The Homeschool Movement: Its Reconstructionist Roots and Rushdoony's Influence

"We are authorized by God to challenge all that is not godly!" Rushdoony thundered. "God is angry with the wicked every day, and the sins of the wicked deserve the infliction of God's wrath in this life as well as the life hereafter!"  Rushdoony

I know the title of this post seems dry and boring.  If spiritual abuse is a concern of yours, I encourage you to take the time to read this post carefully.  Check out the links and do some research on your own.  The information I have found has compelled me to keep blogging, to keep telling my story, and to keep sharing the stories of others.  I am just a little worked up on this topic.  

There is much more to homeschooling than just educating children.  There is much more to patriarchy and courtship than fathers being heads of home and parents involved in the process of finding mates for their adult children.  You must know that there is an agenda going on.  This agenda ties these practices together.  I thought I was homeschooling my children because I could do a better job than the local public school system.  I thought I was homeschooling my children so I could include Bible in their education and also protect them from negative worldly influences. That was pretty much my agenda.  But that was not the agenda of the people I looked up to - the leaders in the homeschooling community.  We looked to the leaders because they knew what they were doing and could help guide us on our foreign path.  But there was an underlying agenda that I didn't know about, that they did not disclose.  It was there all along, but it's not so obvious.  I want to expose that NOW! 

Many of you know that this blog started with the intent to share about my family's experience at a spiritually abusive church.  There has been much heartache in that experience and then 3-1/2 years later, it continued as my former pastor filed a defamation lawsuit against me and 4 others (and lost) this past summer.  I have seen the impact on my family and have done a lot of soul searching:  what led us to that church?  who influenced my life as a Christian?  who influenced my life as a mother?  who influenced my life as I ventured into homeschooling my children?  As I researched my primary influencers, I found a common thread of destructive ideologies within the homeschooling movement.  

My first article on the homeschooling movement opened up a whole can of worms on a culture that I have been a part of for the last 20 years or so.  Some of these teachings (courtship, modesty/purity, full-quiver) have infiltrated churches and families who do not teach their children at home.  It is a powerful movement and I caught on to the movement without realizing I was part of it.  I embraced certain aspects of it, brought those aspects that I agreed with to my churches.   As we moved around the country (my husband was in the Navy), I shared these aspects with my friends and friends shared the aspects they learned with me, etc.  That is how this movement spreads.  It can be one particular teaching or many, but they all intertwine, feeding the agenda.

It is important to have knowledge of this movement because even if you have no desire to homeschool your children or maybe you are single or empty-nesters, this movement spreads to churches in some way or other and as we have seen with courtship, patriarchy, and other teachings, some of the teachings leave a devastating path with emotional and spiritual turmoil.  

The other night I read an article about Michael Farris that got me worked up. Mike Farris is known as one of the key pillars of the homeschool movement.  I wanted to share my thoughts on a situation regarding Michael Farris, but realized without sharing more background information, you wouldn't get the full picture.  So, please allow me to do that now.  

Before Michael Farris was a pillar in the homeschool community, there was another very prominent figure, Rousas John Rushdoony (1916-2001).  I believe Rushdoony set the trajectory for the homeschooling movement.  Although Rushdoony died in 2001, he established the basis of the movement long before.  These roots are in Christian Reconstructionism.   

I found this article which described Christian Reconstructionism very well.  As you read the variety of quoted materials included in the post, I encourage you to keep in mind how the ideas of patriarchy, courtship, full-quiver tie in with this belief system.

What is Reconstructionism?

Reconstructionism is a theology that arose out of conservative Presbyterianism (Reformed and Orthodox), which proposes that contemporary application of the laws of Old Testament Israel, or "Biblical Law," is the basis for reconstructing society toward the Kingdom of God on earth.

Reconstructionism argues that the Bible is to be the governing text for all areas of life--such as government, education, law, and the arts, not merely "social" or "moral" issues like pornography, homosexuality, and abortion. Reconstructionists have formulated a "Biblical world view" and "Biblical principles" by which to examine contemporary matters. Reconstructionist theologian David Chilton succinctly describes this view: "The Christian goal for the world is the universal development of Biblical theocratic republics, in which every area of life is redeemed and placed under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the rule of God's law."

More broadly, Reconstructionists believe that there are three main areas of governance: family government, church government, and civil government. Under God's covenant, the nuclear family is the basic unit. The husband is the head of the family, and wife and children are "in submission" to him. In turn, the husband "submits" to Jesus and to God's laws as detailed in the Old Testament. The church has its own ecclesiastical structure and governance. Civil government exists to implement God's laws. All three institutions are under Biblical Law, the implementation of which is called "theonomy."

