Becoming Free Indeed book review

 I just finished reading/listening to Becoming Free Indeed by Jinger Duggar Vuolo. It's a short book, only 5 hours and 49 minutes in the audio version. I read 50-60% of it in around three hours on a Wednesday night, and then finished the rest of it on Audible while driving around for work on Thursday and Friday.

I wish it were longer, because I really like where she was going. Mrs. Vuolo is the sixth daughter of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, who was raised in Bill Gothard's ATI homeschooling program and was on several reality TV shows about her family from the time she was ten years old until 2021. She is married to Jeremy Vuolo, a former professional soccer player who now is a college pastor for John MacArthur's church near Los Angeles.

The book talks about her theological development, both thanking her parents for her upbringing and critiquing Gothard's teachings for their self-imposed rules and weird biblical interpretations, which led to an overactive and anxious conscience. Now with two little girls of her own, she talks about her hopes and dreams for raising them out of the limelight and in a loving and non-legalistic environment. 

I connected very well with the book -- even though I thought the hype around her family was silly, she comes across as a real person trying to overcome her anxieties and be realer than she was before under Gothard's system. I've struggled with the same things.

Another strength of her book was how she gives actual quotes transcribed from Gothard's seminar videos to strengthen her critique, citing the specific video and timestamp. This is the first time I've seen someone do this, and it is quite effective. She says that when she and her now-husband were courting long-distance, they watched Gothard's Advanced Seminar and Basic Seminar and Jim Sammons's Financial Freedom Seminar, and would often pause the video and discuss the content -- often Jeremy would point out errors, and she started to learn a more reasonable way of interpreting the Bible.

The audio is read by the author, and I think she has a very pleasing voice -- I'm fascinated by the younger generation's use of vocal fry at moments of vulnerability, slang phrases like "came in clutch". Because her 29-year-old voice still sounds so youthful, and because her parents are still famous, I wonder if maybe she doesn't get respected as an adult in some circles, despite being a pastor's wife, a mother of two, and a thrice-published author.

A lot of taboids and news agencies have written about the book and tried to drum up controversy about who among her relatives support her and who doesn't. I wish she had a little more privacy for those types of things.

It might look like she's pounding a dead horse, since Gothard is now 88 and has been deposed from his organization since 2014. However, there are still some families who still attend IBLP conferences, and still others who remember Gothard's teachings with some measure of nostalgia and fondness, who could benefit from hearing how the teachings affected her, especially with the direct evidence she gives by quoting the videos themselves.

I should show my own bias here in that I was in the same ATI program during my high school years, and attended Journey to the Heart, which she also mentions. One of my sisters also met either her or some of her sisters at another Journey to the Heart or other IBLP event. So maybe the story is especially interesting to me in that I have lived a similar story. I appreciate how she talks about her theological development as a "detangling" of faith from fear and biblical teaching from man-made rules, rather than simply deconstructing belief into something nihilistic or self-centered. I'm glad she's found a solid place to stand on now, and I agree with her denunciations of some of Gothard's teachings.

I do worry that the memoir may come off a bit premature, as it swings a big about-face from the 2014 pro-Gothard memoir Growing Up Duggar that she wrote with her sisters. And she may yet change her mind on other things. But as a time capsule of her fresh experiences over the past ten years, it's good to have the record as long as we see it as simply that and not necessarily the final statement of her life.

Where Bill Gothard followed and didn't follow Stephen Olford

Bill Gothard said in one of his Christian living seminars that when he was young, a mentor invited him over and had him listen to a tape recording of the sermon "Social Relationships" by Stephen Olford, an African-born English evangelist, recorded at Moody Bible Institute in 1955 or 1956 (and re-presented by Olford many times since). The message profoundly influenced Gothard, and he incorporated much of Olford's message into his Basic and Advanced Seminars. Chief among these ideas were:

• distinguishing different levels of friendship
• yielding one's sex life to the Holy Spirit for sublimation into creative and spiritual power
• avoiding "defrauding" others, that is, stirring up desires in them that can't be righteously satisfied

