I Fired God

by Jocelyn Zichterman

  Little Sister Chaperone

  I stuck faithfully to Northland’s masochistic female dress code, but my sense of urgency about looking appealing to every man around me diminished when I started dating Mark (not his real name), a BJU graduate I had met during my summer of shame. He was doing his medical residency in Iron Mountain, Michigan, about twenty-five minutes from campus, and was obviously quite a few years older. I wasn’t allowed off campus with him, but we made the best of things as we sat in front of the fireplace in the snack shop and played board games, taking care not to let our hands touch.

  My brother Jeremy was a senior by this time and engaged to a girl he had met at Northland named Bonnie (not her real name), who had converted from the Mormon church and had been “born again.” He had been named a resident assistant, which was one of the highest spiritual leadership positions for students at IFB colleges because RAs were in charge of enforcing the dorm rules.

  Seniors were allowed the special privilege of dating in off-campus settings, provided they had a third party along to chaperone. Somehow Jeremy managed to convince Dean Kimbrough to allow him to go off campus with Bonnie, taking Mark and me along to keep an eye on them. It was ironic if not absurd, given that I was on spiritual probation, but Jeremy assured Kimbrough that he would vouch for my good behavior. Kimbrough hesitated, but my brother charmed him into agreeing.

  The next weekend the four of us piled into Mark’s pickup truck. “Where to?” Mark asked amiably.

  “Could we watch a few movies at your apartment in Iron Mountain?” Jeremy asked.

  It sounded fun, so that’s where we headed. But almost as soon as we walked in the door, Jeremy and Bonnie crawled under the blankets in Mark’s bed and started making out.

  “I thought he was supposed to make sure you didn’t break any of the rules,” Mark whispered, clearly uncomfortable.

  “He was,” I whispered back. Mark’s apartment was no larger than five hundred square feet with an open floor plan, and the all too audible activity under the covers made us both blush. How could we sit and talk or watch movies with them groping each other? To make matters worse, on the drive back to campus, Bonnie leaned forward and casually switched the truck’s radio station to country music.

  “You know I’ve asked you not to listen to that junk while we’re at school,” Jeremy scolded her, snapping the radio off and glaring at her. They sat in stony silence for the last few miles back to campus.

  We endured a few more weekends like that one before Mark said he didn’t feel comfortable taking the two of them to his apartment anymore. Jeremy was taken aback, but there was nothing he could do. He knew Mark could tell the administration what he had done and get him into deep trouble.

  Apology Without Consequence

  Northland held mandatory chapel meetings every day at 11 A.M. on the dot. The only way you could miss one without getting demerits was to have a written note from the campus nurse stating that you were so ill you couldn’t get out of bed. Many of us would have dearly loved to exchange chapel time for a little extra sleep because our schedules were round-the-clock and I was working at the library part-time to earn spending money. But the administrators used the meetings to make campus-wide announcements. Chapel was also a time when college administration often referred to us as “young people” and likened themselves to our “parents away from home”—reiterating all the rules we were overlooking in our handbooks. On Mondays, they held “Works of God” testimonies in which students stood up to expound on their recent IFB ministry experiences. Some would talk about how many people they had given pamphlets to over the weekend. Others would tell how many witnessing opportunities they’d had, sharing their love of God with the “lost” in the hopes of leading them to Christ. Sometimes it seemed like one big contest to see who was the most pious. They reminded me of fishermen swapping stories about who had caught the biggest catch.

  On the other days of the week, “Dr.” Les Ollila, a graduate of BJU, would preach. He was the charismatic “prophet” of the Northland culture, the mouthpiece of God, and we thought he could do no wrong. Bob Jones University had even granted him a “medal of honor” one year for refusing to get Northland accredited. They were “standing together for the truth of the gospel”—or so we were told.

  Ollila had a knack for humor and would fill the first fifteen minutes of his sermons with jokes so funny we almost fell off our seats laughing. Then, in a flash, he would shift gears, browbeating us until we sank down in our chairs, crushed under the weight of our sins.