Source

Let's learn a little about Rushdoony.  This is from Wikipedia:

Rousas John Rushdoony (April 25, 1916 – February 8, 2001) was a Calvinist philosopher, historian, andtheologian and is widely credited as the father of Christian Reconstructionism and an inspiration for the modern Christian homeschool movement.^[1][2] His followers and critics have argued that his thought exerts considerable influence on the Christian right.^{[3] (Source)}

I was glad to find this video on Rushdoony and his Reconstructionist beliefs. It is an interview with Bill Moyers of PBS and is very good.  It's still difficult for me to wrap the idea around my head that part of this belief system is to bring the Old Testament laws into modern times; ie, death penalty for those who commit adultery, death penalty for homosexuals, etc.  

Christian Reconstructionism in a Nutshell from Bruce Prescott on Vimeo.



This quote describes how Rushdoony took his Reconstructionist views and made a case for educating children at home and thus became known as the "father of the homeschool movement" by many:

Key to this strategy was the homeschooling movement.  Education, Rushdoony realized early on, was the best way to distribute his message. To that end, he wrote multiple books on the history of American education, charting its transformation from one-room schoolhouses and parochial schools to urban institutions. These books became guideposts for Christians who believed that public schools were indoctrinating their kids in the false faith of secular humanism. McVicar, the Ohio State scholar, says, “Rushdoony understood that if he changed the way Christians educated their children, he could change the way they thought.” (Source - ja note:  this article goes on to discuss current people in politics influenced by Rushdoony's ideologies  - very interesting article)

The homeschool movement is comprised of specific teachings/beliefs.  These teachings come from various groups or individuals who share the common thread of homeschooling.  These groups work independently and may have different focuses, are in different locations, but again, the foundational agenda can be found in Reconstructionist roots.

Interestingly, I had the above paragraph typed up a couple days ago and a few minutes ago I read an article by Frederick Clarkson originally published in June 1994 about this Reconstructionist "movement" and how it has spread over the years:

A Movement of Ideas
As a movement primarily of ideas, Reconstructionism has no single denominational or institutional home. Nor is it totally defined by a single charismatic leader, nor even a single text. Rather, it is defined by a small group of scholars who are identified with Reformed or Orthodox Presbyterianism. The movement networks primarily through magazines, conferences, publishing houses, think tanks, and bookstores. As a matter of strategy, it is a self-consciously decentralized and publicity-shy movement.

This is exactly what I have seen happening in the homeschool movement and why it is so hard to pin down because it is not localized in one church, one denomination, or organization.  Both the Reconstructionist and homeschool movements are so invasive and have spread the same way.  You or people you know may be part of either the Reconstructionist movement or the homeschool movement and have adopted ideologies without even realizing it.  I realized through my research that I furthered the homeschool movement by sharing books, CDs, talking to my friends about my new-found ideas.  I had been a part of it all along endorsing it and spreading it quite convincingly among my friends and church acquaintances.  

Here's a little more on Rushdoony.  In 1965 he founded the non-profit organization called Chalcedon Foundation to promote the Reconstructionism.  Read Chalcedon's vision statement here.  

Here's a brief summary from Wikipedia:

The Chalcedon Foundation is an American Christian Reconstructionist organization founded by Rousas John Rushdoony in 1965. Named for the Council of Chalcedon,^[2] it has also included theologians such as Gary North, who later founded his own organization, the Institute for Christian Economics.

The Chalcedon Foundation provides educational material in the form of books, newsletter reports and various electronic media, toward advancing the theological teachings of Rushdoony's Christian Reconstructionism movement. It is notable for its role in the influence of Christianity on politics in the U.S.^[3] and has been described as "a think tank of the Religious Right.^[4] Rushdoony's son, Mark now heads the foundation.

The Chalcedon Foundation has been listed as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Centerfor, among other reasons, supporting the death penalty for homosexuals.^[5]

We can see in the above summary that this Reconstructionist organization has infiltrated the education systems and politics in America with their Reconstructionist agenda.  