An area where Gothard did not follow Olford, however, was in the area of music appreciation. In a 1958 book entitled Christianity and You, Olford set out several tests for whether a particular amusement was permissible for a Christian: Do these pleasures positively encourage, endanger, or enrich my Christian life? (p.46) He also quotes with approval (pp.44-45) a section from Arthur Porritt's 1920 book The Strategy for Life: A Book for Boys and Young Men, which I have set out in full below, with my emphasis in bold:

Music is an amusement, but it is much more than an amusement. It is an educational and spiritualizing art which, in one form or another, a young man should cultivate in his own highest interests. A wit has said that music is the most expensive form of noise, and another humorist has observed that classical music is that form of music which is so much better than it sounds. However economical of his leisure a young man may be, time should be found to master the elements of music, to learn to sing, or play a musical instrument, and to hear good music rendered. Ears and tastes differ, and in music one man's joy is another's anathema. A devotee of Sullivan may squirm under Bach, and a votary of Beethoven's sonatas may yawn even over the honeyed sweetness of Handel's Messiah. Avoid affectation and follow your bent is the best advice as to music that I can offer a young man. Do not praise Debussy if you really prefer Balfe, nor pretend to be ecstatic over Tschaikovsky's "1812" if "There's a long long trail a-winding" is more to your fancy. Be honest in your tastes, but cultivate them. Your joy in jazz-tunes may end in appreciation of the "Moonlight Sonata." (Porritt 1920, pp.137-138)

 Olford and Porritt's moderate stance towards jazz contrasts with Gothard's hard line against rock & roll in the 1960s, which was more along the lines of Anne Shaw Faulkner's 1921 article "Does Jazz Put the Sin in Syncopation?" 

Popular music as a carrier of sexual license or rebellion or communism was a common theme among mid-20th century evangelists such as David Noebel and Bob Larson, so Gothard was not alone here. And the more you read their literature and listen to their talks, the closer it gets to racism or at least ethnocentrism, since jazz and rock had their roots in African-American music traditions. 

This really shows that different styles of music can symbolize different things to different cultural groups, over and above the individual tastes that Porritt noted. 

We get a taste of this culture clash in the two following stories, the first one by Wisconsin Baptist musician Alan Ives in a talk called "The difference between good and bad music", whose teaching is promoted by Illinois Baptist pastor Sheron Mark Davis. (Davis's teaching was in turn promoted by Gothard.)

In Africa, the heathen are able to play "poly rhythms." Poly, of course, means many. They have all these drums and other percussion instruments, rhythm instruments, that all make different sounds, and they can hear them. They can make one rhythm with their feet, another with their torso, some more with their arms, and some more with their fingers and wrists, some more in their heads; and they can dance six or seven different rhythms at one time. It is an amazing thing; however, it is all sensual; it's all for the body; and it's all created by their ability to hear and put into their bodies those dance rhythms that were created specifically to make their bodies move in ways that are not polite. They make the body move to draw attention to parts of the body in a way that is improper.

That is all that is happening in the rock scene today. They are catching up to some of these African rhythms. And, of course, the Satan worshipers have just turned the amplifiers up to the fullest degree, and many of them do not know, musically, what they are doing anymore. They are just making a lot of noise. Some of them are not even really playing chords; there is not even any harmony or melody there, just a lot of noise. There is nothing for the spirit, nothing for the soul; it is all for the body. Now we have Rap music. What happened to the melody? It is gone. What you don't know is that they have been doing this type of thing in Africa for thousands of years, and there are recordings of that. They will go on sometimes for hours. You talk about dance marathons! They dance until they drop over and are possessed by devils, and then they get back up and they dance again.

...Now let's say we add just a little bit of sensual rhythm to a song. We make it just one degree away from truly spiritual, holy music. It will appeal to a lot of Christians. Then we have some other music that really is boogie, but we call it Southern gospel; and that will appeal to a lot of Christians. They excuse it by saying it is just "down home" music. No, it isn't. It's boogie woogie, but some Christians still think it is O.K. Then there is the Contemporary Christian Music, which sounds like it is being sung in a nightclub. Of course it is big business today, and it is farther still away from painting a proper picture of our Lord.

