Imagine a world where the “land of the free and the home of the brave” operates like a fundamentalist Christian school. What kind of freedom would be possible? As difficult as it may seem to imagine Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale coming to a city near you, it might already be unfolding before our eyes.
As Senior Columnist Susan Shaw recently wrote for BNG, “Christian nationalists have imposed their will on the nation.” The systematic takeover of our nation’s courts and schools by conservative evangelicals has led Chrissy Stroop, a scholar and leading voice for ex-evangelicals, to comment, “It’s like the whole country is turning into a Christian school.”
The authoritarianism of Christian schools
Like Stroop, I grew up in the Christian school movement. After graduating from my Baptist high school in a class of 13 students, I went on to attend the fundamentalist Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C. During my freshman year, I wanted to drive down to my independent fundamentalist Baptist school in middle Georgia for my high school’s homecoming football game. Because the trip would be overnight, I planned to spend the night with one of my pastors.
But when I tried to get permission from BJU’s dean of men, I learned the university would not allow me to go. Despite my plan of staying with my fundamentalist pastor, they still refused. And when I showed them my parents gave me permission, they said, “We are your ‘in loco parentis,’” which was a way to say they held a higher place of authority in my life than my parents did, despite the fact I was a legal adult.
Because we believed in the complementarian theology of men being in charge of women and children, my dad had absolute authority in our home over my mom and over the kids. But because he was on staff at Bob Jones University, the university had absolute authority over him. I’ll never forget telling him one day: “I don’t mean to sound disrespectful. But your authority in our home is kind of pointless because BJU has already spelled out every detail of our lives, down to what I wear or listen to on my headphones when I cut the grass. You’ve been relegated to enforcing their rules for our family.”
Fundamentalist Christian schools told us what to watch on TV, what music styles to listen to, how to cut our hair, what shoes or clothes to wear, what words to say, what coffee shops we could frequent, what races and genders we could date and virtually every possible decision you could think of.
Fundamentalist Christian schools told us what to watch on TV, what music styles to listen to, how to cut our hair, what shoes or clothes to wear, what words to say, what coffee shops we could frequent, what races and genders we could date and virtually every possible decision you could think of.
BJU published a list of approved churches its faculty and students could attend. The university even blacklisted many conservative evangelical complementarian churches due to their contemporary music or their cooperation with new evangelicals like John Piper or John MacArthur, who were considered compromisers. So, whether you were a student, a faculty family or even a local church, BJU wielded absolute authority over you.
‘Freedom’ through controlling hearts, minds and souls
In an interview about his movie Home School Awakening, actor Kirk Cameron said: “Since the pandemic, we’ve been made grossly aware of the inaccurate and the immoral things that the public school system has been teaching our children and our grandchildren. And it’s up to us as parents to cultivate the hearts and minds and souls of our children toward what is good, toward what is right, beautiful and true. And the public school system unfortunately has not been working with us, but actively working against us. In my opinion, the public school system has become public enemy number one.”
With the public school system in his crosshairs, Cameron stressed: “We need to take back the education of our children, because whoever controls the textbooks controls the future. Whoever’s shaping the hearts and minds and souls of our children will determine whether or not we live in a free country.”
Notice how Cameron defines living in a “free country” as shaping hearts, minds and souls through controlling the schools. It lines up quite well with John MacArthur’s vision of freedom defined as slavery. But how is that level of evangelical control considered freedom?
White evangelicals want to control the hearts of children to desire the hierarchies they set up as God’s design for the world.
White evangelicals want to control the hearts of children to desire the hierarchies they set up as God’s design for the world.
White evangelicals want to control the minds of children to believe in young earth creationism, Christian nationalist history, male headship, anti-LGBTQ theology, purity culture, retributive justice, end-times conspiracies and a litany of Republican agenda priorities.
Ultimately, white evangelicals want to control the souls of children because they are terrified of God burning their kids for eternity. So, they figure if they can keep children’s minds agreeing with their alternate views of reality, and if they can keep children’s hearts valuing their power structures, then perhaps they can keep children’s souls safe from the God they claim to be in a good relationship with.
