I originally saw this link on my friend Erika's Facebook page. I can't recommend strongly enough that you watch it. Australian news takes a look at Quiverfull...
Does Nancy Campbell's smile give anyone else the creeps? I have some thoughts about the Campbells that would probably be best kept to myself, but just let me say they include the letters C and Y with RAZ in between. And to think that some people still don't believe me (and others) when I try to warn them about the dangers and evils of these movements.
I came across this next clip at Stuff Fundies Like. This gets over into the world of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist, but illustrates a problem not exclusive to the IFB, but prevalent throughout fundamentalism in various ways - spiritualizing the non-spiritual. Note the litany of hearty "Amens!" and other pseudo-spiritual reactions to some pretty off-the-wall things.
He should've taken up the offering right after the mashed potatoes anecdote. This substantiates my long-held theory about rural, particularly southern, IFBs: Sing a song about "Mama", they'll be three-deep in the altar...and you can follow it up with "Rocky Top" and they'll still be shouting. I should know. I've lived in this world and been in hundreds of churches, hearing countless messages, just like the one in the video.
I came across this next clip over at Jesus Needs New PR.
For anyone who thinks it's wonderful that this infant is "learning to worship the Lord", my question would be is that really something that can be learned? Wouldn't that be something more akin to Islamic ritual than the result of the indwelling Holy Spirit (received through relationship with Christ) compelling worship?
I find it humorous, but not spiritual by any means. The kid has the motions and expressions down better than most adults. Ironically, I've seen the same motions and expressions at Journey concerts during "Open Arms" and "Send Her My Love". Imagine her left hand holding up a lighter.
Oh. My. Goodness. To all three videos but most of all Nancy Campbell. Oh wow. Yup, this was my life - we owned her book, my mom gave it to me for Christmas when I was pregnant with my first, friends from our homeschool group gave me a subscription to Above Rubies for my wedding... bleh. "So many women are educated beyond their intelligence that they forget God created them a female!"
ReplyDeleteShe means "Stop learning what God's word is really saying and listen to me when I tell you that all you are is a womb. Or a WOMB MAN."
I literally feel sick when I watch and listen to her.
The child "worshipping" - really? She is dancing the way she has seen other people dance. It's called mimicking. All healthy children do it. My children move their little bootys every time they hear music. They dance exactly like we've shown them to dance - and sometimes Asher does jazz hands and the sprinkler. :P It's just natural to move to the music.
I guess all I'm saying about that one is *eyeroll*
Nancy Campbell is crackers! I found it really interesting that when a question was posed to her husband, she answered it. These families that are high up in the ranks, where both husband and wife are part of the teaching team, I find that they're not as patriarchal as they'd like people to believe. This subculture is so set on women not teaching, but it's okay when it's for brainwashing fellow women.
ReplyDeleteHer analogy of us being men with breasts and wombs? Where does she come up with this? If we're also men, but only with breasts and wombs, then why are we to be dominated? Is that what this is really all about? We're men but because we have breasts and wombs, we're lesser? What a load of crock. It seems to me that she's just making this stuff up as she goes along because it sounds good and it perpetuates her agenda.
I'm fully convinced that the only reason she's allowed to teach and because she's so visible in their marriage is because it pays the bills.
Her smile totally creeps me out. It's fake, condescending and creepy. She's completely demeaning to women with her statements about women being educated beyond their intelligence. For real? In that case, anyone is educated beyond their intelligence because it's through learning that we become intelligent.
Oh, and I didn't realize my skim milk was SO un-spiritual.
That baby is cute in that it's mimicking what the adults are doing. Just like any other baby would mimic what their parents and siblings would be doing. But to think of it as genuine worship is stretching it a bit too far.
Yeah guys...The "educated beyond their intelligence" quip was beyond disturbing to me too. Do the women who follow this man and woman's teachings realize exactly what she's saying about women in saying that? Doesn't that translate into "You're too stupid, by God's design, for an education"?
ReplyDeleteErika I love your logic! If we are just men with wombs and breasts than why ARE we treated as less than? (Incidentally, men can breast feed. Only look that one up if you are secure in your gender!;-)
ReplyDeleteNancy Campbell creeps me out. Her smile is so smarmy and fake and that voice...definitely hypnotic, like Kaa in Disney's Jungle Book.
The IFB clip? Couldn't watch it all, but what a cult of personality. He's getting people to "amen" for his rant about food? Who are these people hanging on his every word? That is so sad that people are actually cheering on this megalomaniac and thinking that this somehow pleases God.
And the baby is cute. Reminds me of the baby dancing to the Beyonce video on TV. :)
As a mother, I find Nancy's talks in that video demeaning to mothers. There's just something about how she keeps saying "womb" that appalls and disgusts me. She is taking away Jesus in the identity of a woman and replacing Him with a womb. I am not a walking "womb". I am a female made in the image of God. I am not defined by my reproductive system. I have 3 beautiful children whom I have grown and nurtured and love. What those people teach is demeaning to them too. They don't see children as individual souls. They seem them as numbers, as furthering their cause, as a mass army. It's the difference between a factory-produced mass product and a lovingly-handmade treasure. Those women and children are only worth what they will do for the Cause. My heart broke for them as I watched the innocent faces of the children in that video. They are being taught that they exist to further an agenda. I earnestly pray that they will learn that they exist because they have a Creator who sees and loves and delights in them for who they are, not what they can do.
ReplyDeleteYes the Above Rubies clan is creepy beyond all reason. *MAJOR*confession here I still have a subscription to their magazine!! I also have her video on cooking or some such nonsense. I don't know why I have not cancelled this garbage, I think I like to keep up with this trash so I can continue to keep current and help my lost friends find their way out of patriocentric apostasy. I have many around me that are still caught up in this stuff to varying degrees. As much as I want to walk away and pretend like this stuff never affected me or my family I cannot. The Lord continues to ask that I speak out.