...A pastor once told me, "You know, those black folks really have it; why don't you stick some of those rhythms into your music. With your voice and your talent..." I thought, "Get thee behind me." I didn't say that, but I just shook my head. The evangelist that was there said, "Brother Ives, don't change your music."

Contrast Ives's story above about misgivings toward "sensual rhythm" infecting white people's music with the following account by African-American anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston's in her 1928 essay "How It Feels to Be Colored Me".

[W]hen I sit in the drafty basement that is The New World Cabaret with a white person, my color comes. We enter chatting about any little nothing that we have in common and are seated by the jazz waiters. In the abrupt way that jazz orchestras have, this one plunges into a number. It loses no time in circumlocutions, but gets right down to business. It constricts the thorax and splits the heart with its tempo and narcotic harmonies. This orchestra grows rambunctious, rears on its hind legs and attacks the tonal veil with primitive fury, rending it, clawing it until it breaks through to the jungle beyond. I follow those heathen--follow them exultingly. I dance wildly inside myself; I yell within, I whoop; I shake my assegai above my head, I hurl it true to the mark yeeeeooww! I am in the jungle and living in the jungle way. My face is painted red and yellow and my body is painted blue. My pulse is throbbing like a war drum. I want to slaughter something--give pain, give death to what, I do not know. But the piece ends. The men of the orchestra wipe their lips and rest their fingers. I creep back slowly to the veneer we call civilization with the last tone and find the white friend sitting motionless in his seat, smoking calmly. 

"Good music they have here," he remarks, drumming the table with his fingertips. 

Music. The great blobs of purple and red emotion have not touched him. He has only heard what I felt. He is far away and I see him but dimly across the ocean and the continent that have fallen between us. He is so pale with his whiteness then and I am so colored.

Whereas Ives worried about giving in to the body with danceable rhythms, Hurston worried that her white friend didn't feel what she felt. This is a culture clash rather than a spiritual problem.

After this long discursus, I just want to say that the music wars didn't have to be this way. Even in the thick of it there were reasonable people like Olford and Porritt and even Hurston, whom Gothard could have drawn from -- and he did draw from Olford in the matter of social relationships. I just wish he'd done the same with music.

Note: This post is a result of an ongoing interest in the sources that influenced Bill Gothard (and who influenced them), in order to map out the history of the spread of ideas through Evangelicalism in the 20th century, and ultimately to my family and the social and religious groups I grew up in. Which led me to transcribe Olford's talk on "Social Relationships" -- downloadable here.

The self beneath the rawness

I remember a church-kitchen conversation with Jim Schmitt around 2006, in which he told me he hoped that there was something deeper and wholly good in him, that is, in his new nature, beneath the sinfulness that kept coming up. I thought again about that comment when I listened to the audiobook for Platonic by Marisa Franco this month. 

Franco says the following about authenticity (pp.168-169):

...I used to think authenticity was about rawness, boldly sharing whatever is on your mind. But now I see that it's about listening, listening to yourself, not being afraid to experience what's going on inside you, to acknowledge what you truly think and feel and fear and love, without covering it up with defenses. It's not just about having the bravery to admit your opinions to others, but in having the bravery to admit them within. It's only in this listening that we can sense which friends feel most safe for our authenticity and share our truest internal world. Because when we do this internal work, we don't ask others to do it for us. We don't dominate, control, bash, deflect, ignore, ghost, discriminate, or otherwise mistreat because we need them to relieve us from whatever discomfort is warbling inside. And with what's left, we can love others more deeply, cherish them in their truest form, and find friendship.

She gives the following among her takeaways (p.169):

• Authenticity is a state of presence we access when we aren't hijacked by threat. It's who we are underneath our defense mechanisms.
• Authenticity nurtures friendship because humans are social beings, which means when we're authentic, we unleash our nature of empathy and compassion.
• To be more authentic in threatening situations, restrain from indulging in what comes reflexively, because it is likely a defense mechanism. Be mindful and aware of the triggers that propel you to self-protect without indulging them. Pause and breathe. Shift your attention from defensiveness to openness. Access your higher self.
• To stave off social anxiety that impedes authenticity, focus on the person in front of you instead of yourself.

