Below are the links to a survey engineered by Gothard to let you know how good a job you and your teen are doing at staving off the forces of darkness.
I started filling in the answers but got bored after page 4. You all can take a crack at filling in the rest.
(page 1)(page 2)(page 3)(page 4)(page 5)(page 6)(page 7)(page 8)(page 9)(Back Cover)
many thanks to supernova8610 for doing the work of scanning these in.
It may be the time of year when the world falls in love but if you’re a young fundamentalist the course of love never runs smoothly. If you happen to have the fortune to be in a fundy camp where “dating” is not considered to be a dirty word, it still doesn’t mean that your romantic endeavors will be anything less than awkward and strange.
The main problem is that there just isn’t a whole lot of space to get to know someone in the confines of the fundy dating scheme. Dinner at a nice restaurant? Only if you bring two chaperons (and pay for their meals). Take in a movie? You must be joking. Bible conference? Ah! Now there’s a real fundy approved dating venue. Nothing says romance quite like listening to an evangelist yell.
In fact, other than sitting with the object of your affection’s parents in their living room watching The Sound of Music, church and Christian school activities are really about the only other approved dating venues. Parks, beaches, public streets and Walmart are locations much too fraught with temptation to allow young people to hang out there together unsupervised. Even if they’re 36.
Good luck having those heart to heart moments where you share all your hopes and dreams and say silly things as those in love are wont to do. Hopefully, your chaperons have the decency to pretend not to notice.
Darrell,
I just wanted to drop you a line and say that I have met a very nice
young man. His name is Titus. He is an older brother of a friend of
my brother, Uriah. We are the same age and he is in graduate school
at The Conservative College. He is getting a Master’s Degree in
Pastoral Theology. His mother was sick when he was in high school and
when he graduated, it was God’s will that he go to a local Junior
College for two years. He was able to be available to help his mother
and father out. His time there doesn’t seem to have turned him into
an atheist, so I am thankful for that. I have heard that it can be
hard to resist the pressure from all the communist student
organizations at those state institutions.
He came to visit his brother who is doing some work with a local
evangelist while he saves money for school (Uriah also works for this
evangelist on his website store). While Titus was here, he and I (and
all my other brothers, of course) went to get ice cream, ride go-carts
(I am so glad I finally sewed that long black skirt and could wear
it!), visit the zoo, and attend church. We even got to share a
hymnal. He is an honorable man so he did not try to hold my hand
under the hymnal, like I’ve heard of some other boys trying to do.
He is back at school and has asked if he could write me. I told him
yes. He says it will probably be through the snail mail because he
wants his letters to be saved for posterity. I think that is so
romantic. He talked to my Father and asked if it was okay to write me
and that his intentions were to get to know me. Courtship via mail.
Father agreed that this was probably the best thing to do.
Titus is very cute. He is tall and has green eyes. He has never had
braces on his teeth, but you can’t even tell! They are as straight as
anything!
In between the ice cream and go-carts, we got to talk a little about
finding the right one. We had a lot in common in that area. Neither
one of us has dated anyone and we think that it’s akin to divorce to
date and then break up. I told him that my one goal in life is to be
a happy homemaker. He smiled and said that would be his goal for me,
as well. I think he means that he is very serious about getting to
know me and courting me!!!
Anyway, I just remembered that I had said in the little questionaire
that I wasn’t courting anyone. Well, now I am.
Blessings to you in the name of our Lord (and Savior) Jesus Christ,
CampMeetingGirl
In fundamentalism, ministry is a family business. The preacher’s wife plays the piano. The preacher’s younger son leads the singing while the elder runs the youth group. The preacher’s daughter manages the nursery. Each one ensures that the leader has a tight leash on every department in the organization.
Some day when dad is finally called home to his reward, one of the sons will pick up where he left off, often regaling the congregation with tales of “what dad once said.” An aspiring preacher boy will be lucky enough to marry this great man’s daughter and leverage that name recognition into his own ministerial conquests. (The other son will get gender realignment surgery and start a band in Hoboken, NJ — but we’ll never hear about him).
A good name may be more desirable than great riches but in fundamentalism it’s unlikely you’ll have one without the other. As for the rest of you rabble, if you’re not blessed enough to have such a pedigree, good luck keeping up with the Joneses.
Whenever someone apostatizes and leaves the old paths, fundamentalists will inevitably assign someone the blame. There will be an informal postmortem, inquest, and a whispered placing of the blame on someone’s shoulders for having led this soul astray. More often than not the culpability is rested on the shoulders of the fundamentalist parents.
It is a strange contradiction that fundamentalists can at the same time believe that every man has free will but also that no child raised “properly” will ever stray from the fundy faith. It can’t have been that the fundamentalist movement was flawed or illogical or provoked this young person to wrath. No indeed, it’s much more likely that this rebellion was inspired by the way their parents spared the rod or allowed them to have Disney characters on their third grade lunch box.
For this reason, parents in the fundamentalist realm will often preach to their children not only the doctrines of separation and standards but also heap upon them the warning that if the child’s foot should stray that he will bring a reproach on his family’s honor that will never be removed. His father may lose his deaconship. His mother may lose her place on the women’s missionary committee. The family dog may even lose the right to frolic with more upright and holier dogs.
Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old if he has departed from it we’ll definitely be blaming your parenting. (Unless, of course, you’re a pastor who is among the congregation of the blessed. Then we’ll be far too polite to mention it.)