Here are more articles I found interesting in researching this topic:

Invitation to a Stoning

Chalcedon Foundation Leads Christian Reconstructionists in Campaign to Convert Conservative Fundamentalist Churches

His Truth is Marching On

When we think of spiritual abuse, we think of it in the confines of a church.  The homeschool movement is different because it has no confines - it is scattered all over the country, people can become as involved as they want in various groups, but what I've noticed is that there are behavioral characteristics used by those in the homeschool movement which are similar to behavior used by spiritually abusive church leaders.  There are different dynamics, but the end results can be the same.  This is why I keep sharing personal stories about these topics here.  

The UnMarried Movie: Singleness as a Result of Rigid and Controlled Parenting

I'm still getting comments on the UnMarried movie posts (More Background Info on the Movie: UnMarried and UnMarried Movie: Is Staying Single Sabotaging Chr... )  and today while looking through my Twitter feed, I noticed quite a few tweets on the topics of modesty and purity.  


In case you missed the brief movie trailer, here it is:





I've discussed this on my blog before.  Our former church had rigid rules on modesty and purity (Hyper-Modesty in the Church, Part 1,  Hyper-Modesty in the Church, Part 2, Hyper Modesty in the Church, Part 3, and BGBC Survivors: Legalism: Do Not Expose Your Thighs!)  We had a dress code - nothing above the knees should be showing.  The bride in the picture above would not have been allowed to wear that strapless wedding gown at our church.  Other rules included no co-ed swimming.  The boys were encouraged to turn their heads if they saw a woman jogging.  Some moms were known to cover their boys' eyes when passing through the lingerie section of a clothing store or when passing Victoria Secret at the mall.  I remember my kids racing to the tv to turn off "inappropriate" commercials or shows when they saw someone dressed immodestly.  Some parents would mark up texts books with a black marker if there was a picture of an immodest sculpture or painting.  

And then there were the purity rules - no boy or girl should ever be alone together.  Relationships had to go through the father, girls were given purity rings by their fathers (and mothers) and they pledged to remain virgins until marriage, sometimes signing a covenant . . . . and so on.

As I was thinking about modesty and purity, it made me wonder about the movie, UnMarried.  Do you suppose all of these modesty and purity rules may have backfired and contributed to the growing number of singles?   The people behind the UnMarried movie come from the patriarchal background.  They believe in moms having lots and lots of babies to populate the earth with more Christians.  Singleness remains a threat to their way of doing things because no babies means fewer Christians in future generations (as if they are the ones who determines if their child was elect, right?).

One thing I've heard from moms who have raised young adults in the homeschool environment is that their adult children are somewhat afraid of the opposite sex. They don't quite know what to do with them.  For years these kids were told don't look at the opposite sex, don't lust, don't touch.  And now the producers of this movie are telling these same young adults:  hurry up and get married.  Perhaps they might even say these singles are in sin and preempting God's plans for His church by their "prolonged adolescence".  I've certainly read it before by folks within this movement.

This is more whacked out stuff, people!  Tell young adults, don't touch, don't look and then tell them to get married, touch, and procreate.   What a roller coaster ride for these young adults.  That absurdity might drive me to prolonged adolescence and therapy.   

Yup, I think it backfired.  It is my opinion that the movie, UnMarried is an attempt at damage control.  They are trying to recover from the mess they made by their ridiculous rules of making sure their children were completely modest and virginal.   Legalism backfires, people.  It just does not work the way people want.  It usually produces extremes.  In my former church, the result of this kind of legalism was a lot of young adults acting out sexually.  It can go the other direction, too - prolonged singleness.  They've raised a bunch of adult children who have difficulty functioning normally in a mixed-sex society.  They may be afraid to look at the opposite sex for fear of lust and sin.  They may be afraid to talk to someone of the opposite sex because they aren't married yet and fear, What would people think?  In most circles I am familiar with, a young couple would not be allowed to go to even Starbucks alone unless a little sibling tagged along.  
 
To the producers of this movie, throw away your legalistic courtship rules and purity contracts.  Let young adult men and women decide for themselves who they want to share the rest of their lives with.  Did your parents decide for you who you were to marry?  Did your parents sign purity contracts with you?  Let these young adults listen to God for the plans He has for them.  Your job as parent was to train them to hear the voice of God, to read His word, to accept the counsel of wise people.  If you did your job right, you have nothing to fear.  God is sovereign, right?   Do you trust God with your adult children and their future?







photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/seanmolin/8042578241/">Sean Molin Photography</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">cc</a>

