Joy Unspeakable: Toxic Faith and Rose-Colored Glasses

I was born with rose-colored glasses. Not literally of course. My real vision enhancements had clear lenses that were attached to my infant face with rubber bands. With my bald head and wire rims, I was affectionately nicknamed Tweety Bird. But more distinct than being a hairless, crossed-eyed wonder with spectacles was my uncanny ability, as I grew older, to see what others often missed—the cup half full, triumph in tragedy, humor in hardship, and empathy for the underdog—essentially, viewing the cosmos through a customized eyepiece designed specifically to distort reality. Some may regard this trait as altruistic—always looking for the good, even if it’s the proverbial needle in the haystack. But for me, it was about finding meaning and making sense of the world. Sometimes seeing life in 20/20 is too painful for the human mind to process and it seeks to soften the edges and blur the lines as a way of making circumstances more palatable. This ability, whether innate or contrived, to look beyond the drama of the stage and imagine what was happening behind the curtain, enabled me to interpret, redefine, justify, and explain away every obstacle in my path.

It’s from this mind-set that my fundamentalist Christian orientation became desirable from a very young age. My brain had a special way of sugarcoating the negative aspects of faith in Jesus so that the overarching theme was joy. The Bible proclaimed the joy of salvation, the joy of sins forgiven, the joy of eternal life, and the joy of being known and loved by the creator of the universe. In church, I sang about the "joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart and proclaimed, The joy of the Lord is my strength." This unspeakable joy was the driving force behind my virtuous ambitions—missionary, Sunday school teacher, church musician, songwriter, homeschool mom, home group leader’s wife, women’s ministry speaker, and above all, godly wife.

I was convinced that as a believer in Jesus, I had the corner on joy. Not only was it my name, it was also my identity. I was warned that without Christ, my life would be hollow and void of meaning and purpose, like the poor unfortunate, disillusioned atheists, gays, backsliders, sluts, gamblers, and other wretched sinners I had heard about in church, who would seek to fill that God-shaped void in all the wrong places. Joy, in this context, isn’t solely about always being happy and bubbly; I think of it more as a by-product of believing that everything has a purpose and nothing happens by chance. It’s being able to confidently navigate through life with a contented smile, even when circumstances look bleak, because there is an invisible force righting all wrongs and turning trials into triumphs.

This is my story of fundamental Christianity as viewed through my rose- colored glasses. Some affectionately refer to them as God goggles because when wearing them, invisible Jesus magically appears like a holograph, morphing each storyline into a Pollyanna object lesson. I’m eager to paint a vivid portrait of what my world looked like through the unique lens of faith. Every obstruction was an opportunity. Every disappointment was a refining tool. Unanswered prayers were examples of misguided desires. Virtually every circumstance, when viewed metaphorically, through my magic lenses, would draw me closer to my savior and bring meaning to life. When looking at others’ misfortune, I could glibly respond, But for the grace of God go I and would proceed to thank God for sparing me the calamity that others couldn’t escape. Yet upon closer examination, I’m now convinced the unspeakable joy that I claimed to possess was really more of a smoke screen to mask the unspeakable fear and dread my religion produced when the God goggles were removed. Without my rainbow filters, how could I even begin to fathom the indescribable horrors of hell, realizing that friends, loved ones and even myself could be consciously tortured for all eternity without even a halfway point in time served? Or how about the unrelenting evil power of the devil, who is constantly sneaking up on us, reading our minds and trying to harm, deceive, and even kill us? Or how can we sanely go about our business with the terrifying trauma of one day being snatched up into heaven in the rapture without even a second’s warning, like a thief in the night, or worse, to be left behind to be brutally tortured and even beheaded by the Antichrist? Without my rose-colored glasses, how could I endorse and propagate a religion founded on human sacrifice and whose symbolic rituals include cannibalism—eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the slain victim? If Christianity was true, as I believed with all my heart it was, I needed my bright, enhanced overlay to claim and proclaim the unspeakable joy of knowing Jesus.

