The latest in the fundamentalist sex scandals, that of former Indiana Representative Mark Souder, didn't surprise me. Neither have any of the sex scandals involving hypocritical fundamentalists who live their lives with a public mantra of "family values" and their private lives with the morals of alley cats. I learned early that fundamentalism means lying more than it means Christian.
When I was 14, I had my first boyfriend. He was 19, and an aspiring preacher. He was (is) gifted with an amazing singing voice, and an ability to mesmerize those who listen to him preach a sermon. At the time, I was a believer. Not just a believer in God, but a believer in the faith of my parents. My parents were devout fundamentalist Christians, whose lives revolved around their Southern Baptist Church. I attended church twice on Sunday, plus Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday nights. When my boyfriend and I started dating, rather than being upset about the age difference (he was 19), they were thrilled that I might end up being the wife of a preacher.
A few months after we started dating, Preacher Boy started calling me late at night. We would have conversations that would lead to veiled comments about sex. Of course, we both agreed that we wouldn't have it - that's not be what God wanted. But, as our late night conversations continued, he began asking if I would "help him out" by talking dirty to him. Being young and in "love", I thought that it was the least I could do - I mean, he wasn't pressuring me to have sex. So - that is how I learned to describe giving a blow job in detail, without ever actually having seen a penis. Over the next year, I learned a lot of other things. I would talk dirty to him while he pleasured himself and made certain that I could hear. I started feeling dirty all the time. I wondered if this was the way women felt when they got married - and I wondered if all men had the same strange fantasies. After a year, Preacher Boy and I broke up. He went on to marry a nice woman and have several children. They actually are pretty famous in certain Christian music circles - and have recorded many CDs. About 10 years after we broke up, and he was married, we ran into each other and chatted for a little while. Later that night, my phone rang. It was him, and he wanted to meet me at a hotel! He told me that he wanted to "finish what we started all those years ago." I politely told him to go home to his wife.
At the church my parents and I attended, I had the wonderful experience of walking in on the pastor and the church pianist making out on his desk. He was a married father of two; she was an award winning songwriter of Christian music. The next minister at the church had to leave within 5 years because he cheated on his wife with the church secretary. They both left their spouses, and he is now the pastor of a church in another part of the state. Within that same church, there were numerous cases of adultery, and one of the music director (male) having an affair with one of the deacons (also male). That was especially heartbreaking, because both of them were really nice people - people I spent time with after they divorced their wives and began a relationship.
From the age of 14, I learned to live two lives. I would be the perfect Christian on Sunday - playing the piano and the organ at church - and then doing whatever I wanted away from the prying eyes of the church members. It was a game, being two people. I lived that way for many years of my life, because it was the culture in which I was raised. I had to present my "good" self because it was what my parents expected, but my "bad" side drank a lot, smoked a lot of marijuana and cursed like a sailor. The funny thing is - all of my friends were the same way. We all did the same things together on the weekends, and then sat in church representing the good job that fundamentalists do in raising children.
You might say that my experiences are just one person's, that they could be isolated incidents. However, I would say this: fundamentalism means lying. When you set up a series of absolutes, and you make those absolutes the foundation of everything that measures a person, it takes lies to cover the lapses in human frailty. The problem is that that the leaders, the ones who make the rules, cannot themselves follow them. That should be the first sign of a problem with a religion that looks more at what a person does than who they are. The fundamentalists throw away those with kind hearts and compassionate spirits, if they find something about them that goes against the teachings of their god. For example:
A woman in Alabama was asked to leave her church when it was found out that she was a stripper on the weekends. This woman, a single mother with three children to support, is by all accounts a loving and kind person. However, she had to take the only job she could get - stripping - to make money to live. She said, "I wish that someone at that church would have offered me a job. There are a lot of people who own businesses, but I guess it was just easier to get rid of the stripper. People would talk if they hired me." (Personal story from the woman involved)
Two lesbians in Boston had their son kicked out of a Catholic school because the diocese said that their union was "against the teachings of the church." As we know, same sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts, and these women are raising their son in a loving home. However, although they could pay the tuition and wanted their son to be there, the child was not asked back for next year.Link to story
The Principal of a Christian school in Colorado was acquitted of molesting boys, but police found homosexual porn on his school computer. Link to story
I stopped getting angry over the hypocrisy a long time ago. I guess I was jaded at a young age, and so nothing these people do surprises me. Rekers "rentboy" and Souder's affair are just a drop in the bucket. Now, let me make this clear: there is a difference between Christians and fundamentalists. I have known many of the first who were wonderful people with great character, and I have known a few of the second who were also the first - but very few. Many of the second are liars who are just trying to maintain an image. I don't blame them anymore, though. It is the nature of the beast that they have to cover up their true selves in order to measure up to the absolutes of their belief system.
Me, I stopped trying to measure up a long time ago. Now, I am just me. I do whatever good I can do, and I try to sow seeds of kindness around me. I try to be moderate in my vices as much as I can - not for God, but for my own health. I don't always succeed, but hey, in my book, God is about forgiveness more than he is about appearances. He loves sinners, but he hates hypocrites...it's even in the Ten Commandments. "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." To most fundamentalists, that means cursing, but to me, it means being a hypocrite. I might be wrong, but hey, I am not living up to fundamentalist standards.