Recently, in my travels, I came across this church sign:
Back in my younger years, I would've seen this, nodded sagely, and said, "Yes. Putting jesus first, others second, and myself last is sure to bring joy. What a clever and profound statement."
Not anymore. Now when I see a sign like this, at best, I roll my eyes. At worst, I go off on a tirade and end up turning around my car to take a picture of the sign so I can rant about it later online lol.
So yeah, here we are.
This message communicates a belief that is so, so essential to modern christianity—which is that you should always put others first. Always. And it is especially emphasized for women, whose entire role in life is supposed to be that of service.
Give, give, give, and never, ever take, they say. You don't want to be a burden, you want to be a blessing. jesus gave everything to save you, so you too should give everything in service to his "great plan." And they use jesus's words to emphasize the point as well:
"Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all." mark something or other.
"Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of christ." galatians.
"Now that I, your lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet." john.
"...whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." matthew.
It goes on and on and on. And it's not just the gospels and paul (I fucking hate paul) who harp on it, but practically the entire old testament as well.
But there's a basic logical fallacy inherent in this idea of being the lowest of the low, of being the last of the last, which is this: if everyone is successfully "the last," then doesn't that technically make everyone first? And if everyone is trying to be a slave or a servant or at the bottom of the pile, who exactly is at the top? Maybe the people who want to be at the top? Aren’t the people who don't give a shit about being at the bottom going to slide into leadership roles? The people who are least qualified to be role models? The people who are the worst candidates for leadership?
This creates societal pockets rife with abuse. This system is the perfect opportunity for predators to hunt. And there are so many prey. Everyone who is actually a humble person, who is actually trying to live a good life, everyone who wants to embody the servitude of christ—guess what? Simply because they are trying to be good and live life right, they are going to have to put up with a lot of shit from predators who want power and control. And those predators who benefit from their servitude? They’re going to milk it for all its worth.
That's how you end up with brian houstons and bill gothards.
When I was 17, I was part of the youth group band at my church. It was a mini-mega-church, as I like to call it. We had on average 800+ attendees every weekend, and the church functioned with a sort of corporate hierarchy, with a head pastor and sub pastors, and had the fancy lights and loud music and charismatic sermons you'd expect at a mega church.
Sunday night was youth group, which operated like a full-fledged church service. Kids would come into the sanctuary and us, the band, would play popular christian music. We had a pianist (me), a drummer (my little brother), guitarists, a bassist, and singers. Sometimes we even had brass or woodwinds. They even had a light designer who would do impromptu light shows. And a haze machine.
It was basically a weekly live music concert for teens that lasted anywhere from twenty to forty minutes. Then the youth pastor would get up and preach a youth-directed sermon. Usually the message was something along the lines of, "be christian in school!" "don't mouth off to your parents!" "don't masturbate!"
My little brother also played in the adult band, because he was the best drummer in the county, despite only being 15. My family would arrive at church at 7 AM on Sunday mornings, sit through a rehearsal and three church services, and then go home for an hour or two, before returning by 3 PM for youth group rehearsal. We would rehearse until 5 PM, and then had to be performing the "welcome music" (just the musicians, not the singers) at 5:30. Then we played until 6:30, got a "break" for the sermon (during which we were required to sit in the audience), and then played again until 7:30 or 8 PM. At that point, we were responsible for tearing down our equipment, loading out, and shutting down the sanctuary.
They didn't provide food for us. Or drinks. If we wanted something, we had to buy it from the church kitchens. My mom was so upset by this, she started making a meal every sunday for all the kids who were in the band (there were usually 7 of us).
There weren't volunteers to help us set up and take down our equipment. We didn't get money for maintaining our instruments or for gas, for driving back and forth from the church. We weren't allowed to take breaks.
I remember once during my senior year, I was exhausted. I hadn't gone home that day; I'd been at the church since 7 AM, and it was my fourth performance that week, between high school band/jazz band/church stuff. I just wanted to be alone for a few minutes. So during the sermon, I told my friends I was going to sit in the lawn outside the church and pray.
I had been outside for less than five minutes when an adult volunteer came out and told me I wasn't allowed to be out there. I explained I was exhausted. That I was in the band. That I'd been there since 7 AM. That I just needed a few minutes to breathe.
She told me it was against the rules, and that as a member of the band, it was my responsibility to sit in the audience and set a good example for the other teens. She made me go back inside.
I didn't know how to be angry back then, but I was just a little bit rebellious. I told her I had to grab my stuff from backstage. I found a dark corner and hid. One of my friends' dads, another adult volunteer, found me, gave me a little smile, and left me alone.
We were the first people to show up, and the last people to leave. We did manual labor. Emotional labor. We were on display as examples of "good christian youth." We were expected to be perfect, without blame.
We were servants.
There to obey. To do the bidding of the church. Not to obey god, but to obey the leaders who decided what god's bidding was. After all, we were only teens. How could we possibly claim to understand god's will?
And those humans, who claimed to know the will of god, exploited children for their own gain. They exploited us.
