I Fired God

by Jocelyn Zichterman

  The explanation we heard later was that the stranger was possessed by a demon and the deacons had to exorcise it out of him. Apparently, whatever they did worked because the crazy man became a regular at the church. My siblings and I gave him a wide berth after that.

  Although things inside the church were traumatizing, our pastors warned us constantly about the evils that lay just beyond our church doors to reinforce the psychology of suspicion, fear, and alienation. They said plastic toy trolls, like Smurfs, would bring evil spirits into our homes and Cabbage Patch dolls would lead us into witchcraft.

  IFB pastors also preached entire sermons on the evils of the television set. In the 1970s and 1980s, television-smashing sessions came into vogue. The pastor would tell the church members who wanted to rid their homes of evil to come to worship prepared to destroy their television sets. I can still remember watching fathers, many of whom had worked long and hard to save up for a television, lugging their sets out of their cars after Sunday services and hurling them onto the pavement behind the church. Then they would use baseball bats to smash the TVs to pieces. I can still hear the splintering, shattering sounds and our pastor’s voice above it all, a smirk on his face, crying, “And all God’s people said?”

  “Amen!” we responded on cue.

  BOOM! CRACK!

  “And all God’s people said?” he demanded again, to which we would blurt out another resounding, “Amen!”

  Many of the adults we knew said they felt relieved knowing they were no longer allowing Satan into their homes through those evil machines. Eventually some IFB pastors relaxed their standards regarding owning a TV and—though many still ban most of the programs on it—it’s now perfectly normal and acceptable to see homes with one, two, or even three television sets. Even the blessing of their preacher hasn’t convinced some die-hard conservatives, though. They still say TVs in the home will be the “slippery slope” down to compromise.

  The Church and Biblical Authority

  IFB churches deny adamantly that their ministers wield absolute power because almost all of them have church constitutions mandating congregational government. However, corrupt pastors skilled in control have little trouble stacking their deck of deacons with men who will do as they are told, especially if these sycophants have skeletons in their closets that can be used as blackmail. As in secular politics, these IFB leaders live by the adage, “Never trust anyone who doesn’t have as much to lose as you do.” With the undying loyalty of his deacons in hand, an IFB minister can easily marginalize or drive out any church member who becomes a problem.

  After listening to IFB sermons for over twenty-five years, I can hardly remember one where God’s command to submit to authority was not mentioned (to one’s pastor, husband, or father). As a result, healthy and discerning adults who visit these ministries for the first time typically do not return after a few weeks or are intentionally driven out by the pastor. Yes, IFB churches are governed by the congregation—precisely as the preacher desires. But not every IFB minister is corrupt. Many of them are as brainwashed by the top-tier bosses as their followers, especially those men who lead smaller churches. However, it’s very difficult to make it to the upper echelons of the nationwide community without mastering the art of using these spiritually abusive control tactics.

  A Man’s Authority

  The IFB church maintains a strict patriarchal hierarchy, with the pastor at the top, answering to no man. He is considered God’s anointed, the mouthpiece of the Lord to His people. Each man in an IFB church answers to the pastor and to “godly counselors,” other IFB men who are considered ahead of him on his spiritual journey and act as his mentors.

  The powerful men who run the IFB believe that the only way to maintain members’ fear of the Lord (and, by extension, effective control over them) is by, first, convincing them to fear and respect the pastor in each IFB church, and, second, convincing them to fear and respect the father or husband in each home.

  A Woman’s Submission

  Wives are taught that they must always remain under their husband, the head of the home, who is God’s representative on Earth and their “Umbrella of Protection.” Women are never allowed to teach or have any leadership over men in IFB churches. Women often get reprimanded for everything from the meals they cook to the clothes they wear to the extra weight they carry (even after giving birth, an IFB woman is expected to be slim and attractive, to look pleasing to her husband in the eyes of God).

