This is the third and last part of this series. This time, with A, we look at the quieter kind of damage happening inside the fundamentalist circles, the years spent believing your worth depended on being modest, submissive and endlessly patient with a god who seemed to have design you as an afterthought. It is not the sort of religious trauma that makes headlines. It is slower than that, built from small moments that add up to a woman quietly believing she is less than human. If any of this feels familiar, online counselling can help you start separating what you were taught from what you actually believe.
How did the church shape your understanding of womanhood, sexuality, and your role in relationships?
There was a specific way that womanhood, sexuality, and romantic relationships should be experienced. The gender roles were generally quite rigid, leaving no room for a gender expression that strays from the binary. The overall message I was receiving from the church on how womanhood should be experienced was quite clear: Women should be straight, pure until married, and, ideally, family-oriented with a desire for a husband and children. Studying and a career were never discouraged; quite the opposite. But I was always made to feel that the true virtue and blessing was marriage and children. I remember it was common during Youth Group for members in their late teens and early twenties to pray to find their future husband or wife as soon as possible. Another part of womanhood in the church was the way you presented yourself. A woman of the faith is modest, humble, gentle, and “praises God with her appearance and outward behaviour”.
Sexuality as an identity was rarely talked about. You were either a straight cis-man or a straight cis-woman; it was known and accepted. Anything outside this binary, queerness, identifying as LGBTQAI+, was considered straying from the path, a sin.
Identifying as a straight cis-woman myself, I was “safe” from this type of prejudice. But I always felt a sense of injustice and could imagine (can still imagine) how difficult it must be to struggle within a fundamentalist church when your entire identity is essentially considered a sin, abnormal, dirty. No matter how many times I was told “Being gay is a sin”, I could never accept it in my heart.
Sex itself was something only between a husband and wife, not for unmarried people. Premarital relationships were considered a sin and not accepted. Sex was also extremely rarely talked about. As a result, there was little sex education and awareness. You had sex on your wedding night, no real reason to discuss it too much before that. This is not my personal experience, but I can only imagine the kinds of false expectations this can lead to for young couples who grew up and got married in the church.
Regarding a romantic relationship, i.e. marriage, we were taught that, once married, a wife’s body belongs to her husband, and a husband’s body belongs to his wife. Personally, I wanted my body to belong to me and me only, whether I was married or not. When you are told that your body belongs to someone else, it raises some serious issues regarding consent and bodily autonomy. Of course, the husband is the head of the household and leads his wife, as Jesus leads the church, showing that women have a secondary role within the church and within their own home. These are just a couple of examples of the relationship dynamics for a couple within the church. It’s the dynamic I tried very hard to accept so that I could one day marry in the church, walk the correct path, and end up in Heaven. However, my intuition and my instincts led me away from these, and other teachings, toward a much more independent lifestyle.
Did you ever felt a calling or desire to lead, teach, or speak publicly in church? If so, how was that received?
I can’t say that I ever felt the desire to lead a gathering or sermon. Having said that, it’s not my nature to be the centre of attention. I never enjoyed public speaking; it still makes me nervous. Even during church events called “lessons”, where the whole church, men and women, could ask questions and share thoughts openly, I would not participate. I would only listen. This, however, is entirely to do with my personality.
Had I felt the desire to lead a sermon, I would have liked to be able to do so and not be excluded just because I am a woman. It’s about having the choice. The Bible explicitly states: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.” (1 Timothy 2:12), and most churches adhere to this rule. I found it hard, however, to believe preachers when they say, “Men and women are equal in God’s eyes”, after they give men the right to teach and withhold the same right from women. I find that these two phenomena are highly contradictory.
Can you describe any moments where you felt silenced or dismissed in church settings because you were a woman?
I was never blatantly silenced or dismissed in conversations, even when I raised questions or doubts at our Youth Group gatherings. During everyday company with church members, there was generally an air of respect and good intentions toward men and women equally. It was outside my one-on-ones with my fellow churchgoers that I would somehow feel “othered”.
The most vivid memories I have of this are the sermons where passages such as 1 Corinthians 11:3 were read and analysed: "But I want you to realise that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God." Or 1 Timothy 2:11–12: "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet". These sermons would make me feel small and certainly something different from, even “less-than”, my male counterparts sitting in the pews to my right (men and women sat separately when I was a member). I kept thinking When I reached adulthood, this feeling became more intense, making me feel extremely uncomfortable, as if, as a woman, I was incapable and could not be trusted to live a life without the guidance of a man.
So, even if I did get along with my brothers and sisters in Christ, I began to find it more and more difficult for me to sit in a pew and hear the preaching of rhetoric that took my gender identity and turned it into something to dominate over, because for women to be submissive, there needs to be someone to dominate.
Looking back, do you think the church’s teachings had any impact on your mental health, self-worth, or confidence?
Growing up in a fundamentalist church, throughout your childhood and adolescence, you receive teachings about your identity, about how you must be to be worthy of Heaven, and how anything outside of that is a sin. I believe that, subconsciously, whether you want it or not, these messages are absorbed, and they go…somewhere. I have found that they can manifest as shame, anxiety, OCD, or depression. I would go as far as to say it was inevitable that my years in a fundamentalist church influenced my mental health.
I certainly had an intense fear of the Rapture for years. Even now, so many years later, I catch myself thinking, “What if the Rapture happens right now, and I was wrong?” Thankfully, it is now only a rare, fleeting thought that does not affect me in any meaningful way. Shame is another emotion I felt deeply. As I started to distance myself from the church to find my own way, what made me happy, I would adhere to the teachings less. This made me feel unclean, unworthy and even ungrateful toward God.
I can’t say that growing up in the church, I was taught self-confidence, to take pride in myself, and to love myself. Love, admiration, and praise were given to the Lord. We as humans are sinners and unworthy. It is God who finds us, saves us and makes us His worthy children. “Without God, we are nothing”, was preached from the pulpit. It took me years to undo that in my mind and soul, to know that I am “someone”, not “nothing”.
Did you ever confide in someone within the church about your doubts or struggles with their gender teachings? What was their response?
I freely expressed my concerns on several teachings, including gender roles and the way girls and women were talked about in the Bible and, by extension, the sermons. I would often go to my family, church members, and even Church Elders, with questions and doubts throughout my teenage years, up until I left as an adult.
When discussing these issues, I don’t remember my concerns being validated; I didn’t feel especially heard. I was never dismissed or ignored; however, nobody seemed to agree with me or share my views, not even other girls or women. Or, if they did feel the way I did, they certainly did not express it. Seeking guidance, I found myself asking family and elders more and more often, “I don’t understand why it has to be that way. Why would God write this in His Bible? It seems unfair to me”. As I got older, though, I would confide in people less because the answer to every one of my questions and the solution to every doubt was the same. “If you don’t understand, pray to God, and ask Him to make you understand and accept these teachings”.