A Courtship Story: Chryssie Rose

Over the past couple months, I've been sharing bits and pieces of the homeschooling movement as it ties in with abuse in churches.  I've connected a number of times with Chryssie Rose who reads here and is also a blogger and asked if she could share her courtship story here and she graciously accepted my request. I encourage you to take some time to read some of Chryssie's articles on her blog, Beautiful Disarray.  She is one of the bloggers who was raised in the homeschooling movement I have been referring to.  We will be seeing a growing number of bloggers lilke Chryssie Rose, you can be sure.  As these young adults are detaching (escaping might be an apt word, too, it certainly was for my daughter) from their childhood families, they are thinking back through their lives and questioning what they went through.  Most young adults go through this process - it is normal.  But what is not normal is the amount of residual scars from this upbringing.  That is why I want to continue to give these young adults a platform on my blog because this lifestyle of excessive parental control continues in many churches right now.  

It is important in this story that you understand Chryssie's family background as it is key to her story.  Chryssie lived in a patriarchal home and was the eldest of 9 children.  Her father moved around quite a bit because of his job, but in each place in which the family lived, they attended churches influenced by the homeschooling movement:  full-quiver, patriarchy, courtship, and modesty and purity teachings.  Chryssie's family eventually ended up at a Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM) church in Maryland.  SGM churches have a high concentration of homeschool families, so Chyrssie's family fit comfortably there.  From what I've heard, SGM may not preach full-quiver lifestyle from the pulpit, but Chyrssie's family would surely find other like-minded full-quiver families there.  Courtship, not dating is the expectation at SGM churches.  

Chryssie's Courtship Story

My family had just started going to a new church, and even though I knew a good number of people already, I hadn’t met any guys that I really liked.  A friend of my mom’s jokingly told me that I would find the guy I married at this new church.  I was adamant I wouldn’t. I honestly had had several different crushes, but I had this expectation, as probably most girls in my situation, that a guy would come to my dad and ask to court me. Then my dad would say yes, and we would walk out a relationship like the ones in all of the courtship books - a sweet, pretty, maybe slightly tear-inducing, love story.

It couldn’t have been further from the reality of what my relationship with my husband ended up looking like.

When I met the guy who became my husband, I really didn’t expect anything to come out of it. It was in October, over 4 years ago, and even though I felt like God told me to keep an eye on this guy, he wasn’t really attractive to me.  I couldn’t marry someone I wasn’t attractive too. I hadn’t expected to be in any sort of relationship right out of high school, nor did I expect to be in any sort of relationship any time soon.  My dad used to joke that he wouldn’t let me get married until I was 30. I knew he was joking, but I also knew he meant it too. I wasn’t going to get married unless it was on his time, and his time alone. I really didn’t know what my parents had in mind when it came to relationships for their children. I never had a conversation with my parents about what it would look like for me when I got into a relationship. Being the oldest, my parents had never had to think about that sort of thing, ever.

A mutual friend introduced this guy to me, and I thought this could be a good friend. I’ll call him Daniel.  A few weeks after first meeting, I started getting to know Daniel. He was funny, very quirky, had very different interests than a lot of other guys I knew, and yet, I liked it. I was having to deal with a lot of stress from my family’s situations (you can read more about that on my blog).  It was really good to just have a friend I could talk to and not have to talk about my family’s stuff. He began guessing, though, about different things, and I soon realized that I could trust Daniel, and yeah, I kind of liked him now.

During the first 6 months of our friendship, things escalated quickly. It became clear to me that this guy was worth keeping around, and I definitely liked him. I was about 99.9% positive that he liked me too. Up to this point, we were just friends, and our parents weren’t involved at all. We were graduating from high school, and he had told me several times that he wasn’t going to be in any sort of relationship until he was done with college. That was what his mom wanted him to do, and it seemed like “wisdom” to do so. I didn’t argue with him, but it made it harder when I finally admitted to a close friend that I really, really liked him.

Conflict with Parents

It was about that 6-month mark when his parents realized that we were talking a LOT and becoming very close friends. My mom, I think, was aware of my friendship with him, but I sincerely doubt my dad was aware, especially due to his reaction to the events that transpired next.

Daniel’s parents decided to step in and intervene, and tell him that he needed to cut off all communication with me. He didn’t agree with his parents, but did it anyway. He pulled me aside at church the next day and tearfully told me we couldn’t talk anymore. No emails, texts, chatting, or talking in person and in groups. I was heartbroken, but I knew that this wasn’t the end.

