I find it uncanny now when I think about the fact that one of the men who stood on the BJU platform with Joseph receiving the same honorary doctorate was Ron “Patch the Pirate” Hamilton, the man whose songs about cleanliness my siblings and I had listened to growing up, the songs that had convinced us the poor unwashed children who huddled in the corners of our school, friendless and ridiculed, deserved no compassion. He was also the man who wrote “I Want to Marry Daddy When I Grow Up,” which still sends chills down my spine. Hamilton played a major role in indoctrinating children with the idea of first-time obedience to all authority figures and, in my view, his songs contributed to building a culture where abused children believe they have to obey adults—even in the extreme, who molest them.
I remember sitting in the auditorium feeling disgusted by the hypocrisy of the presentation and the people all around me. I knew that when a popular Contemporary Christian artist named Steve Green hosted a concert in town in 1994, “Dr.” Bob Jones III spent an entire chapel service lambasting him for being worldly and for compromising biblical purity. Jones warned that any student who attended the concert would face severe disciplinary repercussions, but a popular church in the area called Southside Baptist decided to support the concert in spite of Jones’s decision to boycott it. From that point on, the church was blackballed and BJU students were forbidden from attending. The irony of this was that Bobby Wood (son of the former university vice president Bob Wood Sr.) told me that his dad listened to country music behind closed doors. He also said he knew “Dr.” Bob Jones III listened to select rock and roll music. Bobby himself was friends with Steve Green’s manager, and a short time later privately asked Joseph if he wanted to get some of his music to Green’s organization for a possible inroad into the CCM industry. Joseph could have published his music under a pseudonym, but he turned down Bobby’s offer in order to take the IFB high road. Many members of Northland’s administration, including vice president Sam Horn, kept Christian contemporary CDs in their cars and played them with the windows up and the doors locked.
All the young IFB up-and-comers like Joseph bought into the IFB standards even if the leaders didn’t. I’ll never forget the day when my husband’s boss, Curt Lamansky, found a contemporary worship CD in Horn’s Jeep and came to Joseph asking if he should resign because he felt like his leader at Northland was willing to compromise on biblical convictions. Joseph assured him that, though things didn’t make sense at times, God was still in control. “Perhaps God has strategically placed you to keep people from crossing the line of biblical impurity,” Joseph suggested.
The musical double standard was the biggest nonsecret in the IFB. Meanwhile, the students at BJU still could get kicked out for sneaking off to Christian Contemporary concerts in the Greenville area and lose every college credit they had earned that semester.
Now here was “Dr.” Bob Jones III assuring a huge roomful of students that the men on the podium were a cut above them, perpetuating a lie. It was just another smokescreen, another way to keep the sheep in the pen: All other evangelical churches used Contemporary Christian Music, so the IFB was your only option if you wanted to remain pure before God in your music standards.
My Migraines
In May of 2004, I was struck with a migraine that lasted four straight days. By Sunday night I was so sick I thought I might have had an aneurysm. Joseph was in bed with the flu, so a friend drove me to the emergency room. The hospital staff that night gave me a shot and sent me home, but the pain intensified. The next day I was headed to see my doctor, but instead I drove to the emergency room. I have no memory of it, but I staggered in rambling incoherently and patting the top of my head. The staff immediately took me back for a CT scan and a spinal tap, but found nothing. They decided to keep me overnight and do an MRI the next morning. The following Thursday I met with a neurologist, who told me the MRI had revealed a mass in my brain.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means you have a brain tumor,” she said. The neurosurgeon wanted to do a biopsy to find out more but, because of the tumor’s location, she explained that if she decided I needed surgery, she would have to operate within twenty-four hours of the biopsy.
I let out a nervous chuckle, a coping mechanism I had developed when dealing with traumatic circumstances. Then I thanked her and left. Still reeling, I drove to my husband’s office to tell him the news. Joseph was devastated.
