Plymouth Brethren | littlebarefeetblog

After not one, but two, articles appeared in major newspapers covering so-called “White Christian Nationalists” devotion to the Trump regime, I figured that piece I’d been toying with writing had better hit the page. God’s inspiration should never be ignored, after all. Oh; and, believe me: I mean that, sincerely.

For all practical purposes, I am a voice of the “white Evangelical Christian.” My family was established into the fellowship of the Fundamentalist sect of the Plymouth Brethren by our grandfather, a street preacher who’d migrated from eastern PA to get a job building cranes and raise his children. A couple elders of “the meeting” on East Avenue in Erie met him, at the local jail, and invited him to join their assembly. Soon Henry, his wife Mae, and their four daughters Dora Mae, Betty, Frances, and Martha, would be born and raised among them, attending Sunday School, Morning Worship and Gospel Meeting – all on Lord’s Day – plus, Prayer Meeting and Bible Study on Tuesday and Friday.

Aunt Frances, the most liberal thinker among his offspring, would go radical and marry a Baptist minister. The rest raised all of us on the self-same attendance regimen and its accompanying rules for dress and decorum; head coverings for the women, seated silence for all females in the presence of their men.

Pappy, as we grandkids would come to call him, was a closet Republican who came to accept that, like the rest of the Brethren, his citizenship was in Heaven and that God would put into office whom He will – with no need for his actual vote. My parents, and our entire extended family (with the exception of the Baptists) modeled after their patriarch, listening intently to the election results on the radio but refusing to participate in the democratic process.

I accepted Jesus into my heart at age six, but registered to vote at age thirty one, in 1988, the year our grandmother’s soul left her body for the seventh Heaven. The competition for the office of President was Bush/Dukakis and I, torn between Dukakis’ education plan and Bush’s GOP platform of fiscal conservatism and social traditionalism sat, biting my nails until the polls closed – never placing my vote.

The next time being a Christian became relevant in my political world was the year 2000. For some reason, though I’d long since left the constraints of the PBs and church culture in general, I’d found myself in the convocation of our local mega-congregation, curiously named at the time “First Assembly”. Movie screens were mounted to the left and right of the sanctuary, primarily intended to present praise lyrics but, on this occasion, the projectionist was preparing a form of worship from which there would be no escape.

I don’t remember what was said from the lectern, by way of introduction. I just remember the ceiling lights dimming and strains of the Battle Hymn of the Republic wafting from speakers mounted throughout the large, wide church as an authoritative baritone underscored in narrative what we were about to experience.

This was no missionary appeal, with its opening report about life in the Caribbean or African interior. This was a film about George W Bush, designed specifically for the church congregations of all America. There were images of uniformed military, and family photos of the Bush dynasty, splayed out across a metamessage of persuasion as moving as an altar call at the City Mission. I was aghast, astonished; what was politics doing amongst the faithful? Furthermore how, two thousand years after the birth of Christ, did a piece of campaign propaganda ever find its way into the First Assembly of God?

Now, twenty one years hence, I think I know.

Now, I recall my immediate family’s open defense of the President soon to be history. I trace back further, through conversations with my beloved former student, a high ranking military officer of the US Army Air Force and born-again Christian, his ardent support of the George W. whom he actually met filling his eyes with light. Mostly, I call to mind prayer breakfasts for whose keynote speaker politicians were pinned, political rallies populated by entire church contingents, the voice of America’s morally upright finally being heard by a mainstream society clearly in precipitous decay.

Here’s the thing about “true” Christians, the ones who read the Bibles they own and who live for the Christ they call their Saviour. Once they’ve accepted the doctrines which dictate that the Truth is theirs for the delivering, they hear the mandating call to go out and preach that gospel to every tongue, people, and nation. These having spent generations separated from the World and all its fleshly lustings, some shrewd political strategist finally realized that one more call, tactically placed, couched in all the trappings of a real conviction to act, would render an entire demographic literally clamoring for a place in the palm of their hand.

Now, there would be no need for the subliminal strains of an electric organ cued by a pastor’s gentle request for bowed heads. Just a country song, sung by a Christian entertainer, and youth group car washes popped up in every church parking lot in the nation – complete with bumper stickers declaring the candidate of consensus. Just a message, insidious in its power, that the marginalized faithful were important, thrust into the spotlight of the Almighty God’s intention for His people and summoned to a service no true Christian could, in good conscience, refuse.

What nobody calculated was the incredible intractability of the true Christian. To say they are an emboldened fringe is a dangerous oversimplification; this is far beyond extremism. These are both Fundamentalist and Evangelical. This is an entire mentality of infinite scope, with eternal life its branded hallmark. Psychologists would say that theirs is not a dilemma. The path is clear; wavering is not part of their lexicon. They shall not be moved.

Somewhere between the promise of prosperity and sinless perfection, the message these march has the Kingdom of God all over it. Pandora’s box should have been left tightly closed, just like the fellowship of the Plymouth Brethren, exclusive unto itself. But, politics played its ever-greedy hand, and now we all pay the price for that unforgivable sin.

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The Plymouth Brethren were, amongst all Christian fundamentalists, the most exclusive; amongst all Bible-believers, the most scholarly; amongst all patriarchal sub-groups, the most suppressive. They raised me. Clearly, I was conceived in the wrong ooze.

When not at this screen penning my life thoughts for all the world to [endure], and avoiding performance deadlines, I binge the occasional Tv series. And, Kody’s “Sister Wives” has had me since day one.