I went home, in tears, and told my mom what happened. She didn’t say anything, but when I told my dad, he gave me an awkward side hug and told me that if my heart was hurting, I did something wrong. I knew right then and there, I wasn’t going to get any support or understanding from my dad in this.  We asked both of our parents multiple times to get everyone together so we could come up with guidelines for a friendship, so we could at least be friends. They refused, but did meet at his parent’s home a few times, but each time, came away from the meeting with a very different view on what was supposed to go on. My dad was determined that we wouldn’t be allowed to talk at all. He even told me that there was no need for us to talk and to stop asking if we could. Throughout the entire separation, our feelings for each grew instead of diminishing. We kept asking for the parents to let us talk and to come up with guidelines for us. And they continued to refuse. I got chewed out by my dad if I was even seen around Daniel at church. I went through those months like a ghost. I felt nothing, and it felt like half of my heart had been torn out of me. Yeah, I know that’s cliche, but I’m serious, I felt nothing.

We finally had had it about 6 months after we had been told to stop talking. I called Daniel up one day and asked him bluntly what he felt for me. He immediately told me that he loved me and was 100% sure he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. That was a breath of fresh air to my ears. We decided that we were going to take things into our own hands because our parents continued to not believe that they needed to do anything and that everything between us was over. We spent about a week coming up with a list of guidelines that we felt our parents would be quite okay with. We even had a couple, who became mentors for us, look it over and help us put it together. We decided that we would then bring it to the parents that coming Sunday, after Daniel officially asked my dad to court me.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen my mom or dad that mad at me after Daniel left my family’s house that Sunday. Both of my parents were raging mad and wanted to know how I could be so disrespectful and dishonoring of them. I still, to this day, do not understand quite what I did wrong.  Once again, after our parents calm down, there was no agreement made about us getting to talk. We never got to show our parents our relationship guidelines, and we were treated with much condemnation for having “disrespected and dishonored” our parents. My dad felt very disrespected by Daniel and couldn’t believe he had the gall to come and ask my dad to court me.

We seriously thought that our parents at least would be willing to listen to us. I honestly didn’t expect my dad would be so courteous to Daniel’s face, but then stab him in the back when he wasn’t around to defend himself. My dad’s poor opinion of him was shocking to me, and I couldn’t believe that my dad would be so condescending. Over the next few months we suffered through wanting to talk, knowing we really loved each other, and sneaking moments alone at church, or passing each other thumb drives with songs, letters, or just class schedules on them so I knew what he was up to with school.

In total, Daniel asked my dad 4 times to court me. Every time, going above and beyond, to get my dad’s approval, and yet, my dad would twist Daniel’s words, never give him a clear answer to any of Daniel’s questions, and my dad would brush me off anytime I tried to sit down and ask why we couldn’t be in a relationship.  My dad kept telling me that I was making an idol out of this relationship, and I was lusting after Daniel. My mom backed my dad up and neither of my parents seemed to believe that God could speak to me or that I could possibly even love this guy.

A year and a few months after first having met Daniel, we got the pastors involved, and both of us tried to communicate with our pastor the difficulties we were having with our parents not hearing us out. The pastor kept telling us to just keep working on our individual parental relationships and that was all we could do. Being members at a church that strongly supported Joshua Harris’ courtship books, we didn’t have any say in how our relationship was supposed to happen. It was “wisdom” to let our parents rule our lives.

Over the course of that year, we met with pastors, we met with pastors and our parents, individually, and met with each other trying to figure out how to help our parents hear us and listen to our hearts. We spent hours on the phone talking with our mentors.

Year 2

Around the 2nd year of trying to get our relationship off the ground, Daniel decided to take my dad out to a nice restaurant and ask him one last time to court me. One of the recurring concerns my dad had was that we would never be able to get married because we couldn’t support ourselves financially. I actually had a really good job, and Daniel and I had no problem with the fact that I would be providing most of the income. But my dad, even though my mom had paid for him to get through college, didn’t believe that a woman should be the main supporter in the family. I even pointed out that that is exactly what my mom had done, but he told me that I couldn’t take what other people had done and use that as a guideline for myself. So for this last meeting, Daniel and I had come up with a very reasonable budget, and we had had several people look it over for us to make sure we weren’t missing anything substantial. My dad, once again, in a very roundabout way, said no. His reasons were that because Daniel didn’t have a very high paying job, didn’t own a house, wasn’t financially stable, and hadn’t graduated college yet, he would never be allowed to marry me.

