian genocide. I see it in the parenting methods that gaslit me into believing that abuse was good for me and my flesh would only tell me lies and lead me astray. Now I believe my body, specifically desire, is the place where my liberation/healing lives, and I’m so angry that embodiment was systematically taken from me as a child, in an effort to protect patriarchy. It really did “work” for so long-I still feel embarrassed around how I have been complicit in the system and even defended it and like I have soooo much ground to make up in my emotional development. The complex layers of trauma have left me feeling so far from psychologically/spiritually healthy.
I felt every word of this comment so very deeply. You aren't alone, and I hope you can talk back to the shame that might crop up by recognizing that you experienced trauma as a small and powerless child. I feel like even having access to the realization that liberation lies in the desire of our bodies is such a beautiful (and emotionally intelligent) viewpoint!
There's a deeply gross irony in the fact that my parents, whose own childhoods so lacked any degree of modeled healthy parental structure, wound up finding that structure in this fad, only for my kid brother and I to be the ones to pay the price for it. By my experience, a family ruled by these sorts of rules - domination rather than understanding, blind obedience over active communication, happy knee-jerk reactions-only as opposed to learning how to face all emotions in a healthy manner (Not just the "easy" and pleasant" ones) winds up with maladjusted kids with big feelings, zero healthy outlets for those feelings, who either bottle things up, lash out, or both. We ultimately felt trapped, and looked desperately towards life beyond our childhood home for freedom - despite being wholly unequipped to handle adulthood on multiple levels. I mean, let's be real, "Just do what you are told, never question anything" is a pretty useless when you're an emotionally stunted young person with lacking problem solving or critical thinking skills who suddenly finds themselves in a complex, nuanced world where it's clear Right and Wrong aren't nearly as black and white as we were lead to believe. The level of frustration I have just thinking about it at this point in my life is honestly wild (Although, I think, necessary.) Pardon while I go have a nice, big scream.
Screaming is absolutely necessary. It is my personal belief that raising kids this way makes them easy targets for authoritarianism (think FOX news or Rush Limbaugh, which allow people to "feel" anger and rage over and over again). I know my parents seemed to hope I never did enter the real world and experience life beyond an easy binary of right/wrong or good/bad. Which would make me (and did) an easy target for predatory groups.
Because I love putting texts in conversation with one another, here is another piece by Fran Liberatore questioning the adultism of those condemning (and clamping down on) student protesters. When society generally dismisses and even despises young people, it can justify its authoritarian repression of their activism, just as a parent can justify using coercion and punishment to get a child to not act in a way that would inconvenience them, the adult, and call that “good parenting.”
The more I learn about this time in Evangelical history, the more I understand my parents. They were raised by racist, white supremacist parents who were deep into fundamentalism. It’s taken me years to detox from and undo my indoctrination. But I’m still shocked when I read the truth about how awful it was.
I find knowledge / information to be so helpful for myself to process but it is also so overwhelming sometimes. It's really hard to process being born into a white reactionary movement, but I am glad we can all do this in community!
“What happens to a family dynamic when domination, rather than understanding, is viewed as a godly and even patriotic act?” One answer, I suspect, is that the use of authoritarian strategies to control and dominate backfires on those in power, be they parents or, as we are witnessing this week with the protests at Columbia University, institutional leaders, elected officials, and the police.
I read your third installment right after reading Judd Legum’s latest in Popular Information, “Columbia University protests and the lessons of ‘Gym Crow.’” He draws parallels between the unwise and unjust decision of arresting 108 pro-Palestinian protesters and suspending many of them and the protests of April 1968, when the then Columbia University president called the NYPD on student protesting the school’s planned take over of an adjacent park majoritarily used by the local black community and the school’s involvement with an organization fueling the war machine. In 1968, the result of using brute force to punish and quiet young people asking better of their leaders backfired on the administrators and the conservatives putting pressure on them as the school moved to democratize its policy making process and value political activism in the following years. Legum surmises that the involvement of the NYPD and the draconian punishment of those saying no to the genocide will probably backfire in a similar fashion and only foment solidarity and further action. I sure damn hope it does.
The part that angered me the most in the article was the Christian supremacist audacity of congressman Rick Allen of Georgia who asked Shafik, Columbia’s president (who is Muslim) if she wants God to curse Columbia, because apparently it is clear in the Bible that those who bless Israel will be blessed and those who curse Israel will be cursed. There is no difference between representative Allen’s use of religion to instill fear or conformity and what parents sold RAP in white evangelicalism did (and still do) to ascertain that their kids would be obedient to God, authorities, and never rock the boat of the patriarchal, racist, exploitative capitalist status quo.
Neale’s article followed William F. Buckley Jr.’s (father of modern neo-conservatism) own New York Newsday opinion piece in which he criticizes both the students for getting out of line (don’t they know Harlem is about as safe as the DMZ?) and the university president for perhaps being too permissive, or in his words, “too calm.” The hatred of young people claiming agency and a stake in local and global politics is evident by both. As it is in many opinion pieces produced this week by those who tow the Zionist and pro-American empire line or are ignorantly afraid of anything remotely connectable with antisemitism.