My purpose in sharing this story is to expose the unwritten, unseen horrors of fundamentalism when used to override natural instincts and interfere with rational decision-making. This seemingly benign and happy religion crippled me emotionally and psychologically with its fear tactics and continual toxic message that I was worthless, unlovable, and the object of God’s wrath without Christ. I want to pull back the curtain to show what was happening behind the façade of my Christian bubble, not only in childhood and adolescence but also as an adult, with my God-ordained marriage, six adorable, obedient children, and the white picket fence. The external scaffolding creates a beautiful mirage of wholeness and health—a quality of life that others, especially in times of desperation, aspire to and the bait that often hooks the seeker, looking to religion for greener pastures. But behind the set lies the same brokenness familiar to all of humanity. For me, Christianity warped reality in such a way that I couldn’t discern abuse from tough love, self-hatred from humility, human need from idolatry, or submission from misogyny. Consequently, I naively subjected myself to needless emotional trauma in the name of following Jesus.

Even more importantly, I am compelled to share the transformation that took place when my seemingly impenetrable beliefs became dismantled from my brick-and-mortar, steel-reinforced foundation and I saw my life for the first time without the distortion of my God goggles. A new me, I submit, the real me, emerged, full of confidence, purpose, joy, gratitude, and love, despite the pompous whispers circulating among the faithful about how tragic it was that I was so lost. I trust my story conveys loudly and proudly that I’ve never been more found and that by ridding myself of destructive, fundamentalist ideology, I have been given my life back.

My target audience is everyone—believers, unbelievers, once believers, wannabe believers. If you were brought up in the church, you will surely relate to the many Christian nuances woven into the tapestry of my experiences, especially if you were raised Pentecostal, glory-da-god. If you’ve never been a convert, you have a backstage pass to enjoy a sampling of what you may have missed while you were out being a normal human being. And if you too have discovered that your religious indoctrination no longer works for you, may you find comfort in my journey, knowing you are most certainly not alone.

A few names, places, and identifying details have been changed to maintain a cloak of anonymity, but otherwise, to the best of my ability, my memoir is true, warts and all.

Part One

Childhood

Immersion and Conversion

1

Fragments

Candy cigarettes.

Matt, Steve, Chris.

Old Daddy.

Jules.

Paper whistle tossed into the bathtub.

Screaming.

Tantrums.

Cowboy boots.

A bonk on the head with a door at a trailer park.

Matt peeling an orange for me, while I screamed in protest that he wasn’t doing it right.

This was the sum total of my chapter 1, circa 1961–1965, pre-adoption. For twenty-three years, those pages were missing from my book as if they had been hastily ripped out, leaving sketchy remnants of words and sentences out of context and partial paragraphs and pictures with poor resolution.

Growing up, I tried to fill in the missing details with my own theories and assumptions about who I was and where I came from. Like a good detective, I used the clues left behind to recreate the setting, characters, and plot line, but I knew the account wouldn’t be trustworthy until I found the original manuscript from which to compare my own rendering of events. So for my entire childhood and young adulthood, my story picked up at chapter 2, the day old Daddy got arrested for his second DUI.