  Women are told they are made for the man, as his helpmeet. When it comes to sex, a wife is taught her body belongs to her husband and she is encouraged and expected to provide sex on demand.

  A woman’s life in the IFB is one of subservience. At the age of three or four, many girls receive their first aprons and start learning to cook, sew, clean, and manage the home to perfection. They’re told that their holiest calling is to be obedient daughters who grow into exceptional wives and mothers with a humble and quiet spirit so that their husbands will rise up and call them blessed.

  From the time we could speak, my sisters and I learned that our place was below the boys’—and we accepted it. Starting in preschool, we had to adorn ourselves in “modest apparel” (ankle-length dresses and floral jumpers) and keep our hair neatly combed to maintain a godly, Christ-like appearance. My father gave us what he called Christian femininity classes. During them, he made us walk with books on our heads to develop proper posture and “sit like ladies” with our legs crossed, our hands folded in our laps, and our dresses smoothed over our knees so that we showed no skin. He warned us that one of the gravest sins any young girl could commit was to cause a brother in the church to stumble with impure thoughts.

  Until they marry, IFB women are expected to obey their fathers with a sweet spirit. After that, they must obey their husbands with the same blind humility. Ideologically speaking, they are striving to live devoutly, but in truth they are utterly powerless.

  A Child’s Surrender

  IFB children fare even worse. They must obey all adults in the church. Our Sunday school teachers were dogmatic about the importance of what they called first-time obedience. We were consistently reminded to obey “immediately, completely, reverently, and sweetly.” We were never to question adults, whether they were teachers, pastors, fathers, mothers, or other grown-ups in the church.

  The running theme of submission to authority is most often impressed upon the children first. The IFB had its own music, which our Sunday school teachers used as a tool to reinforce their authority. The lyrics were set to light, childish tunes that kept us oblivious to the message of enslavement hidden in each phrase. We would smile as we sang, “I will obey the first time I’m told. I will obey right away. Never asking why, never with a sigh, I will obey right away.” There was also a strong emphasis on being “warriors for Christ.” Our children’s songs were wrought with militaristic lyrics, saying, “I’m in the Lord’s army, yes sir!” We were continually reminded that one day we may need to rally together and “take up arms” to go to war to “defend our faith” against an evil U.S. government regime and we never questioned any of it.

  The IFB church’s most effective tool for keeping children obedient was—and is—corporal punishment. It is a cornerstone of the sect’s approach to childrearing. Even at the age of seven, when I spanked my doll, I believed wholeheartedly that I had to discipline her to keep her soul out of Hell. I was “rearing” her the same way that my mother and father were rearing me, to be a holy and humble servant.

  The adults in the church were all authorities in our lives, and refusing to follow any command they gave would most often result in a beating at home, at church, or in school. My father promoted his wooden dowel at First Bible Baptist Church and was so proud of his innovative “spanking position” that he started teaching other parents in the church how to do the same thing with their kids.

  IFB parents were urged repeatedly not to spare the rod—a message my father embraced with unabashed zeal.
As a pastor, he taught his fellow church members that when the Bible said to beat children with a rod, it meant they should literally use a wooden stick.

  Some of my friends’ fathers used one-inch-thick paddles with holes drilled through the wood to cut the wind resistance and make the blows harder. Other IFB families used thick belts, leather whips, PVC pipes, and even wooden two-by-fours. Fathers chose their favorite weapons, and we were all ordered to keep quiet about the details of our punishments.

  I was playing with my sisters at church one day when my father strode up to us and ordered us to go to the church basement immediately. Terror surged through me. When we got to the bottom of the steps, we saw several parents standing in a circle. “Girls, lay on the floor, in the spanking position,” my father ordered.