So the first response is not always the most authentic one, and the raw self is not always the true self. This is going to take some work!

This idea of the self beneath the rawness reminds me in turn of Elijah's experience in the cave (1 Kings 19:11-12). The Lord told Elijah he was going to pass by the mountain, but the Lord was not in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire that came first, one after the other, but only in the gentle whisper that came at the end. Were those other things meant to test Elijah and see if he would jump? Or to prepare him to be in awe when the real thing came, which was different from all that came before?

Now the human "true self" and the divine presence are not the same. But each one takes time and preparation to see.

Jim Schmitt passed on from this life on May 24, 2017. Now he knows both his true self and the divine presence, and, unlike Marisa Franco and I, he no longer has to speculate.

The rule of three

 Long ago in another life, I remember Bill Gothard musing in one of his seminars that somehow the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit must correspond to the body, soul, and spirit. Jesus the Son had a body, and the Holy Spirit is a Spirit, obviously, and so I guess the Father must be like the soul. And then the soul itself is composed of three faculties, namely, the mind, will, and emotions. 

If I were to pile onto this jumble of correspondences, I would have to add:

• Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
• Peter, James, and John
• Faith, Hope, and Love (1 Corinthians 13:13)
• The World, the Flesh, and the Devil (Peter Abelard and the Book of Common Prayer)
• The Lust of the Flesh, the Lust of the Eyes, and the Pride of Life (1 John 2:16)
• Chastity, Poverty, and Obedience (Francis of Assisi)
• Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity (Robespierre)
• Life, Liberty, and Property (John Locke)
• Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness (Thomas Jefferson)
• Sit, Walk, Stand (Watchman Nee)
• Heart, Soul, and Strength (Deuteronomy 6:5)
• Heart, Soul, and Mind (Matthew 22:37)

Wait, does mind equal strength?

Someone had to go and ruin it, though, by making it four.

• Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength (Mark 12:30)

And the other typist couldn't even keep the order straight!

• Heart, Soul, Strength, and Mind (Luke 10:27)

All I can say is that the human mind really, really likes the Rule of Three. Having been designed by the One who self-revealed as the Trinity, we can't say that it's our fault that we think this way, but we can't read that much into it either, beyond the fact that it's a recognizable pattern. Sometimes a pattern is just there because it's beautiful and memorable, not because each part corresponds to every other part in another instantiation of the pattern.

Harmonies

 Two of my favorite songs are sung by all-female groups with powerful usage of harmonies at pivotal interludes. I feel inadequate to describe these songs -- I have appreciation but not the words to do them justice. 

"Don't Say You Love Me"

The first song is by M2M, a Norwegian pop duo composed of Marion Raven and Marit Larsen; it first aired in 1999. At the 2:21 mark, the drum beats out a new movement, the high voice calls out "Don't... say... you love me", and a rebellious monotoned bass-line duet counters with "you don't even know me bay-bay, if you really want me, then give me some time"; the high voice echoes "give me some... time...", and then soon the electric guitar signals a return to a renewed chorus with the original melody around the 2:38 mark.

"Bird Song"

This next song is by the Wailin' Jennys, a Canadian folk trio, recorded in 2011. At the 2:05 mark, after running through a number of verses, the fiddle takes over for an instrumental interlude with backup from the bass, guitar, banjo, synthesizer, and drum. Then at 2:28, one voice starts up again with Verse 1, followed a second later by a second voice, and then a third voice, singing in a round. The round comes to an upward-cascading crescendo as various voices take lofting variations on the ends of phrases, such as "water runnin' by" (2:45-46), with the climax at "see what I might find..." (2:51-52). After that, the voices meld and merge in the high notes of "I feel the wind a-blowin', slowly changin' time" (2:52-57), and the reunited harmony settles down with a few rounds of "open to everything" (3:15-22), ending on one quiet unified central note.