We met with the neurologists again, but we ended up with more questions than answers. They said the mass might be an astrocytoma, or a benign growth. We returned for a few more visits, and another specialist said it could be a fungal infection. Without a biopsy, it was difficult to tell.
I called my family to break the bad news as soon as I found out about it myself. Being in the medical profession, Melissa and her husband knew what we were talking about and offered to fly out to lend moral support. Meagan, Jason, and his wife, Jenny, came to visit too. But when my father heard Melissa and her husband would be there, he refused to visit with “unsaved” members of our family present. “Call me when they leave,” he said. “Then maybe we’ll come.”
For the first two nights, my siblings and I sat up into the wee hours talking and reconnecting in a rare show of unity and warmth. After four days, Melissa and her husband left so my parents could have a turn to visit.
That’s when a series of strange events unfolded. First, my mother went out and bought an absurd amount of food and paper goods, including six mega-packs of paper towels. I was struggling to find a place to put everything and getting frazzled with so many guests, so few answers, and so much chaos in my normally orderly home life. My sister-in-law, Jenny, noticed my black mood and, rather than offer sympathy or help with the groceries, she reprimanded me. “The reason you’re frustrated is because you’re proud about your home and keeping it in picture-perfect condition,” she told me. “This brain tumor is God’s lesson to you to release control.”
“I’m exhausted!” I snapped back. “I need sleep. This has nothing to do with pride but everything to do with finding a place to put these paper towels.”
I shoved the last pack of paper towels into the pantry and hurried upstairs, leaving Jenny standing in the kitchen alone. “You know Jocelyn,” I heard my sister Meagan say sarcastically. “Always a drama queen.” My mother’s derisive laughter carried up the stairs to me, where I stood crying.
My old high school flame Will Galkin, now an IFB evangelist, did something even more insensitive. After our brief relationship, Will had gone on to marry my best friend from childhood, Christy Roland. No sooner did my family leave than Will called to ask Joseph if he could come to our house to meet with us. A few days later, as our respective spouses perched awkwardly on the sectional sofa with us, he told me, “I was bitter at you for the way you broke off our relationship when you were in high school and I was in college. I want to clear my conscience, since I know you’ve been diagnosed with a brain tumor and you might not live.”
People seemed to think about my diagnosis only in terms of how it affected them. For Jason, it provided another “Jeremy incident” to preach about and to hold up as proof of the Janz family’s pious suffering. He put posters up all over Iron Mountain announcing to the world that I had a brain tumor and beseeching everyone to pray for our family. Within a week, news had reached IFB communities across the country that I was on my deathbed, despite the fact that Joseph and I had spoken only to our closest friends and had never said anything remotely close to that. The college was also nagging Joseph incessantly to provide written updates on my condition for the Northland Web site, ostensibly so people could include us in their prayers, though it felt like another invasion of privacy. I didn’t want to be a source of speculation and gossip. When one of the new doctors who examined my scans told me he thought my tumor was probably benign, Jason urged Joseph not to send an update to the IFB community, saying we should “not downplay” the potential severity of the illness. Joseph sent it
anyway.
Exasperated by the lack of answers from the hospital staff in Iron Mountain, I met with a neurosurgeon at the Mayo Clinic in Minneapolis. He ran a battery of tests and concurred with the original doctor’s assessment: There was no way to know what type of mass was in my brain. He advised against surgery because, given the tumor’s location, the side effects might be worse than any problems the tumor would cause. “A biopsy would be just as dangerous as surgery,” he warned us. “I would recommend watching this carefully to see if it changes and having MRIs done every three to six months.” He also ruled out the idea that this was a fungal infection, and, knowing how severe that would have been, I was relieved.
Taking a wait-and-see approach about what might be brain cancer would be agony, but what else could we do? When I told my family about our decision, Jason couldn’t conceal his disappointment and pressured me to go ahead with the surgery in spite of the neurosurgeon’s counsel. “Jason, this is my body and my life,” I told him. “This is not a story to tell.” He seemed shocked that I would defy him, but this was one time I refused to be pressured into making a decision. I knew if I opted for surgery he and my father would have fodder for the pulpit, whether my saga had a happy ending or a tragic one. It would be just like Jeremy’s accident. My brain tumor seemed to have a potential upside for everyone but me.