See, my dad has this idea that the only kind of man who is going to be allowed to marry any of his daughters, is the kind of man who has everything, and is well into his 30s.   And the fact that this young, college-attending poor guy was willing to bow down to the great and mighty dad was revolting to my dad. How dare he ask when the budget Daniel gave him was so insufficient. I asked my dad why he didn’t believe our budget was good, and the only thing he said was wrong with it was we didn’t have enough money put aside for car repairs. That was it! 

We finally had had it, and in July secretly got engaged. I even got a gorgeous ring and everything. We kept it a secret for about a week, telling only our mentors. We then decided to tell our parents together. Meaning, he told his parents at the same time I told mine so that neither sets of parents would hear it from each other, but directly from us. Oh, and the clincher is, we were going to tell them that we were going to be getting married in 30 days.  We finally told them;  I told my parents at home, Daniel called his parents from work.  My dad said, no, you’re not engaged, and I argued with him for a few minutes before just leaving it. I said we were engaged and that was that. Then got up and walked away. Daniel’s parents blew up at him and he had siblings calling him, sobbing to him over the phone, asking why he could be so disrespectful of his parents. I ended up going to meet him at his work because he started losing it.

By this point, we were sick of trying to hide our feelings and actually started going out on actual dates. The first real date we had was about 2 years after we had first met.  After we announced our engagement to the parents, our pastors contacted us and wanted to meet with us. In that meeting they told us that respecting and honoring our parents looked like us calling off the engagement. We told them that we didn’t have any problem calling off the getting married in 30 days thing, but nope, we were putting our foot down with the engagement, and we were still engaged. The pastors let it go, but the parents didn’t. They kept accusing us of not listening to God because the pastors had told us to break the engagement and we said no. We have no regrets about getting engaged or putting our foot down with letting our parents guilt-trip us into doing what they want. We knew that the instance we gave in, everything we were working hard to stand by would crumble, and we would not be allowed to see each other again. We were dubbed, unofficially, the bad kids in the singles ministry at church, and rarely did anyone want to know what was going on because in their minds, we were disobeying God because we were “disobeying” our parents and not listening to the pastors.

Year 3

Another year went by, and we were still not married, but we were together for everything. Because of my job, I wasn’t home much, and then because of Daniel, I was home even less than I would be if he wasn’t around. My mom kept telling me that dad wasn’t happy that I wasn’t helping her out with my 8 siblings, or helping make dinner or clean the house. I told her there was no way possible that I could do all that. I was gone from 8:30 in the morning till 7 at night, and only got two days free a month. I wanted nothing to do with home life, especially since my dad and I weren’t on speaking terms...again, and mom and I weren’t exactly on the best of terms either.  Another half a year went by and we were yet again trying to pick a third wedding date.  We finally managed to get both sets of parents and sit down all together to talk.  After 3 years of dealing with all of the crap, we finally got to sit down with the parents. But, it was honestly too late for us. We were so done with the way they were dealing with us, we wanted out.  Daniel’s dad tried to encourage my dad to rectify his and my relationship, but I knew my dad had no intention of doing so.

Let me say something about my in-laws. They are great parents, and really, if my dad had been open with them about his issues with internet porn addictions and how he deals with my family, I don’t believe that Daniel’s parents would have been so easily manipulated by my dad. They weren’t really involved in the whole relationship process since it was their son asking me out, not a guy asking one of their daughters out. Also, Daniel did not grow up in a legalistic, patriarchal home. His family is surprisingly normal. By the time this group meeting came about, his parents had been filled in completely of my family’s issues and were suddenly 100% for Daniel and I getting married. They finally understand and realized all of the crap we had had to put up with from my dad.  They were very sorry for the part they had unknowingly played in making things more difficult for us. Those are the kind of parents I really hope and pray Daniel and I can be some day.

Less than a week after this meeting, my dad and I got together for a coffee date. He told me that prior month he had been seriously considering kicking me out. When asked why, he told me that he was very frustrated that I wasn’t helping my mom out around the house. I told him that I couldn’t. I had a job and I had an obligation to that job to be prompt with my hours and those hours didn’t allow for me to be at home. He didn’t seem to hear me. Two weeks later, he told me that I had two weeks to move out.  He was tired of dealing with me, and didn’t have time to deal with me anymore.  He also told me that I was a bad influence on my siblings and he wanted me gone.

The Wedding and Conclusion 

Three months after that, we got married, with my mom’s support and Daniel’s parents support. Oh, and guess what -  the pastors supported us too. We have now been married for a year and a half, and life has been amazing, and we have been doing amazingly well financially even with Daniel still being in school. 