  I was quaking and scared out of my wits, sure we were all about to get a beating for some mystery transgression right there in front of our friends’ parents. But we did as we were told, dropping to the floor without hesitation or protest. I have a distinct memory of the cold cement against my nose. Relief flooded through me as, instead of the usual searing pain across the backs of my legs and buttocks, I heard him talking casually with the other adults over our heads. I realized he was doing a spanking demonstration. For my sisters and me it was another exercise in degradation, but he reveled in the power he held over us. I wouldn’t have put it past him to spank us just to show off for his audience.

  The wooden dowel caught on so well that soon enough, our Sunday School teachers placed one above each doorway—ready on a moment’s notice to administer discipline if need be. You can imagine the culture of submission, silence, and secrecy this engendered.

  Along with strict authoritarian methods of parenting, the pastors also preached that our eyes should “glow with the light of the Lord” during worship services, so His joy would radiate in our countenance. This command, they claimed, came straight from God through the instructions in the King James Bible. Only by adhering rigidly to the rules laid out in it could we rest assured that we would meet the Lord unashamed after we died or when we were caught up with Jesus in the Rapture at His Second Coming. As a result, I was continually filled with anxiety about my soul’s eternal destiny.

  Clandestine stories inevitably circulated in whispers and hisses about the latest discipline sessions. Dr. Ralph Roland, our OB/GYN, a member of our church and a graduate of Bob Jones University, was a staunch supporter of corporal punishment, and my father knew that whenever he beat one of us severely enough that he thought we might need medical attention, Dr. Roland would patch us up without batting an eye—or alerting the authorities. This same man had no qualms about beating his child who suffered from Down Syndrome. Few IFB parents recognize Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD or ADHD) as a medical condition; most IFB families see it as a sin issue, and are generally even more zealous about beating children with the disorder, in the misguided belief that enough discipline will “correct” their behavior.

  Knowing that our friends were getting beaten too gave us some small consolation as kids. But the real driving force behind our passive acceptance of the violence in our lives was that we genuinely believed what we heard in our Sunday School lessons: that only a father who loved his family as much as our fathers did would watch so carefully and work so hard to ensure that our behavior was well pleasing to God.

  The Church and the Apocalypse

  As a child, I was obsessed with the fear of being left behind when the Rapture came. So were all my friends. This obsession undoubtedly came from the countless sermons we heard from Pastor Keck. Every one of them was filled with hellfire and brimstone. The Apocalypse and eternal damnation were his favorite topics.

  “Will you be sent to the dark horror of Hell where the worm [the human spirit] dies not and the torment of hellfire continues for eternity?” he would thunder in his booming voice from the pulpit.

  I got a vivid idea of the anguish I would feel in eternity every time my father beat me bloody in the name of God. Our abject terror of the Lord’s vengeance kept us all awake at night as kids and, when we finally succumbed to exhaustion, made our imaginations fertile ground for gruesome nightmares.

  To reinforce our terror, the church offered Friday Movie Nights—with titles like Left Behind, Mark of the Beast, and A Thief in the Night, and all with plots involving the imminent doom and destruction of the world. It strikes me as more than a little ironic now that we were warned so frequently about the evils of watching TV while the church was filling our heads with some of the most hideous ideas and images imaginable.

  Children in the world outside the IFB were being brainwashed by a “bunch of homosexuals” who ran Disney and hid the word “sex” in the animated twinkling stars of The Lion King, our preachers said. Children on the outside of the IFB were blithely unaware that the name of the cat on The Smurfs cartoon—Azrael—was the name of one of Satan’s top demons, and that anyone who brought a Smurf doll into their home was inviting demon possession. Nor did they know that the “worldly” culture they were submerged in was being seduced by the Antichrist in the form of Barney the purple dinosaur, according to more extreme conservatives in the cult, who preached that the Book of Revelation had warned us of the dinosaur’s prophesied coming. “And there appeared another wonder in heaven … a great red dragon,” pastors would shout from the pulpit. “And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast … the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan…”

  Lucky us. We were spared from the evil influence of Barney. Instead, we sat in frozen horror watching actors refuse the Mark of the Beast (the number 666 on their foreheads) and then get led by U.S. government officials to the guillotine.