The same week we went to the Mayo Clinic, I found out I was pregnant with baby number eight. My ob-gyn was worried that all the tests I had gone through would affect my pregnancy. “We’ll just have to hope for the best,” he said, adding to our long list of anxieties.
Not long after that, we got a call from the evangelical radio show called Focus on the Family, hosted by James Dobson. One of Dobson’s staff members invited me to be a guest on the show to discuss how I was coping with seven children, a pregnancy, and a brain tumor. We were still publishing Keeping Hearts and Home, and Dobson’s representatives promised to promote our magazine and its mission. I was eager for the opportunity, but Dobson wasn’t IFB, so Joseph asked fellow IFB leader John Vaughn for advice. Vaughn was the president of the Fundamental Baptist Fellowship, the second most powerful organization in the IFB next to Bob Jones University itself. Vaughn was vehemently opposed to the idea. He said he had appeared on Dobson’s show years earlier and regretted it. “Do not participate with those who compromise the gospel,” he warned.
Joseph’s announcement that we had to refuse Dobson’s offer left me more discouraged than ever. I wanted desperately to get out of the IFB box, but the cult quashed every opportunity. The nail in the coffin came when Vaughn published a letter of apology a short time after speaking to Joseph for having ever appeared on Focus on the Family in his IFB magazine Frontline. At this point, any hopes I had of convincing Joseph to reconsider evaporated. The great leader John Vaughn had singled Dobson’s show out for criticism. To work with Focus on the Family now would be seen as an act of deliberate defiance.
Bad to Worse
I delivered Serenity, but the year that followed was the worst yet. Though the MRIs showed no significant change in my brain tumor, two of our other children were diagnosed with illnesses that required extensive treatment. To add to our troubles, my father was getting increasingly overbearing and insisting on visiting more often. I sank into my darkest depression yet, suffering from migraines almost daily, trying to manage eight children, two of whom were ill, and getting few answers from my doctors. Maybe the tumor was God’s answer to my suicidal fantasies. If so, I asked Him to get it over with and kill me. “Just let this brain tumor take over,” I prayed. “I’m done. Exhausted. I can’t take another day. I’m ready to go now.” In spite of this, I was scrupulously careful about eating only healthful foods and taking expensive supplements to boost my immune system. I was desperately confused, my will to live and my desire to die vying for dominance.
Given my mental state, perhaps it’s not surprising that I lost patience with Joseph’s frequent reprimands. “You are not being properly submissive,” he would chastise. In the past, I would have redoubled my efforts to please him or walked out of the room to calm down, but now I snapped, “My father’s planting ideas in your head. You need to set boundaries!”
Joseph didn’t think my father was brainwashing him and his refusal to see what seemed so clear to me sent my temper to the boiling point. I tried to stifle my anger, but it didn’t always work. The more “incidents” I caused by standing up to him, the more controlling he became. He had to “command his family” to keep God’s law, just like Abraham, no matter what that meant. He was sure I would thank him someday when we got to Heaven.
One of our worst clashes happened when we outgrew our car. For months, I had dreamed of a new minivan, scanning car lots for a model that would suit our family. Meanwhile, Joseph followed the IFB’s practice of asking everyone in faculty and staff meetings to pray that God would help us find a vehicle that met our budget. After the meeting, one of Joseph’s colleagues pulled him aside. “I’ve got the perfect solution to your family’s situation,” he assured him. It turned out he and his wife had a twenty-year-old station wagon with seven seatbelts in the back—and they felt “led of the Lord” to hand it over to us free of charge. Joseph and I went to look at the car that night. It was a clunker, covered in rust and obviously on its last legs.
“There’s no way we can drive such a wreck,” I told Joseph. “You know how harsh the winters are here. Think about our children’s safety. What if it breaks down in the middle of nowhere?”