I look back over our story and see so many things we will never do with our children. The first, and biggest thing would be that we will never force them to obey us at all costs. We want to be there for our children and sincerely listen to them when they are trying to work through tough relationships. We also know that no relationship is the same, and it is our goal to treat our children’s relationships as such. We want to get down to our children’s level, and we both know that because of what we’ve been through, that gives us so much more understanding that we can give to our children. The way my dad treated Daniel and me through our whole pre-marriage relationship is something I never want to see repeated. 

I never want to question my child’s faith or that they can hear from God. The fact that my dad tried his ultimate best to make me believe that I was being lustful and idolatrous when I sincerely believed I wasn’t has made a huge impact on my faith. It took a long time for me to get over questioning my salvation because of how my dad treated me. It seemed that everything my dad did and said was for his own glory and his own control over me. I talked with my mom later and asked her if how my dad responded had anything to do with him feeling jilted because I hadn’t asked permission to like this guy. She told me it probably had a lot to do with that. My dad craved control and when I denied him the reigns of my relationship with Daniel, he lost it. To this day, I do not talk with my dad and I don’t anticipate resorting any sort of relationship with him until he changes.

And that, is a summary of my husband’s and my relationship. Thank you for allowing me to share my story with you all!!

Courtship: The Background and Negative Outcomes

Soon I will begin posting personal courtship stories, so it might be helpful to get a little background of the history of courtship.  The courtship model is unquestionably a part of the culture of many conservative churches, conservative Christian groups, and promoted by leaders in the homeschooling community.  Some groups who have embraced the courtship model are:  Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM), Doug Wilson, Family Integrated Churches (such as Household of Faith Community Churches),  ATI and Institute in Basic Life Principles by Bill Gothard, Steve and Terri Maxwell of Titus2.com,  Mike and Debi Pearl of No Greater Joy, Vision Forum - Doug Phillips, etc.  The Maxwells and Pearls are families who homeschool, full-quiver, speakers, authors, and promote courtship.  I'm sure there are more.

Bill Gothard taught a form of courtship in the 70s.  I remember reading documents and listening to Jonathan Lindvall cassette tapes on courtship in the early 90s called Youthful Romance.  I've read that Jonathan got his material from Bill Gothard who founded Institute in Basic Life Principles.

In 1997, Senior Pastor Josh Harris, the pastor at SGM's flagship church, Covenant Life Church, wrote a very popular book called, "I Kissed Dating Goodbye." when he was only 21 years old.  This book underscored what many church and homeschool leaders were saying all along, that modern dating is not healthy and recommended an alternative to recreational dating, courtship.   Josh had been in the limelight from an early age because his father, homeschool pioneer and pillar, Gregg Harris, took him on his speaking tours at homeschool conventions from state to state.  I remember seeing Josh manning his father's book table at homeschooling conferences.    

Josh Harris was already popular among homeschoolers because of the magazine, New Attitude, he published from 1994-1997.  The magazine's readership was focused on homeschooled teens.  When Harrris published I Kissed Dating Goodbye in '97, it was well-received in homeschooling circles, but also ventured into mainstream Christianity.   I Kissed Dating Goodbye highlighted the negative aspects of recreational dating practices and provided a seemingly healthier and new alternative:  courtship.  

I was 21-years old when I wrote my story of giving up the dating game in order to focus on serving God. The hope behind it was that other singles would be helped by some of the lessons I was learning. Most people have an opinion about "that book about not dating." Some love it; others despise it. I'd encourage you not to assume you know what it says without having read it. Many readers who start out critics of I Kissed Dating Goodbye are surprised to learn that the core message of the book isn't about "dating," but living your life for God. ~Josh Harris

Years later, Josh Harris wrote Boy Meets Girl:  Say Hello to Courtship.  

Here is the description from Amazon:

Purpose Driven Romance 
The last thing singles want is more rules. But if you’re looking for an intentional, God-pleasing game plan for finding a future spouse, Joshua Harris delivers an appealing one. A compelling new foreword, an all-new “8 Great Courtship Conversations” section, and updated material throughout makes this five-year revision of the original Boy Meets Girl a must-have! Harris illustrates how biblical courtship—a healthy, joyous alternative to recreational dating—worked for him and his wife. Boy Meets Girl presents an inspiring, practical example for readers wanting to pursue the possibility of marriage with someone they may be serious about. 