  One such “Dr.” Ollila sermon unleashed the floodgates of Jeremy’s conscience. He felt overcome with remorse for his physical relationship with Bonnie and for having molested me, so he went to “Dr.” Marty Von, the college vice president, for counseling. Von listened patiently then advised Jeremy to apologize to me for the abuse and for putting me in a position where I saw him break Northland’s rules. So one Friday not long after that, my brother invited me to have dinner with him in Iron Mountain. Jeremy borrowed a friend’s car, and he took me to the local McDonald’s. Over burgers and fries, he told me he had gone to counseling and wanted to ask forgiveness for the bad things he had done to me. I was floored, but of course I forgave him and assured him we could move on. I promised I wouldn’t discuss it with anyone.

  “Just out of curiosity,” I asked, “is ‘Dr.’ Von giving you any consequences?”

  “No,” he said lightly. “He just wanted me to clear my conscience.”

  “Wow,” I told him. “You confessed to the right administrator.”

  “Sure did,” he said with a wink.

  We laughed, finished our meal, and headed back to campus. At that moment, I felt pleased with Jeremy’s apology. I learned later that he had apologized to each of my sisters in turn and asked them to forgive him.

  I have never struggled with anger toward Jeremy. I knew he was a tormented soul, trying to survive in a chaotic, nightmarish environment like we all were. He was literally tortured by my father and I felt deep sorrow for him. He put no blame on my sisters or me. The thought never occurred to me to try to prosecute him—law enforcement were the “bad guys”—and I knew that was something no one would encourage in the IFB. And at the age of eighteen, I’m sure I was still unconsciously trying to protect him from my father. Now, I understand that prosecuting would have been the right thing to do—to protect other kids from harm.

  It never occurred to me what a double standard we were living under when I had been made to express regret for my immorality to a thousand church members and endure a year of spiritual probation, while Jeremy was simply encouraged to say “sorry” in private to atone for a sin anyone would consider far worse than mine. Had Von been a qualified counselor who knew my history, he might have put two and two together. He might have realized that girls who have been molested are more likely to engage in sexual intercourse than their peers and that this might have explained my great transgression from a few months earlier. But in the unabashedly male chauvinistic world of the IFB, Eve is the deceiver, whether she is four, fourteen, or forty-four years old. Poor Adam is simply a helpless man, wooed by her sensual charm.

  A few months after Jeremy’s act of contrition, Mark and I ended our relationship. He told me his parents had encouraged him to “set me free” because I was too young for him. They assured him that if it were meant to be, I would come back to him. If not, I’d move on. After the breakup, I decided I was done with relationships. I no longer wanted to marry. Instead, I set my sights on becoming a single missionary to India. I threw myself into rediscovering my passion for God, the passion I had felt before my senior year of high school and my public shaming. I idolized a woman named Amy Carmichael, a missionary who ran orphanages in India. I lay in bed at night dreaming about being just like her. I stopped wearing makeup and dressing for marriage success and embraced the “lots, loose, and long” look. My parents had finally agreed to spring for braces for me, so that accentuated my homely appearance. But I didn
’t care. I felt good inside. At last, I could relinquish every desire for earthly pleasure. I would give up everything and choose the road of poverty.

  “The Man You’re Going to Marry”

  When my freshman year ended, I flew back to Colorado and took a summer job as a waitress at my beloved Wilds of the Rockies camp. And it was here, when I least expected romance, that I met my husband. Joseph had been the president of the student council at BJU and he had even won the university’s most coveted accolade in 1993, the Citizenship Medal, given to one graduating senior each year the administration considered its model student. That summer, Joseph was the camp music director, already widely hailed as one of the IFB’s leading songwriters.

  One day Jason pointed him out to me on the basketball court at camp. “That’s the man you’re going to marry,” he said. In our culture, a girl’s father and brothers had tremendous influence over who she courted. Girls were taught from a young age to follow the counsel of the men in their lives. If they didn’t, they were no longer “in the will of God” and we all heard horror stories about what happened then—marriages filled with alcohol and drug abuse and divorce, the ultimate breakdown of God’s ideal for the perfect American home. It was a sin nearly as heinous as homosexuality. Needless to say, I listened to Jason intently and, after that conversation, I started watching Joseph’s every move.