2

Riding Pink Flamingos

My twin sister, Jules, and I were only three when the social worker showed up and whisked us away. We had been transported to a little farm on North Pleasant Valley Road, about forty miles from our home in Pocatello, Idaho. Our only earthly belongings accompanying us consisted of a small cardboard box of tattered clothing, matching yellow polka-dot rompers with elastic-gathered bloomers that we were wearing, and a small, blue plastic, double-sided rocking horse seat that still held a place in our hearts though we had long since outgrown it. When the social worker pulled up to the house, dust settling behind us from the gravel road, our new mama and daddy and grandmother, with her cooking apron and floral printed dress, greeted us in the yard. I remember eyeing the pink flamingo lawn ornaments propped up by wire legs beckoning my sister and I to come and ride. We exited the car and ran as quickly as our chubby little legs would carry us, right to the plastic birds, squealing, with toddler glee, Horsies! There was one for each of us, and with flawless synchronization, we jumped on our pink stallions as the wire legs buckled and sent us crashing to the ground. Our new mama smiled nervously and swept us up on our feet, making sure we were okay, hoping that our first impression wasn’t a total disaster. Leaving the pink fowls lying on the grass with contorted legs, to be fixed later, she welcomed us inside the little red brick farmhouse, much like the one that withstood the huffing and puffing of the big bad wolf in the tale of The Three Little Pigs . The social worker said good-bye, kissing Jules and I on our cheeks and leaving crimson smudges from her bright-red lipstick, which made us giggle. And our new life in the Hoffmann family began.

While we were encouraged to call these strangers Mama and Daddy, such terms were far too intimate even for displaced three-year-olds. So, at least initially, our preferred term of endearment, Hey you, seemed to suffice. We didn’t understand that this was our permanent home. We didn’t know that we would never see our brothers or our old daddy again for the rest of our childhood. But the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, and quite naturally, Roy and Jeannie became Daddy and Mama and the memories of our past family seemed to dissipate like the morning fog.

My mama was beside herself with joy to have twin daughters, and everyone who knew her would concur. She had married Daddy when she was sixteen to get away from her cruel and abusive stepmother, Marie. Before she had reached the ripe age of twenty, Mama had already given birth to three handsome boys. She wanted more kids, specifically some daughters, but had to let go of her dream after having an emergency hysterectomy at age thirty. But to her delight, her wish was granted five years later, when Jules and I landed on her flamingos and into her heart. The boys, Ray, Ron, and Steve, their biological children, who were much older, worked outside on the farm with Daddy, before and after school, moving pipe or driving tractor, which left the house empty most of the day, until we came along and became the focus of her motherly doting. And though she loved us dearly, she would often reminisce about the challenges she initially faced to train us. As she put it, we could make sailors blush by our expansive repertoire of vulgar expletives. The first time she heard goddammit and what the hell! spew from our little innocent mouths, she was taken aback. This was foreign and unwelcome jargon for a devoutly religious, fundamental Pentecostal Christian family in rural Idaho. She would immediately inform us sternly, That’s su’um we don’t say! And she would then briskly march us straight to the bathroom to wash the dirty, devil words off our lips. At first, we had no concept of words having discernable qualities and weren’t even sure which ones were being scrubbed clean. But at some point, we started connecting the dots and identifying all bad words as su’um we don’t say. Dumb, stupid, fool, idiot, shut up, pee-pee, darn, shoot, and heck all made the list. Even fart was taboo, and so whenever we would let one slip, we would say, Oops! I just did a su’um we don’t say! We honestly thought that was what everyone called it, until we were embarrassingly old enough to know better and mentioned it in passing (no pun intended) at school. That very well could’ve been the first faux pas that set us on our downward trajectory to social oblivion. Anyway, no matter how many times that soap-slathered toothbrush got shoved into our mouth, those naughty little demons continued to wrangle our tongues until eventually, our poor, abused taste buds raised their white flag in silent surrender.