I know how to be angry now. But I can't deny there is a complex amalgamation of feelings whenever I think about this time of my life. Some anger, yes—rage, even. Sorrow too. And confusion, cognitive dissonance.
Because while yes, they exploited me, I also can’t deny that I liked being there. I liked playing the piano and performing. I liked spending time with my friends. I liked feeling like I was doing good work, like I was serving god, like I was needed and important.
But, it turned out, I wasn't important. I was a cog in an exploitative machine.
As soon as I graduated, they brought in a younger pianist who was much more skilled than I. Most of my friends, I never heard from again. I never again heard from the youth pastor who I served so willingly. Nor the music pastor. Nor my sunday school teacher. Nor the adult volunteers whom I worked alongside every week. Even my friendships with the teens I played alongside lasted less than a year after I left.
They made me feel important, necessary, and needed. So that I would keep serving. So that I would continue to provide unpaid labor ranging from performing to cleaning to setting a good example for kids my own age.
They exploited me.
That ever-present message of service and submission—it's not exactly gaslighting. They weren't trying to sow confusion, necessarily. They weren’t outright lying. But they were trying to get me to believe without question. To serve without question. To obey without question.
And it worked. For a time, at least.
As much as it hurt me, I'm lucky they abandoned me. If they hadn't, I might still be there. Sacrificing my health and well-being and happiness in the service of lies.
Something like 10 or 12 years ago, before I had a smartphone, before I even had a flip phone capable of taking photos, I went on a church youth group trip to Disney World, and had the bright idea to take along a disposable camera I got at CVS to record some choice memories.
I never got it developed, I just put it in a drawer and forgot about it. Years went by, the drawer was emptied, its contents moved around, a lot of stuff got thrown away, so I thought for sure the camera was gone for good, but just the other day I did a deep clean of my bedroom amd found it at the bottom of an old box of crap!
I hope the film is still viable! I wonder if there are any CVSs near me that still have photo centers. If not, maybe I can send it somewhere.
The thing is, during that Disney trip, one of my friends showed me how to turn the camera into a flashbang. If you held the flash charger button until the electric hum stopped, and then whacked the camera hard against your other palm, the flash would go off without taking a picture. At least, I hope it didn't take pictures, because we must have done it a dozen times before one of our chaperones told us to stop. I fear that I may have double exposed or blown out a bunch of pictures and the film may be completely useless now. Only time and money will tell. If it's ruined, c'est la vie, I'll be in the same boat I've been in for the last decade when I thought it had been thrown away, so I won't feel too bad about it.
They still sell disposable cameras, so it stands to reason that there still exists a way to develop them. I'll keep you all posted.
Members of the Young Pioneers of America as they appeared on the S.S. Mauretania before they sailed for Russia, July 24, 1924. They were on their way to attend the conference of the central organization in Moscow.
Photo: Bettmann Archives/Getty Images/Fine Art America
The Jesus freaks meet out on the bleachers after school. They don't smoke cigarettes, but Rachel's jacket smells like smoke. They don't get into fistfights, but Andrew has a black eye. Chandler has scars crisscrossing her wrists. Brittany has track marks all over her arms. Tobias just got out of the hospital.
The Jesus freaks open their Bibles. Their very spirits are in sync. They don't know how to stitch their broken hearts back together, and so they ask: "What would Jesus do?"
My sister was on a youth retreat (in which she said her name was thee Darkling at a Chick-fil-a and the serving man called her Ms. Darkling) and she was talking to a friend about said event and our youth pastor goes, "Oh, I've seen Shadow and Bone." So my sister asks who his favorite character is and he says, "I don't really remember much of what happened, but I liked the goat. And the little spy girl, because she had morals."
Don’t you just love being forced to go back to youth group after being sexually harassed there multiple times and causing me intense panic attacks multiple times?
I'm probably fucked up because I know go to a youth church group (thanks mom) a catholic one ofc, to earn confirmation and to take the holy communion , you may think "it's okay it's not that bad" BUT IT IS , I think there's people from my school but the thing is that I'm OUT to them , but when I register I used my dead-name now I'm gonna cry because they're gonna use my dead-name and If they use my chosen name everyone is going to ask about it wich can lead to be out to everyone (even my brother) . The thing is that I've never wanted to be in that group , I've never wanted to be a catholic , a Christian yes , a Christian witch yes but not a catholic , now I'm going to be sad asf for a few days , God I wish things were not going this way
Me showing my evangelical mother the drawing of a dragon I did during youth group: See even though it mainly lives underground with a secret society of sorcerers it has a vestigial rudder-like tail because it evolved from a liopleurodon.
Mom: ...I can see you put a lot of thought into this.
We played Jackbox at youth group last week (yes, I am Christian. No I am not the annoying kind). These were the winning shirts from Tee K.O. Artwork on the “CHEESE IS BREAD” shirt courtesy of my sister.
I was also introduced to the chaos that is Quiplash and Trivia Murder Party. 10/10, would play again.