ReplyDeleteSomething that really disturbs me in the IFB clip is that he's TELLING people to say "Amen." Most of it is not even of their own volition. And what's even scarier is that they do what they're told.
ReplyDeleteA "walking womb." It should be more like a "walking tomb." A tomb where a woman's personality and soul once existed before it was stolen from them.
Shadowspring - yes, men CAN breastfeed. Perhaps Nancy doesn't know this because of her limited intelligence. Or perhaps she DOES know this but banks on the fact that the women she talks to are of limited intelligence because others have squelched it.
ReplyDeleteVery creepy! (Gee, someone deleted the clip? Luckily, Google Reader still plays it.) What I want to know is this: How can someone be educated beyond their intelligence?
ReplyDeleteROTFLOL I love how she interrupts when the tv host asked her husband should women obey their husbands!
ReplyDeleteJust shared that first video myself - thanks for pointing it out. And I know that smile... you're rightfully creeped out.
ReplyDeleteJust concurring with everyone else. Nancy Campbell just oozes phoniness.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad we now have the internet. At some point maybe some of these trapped souls can get a chance to see this stuff on youtube or elsewhere and have their objectivity awakened. It's all so creepy. So glad to be free, though my past involves only extreme fundamentalism, not patriarchy, thankfully.
Nancy Campbell's smile is so fake and stupid looking. I feel sorry for women who are under that oppression and false teaching. It is sad to hear a young 19 girl talk about trying to commit suicide. I am glad that her mom and siblings got out and are doing well. I just pray others can get out too and be set free from such lies and bondage. It is shameful that people teach that garbage. God bless those of you who are out and are on the lines trying to help others. Lewis, thanks for your post. You are helping so many people.
ReplyDeleteLinda Reynolds
Wow! I had read some of the Campbell's book, and don't really agree with it, but if I had watched her I think I would have been more than a little turned off. Creepy is definitely the word for it! :P
ReplyDeleteAs a long-time follower of Above Rubies, the tv clip did get some things wrong. They implied that this movement came out of America. Colin and Nancy Campbell are actually New Zealanders. They started the Above Rubies Ministry there in the 1970's. Back then, they were not Quiverfull. They did have 6 children, but this was by their own choice, not by 'letting' God decide. The QF stuff came much later. (No, I am not old enough to remember, but I was at an AR retreat one year, I think it was their 20th anniversary, and I won some early editions of their magazine).
ReplyDeleteI first became involved (for want of a better word) with AR in around 1991 when my second child was born. A lot of what they said made a lot of sense to me. By this stage they were quiverfull, and patriarchal. They had also spread their ministry to Australia, and then on to America.
The first retreat I went to was in 1995 or 1996. (I can't really remember!). I do know that the one in 1996 was a month before my 5th daughter was born! I had a terrible pregnancy with her, and had spent a lot of it in hospital with morning sickness. It was the first time I questioned God's logic in having me so sick that I couldn't train the 4 He had already given me. Surely training existing children up to be Christians was more important than having lots of kids who all went to Hell because I wasn't training them properly?! (NOTE: I was at the stage of following the formula that would ensure they grew up as good Christians).
The next AR camp I was so scared of going to, because I knew that God would convict me about my horrible attitude. Funny thing was, He didn't!! Instead I got the guilt trip laid on me about the food I was feeding my family. I should be feeding them freshly milled grain bread, no 'treats', etc. I literally believed that I was nailing the hands and feet of Jesus to the cross with what I was serving at dinner time!!
A couple of years later, and pregnant with daughter #6, I had such a bad pregnancy I ended up in a wheelchair. I homeschooled from a matteress on the lounge floor. That lasted until she was 6 weeks old. I was begging my hubby to go for the big 'V'. But he felt trapped. He didn't want me going through that again, but he couldn't just go against God's mandate.
ReplyDeleteWhen my cycle returned a year later, I was so sick with it that I was bedridden for 3 weeks every month. We prayed about it, and felt that God was telling us the issue wasn't birth control, but me being sick. So I went on the Depo Provera. I NEVER told anyone in the AR crowd, even though they were the main friends I had!
Fast forward several years, and a move to Australia. My GP told me I needed to take a break from the provera. So I figured we would just leave it to God for the couple of months I wouldn't be on it. Knowing that most people don't get pregnant for at least 6 months after stopping it anyway! Well, He had His own plan. And at 31 weeks gestation I gave birth to my 7th daughter. It was another difficult pregnancy, and one that would have killed me if I had been born in another time. As the placenta was completely over the cervix - and a major bleed was the reason she was born so early. At 4 weeks of age, she was diagnosed with Trisomy 21 otherwise known as Down Syndrome.
Some would see that as a sign that having so many children was a bad idea. And I bet some in the QF movement would say that if I had kept having babies in the interim that somehow that would have altered the dynamics and I wouldn't have produced a faulty egg or some such nonsense. But personally, I know because I know because I know, that she was a part of God's plan for our family. And, funnily enough, it was through her that He has brought me out of the abusive teachings of To Train Up a Child, and via that into a whole new world of Grace.
In that AR video clip (which I did see when it aired here in Australia) I see 2 of my friends, and the 2 daughters of one of those friends. My heart wants to reach out to them all. My hand even reached towards them in prayer when watching the clip today.
One of those woman is married to the most chauvanistic men I know. Truthfully, I probably have him to thank that I never bought into the whole patriachy thing!! The way he treats his wife is terrible. We lost touch with them when they left New Zealand years ago, but got back in touch with them when we moved over here. Things haven't improved any. And it makes my heart break when I think of his wife, who is one of the loveliest yet trapped people I know.