To understand how little importance is placed on pleasing a woman sexually in the IFB, it helps to take a look at what Christian patriarchalists write and preach. Purity Ball proponent Doug Wilson, a guru of mine before I left the cult, is a great example. “The sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party,” he wrote in his book Fidelity: What It Means to Be a One-Woman Man. “A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts.… True authority and true submission are therefore an erotic necessity.” Wilson calls that kind of sex a biblical mandate. What does that tell a victim of sexual abuse? It suggests that she’s got to “receive, surrender, and accept” sex, even if it’s forced on her. In 2012 Wilson lambasted E. L. James’s bestselling Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy as proof that straying away from biblical sex has so twisted women’s psyches that we all long for bondage in the bedroom. The possibility that human beings could enjoy role play or acting out sexual fantasies—and be smart enough to separate them from day-to-day reality—seemed to elude him completely. Unfortunately, many IFB members listen to him.
The First Year
When our honeymoon ended, we moved into a small run-down rental house three miles from Northland’s campus. Joseph continued as camp music director, and I started working part-time in the camp office. As a staff wife I had to follow the rules in the employee handbook, which meant I couldn’t wear pants outside my home and I had to attend a slew of revival meetings and week-long conferences. Naturally, we weren’t allowed to listen to music with a rock beat or see movies at theaters in town and we had to attend an IFB church on the approved list.
Working twelve-hour days was normal for us during our first year of marriage, though it soon became taxing for me because I was pregnant with our first child just two months after our wedding day. My old childhood dream of being a wife and mother was finally coming true. I was married to a kind and loving man, carrying my first baby, and we both had jobs and a place to live. It should have been bliss. But dark memories from my childhood loomed up and overshadowed everything.
Joseph and I would talk for several hours every day and at night we would fall asleep in each other’s arms. But within a few hours I would awaken suddenly, racked with horrific nightmares. Night after night in my dreams, my father would burst into my room and suffocate me or pounce on me from out of nowhere and strangle me. I would spring up in bed gasping for air, sometimes in tears, other times shaking with repressed fury. Joseph would wrap his arms around me and soothe me, saying, “You’re with me now. It’s okay. Go back to sleep.” Comforting words, but they weren’t enough. How could I believe I was safe when for twenty years I hadn’t been?
I’d spent a lifetime forbidden from expressing rage and anxiety, so I channeled them any way I could. Some nights I slipped out of bed, went into the kitchen to get the cleaning products, and scrubbed the house obsessively. Looking over my shoulder was a normal part of my behavior, and I would check the locks on the windows and doors over and over.
On the drive to work each morning, Joseph would try to talk with me about my nightmares about my father, but I shut him out. We shared everything else, but this place was too dark to explore. I couldn’t bear to go there or drag him in. It would be over a decade before I finally opened up to him about what really happened in my home.
As if sleep deprivation and pregnancy weren’t bad enough, my lack of sex education heightened my stress level. I had so little understanding of my own body that at my first ob-gyn appointment, my doctor had to explain to me that I had a vagina and a urethra—and that they were actually two separate openings in my body. I had assumed it was all one and the same “down there” and I couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea that having two was normal. I honestly thought I would be incapable of giving birth because of it. I asked my husband if he knew the facts my doctor had related about female anatomy and, though he had a master’s degree in counseling from BJU and had read The Act of Marriage from cover to cover, it was news to him too. Now I was riddled with fear. What else didn’t I know about my reproductive system? Would my ignorance prevent me from having a successful delivery?
I was worried and physically sick all nine months, throwing up almost everything I tried to eat. At seven months, I developed a full body rash known as PUPP syndrome. I itched all day and night, scratching my stomach until it bled. I was exhausted, nauseated, and in such emotional shambles that I started having suicidal thoughts. Joseph was at his wits’ end.
“What can I do to help?” he’d ask.
“Nothing,” I would groan back miserably.