The insecurity of white evangelicalism’s gospel
It makes total sense that evangelicals have been utilizing the power of the Republican Party to push an authoritarian vision of freedom as defined by the likes of Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and Kirk Cameron. When you give national power to a people group who runs Christian schools with alternate views of reality and absolute authority, what else are they going to do other than control others like they’ve always done?
Studies show insecurity breeds intolerance, which gives birth to authoritarianism. So, when we consider the authoritarianism white evangelicalism is pushing, we need to consider what might be the cause of their insecurity.
It’s ironic they are so insecure because they talk so confidently in public about being secure in their identity in Christ, as well as about knowing that one day they will spend an eternity in heaven receiving pleasures forevermore while worshiping God.
But consider their theological script. They believe humans at our core are worthy of nothing less than being tormented in flames for eternity. They believe only they will escape such a fate. They believe the reason they will escape is Jesus who earned a relationship with God for them by obeying perfectly and by dying on the cross. And they believe they’ll be singing and eating grapes in their mansions while their family and friends burn forever.
Despite their words about grace, evangelicals ultimately believe a relationship with God must be earned. God can’t simply accept us for who we are as created, loved, being healed and made new by God. Someone has to obey perfectly in order to earn the right to stay in God’s presence.
Of course, there is some diversity within that script. I grew up in a free will Baptist home while attending an independent Baptist church and school. This meant I was terrified of losing my salvation, while my friends were terrified they were never saved to begin with.
Ask virtually any evangelical, and you’ll hear stories of growing up constantly afraid they weren’t saved. We said the Sinner’s Prayer many times over growing up. No matter how often we confidently quoted 1 John 5:13, we’d struggle with insecurity again every time we laid our heads on our pillows or were alone in an empty house.
We distinguished ourselves from everyone else by saying we didn’t have a religion, but a relationship with God.
And that’s where their insecurity lies. It’s in the nature of that relationship.
Evangelicalism’s relationship of merit
Despite their words about grace, evangelicals ultimately believe a relationship with God must be earned. God can’t simply accept us for who we are as created, loved, being healed and made new by God. Someone has to obey perfectly in order to earn the right to stay in God’s presence. And somebody has to die a violent death in order to satisfy God’s wrath.
To white evangelicals, God requires perfect righteousness and violent death in order to be in relationship with you. And both are earned by Jesus. But then moving forward, God the Father looks at Jesus’ righteousness and Jesus’ death. In other words, God the Father isn’t looking at you. He doesn’t really see you face to face, eye to eye. His head is somewhere else. He’s looking at Jesus’ life book with your name on the cover. At its core, the evangelical relationship with God is one that is earned by someone else through perfection and violence, and that makes you invisible to the one you’re in relationship with.
And all of your family and friends who question whether this vision of reality is true or good? They burn for eternity.
In what world does any secure and healthy relationship function in that way? How could you ever trust, love or celebrate a God who requires perfection and violence to maintain a relationship with you and who plans to burn your family and friends forever? That theology simply cannot be imaged in spiritually healthy relationships. In fact, when we image it in our relationships, it fosters abuse or perhaps authoritarianism.
Evangelicals may not know this in their heads because they can’t imagine reading the Bible through any other lens. But they know it in their gut. They embody it from their intuition every time they beg as kids that perhaps this time their prayer might be genuine and take hold.
Until white evangelicalism is willing to deconstruct the very theological core of its gospel and open up toward healthy relationships with self, neighbor and God, it’s never going to be secure. Its gospel always will give rise to the authoritarianism we see today moving from their previously isolated subcultures to any place in society they can get their trembling hands on.
In their vision of reality, the eternal souls of their children depend on it.
Rick Pidcock is a 2004 graduate of Bob Jones University, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Bible. He’s a freelance writer based in South Carolina and a former Clemons Fellow with BNG. He recently completed a Master of Arts degree in worship from Northern Seminary. He is a stay-at-home father of five children and produces music under the artist name Provoke Wonder. Follow his blog at www.rickpidcock.com.
Related articles:
‘Salvation’ is a good and godly word that needs rehabilitating; and progressive Christians can help
Rick Warren’s conundrum: What’s the nature and extent of salvation?