“This is the way God has chosen to answer our prayers,” he said resolutely. “We should be submissive to his decision.”
“But we’ve been saving money for a minivan,” I reminded him. “We have enough in the bank to buy a new one debt free.”
I begged, cajoled, and tried repeatedly to reason with him for his children’s sake. Eventually, he relented, but he held it over my head for the next year, reminding me regularly about my willful behavior about the car.
Joseph had changed. I realized I no longer recognized the kind and loving man I had married. And the higher up the IFB ladder he climbed, the worse things were going to get for me.
It become harder to control my anger. I finally got so fed up with everything that I whipped my jewelry box across the bedroom one day. Joseph heard the crash and ran upstairs.
“What was that?” he asked. I didn’t trust myself to speak. I was teetering on the edge of a nervous collapse. Joseph must have sensed it because he didn’t goad me. Without a word, he bent over and started picking up the pieces of jewelry scattered over the floor. Red-faced and close to hyperventilating, I muttered through clenched teeth, “I’m done!” Then I stalked out. What did it matter now if I offended my husband? I was probably going to die anyway. And even if the brain tumor didn’t kill me, I couldn’t live like this anymore.
That’s when something clicked in Joseph’s mind. After nine years of continual internal conflict about how to “lead” me as the head of our home, he finally decided that the IFB’s patriarchal model of submission and demand to honor one’s parents couldn’t possibly be what God taught in the Bible. He decided my father had to be the root of my rage and sorrow, so he called Bart and told him to stop talking about me in such a derogatory way. Naturally, it sent my father into a towering rage.
“Are you telling me what to do?” he screamed at Joseph over the phone. “No one tells me what to do!”
My father kept calling and spewing venom, trying to cow Joseph into an apology. But Joseph held firm. Finally, he said, “You’re no longer welcome in our home until you’re willing to change your behavior and apologize for the abuse in the past.”
For the first time in nine years of marriage, Joseph was about to see my father’s darkest side. We both knew that defying a powerful man like Bart Janz could cost us dearly, but it was the right thing to do. Sure enough, my father started making frequent trips to Northland and, though he didn’t knock on our door, he met in private with all his friends in the
college’s administration.
After Joseph started taking my side, I finally began to open up about what had happened during my childhood and we met with Matt and Diane Olson to discuss the physical abuse from my past as well as my father’s emotionally abusive behavior in the present. I confided privately to Diane that I was worried about my husband’s job, because I sensed that the men were siding with Bart in discrediting my allegations. She assured me, “You have nothing to worry about. Your husband is known as one of the favorite teachers on campus.” Unfortunately she misjudged. Northland VP “Dr.” Marty Von proved a particularly sympathetic ear to Bart. We found out later that he had a hand in key aspects of the horrendous treatment we were about to endure.
The Beginning of the End
The fatal blow came on January 12, 2006. Sam Horn called Joseph in for a meeting and told him unceremoniously that his contract would not be renewed for the following school year. After eleven years of phenomenal employer and student reviews, he was out. The explanation? “Budget cuts,” Horn said.
Joseph loved teaching in the college classroom, so he asked whether he could remain a full-time professor if he raised money to pay his own salary like a missionary, as other professors at Northland had done in the past. Sam said no. We found out later that the college offered Joseph’s position to a man named Matt Morrell, who was ten years younger than Joseph and didn’t even have an unaccredited IFB doctorate. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened: Joseph wasn’t keeping me sufficiently in line, and that is not acceptable in the IFB.
Our world came crashing down. Everything we had known was gone. We lived in a house we couldn’t possibly afford without Joseph’s meager salary. His degrees were not regionally accredited, so he had no hope of finding a job outside the IFB and he would surely be blacklisted at every college inside it. We now had eight children under the age of nine to support, and we were dealing with three serious medical conditions. The economy was crumbling, and blue-collar jobs were vanishing. We were devastated. And scared out of our wits.
I Fired God Page 21