The summaries of these books come across as fairly decent, in fact, a lot of it still appeals to me today.  However, there has been a culture that has evolved since these books were published - not just at Sovereign Grace churches where Harris pastors, but throughout the interconnectivity of churches, homeschool groups, conferences, the internet, etc.  

Josh Harris received a lot of feedback on both books, including negative feedback, and he tried to address those issues in an attempt to clear things up in a sermon called, Courtship Smourtship which can still be found here.

I found an old comment by Kris (blog moderator from SGMSurivvors.com) from April of 2008 on the I Kissed Dating Goodbye blog.  I realize this is an old comment, but it helps to illustrate how this courtship concept caught on and developed a life of its own in a negative way.

Kris Says: April 30, 2008 at 9:43 pm
It was my observation at our SGM church that the attitudes Josh Harris preached against in “Courtship Smourtship” were alive and well…and this was at least 2 years after he preached that sermon. Actually, “alive and well” wouldn’t do it justice. The paranoia about male-female interactions and the idea that “guarding one’s heart” meant running the other direction in the face of ANY sort of attraction – those attitudes were stronger and more pervasive than ever at the SG church we attended.

I don’t think any of the folks knew of Harris’ sermon. Or, if they had, by that time they’d taken his ideas and run with them to such an extent that they’d turned the courtship system into some sort of foolproof immorality-and-heartbreak-prevention-system.

Honestly, I believe that at our SG church, anyway, courtship was more about parents who wanted to control every aspect of their children’s lives than it was about actual purity. Purity may have been one of these parents’ well-intentioned goals for their kids, but purity can be accomplished in other ways, like equipping young adults to MAKE GOOD DECISIONS, rather than setting up a bunch of stringent rules for their kids to follow…and a weird artificial process for finding a mate.

I think what disgusted me the most was to watch people’s responses to the one successful courtship at our church that had actually ended in marriage. Everybody thought that this couple had lived out the absolute ideal. Yet (and granted, I could be wrong, as I did not know this girl that well) I got the distinct feeling, from my position as an observer, that the girl in this couple was woefully ill-prepared for marriage to the young man. She seemed very stiff and uncomfortable whenever the two of them were together in public. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for her, to go from living with her parents (she was about 20, had never been to college and had never held a real job aside from giving piano lessons to some of the other kids from church) to – within a period of about 3 months – having gone through a whirlwind courtship with someone she’d hardly spent any time alone with, to being engaged, to getting married to him.

I should probably quit this rant. But courtship and the legalistic excesses that I witnessed are subjects that really get me hot under the collar, almost more than anything else within SGM. There are extremes that NOBODY could ever address in a single sermon.

Here is a response to Kris' comment - - someone's personal experience of this courtship, purity, father-owning-daughter's-heart culture.  Read how church leaders used their authority in ways that were really out of line.  It's sad.

Fundamentalism Survivor Says: March 24, 2011 at 6:14 pm

That’s bad. But it gets carried to even greater extremes in other churches, where people’s paranoia and subjective interpretations of the book are involved.

The doctrines of this man (Josh Harris), difficult enough in themselves, provide a ready platform for fundamentalist hypocrisy in the church. Fanatical proponents of “Kissed Dating Goodbye” methodology ultimately trashed my reputation in my old church (it was found out I “went too far” with my ex-fiance). They stalked around with lists of requirements for their future wife/husband. The sexes avoided each other and were embittered. Elders/deacons kids got a lot more freedom even though they weren’t above messing around at times. The singles had a gossip network by which others were “warned” as to who was “marriage material” and who was NOT. If you didn’t make the lucky few, people were distantly polite & emotionally absent in the youth group; you didn’t have a chance at making friends.

Josh, I don’t believe you intended for extremes to happen. But you have muddied the pond for a couple of generations now. Many of us are so cynical that we have resigned ourselves to singleness. Some of us had meaningful, pure relationships with Christian sisters that have been destroyed because of confusion on topics like “emotional purity” (we don’t want to cheat on our future spouses by opening up). You are in a position of great recognition and authority. You have the responsibility to set a better example…”

Who is to blame for all of these legalistic excesses?  I cannot be sure.  It seems Josh has tried to clear up some misunderstandings, but there is definitely something still amiss in this "courtship culture".  I personally don't think Josh Harris is to blame for what has occurred in the homeschool movement and courtship culture, but the books played a part.  

I believe the problem occurred when pastors, leaders, and fathers went above and beyond what is normal involvement in the lives of their congregants and used their power to control and shame their flock/adult children.