I don’t really have anything major to add to what is being stated, other than pointing out the connection between your thesis and current events. We see in real time the impact of RAP (and of expanding the police state). And it is odious. Time to abolish both.
Link to Judd Legum’s piece: https://open.substack.com/pub/popularinformation/p/columbia-university-protests-and?r=870yh&utm_medium=ios
Yes, I almost cannot believe how prescient this chapter ended up being -- in a way it makes me feel comforted. We have seen these battles waged in the US before, and more and more of us are able to name the authoritarian tactics and patterns and learn to fight back!
I got Nelson Bell’s name wrong (called him Neale?) That happens to me too often when I’m reading multiple things at a time.
Thank you thank you for undergoing this project!! It’s validated my experience as a child growing up in this environment and has given so much context as to why
Thank you so much for this comment. I really want to validate folks who grew up in these worlds (since we so rarely get that from the communities we were born into).
“What’s it like to grow up in a home where every day family life also functioned as ground zero for a culture war intent on reclaiming political power?”
This type of theology about culture, faith and life creates a lot of fear about the “secular” world and, therefore, creates a very controlled and sheltered environment.
Just like many of you, my media consumption was very controlled. I, along with my siblings, were only allowed to listen to Christian music and watch limited shows/movies. I was also homeschooled from 2nd-5th in order to keep me “in the world but not of the world”
Just like we see today with the Far Right, faith and politics were tied closely together in my house. Paradoxically, I wasn’t allowed to watch shows like the Rugrats, but constantly heard Rush Limbaugh playing from our radio. I wasn’t allowed to listen to “secular” music for fear of its worldly message, yet I was forced to watch Carmen music videos that scared the shit out of me.
Thank you for pointing out the political and religious climate of the 1960s that primed our parents to fearfully and strictly raise us in the Christian bubble we were raised in. It definitely sheds light on how Evangelicals got to where they are today.
Emily
None of this is super new or surprising to me, but I looooove the way you're laying it all out and explaining it so thoroughly in such an interesting way. THANK YOU.
I feel like now that I see evangelical Christian nationalism as a patriarchal, white, colonial, attempt to hold power, I can’t unsee it. I see it in the Zionist literature and rhetoric that was consumed in my home growing up and the ideologies now being used to justify Palestinian genocide. I see it in the parenting methods that gaslit me into believing that abuse was good for me and my flesh would only tell me lies and lead me astray. Now I believe my body, specifically desire, is the place where my liberation/healing lives, and I’m so angry that embodiment was systematically taken from me as a child, in an effort to protect patriarchy. It really did “work” for so long-I still feel embarrassed around how I have been complicit in the system and even defended it and like I have soooo much ground to make up in my emotional development. The complex layers of trauma have left me feeling so far from psychologically/spiritually healthy.
I felt every word of this comment so very deeply. You aren't alone, and I hope you can talk back to the shame that might crop up by recognizing that you experienced trauma as a small and powerless child. I feel like even having access to the realization that liberation lies in the desire of our bodies is such a beautiful (and emotionally intelligent) viewpoint!
There's a deeply gross irony in the fact that my parents, whose own childhoods so lacked any degree of modeled healthy parental structure, wound up finding that structure in this fad, only for my kid brother and I to be the ones to pay the price for it. By my experience, a family ruled by these sorts of rules - domination rather than understanding, blind obedience over active communication, happy knee-jerk reactions-only as opposed to learning how to face all emotions in a healthy manner (Not just the "easy" and pleasant" ones) winds up with maladjusted kids with big feelings, zero healthy outlets for those feelings, who either bottle things up, lash out, or both. We ultimately felt trapped, and looked desperately towards life beyond our childhood home for freedom - despite being wholly unequipped to handle adulthood on multiple levels. I mean, let's be real, "Just do what you are told, never question anything" is a pretty useless when you're an emotionally stunted young person with lacking problem solving or critical thinking skills who suddenly finds themselves in a complex, nuanced world where it's clear Right and Wrong aren't nearly as black and white as we were lead to believe. The level of frustration I have just thinking about it at this point in my life is honestly wild (Although, I think, necessary.) Pardon while I go have a nice, big scream.
Screaming is absolutely necessary. It is my personal belief that raising kids this way makes them easy targets for authoritarianism (think FOX news or Rush Limbaugh, which allow people to "feel" anger and rage over and over again). I know my parents seemed to hope I never did enter the real world and experience life beyond an easy binary of right/wrong or good/bad. Which would make me (and did) an easy target for predatory groups.
Because I love putting texts in conversation with one another, here is another piece by Fran Liberatore questioning the adultism of those condemning (and clamping down on) student protesters. When society generally dismisses and even despises young people, it can justify its authoritarian repression of their activism, just as a parent can justify using coercion and punishment to get a child to not act in a way that would inconvenience them, the adult, and call that “good parenting.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/alifeunschooled/p/is-it-bad-behavior-or-is-it-calling?r=870yh&utm_medium=ios
Wow wow wow!