For benefit of the uninitiated, Kody is a polygamist. Hailing from some derivation of the Mormon throng, he has, to date, four wives. They share some seventeen children, each wife with her own, newly-built home in a cul de sac in a remote corner of Las Vegas.

Meri is Kody’s first wife. Meri and Kody have one daughter, Mariah. Meri is particular, in noticeable need of some degree of control over her domain; even when a whole house is built for her, with no publicly disclosed financial contribution toward it on her part, she still insists that its every angle and accoutrement be exactly as specified. Meri says to the Tv interviewer that she is completely happy in her relationship with Kody. But, although Meri does not say so, I wonder how content or happy Meri is with her life, taken as a whole. Meri may never fully disclose herself. She reminds me of a man I once knew.

Janelle is Kody’s second. I am not privy to the circumstances which have led to Janelle’s appearance on Kody’s scene, having missed the first few episodes and played catch up thereafter. I do however know, and notice, the stark contrast between Janelle and Meri; Janelle is laid back, accepting of the big picture, never sweating the small stuff. While Meri has somewhat of a designer’s aesthetic, Janelle appears to have no regard for any. But, Janelle has produced several children, close in age, and perhaps her hormone panel is what distinguishes her most from Meri. She reminds me of a girl I once knew. Interestingly, Kody has enjoyed a kind of second honeymoon with Janelle, of late, reasons about which we viewers can only wonder. Perhaps Janelle’s active attempts to get her overweight body in shape have inspired her husband. And, Kody has never tired of her kisses – something he’s told the world.

Again, I can’t comment as to the time lapse between Kody’s marriages, only that I must point out that Meri is Kody’s only legal spouse. The other three wives are spiritually committed to him and the family, recognized as his wives only from within the parameters of the belief system they all share. A belief system, namely one they call a faith in God, their heavenly father, and Christ, God’s son. Go. Figure.

As such, I don’t know when or why Christine joined the family. But, Christine also has several children with Kody and, while she seems to struggle with either personality or emotional mood issues, seems equally happy being mother not only to her own but the entire collective of children. At family gatherings, she is clearly the leader, reveling in entertaining them all with carefully planned games and activities. She reminds me of all the good elementary school teachers I have known. I notice that, when Christine goes into her act, Janelle sits back comfortably in her seat on the sofa, and Meri looks on from what seems to be an emotional distance, perhaps with gracious tolerance of what she would otherwise be uninterested to endure. Meri is not a team player or a social animal, and Janelle is just happy to remain quietly entertained. Christine, however, together with Kody, gets highly involved in all the childrens’ reactions and responses whenever the whole family is in the room.

Robyn is wife number four. We can all tell, those of us who have ever been in love or married or both, that Robyn is still enjoying her role as Kody’s newly-wed. She may also be of the belief that her position is powerful. When Kody presents all the wives their custom made jewelry pieces, she makes each wife’s receipt of his gift a matter of her own interest, exuberantly commenting with praise even as the wife in question quietly opens her own gift. Robyn is probably unaware of her own transparency, and we gently forgive her because, well, to expose her might be hurtful or damaging. She reminds me of myself, at about age thirty four.

That was right before I met my ex-husband, and everything changed for me. Before that, I’d felt socially empowered, my career on the rise, important figures in my sphere taking notice, my personal life showing promise. But, we aren’t talking about me, right now.

Or, maybe we are. I have recently, and with significant surprise, fallen in love again. The man who enjoys being the object of my affections claims the same about me. And, he possesses nearly every trait I’ve ever admired or sought in a man, with the possible exception of a degree of inner peace. About that last part, I should probably withhold judgment as, after all, who ever accused me of possessing inner peace?! Nevertheless, he is very nearly the perfect man for me, and I adore him.

I, on the other hand, having been raised by those aforementioned patriarchs, was taught to assume that men in their trek toward becoming Christ-like could achieve a form of sinless perfection; women, of which I had been born to become, would have a far deeper and more individual struggle for value. As such, I hesitate to reveal to my beloved the full scope of my shortcomings. He cannot know the degree to which I see myself as undeserving. He must never know how disparate the woman I was expected to become is from who I really am.

Meantime, it’s compelling to ruminate about the numerous variations on cohabitation which American society tolerates. What about polygamy? What might it be like to have three or four husbands, on my own cul de sac, in a corner of neverland? I am, after all, completely aware that I am probably as particular and socially wary as Meri; as teacherly and child oriented as Christine; as interested in devotion to my man as Robyn, and a real kisser with encroaching weight issues, like Janelle. But, to spend a lifetime with only me, if history is any indicator, would wear a man down to a shell of what he ever thought he could be. I’d easily share him with somebody else, if only to get him out of the house when we both become intolerable. That, I would do.

But, right now, I’ll enjoy my bliss. It’s been a long time coming, indeed. Maybe society will move its unwieldy ass, in the meantime, toward some broader magnanimity. But, I can wait for that.

“Apres Un Reve” beckons from the music stand and my cello sits, quietly floating in resonant frequency with the room, until I am ready to let it sing. The Plymouth Brethren still meet, fewer, yet much more globally integrated than ever before, a haven for the disenfranchised of every culture, still earnestly dictating reality at every breath. And, outside, mainstream society lumbers along, thinking itself the real mover yet, always, about ten years behind the Bohemians, who really know.

Yes; we can wait. About that, we really have no choice. Or, do we?

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Stories, in my head, since childhood….time to tell them.

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