Northland urged newlyweds to seek counsel from older couples in the college’s administration whenever they were struggling, so Joseph turned to “Dr.” Marty Herron, a graduate of Bob Jones University and his boss. He and his wife, Tami, met with us and gave us the usual advice—to “surrender” and give our cares over to God, which did nothing to stop the maddening hives that made sleep impossible. Tami said God was “breaking me.” How much would I need to endure before He finally succeeded? The “spirit of brokenness” had always struck me as elusive. At this stage, it seemed impossible. What did God want from me?
Word soon leaked out on campus that Joseph and I were having “marriage problems” and were in counseling with the Herrons. People we hardly knew started asking us if everything was okay. We never found out who was spreading the gossip, but it was a significant eye-opener. Nothing we confided in anyone was safe—and people were apt to twist what they heard in the most negative way.
My brother Jason decided to propose to his girlfriend, Jenny, shortly before my due date, and we were all invited to a Janz family get-together in the Colorado mountains to celebrate. My parents rented two condos, but when we arrived there weren’t enough beds. My father led us from room to room, telling everyone where to sleep.
“Melissa and Meagan will sleep in here on the queen bed,” he said, pointing through one doorway. “Jason and his friends will be in here on the bunk beds. Sandy and I will sleep in the back bedroom on the king-sized bed.” At last he turned to Joseph and me and said with a shrug, “I guess that means we’re out of beds for the two of you. Jocelyn, you can take the floor and Joseph can sleep on the couch.”
“Jocelyn, you can sleep on the couch,” Joseph said quickly, turning to me.
I fought back tears. Seven months pregnant and yet I was the one my father singled out to sleep on the floor. After a year away from the man, he still delighted in tormenting me.
When Bart saw my expression, he asked Joseph to follow him to the back bedroom for a word. But he needn’t have bothered because his raised voice echoed through every room. “She is willful and defiant and if you don’t get her under control, she’ll destroy your family! You have got to get her in a proper state of submission.”
As a new IFB husband, Joseph wasn’t sure how to handle this difficult extended family dynamic. He was upset at what my father had done, but he didn’t betray his emotions. IFB preachers taught that to avoid God’s wrath, Christians had to honor their parents until death and Bart was now his father-in-law. Joseph would have gone to any extreme to keep his conscience clear and the cult specialized in creating overdeveloped consciences. It’s hard for anyone who hasn’t grown up in the IFB to understand my husband’s internal conflict, but this would eventually become the Achilles’ heel of our relationship for years to come.
While Joseph was gone, Jason heard the commotion and barreled down the hall to me. “Why do you always have to create drama?” he sniped, throwing me a look of deep disdain. “Just submit already. Do what you’re told, without complaint!” Knowing it was useless to try and explain, I sat in silence for the rest of the visit and felt glad when we finally headed home.
Becoming Mom and Dad
Eventually the big day came and I delivered a healthy baby boy, Joseph Thomas Zichterman Jr. I was twenty-one years old and happier than I had ever been. As the nurse placed him on my chest, I looked up at Joseph and saw t
ears streaming down his face.
“Good job, sweetie!” he said, beaming and kissing me. “He’s beautiful!”
In that moment, for the first time, I thought, I really love this man. It was true. After a year of marriage, love came. It wasn’t a passionate love, like the kind you see in movies or on soap operas. But it was love, rooted in friendship. I knew he would be a terrific father, dedicated, loyal, and completely unlike my own. I also knew I could trust him to love our children unconditionally and to have their best interest in mind.
My parents insisted on flying to Wisconsin to meet their first grandchild before he left the hospital, and just as they always did, they brought instantaneous anxiety. I had dreamed of putting our baby’s first outfit on him and asked Joseph to have the video camera ready so we could capture the moment to show him one day when he was older. My mother heard me talking with Joseph and immediately snatched up the baby, plunked him on my bed, and started pushing and pulling his little arms and legs into his new outfit. She had no maternal instincts, and my hair stood on end as I watched her flip-flop him roughly. When he started crying I rushed up to take over, but she used her hips to push me away.