  I had vivid, agonizing nightmares after every Movie Night at church. I can’t count the number of times I lay awake too petrified to move. Would the government start beheading everyone who believed in God during my lifetime? If it happened, would I have the courage to die for my faith instead of giving in to Satan? I pictured myself marching solemnly up to the guillotine. Would it be gleaming silver or already gory and bloodstained?

  I thanked God that we lived in small-town Wisconsin then and not New York, San Francisco, or Las Vegas. Pastor Keck told horrible stories about the wicked atrocities there. I knew those modern-day Sodoms and Gomorrahs would be destroyed first when God poured out his wrath on the “infidels.” Maybe that would give our family time to prepare for our escape. Then again, maybe the Rapture would happen in the blink of an eye—that’s what the Bible said. But what if it happened before I had a chance to get married and have kids? Here was another fear to add to the list. If I was raptured so young, I’d miss out on the most wonderful thing to come in my future.

  There was a particularly disturbing song we heard in one of the movies about the Apocalypse. Unfortunately, it had a catchy tune, the kind that appeals to us kids much more than a standard hymn and it used to get stuck in my head, playing over and over. I can still recite the lyrics, which focused on the terrible fate of nonbelievers at the time of the Second Coming when: Life was filled with guns and war/And everyone was trampled on the floor.” The song mercillessly depicts how “The children died” and “the days grew cold,” lamenting for those who were not ready when there would be “no time to change your mind/The Son has come and you’ve been left behind.”

  In retrospect it seems downright cruel to expose children to such lyrics, while being taught that if we were “left behind” we’d be facing the guillotine. And there was more than a little hypocrisy in church leaders who bombarded us with dire warnings about the evil words in rock and roll while leading us in songs about dead children and demons. But it took me a long time to see that. It wasn’t until years after leaving the IFB that I heard other survivors confess that they too had grown up in abject terror of the end times. I had chastised myself relentlessly, convinced I was only afraid because my faith was weak. Now I know I was afraid because our pastors and parents deliberately instilled
fear in us and it made us putty in their hands to control.

  We were consumed with visions of death by beheading and fire. We thought all that and more was waiting for us if we so much as questioned a word our pastors said. It was a powerful disincentive to leaving the IFB, the one true church of God on earth.

  The Church and Country

  Another ingenious method the IFB uses to manipulate its members is to intertwine the theme of American pride with the theme of loyalty to the church. Patriotism was a prevalent topic in every IFB church I attended growing up. American flags and red, white, and, blue color schemes were everywhere. Church leaders told us, “You must pledge your allegiance to God, country, and family in that order.”

  “America is the greatest nation,” they said, “because America puts God first. You should feel proud to be living the greatest lives in the greatest nation on earth.” The IFB constantly disparaged and belittled other countries. It proselytized xenophobia, so it’s no surprise to me that I heard so many IFB families over the years express a callous attitude toward immigrants within our own borders. Nor did the IFB members I knew seem to feel concern for the poor, the starving, or the wounded in war-torn countries. “What they really need is the gospel,” our pastors would say, disparaging the compromising evangelicals for emphasizing social justice issues.

  Rather than urge the flock to help the downtrodden of the world, our preachers warned us to ensure that the government didn’t give “our money” away to people who didn’t deserve it. So much for the Judeo-Christian ethic.

  My pastor never acknowledged America’s dependence on foreign oil or the importance of maintaining good relationships with other countries. The attitude was simple: It’s us versus them. If we need to go to war to get what “we deserve,” so be it. We were told that American lives are more important than foreigners’ lives. So when a political rival called the president a “traitor” for “buddying up” to foreign dictators, it was easy for me to buy into it wholeheartedly. The cult mind is so filled with misinformation, so deluded, that it’s easy to dupe, and extremists in the political sphere have played on this weakness successfully for decades now.