By: J-Mag
To: Samuel Wagar (cross/ Feminism)
Re: From My Body =/= My Prop

(Crossposted from FEMINISM by Bob Hirschfeld)

Friday June 04 1993, Samuel Wagar writes to Randy Horton:

 SW>   Hi, Randy. I had an interesting conversation for a month or so on our
 SW>   local Parenting echo about this with a politically conservative
 SW>   fundamentalist Christian woman. I was delighted (though I think she
 SW>   was appalled) to discover how much common ground we had. But our
 SW>   solutions were so different.

This reminds me of something that was printed in our regional Mensa newsletter
_InforMensa_.  It was written by the other SysOp of The Round Table (1:106/
1393), Steve Godbe, and, although I asked for permission to post it in echos,
he didn't specifically know it would show up here.

        An old friend called me the other day and told me that he was
        planning to join a rigidly authoritarian and fundamentalist
        church after years being a vocal and confirmed agnostic.  It
        took me quite by surprise since we'd grown through childhood
        together in just such a particularly restrictive church,
        eventually leaving the faith together in the seventies along
        with droves of other baby boomers disenchanted with the
        established and 'trusted' institutions and their apparent too
        human failings which were dropping into plain sight under
        nightly televised investigative reports like particularly
        noisome insects on the floor of a service station john beneath
        a Shell No-Pest strip.  We'd sworn back then that we'd never
        go back to the days of our wide-eyed and devoted blind
        acceptance of others' views of right and wrong, and yet here
        was my friend planning to do just that and treating me as his
        confessor before the fact.

        When I reminded him of just what it had been like back then
        and, still perplexed, asked what had happened to change his
        stance, he finally admitted, "It's my *kids*, Steve.  I want
        them to know right from wrong, to have good sound moral values
        to guide their lives by and I'm not sure that I'm the one to
        teach them that."  Suddenly, I understood what he was really
        saying and how it meshed with other ideas I'd recently had
        surrounding the separation of church and state ideology and
        the current agenda of the 'religious right' in opposition to it.

        I just started talking about these ideas with him, of how to
        me, a non-parent admittedly, it appeared that what he and those
        other baby boomers reportedly flocking back to the church all
        these many years later are actually doing is declaring not so
        much a statement of faith in God, but a LACK of faith in
        themselves as educators and as parents.  It seems to me almost
        a fearful abdication of parental responsibility by turning the
        instructional duties for how to live a moral life over to an
        institution. Then, in just a few years, and especially in the
        case of my friend who admits he is still very much an agnostic,
        that child is going to realize that his father doesn't really
        believe in much of what that church stands for.  So Dad's
        lesson for the day and many before it will appear to be supreme
        hypocrisy, even though he had the child's interests at heart.

        It would be a great shame to destroy a child's trust like that,
        perhaps leaving them only the institution to believe in.  And
        of course, children are ripe for the picking by some of those
        who thrive upon such starry-eyed and desparate faiths.  We
        certainly had been, touring the state in revivals lining the
        pockets of just one such spiritual manipulator.  These days,
        the children may become the shock troops of a new political
        agenda, children and the young apparently having become the
        troops of choice for all manner of political movements these
        days from Houston's own "Rescue America" to the Cambodians'
        and Vietnamese' Khmer-Rouge to Peru's Shining Path.

        I'm not seriously comparing the fundamentalist churches to
        murderers mind you, but as the many womens' clinic fire-bombings
        and the recent killing of Dr. Gunn outside his abortion clinic
        in Florida demonstrate, the distance isn't always as far as it
        might at first appear.  This became particularly obvious when
        the leader of "Rescue America" told the international press
        that Dr. Gunn's killing was "morally justifiable" a few days
        prior to his leaving to teach his groups' protest methods to
        would-be activists in Great Britain.  Houston now apparently
        exports terrorism.

        "But it's HARD being a parent," he said, "and is it so wrong of
        me to seek some help?!"  I thought... and asked him if help
        was truly what he'd be seeking in that church.  Was it help, or
        was it in actuality seeking to finish the act of turning child
        instructional duties over to institutions... with first the public
        schools and later a church, in this case, one he was at odds
        with, but had attended when he was a child.  I asked if there
        was a religious institution he would feel comfortable with, and
        he related he'd been happy attending services at a Unitarian
        church... before he'd begun to feel guilty about not being
        financially able to tithe... and so he'd dropped out, but that
        somehow he'd thought the fundamentalists were the proper
        choice for moral instruction.  And then he was silent for a
        long moment.

        "Damn," he said, "I REALLY almost did it and without thinking!"
        I asked him what he meant and he said, "I almost asked someone
        to make those decisions for me *and* my family again, just like
        my father did and his before him... I *still* want to look to
        others for answers, even after all these years."  I just sat
        quietly wondering if all fathers made such hardly-considered
        decisions for the same reasons and the heavy pressures of
        knowing that you're completely responsible for your child's
        development... and if the battle for the separation of church
        and state didn't really get fought inside ourselves, in moments
        just like these.  I wondered at what he'd said..."It's HARD to
        be a parent!"  Then I thought about how difficult this phone
        call must have been for him to make to me.

        He decided to take his children to the Unitarian church in the end
        because he felt the children would have an opportunity to decide
        for himself about God, and because there was a place for both
        of them there without the stench of mendacity and yet full of
        a supportive community to share learning and teaching duties
        with.  I think he decided a lot more than just that, and I
        also think Uncle Steve just might go see what he's talking
        about... and try to pitch a hand in more often with his kids.
        We're going to see the Astros play on Friday, and perhaps
        do some learning together, the children about American
        traditions and values, and us about the wonder all about us but
        which children see best... and the challenges posed by that
        daunting look of absolute trust and faith in a young child's
        eyes.  He's right, it *is* a lot for one person to carry.