Undeterred, I reached for him again. “I’ve got it, Mom,” I said.
“Fine. I was just trying to help!” she huffed.
“Let her do it, Sandy,” my father snapped. “She’s always got to have things her way.”
I kept my gaze focused on Joseph Jr., but I could feel my eyes prickling with tears.
Joseph wrapped his arm around me. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “Let’s just get home and keep things as peaceful as possible.”
Fortunately, my parents had rented a car so we didn’t have to drive together. On the twenty-five-minute ride home, I gave way to my emotions. “She always steals my most important moments,” I sobbed. “She’s done that to me my whole life. If she knows I want something, she sabotages it. Then she acts innocent to make me look overly sensitive.”
By this point Joseph had spent enough time with my family to understand, but he took the high road. “When there’s conflict, someone has to defer,” he told me.
I recognized the words of Northland “oracle” “Dr.” Ollila in what he said: “All through Scripture, God always blesses the one who yields in a conflict.” It sounded like Joseph was telling me my parents could still do whatever they wanted to me, and I felt deeply wounded. “Dr.” Jim Van Gelderen, who mentored Joseph in our marriage, reinforced the notion that Joseph should urge me to be more deferential and submissive. He reminded Joseph that he would have to stand before God and answer for my behavior—and he needed to make sure we would both be unashamed on the Day of Judgment. Joseph assured me that the hardest thing God ever demanded of him was to ask me to submit to his decisions when they caused me pain. Still, asking me to avoid conflict with my parents became standard fare in our marriage, no matter how hurt I was by my parents’ behavior.
Bart and Sandy came to see us two to three times a year and stayed about a week each time. They loved visiting the college and summer camp because so many of their friends were on staff. But we had conflicts like the hospital incident every time they came and I soon grew to dread their visits.
Babies Are Us
As long as my parents stayed away, I felt happier than I had ever been. We named Joseph Jr. “JoJo” to distinguish between the two Josephs in the house. JoJo was my pride and joy. Joseph adored him too, tweaking his cheeks affectionately and calling him Chubby Cheeks, to which JoJo would let out a huge grin and giggle. He was the most jovial and good-natured of babies, and even today, now that he’s almost grown up, he still has the same warm, cheerful, affectionate nature.
From the time JoJo was three months old, Joseph would sit him in his lap every night and read long passages from the Bible, then pray with him. Afterward, he would get down on the floor and tumble around, saying, “I’m going to get you!” I would sit on the couch watching the two of them and feel an overwhelming sense of joy and love for such a beautiful home life. When JoJo tired out, we would carry him to his bedroom and tuck him into his crib for the night. Then Joseph would turn on an audio version of the KJV Bible and JoJo would listen to it as he fell asleep.
The years went by and, like clockwork, as soon as a new baby was four to six months old, I got pregnant with the next one. I was a bona fide baby-making machine, giving birth eight times in nine years. Many homeschooling families were advocating home births, but I wasn’t taking any chances, especially with the closest hospital a twenty-five-minute drive away.
When I got pregnant the second time, Joseph prayed fervently that God would spare me the pain of my first. It seemed to work. My pregnancy with Selah Joy was terrific—not one day of morning sickness and an easy delivery. The hard part came after that because she cried incessantly for almost two months. Finally, after taking her to a myriad of doctors, we found out she had a condition called intussusception, in which the colon folds inside itself. My father had had the same condition as a child and eventually had a large portion of his colon removed to correct it. Fortunately, Selah just needed a barium enema to get well. Selah has lived up to her name and has been a constant source of joy and entertainment in our home.