We were also exceptional tantrum throwers who could very likely win a blue ribbon at the fair, if such a category existed for kicking, screaming, and holding one’s breath. While Mama relied heavily on traditional discipline methods, such as spanking with Daddy’s belt and shaming to train us, occasionally she would stray from her script and creatively invent a consequence to fit the crime. I remember one such incident, when I clinched my fists, curled the right corner of my upper lip, and started stomping my feet upon not getting my way. Mama immediately responded, Oh, Joy! I see you like to march. Since you like it so much, you can just keep on marching. Confused and curious, I started marching in place, like a little soldier. At first it was kind of fun and I thought Mama was playing a game with me when she kept saying, Get those knees up! But after a minute or so, I lost interest and wanted to scamper off with my sister. But Mama said I wasn’t done marching and that I needed to keep on going. After a while I realized Mama wasn’t being silly. The spirited, sing-song, Get those knees up, started to sound more like a growling drill sergeant. GET THOSE KNEES UP! She had a scowl on her face that told me she meant business. So I kept on marching, up and down and up and down, in obligatory obedience. Each time I stopped, Mama said, Keep going because I know you like to march! Clearly this was a misunderstanding. I was not having even a tiny bit of fun. So I cautiously stuttered, Mama, I . . . I . . . I don’t like to march. She feigned surprise. What? she gasped. You don’t like to march? Are you sure? Then I don’t ever want to see you stomping your feet again. Miraculously, it worked. Mama knew she was onto something, so she tried the same tactic to keep Jules and me from wildly swinging our legs from the pew, during church. I see you like to swing your legs. Okay then, sit here and start swinging. And Oh, I see you like to wet in your pants instead of going to the toilet. Why don’t you just wear this baby diaper on the outside of your clothes?

But even the most progressive discipline methods can backfire on occasion. One time, Jules and I got into the jellied candy stash, hidden in the top cupboard that Mama used to dip in white chocolate for Christmas goodies. When she discovered the bag half empty, or as I would prefer, half full, Mama sat us down in the middle of the kitchen floor and scolded, If you like these so much, you can just eat the whole bag! Go on now! I’m not sure how well she had thought this one through. I mean, punishing kids with candy was akin to punishing Cheech and Chong with tainted brownies or Bill Clinton with young female interns and a box of cigars. But with the flair of true Shakespearian thespians, we pulled off a performance, Oscar-nomination worthy, by contorting our faces and holding our stomachs, all the while telepathically sharing our secret glee with nonverbal eyebrow twitches and quick winks. When she wasn’t looking, we even fought over who would get to eat the last piece. After the bag was empty, we forced out a few belchy moans, as Mama smiled and nodded with smug satisfaction that once again, we had learned our lesson.

3

The Holy Rollers

My fondest early childhood memories captured my twin and I donning matching dresses, with white-laced anklet socks and shiny patent-leather buckle shoes, our Sunday best, to attend the Pentecostal church in town. It was there that my sister and I were showered with kisses and subjected to affectionate cheek pinching. Joining the Hoffmann family was huge news in this little farming community, and we were celebrities of sorts—poor, wild little heathens with an alcoholic dad and no mama, rescued, if you will, by a Christian family. We didn’t just belong to Roy and Jeannie; we belonged to the entire church, and everyone made it their mission to take us under their wing and help discipline us in the ways of the Lord.

Sister Berquin invited us to her house once a week to catch us up on many of the children’s songs that we would need to know in Sunday school. I’ll never forget my favorites: Climb, Climb Up Sunshine Mountain, The B-I-B-L-E, The Wise Man Built his House Upon a Rock, and of course, the venerated Jesus Loves the Little Children. I can’t say for sure, but I suspect the music lessons were initiated at the request of my Sunday school teacher, Sister Pauline. Let me just say, in my defense, how was I to know when she asked who had a favorite song, that the commercial jingle, Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should, was not on the approved list?

In the main service, there was a plump old lady who always carried a tin canister with fruit-flavored lozenges in her purse, the kind that would sometimes stick together in the humidity, offering a celebratory two-for-one special when they couldn’t be pried apart. It didn’t take long for us to realize, in a true Pavlovian sense, if we either sat beside her or in the pew directly behind her, there was a very good chance we would be rewarded with one of her treats. The minute her purse clicked open, we were right there, salivating, as we eagerly awaited her invitation to partake. The joy between the giver and the receiver was mutual, as a happy bond was formed and sealed with little girl smiles and high-fructose corn syrup.

The church was our life on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and family night on Wednesday. We were called Holy Rollers in the community because