I do not write a political blog. This is the stagnant blog of a barely successful writer who keeps forgetting it exists. But if I can’t say this here, I truly cannot say it anywhere, and I can’t accept that. I have words. I have thoughts. And I have something I need to say.
I was raised by well-meaning conservatives who were doing their best. Well, my mother was. She is an undiagnosed autistic woman who has spent her life masking so hard even she can’t separate the truth from the act. As a young woman, the people who took her in and gave her a sense of belonging an purpose, who provided her with a framework through which to make sense of the world, were fundamentalist Christians. Please, I know you didn’t ask for a life story, but I need you understand, so please, I’m begging you, please hear me out.
The only reason we were allowed to wear pants, I found out just this year, was because my dad bought my older sister a pair of jeans at a yard-sale and my mother could not say no. He has always done what he pleases, and I suppose there are reasons to be grateful for that.
When I was seven, we relocated and moved from a fundamentalist church to an evangelical church. These distinctions probably don’t mean much to many, but to those within, to those like me, they are everything. And nothing, when it comes down to it. My mother was forced to reconcile the extremely rigid framework she had embraced with a more liberal one, if only just. Women wore pants, not only in general, but some of them wore them to church. But I assure you, they still weren’t allowed to preach, or even teach a class that included men. The mission field was different, of course. I suppose it was because the male converts were so young in the faith, and the moment they were mature enough to teach, the women were to step aside.
This is relevant, because this is where I come from, and I am speaking. I was taught my entire life that marriage is between a man and a woman and the woman must submit. I was taught coarse language and alcohol use were inherently wrong. I was taught to fear any message that disagreed with the one I received at church, because they were trying to corrupt me, to draw me away. I was taught, not by my mother, not to ask questions. If it didn’t make sense, it was because I was too young, too naïve, or too immature in my faith to understand. Trust those in power.
My father taught me something else, whether he meant to or not. He taught me to read widely, to meet new people, to explore. He taught me to think. But he did not challenge the message of the church. He did not read widely on matters of interpretation. He did not explore other ideas.
You need to know this, because you need to understand who they are. Who I am.
I was in this world for eighteen years. I saw the cracks long before I got out, but I was still there. It took me eighteen years outside of it to fully break free.
It isn’t because I escaped unscathed. I didn’t even know my own existence was possible, a denial that could very easily have destroyed my marriage, had I married an even slightly weaker man. It isn’t because I didn’t realize how dangerous they were. The two year breakdown I had when I left home was pretty convincing.
It took me eighteen years because I wanted to trust these people. Not what they were saying. I hated what they were saying. I wanted to trust them. My pastors, my teachers, my mentors. They are good people. They are well-meaning people, sincerely pursuing a faith that is genuinely built on love and hope. Every last one of them would be devastated if I could ever lead them to truly, fully understand how deeply they wounded me.
I was raised by well-meaning conservatives, and they are killing people. It breaks my heart.
Well-meaning conservatives are not alone in the instinctive submission to a clearly defined community. Well-meaning conservatives are not alone in the lazy acceptance of an attractive authority. We as humans survive by defining us and them. It is in our nature to embrace ready-made paradigms. All it takes is one charismatic leader, allowing just enough freedom of choice for followers to feel independent and self-determined, providing clear enough rules to make you feel good following them, shame breaking them, and better than those who don’t even try, and entire populations, countless generations, are set on an unchangeable course. It doesn’t matter what the rules are.
Then what you do, if you really want to start a war, is learn the lingo and claim there already is one. We all hate to be challenged. Question our paradigm and you’re threatening the very foundation we’re standing on. Entertaining that kind of threat isn’t just owning up to a mistake, it’s admitting that we ourselves, in our very being, could be wrong. Use the right words, say them over and over, and you can cultivate fear. Once you have fear, you’ve already got anger. Pitch it as an attack, and anyone who listens to your opponent now deserves shame, or worse, pity.
Well-meaning conservatives were used as a weapon. Consciously. Intentionally. Despicably.
All those beliefs I was raised with? The ones that hurt me so deeply? That’s not even what I’m talking about. Those mostly come down to a problem with language and the monstrously difficult hurdle of tradition. I can have a conversation about the culpability of church fathers and the corruptive influences of wealth and power which led to a patriarchal religion of control and suppression, but that is a different conversation, I’m afraid. Disentangling evangelicals from flawed translations and manipulative traditions was always going to be just as difficult as it is essential, but politicians recognized a tool when they saw one.
Most people only hear the loudest voices, and the loudest voices are never the voices of reason.
I was taught that the government should stay out of the church’s business, meaning all charity work should be done by the church, not the state. Feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, etc. I was also taught that laws should be based on the values of the church. It was a one-way street, apparently.
I was taught that the government could not tell the church how to operate on church property, but I was also taught that the government absolutely should tell people how to behave within their own homes. Again, it’s a one-way street.
I was taught that removing prayer from school because it was an expression of personal faith was a dangerous precedent that would lead to outlawing christianity, but allowing time for prayer from other faiths, also an expression of personal faith, was a dangerous precedent that would somehow limit christianity, by people who could not see that dictating where another faith can practice is, in fact, the precedent that can, actually, be used to… I’m getting carried away.
They knew the history. They used the right words. They said them loudly enough often enough to convince a people safely in power that they were under attack by a people that just wants to exist.
Well-meaning conservatives refused to denounce the extremists. Well-meaning conservatives accepted criminal behavior because, they had been told in just the right way, that it was the only way to stop the villains. Accept the flawed because it’s better than the evil. Well-meaning conservatives now face the galling prospect of admitting responsibility for heartrending consequences.
Children are dead. So many children.
So what’s the point of all this? Why did I ask for your time? Because I’m in pain. Because I love these people, and I know their hearts, and I respect their intentions. But my Scripture says to love and protect the displaced, and well-meaning conservatives have accepted cruel immigration policy. My Scripture says to feed the beggar without questioning whether they deserve it, and well-meaning conservatives won’t fund a policy that might be exploited. My Scripture says trust each other to the Spirit, and well-meaning conservatives tell me my faith has been corrupted. My Scripture says love and endure, and well-meaning conservatives have followed leaders who are intent on tearing this country apart if they can’t utterly control it.
I need to make this clear: I am NOT a Democrat. I do not trust the ‘leadership’ on the Left. I do not think ‘liberals’ are without their own faults. They certainly have their own extremists.
I simply needed to vent my spleen. I need to bare my heart. I don’t know how to get well-meaning conservatives to break the covenants they’ve made and admit the damage they’ve done. All I know is that I suffer from chronic health issues current science is suggesting may be the result of prolonged trauma as a child, and on days like today I can barely move because every nerve in my body is insisting I’m injured, or at least under attack. All I know is that I have a non-binary child who has already lived one year longer than Nex. I shouldn’t have to be grateful for that.
I shouldn’t have to be grateful for that.
My parents are well-meaning conservatives. We are not out to them. But I will not break free of them, either, because when I say they are well-meaning, I am sincere. They are sincere. Their love is sincere.
The people with the power to stop the villains are not the loudest voices that oppose them but the quiet voices that do not.
