Thread by @MittyWistful

How do you go about defining an entire way of life? How do you take concepts that were *literally* taught in the cradle and turn them into words others can understand and relate to?

Because this is #PurityCulture. This is life for a fundy child, raised by the patriarchy.

https://twitter.com/jtreese89/status/1086340411235463169

I’m a Pastor’s child, an MK, the product of multiple generations of holiness people, most of whom were preachers.

I was served up School of Tomorrow’s ACE curriculum from grades K-12, except the year we used CLE curriculum... which is actually worse.

#ExposeChristianSchools

It’s only with the birds’ eye view of years and philosophical distance that I can look back and say “That was abuse. Pure and simple.”

ACE is Calvinistic to the core, which made it an odd choice for a family that believed John Wesley stood next to Jesus’ cross.

But looking back, I can see that the tie-in was multi-fold:
-rigid dress standards
-authoritarianism
-propoganda machine
-male dominance
-an inherent belief that white Protestants are the master race

#ExposeChristianSchools

Brb...

Also a dogmatic belief in young earth creationism and an insistence that scientists can’t see the truth because they see everything through an atheistic worship of themselves.

Screwing science means lots of weird avenues, including climate change denial.

#ExposeChristianSchools

Grades K-5 I attended a Christian day school; 6-10 homeschool; 11-12 a very different day school that was also a tiny bible school and boarding school.

Accelerated Christian Education was and is awful in every sense.

Children sit in an “office” and do individual workbooks.

Despite the complete lack of attention to anything resembling good instruction, it’s the indoctrination that strikes me as horrifying today.

#ExposeChristianSchools

In ACE, when children need help, they raise their American flag for a “monitor.” Christian flag goes up for really big problems - that gets you a “supervisor.”

Morning devotions start every day... prayer before lunch... chapel multiple times a week.

#ExposeChristianSchools

@JTReese89 has written reams about how ACE works, and I’m not going to try to break that all down. If you’re curious, do check out his threads.

This is mainly my story, and I’m going to try to tie the #ExposeChristianSchools thoughts directly to #PurityCulture.

Because here’s the thing...
Propoganda runs on emotion. And culture.

What better way to build a culture than through brainwashing children who then birth and raise brainwashed babies?

#ExposeChristianSchools

Purity culture starts with teaching girls their body is dirty and shameful.

And it starts in the cradle.

I never learned to do cartwheels, because I was afraid of showing my underwear (skirts only).

By the time I went to school, the uniform requirements were perfectly normal and not any stricter than what I wore at home.

Of course I noticed boys got a free pass... what active little girl wouldn’t notice how much easier life would be in pants?
#ExposeChristianSchools

In 1st grade, people started teasing me about boys. Especially female teachers and other little girls.

The male/female segregation was so strong - even in the lowest grades - that my boy cousin, also my best friend, wouldn’t talk to me at school.

#ExposeChristianSchools

I rarely allow myself to go to that place in my mind, but when I do, there is an overwhelming amount of shame and guilt... over what?

Being a girl.

That’s it.

Nothing more, nothing less.

#ExposeChristianSchools

My parents both attended public school. Both had bad experiences, though my father was not raised Christian and my mother was raised very strict.

They would’ve gone to jail rather than send us to public school.

They idolized School of Tomorrow & saw it as a protective bubble.

When we were children, my mom started harping on how we were never going to be allowed to date. My entire sex ed (nope, ACE doesn’t cover that) was a book by James Dobson and a van full of horny early-teen kids.

Again, I’m not going to go in depth into what #purityculture is...

This is about story and the impact #PurityCulture has on lives.

My entire K-12 education was an exercise in staying away from boys. No flirting, DEFINITELY no touching, and no dating for me or my siblings because my mom wouldn’t allow it until we turned 18.

This wasn’t really true for my peers, not even those heavily influenced by Joshua Harris & his ilk.

Family courtship was a thing for many. Lots of girls just straight up broke the rules.

Some of my friends engaged in actually harmful sexual activity.

#ExposeChristianSchools

Teenage pregnancy was a thing - because when you don’t know anything, how do you protect yourself? And also because pseudo-science says girls don’t need protection if they behave themselves.

Abortion was a thing too, tho hidden.

#exposeChristianSchools

I knew many young couples who were forced to get married because of premarital sex and/or preganancy.

Btw, I’m still talking about HS.

#exposeChristianSchools

Teachers, women in long skirts and buns on their heads, screwing teenage boys in secret.

Administrators taking advantage of young girls.

A HS principal who ended up in jail for molesting children. Don’t talk to me about accusations... this was true.

#exposeChristianSchools

And so many, many kids hurting so bad.

Many walked away from it all. I didn’t blame them. Might have been envious. But I couldn’t. Not yet.

I was the good girl, the one who followed all the rules. Got perfect grades. Witnessed to people. Went on mission trips. It was all I had.

I don’t have words to express the darkness that fell after HS graduation.

I couldn’t find a job. It suddenly dawned on me that a Christian school education is worse than getting a GED, even if you make near-perfect grades.

#ExposeChristianSchools

It’s the only time in my life I’ve been close to suicidal.

And you know, it makes sense.

If your body is shameful and being a woman makes you fit to be a servant or a slave... what is there to live for?

You may as well bury your guilt and shame in the earth.

I think it was mainly my kid sister who kept me alive when I was 19 -and my brother, whose needs and pain were raw and bleeding wounds.

Christian school devastated us. Even tho I do believe my parents were trying to protect us, it was nuclear. #ExposeChristianSchools

I had a revelation the other day about #PurityCulture. I was literally taught to deny my body, my physical reactions, to the point that anything remotely sexually attractive can upset me.

My automatic reaction is typically to throw up a wall bigger than Trump’s.

Some churches, schools I’ve been have taught that elbows had to be covered - because they look like boobs. I’m not trying to be funny right now, although it’s fantastically weird.

There’s only one place that idea comes from - a place where anything & everything close to desire MUST be evil.

And in a painful, ironic twist if everything is sexual, nothing is.

#PurityCulture exists to reduce women to objects. Useful only for male pleasure.

Christian day schools were created to indoctrinate, to build a space for grooming girls through the use of #PurityCulture.

The abuses are exactly what was intended to happen.

I don’t actually want to say that, but I believe it to be true.

#ExposeChristianSchools

I’m exhausted from going back through these emotions I’ve buried for the last 20 years, so I’m going to stop now.

You’ve been a great audience...