  Since the IFB condemns any music but its own, our songwriters had a cult following. Joseph’s singles topped the Bob Jones University hymn-singing charts and his songs were always the first chosen during youth group “Singspirations” when teenagers gathered at their youth pastors’ homes to worship. Two of them had even made it into the university hymnal, which put him on the level of Usher or Justin Timberlake for cult members. It certainly didn’t give him their income (IFB music publishers paid only a few hundred dollars per song, assuring composers they would reap their rewards in Heaven), but Joseph was treated like a pop star at the camp bonfires. All summer I watched youth group kids stop him and ask him to autograph their Bibles and CD covers.

  I wasn’t impressed. In fact, Joseph’s exalted status in the IFB was a turn-off for me. I knew from firsthand experience that the men revered in our church hierarchy tended to be proud, arrogant, abusive, and self-righteous. My father and Dr. Roland were prime examples, and I had no interest in spending my life with a man like that. A little of my old personality must have been struggling to break through my self-imposed humble facade because one night as I walked past Joseph I couldn’t resist the urge to blurt out, “You ain’t all that!”

  I had never spoken a word to him before, but he decided on the spot that he wanted to get to know me. He says he liked my spunk. I suppose it made me stand out from 99 percent of my fellow cult girls, whose wills had been so broken they had no passion left.

  We started spending time together after that. Joseph liked the fact that I could banter easily with him as well as discuss deeper issues. He said I stimulated his thinking, and, always enjoying more intellectual conversation, that was high on his priority list. I found him insightful and kind and I enjoyed his company a great deal, but I never felt I was falling in love with him. Joseph, on the other hand, fell deeply in love with me over the next few months and told me he was taking it as a personal challenge to win me over. He wanted to spend his life with me, but he knew I had three more years of college to complete. He said he was willing to wait as long as I needed.

  I started questioning myself intensely. What was wrong with me? Here was a man of integrity—thoughtful and compassionate. He had all the marks of a godly IFB husband—someone who could be trusted to lead a home in holiness. He held an honored position in our community. Yet, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t muster the same emotion he felt for me. When I confided this to an older female staff member at camp who had been married for almost ten years, she told me sometimes it wasn’t a matter of love, but of making a choice God would be pleased with. She prayed with me. Then she advised me, “Ask God if you should marry him and then follow the heart of God on the matter.” “Dying to self” was a common expression in the IFB: Our happiness wasn’t important; the only thing that mattered was what God wanted. After all, He knew what we desired more than we did. “Just two choices on the shelf, pleasing God or pleasing self,” we used to recite. Our leaders told us the only way to live a joy-filled life was to make decisions that pleased God. Of course the problem was that, in the IFB culture, it was hard to sort out what God might genuinely want us to do from what ordinary humans with strong wills and positions of power desired for us.

  The closer Joseph and I got, the more people tried to insert themselves into our relationship. One night Craig Scott, the senior pastor of an IFB church in Denver, pulled him aside after services and grilled him about courting me. “I want to make sure you know that Jocelyn has been immoral and had to stand before the congregation to apologize for her sin,” he said. Pastor Scott believed marrying a virgin was of the utmost importance, and he ingrained it in everyone who would listen, particularly through the youth group activities he led. “There are many other pure and sweet girls to choose from,” he told Joseph. “You should consider one of them instead.”

  Joseph was taken aback by his counsel, but it didn’t discourage him. He saw what I had done as a mistake, not an irredeemable act that scarred me for life. For me, Scott’s actions confirmed one inescapable truth: As a woman in the IFB, a public shaming followed you forever. I lived in a world where everyone knew everyone, one sprawling Peyton Place where scandalmongers spread stories like mine from church to college to congregation until they made sure everybody knew. I would never live it down.