Sandra Elizabeth came along next and gave me an easy nine months, but a nightmare delivery. She got stuck in a bad position on my pelvic bone, so the doctor had me get up on all fours to shift her into the right position. IFB pastors often told us that whenever we endured emotional, spiritual, or physical pain we should focus on the suffering of Jesus. That would put our anguish in perspective, they said, and make us grateful. After all, our hurts were nothing compared to the agony He bore for us on the cross.
Up on all fours, I did as they told me and imagined Jesus being crucified on the cross. This is what He must have endured, I thought. Every muscle in my body felt like it was being torn to shreds. Unfortunately, focusing on His death on the cross didn’t increase my gratitude for what Jesus had done for me. We were taught to be good soldiers who endured suffering stoically, but in that moment I threw my role as a warrior in God’s army out the window and screamed for more Demerol.
Finally Sandra Elizabeth arrived. We named her after our two mothers because, after all these years, I was still trying to win my parents’ approval. But when I called to tell her my daughter’s name, my mother said coolly, “That’s nice. Dad and I are coming to visit in about two weeks. We’ll be staying in Green Bay for a day. I’ll call you tomorrow to give you our flight schedule.” She showed no emotion about our decision. Eventually, our daughter asked if we would call her “Lizzy,” and she has become one of our most insightful and analytical children.
Sarah Faith came next, full of life, silly, and independent. Jennifer Lynn followed. She looked like a porcelain doll, with jet-black hair and big brown eyes just like my beloved baby doll, Emily. She has always been a sensitive soul, a homebody who feels best cuddling up in our arms.
Josiah Daniel, our second boy, is mischievous and loves pranks. Tell him a gross joke and he’ll laugh for the rest of the day. Jessica Lou got her name from my sister Melissa Lou. Like Melissa, she’s strong and her will has never been broken, a point in which my husband and I now take great pride. She might rule the world someday; she seems to be training for it now. Our baby, Serenity Rae Hope, never stops smiling and is one of our sweetest and most congenial children. And though she’s only in second grade, she has her pick of boyfriends.
I delivered my first four children without an epidural. Lots of IFB women say the sign of a real woman is that she can deliver a baby without pain relief. At ladies fellowship meetings, they were always swapping stories about how much trauma they had endured unmedicated. IFB pastors encouraged it by reminding us that our bodies were not our own. They were the Lord’s. And the more we suffered, the more like Jesus we would be. “Great men and women in the faith have suffered terrible tragedies, yet they endured to the end,” they said. It inspired us all to long for the next trial, t
he next chance to be purified through our suffering. As I had seen in the wake of Jeremy’s terrible accident, it was a badge of honor. And boasting about it was an art form. As the chorus of one popular IFB song, “God’s Refining Fire,” goes:
… when the answer comes to us in form of trial and test,
We fail to see Your loving hand, Refining fire is best.…
God’s refining fire, God’s refining fire,
May it purge me now and make of me what You require.
The most popular slogan on the promotional literature from Northland Baptist Bible College was “God never promised an easy path.” Cult members often took it to heart and became like masochistic priests, flogging themselves metaphorically by choosing the most difficult path available and then “surrendering all earthly desires and comforts.” In other words, we would do nothing to make the situation better for ourselves, trusting that we would receive greater rewards in Heaven for having endured harsher trials on earth.
The Professor’s Salary
We had been at Northland for a year when Joseph was offered a teaching position on the counseling faculty. He accepted gladly and eventually started teaching Bible classes too. At the same time, he was pursuing a Ph.D. in biblical studies from Pensacola Christian College in Florida, which had a program that allowed him to work full-time and complete his coursework during Christmas break and in the summer. All his degrees were unaccredited by the official agencies almost all other universities and seminaries use, but it didn’t matter to us because we never planned to leave the IFB. Even though I was not on staff or faculty, and an at-home mom, I was still required to follow the rules in the college handbook. That meant I could not listen to music with a rock beat, wear parts outside at my home to grocery shop or run errands. If I failed to follow the strict guidelines of the college. Joseph’s job would have been in jeopardy.
I Fired God Page 16