  If I didn’t choose Joseph, what kind of man would follow? How many others would be so forgiving of my tainted past? Even if I found one who stirred feelings in me beyond the deep fondness and respect I felt for Joseph, would my father and brothers give their blessing for me to marry him? Jason had already implied his approval by singling Joseph out for me, and Bart valued Jason’s opinion enough by now to approve any man he handpicked. I would be a fool to reject Joseph.

  Tragedy Strikes

  All these troubling thoughts were churning in my mind, sending me into a fitful sleep one night in July of 1994 when I awakened in the wee hours to the sound of pounding on my door. I opened it to find the supervisor of our waitress crew standing there, looking worried. “Your father is on the phone in the lobby of the camp building,” she said. “Jason is taking the call. You need to go downstairs to meet him right away.”

  Confused and bleary-eyed, I stumbled down to the lobby. I found Jason crying and asking a lot of questions that made no sense. He looked up at me, an agonized expression on his face.

  “Jeremy was in a bad accident tonight,” he said. His voice sounded thick and choked. “He’s in intensive care in Utah. He may not make it through the night.”

  My mind went blank. Then a tidal wave of emotion swelled up inside my body and crashed over me, making my knees buckle. I started screaming, “NO! NO! NO!”

  Jason pulled me onto his lap and grabbed my arms with both of his hands to steady me. “Jocelyn! We are not going to act this way!”

  I struggled to subdue my sobs and tried to absorb what the news meant. I might never see my brother alive again.

  I found out the details later. Jeremy had graduated from Northland Baptist Bible College in June and had taken a youth pastoring position at an IFB church in Utah that summer. He was getting married to Bonnie in forty days. He had just preached an evening service and decided to ride his bike to the small grocery store down the road for a snack before calling her. On his way back to the church, a pickup truck hit him. The impact knocked him off his bike and his head slammed into the windshield. He was airlifted to an ICU, but he was in a coma with severe brain swelling.

  When we arrived at the hospital, we were horrified by the damage to his face and body. We hardly recognized him. Just twenty-three years old and his life as we knew it was ended.<
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  We were all in shock. The doctors told us the accident had sheared his brain stem, but we didn’t understand the ramifications of that. Jason couldn’t bear to sit around the hospital staring at his incapacitated brother. He reacted to Jeremy’s terrible accident by resolving to “win as many people to Christ” as he could. He flew into action, making a pamphlet or “tract” entitled Why? He filled it with Bible verses and what he considered the answers to the most important questions in life. He printed hundreds of copies and handed them out to as many people as he could find. We all did. My parents decreed that the Janzes would turn tragedy into triumph. We would set a shining example of a godly response to misfortune. Our reputation as a family depended on it.

  Looking back, one of the most disturbing effects of Jeremy’s catastrophe was the way my parents parlayed it into a tool to elevate their own standing in the church. They swelled up with self-righteousness in the face of their grief. We were a family specially chosen by God, entrusted to endure great sorrow and serve as a reflection of Jesus’s own suffering to those around us. The IFB often taught that God gave great sorrow to the strong, not the weak. That meant we were spiritually superior to the people we knew. And there was no greater honor in the IFB than being chosen as a good soldier of Christ. God had thrust His hand down from Heaven and singled Bart and Sandy out, saying to all, “You are worthy. I entrust you with one of the harshest trials, and you will glorify me even in your pain.”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised at their reaction. I knew that enduring adversity could be a competitive business in IFB churches. Wednesday prayer meetings could get downright ludicrous, with Sister Sue raising her hand and asking us all to pray for her, afflicted as she was with gout, diabetes, a heart condition, and a disabled pinky finger. Within seconds another hand would shoot up, and Brother Bob would rise to his feet to rattle off his woes of a distended bowel, a hernia, and bad knees. On and on it would go. After the prayer service ended, Sister Sue would assure her fellow congregants in a lofty tone, “God has entrusted me with much sorrow, but I will not fail Him.” Meanwhile, Brother Bob vowed stoically to “endure with great strength all persecution from the Devil.”