As I said, I don't have the words to describe these harmonies, but they create a powerful effect. What is this effect? M2M's baseline countermelody shows the heartbeat of their indomitable spirit, that even beneath all the high notes, they still are not going to let the would-be boyfriend in that easily. The Wailin' Jennys' lilting rounds of harmony echo each other, lift the ends of phrases, and then merge together to show the cycles of nature and the joy of its diversity, ending in a quietness in becoming one with oneself and one's environs.

----------

Lyrics for the curious

Don't Say You Love Me

(by Peter Zizzo, Marit Larsen, Marion Ravn, and Jimmy Brawlower, sung by M2M)

(Verse 1)

Got introduced to you by a friend
You were cute and all that
Baby you set the trend, yes you did oh
The next thing I know we're down at the cinema
We're sitting there, you start kissing me
What's that about?
You're moving too fast, I don't understand you
I'm not ready yet, baby I can't pretend
No I can't
The best I can do is tell you to talk to me
It's possible, eventual
Love will find a way
Love will find a way...

(Chorus)

Don't say you love me
You don't even know me
If you really want me
Then give me some time
Don't go there baby
Not before I'm ready
Don't say your heart's in a hurry
It's not like we're gonna get married
Give me, give me some time

(Verse 2)

Here's how I play, here's where you stand
Here's what to prove to get any further than where it's been
I'll make it clear, not gonna tell you twice
Take it slow, you keep pushing me
You're pushing me away
Pushing me away...

(Chorus)

Don't say you love me
You don't even know me
If you really want me
Then give me some time
Don't go there baby
Not before I'm ready
Don't say your heart's in a hurry
It's not like we're gonna get married
Give me, give me some time

(Countermelody)

Don't say you love me
You don't even know me baby
Baby don't say you love me, baby
Give me some time...

(Chorus)

Don't say you love me
You don't even know me
If you really want me
Then give me some time
Don't go there baby
Not before I'm ready
Don't say your heart's in a hurry
It's not like we're gonna get married
Give me, give me some time


Bird Song

(by Tara Nicole Mehta and Heather Anne Masse, sung by the Wailin' Jennys)

(Verse 1)
I hear a bird chirping up in the sky
I'd like to be free like that, spread my wings so high
I see the river flowing, water running by
I'd like to be that river, see what I might find
I feel the wind a-blowing, slowly changing time
I'd like to be that wind; I'd swirl and shape the sky
I smell the flowers blooming, opening for spring
I'd like to be those flowers, open to everything

(Verse 2)
I feel the seasons change: the leaves, the snow and the sun
I'd like to be those seasons, made up and undone
I taste the living earth, the seeds that grow within
I'd like to be that earth, a home where life begins
I see the moon a-rising, reaching into night
I'd like to be that moon: a knowing, glowing light
I know the silence as the world begins to wake
I'd like to be that silence as the morning breaks

(Verse 1 reprise)
I hear a bird chirping up in the sky
I'd like to be free like that, spread my wings so high
I see the river flowing, water running by
I'd like to be that river, see what I might find
I feel the wind a-blowing, slowly changing time
I'd like to be that wind, I'd swirl and shape the sky
I smell the flowers blooming, opening for spring
I'd like to be those flowers, open to everything
I'd like to be those flowers, open to everything

Socrates on the external and internal memory

Before I was born, my parents subscribed to a book club with InterVarsity Press. I'm not sure how many of the books my parents read, but as a young teen, three of them helped me awaken to the world of ideas: James Sire's Scripture Twisting (1980); Stephen Lawhead's Rock Reconsidered (1981); and Peter Kreeft's The Unaborted Socrates (1983). 

Today I was thinking about memory, and how writing things down can either aid the memory or make us too lazy to remember. I found a digital copy of Kreeft's book on the Internet Archive, and retrieved the following pieces of dialogue:

Socrates: Tell me, Professor Tarian, did Dr. Herrod tell you of our conversation yesterday?

Tarian: Yes. In fact, he made a tape of it and played it for me. He hoped you wouldn't mind.

Socrates: Why would I mind? I made my own "tape," called memory. You know, it's quite remarkable how you moderns have invented the external mind with all your libraries and tape recorders and microfilm and computers. I wonder that your internal mind does not become weak and flabby, like a newly rich master who lets his slaves do all his work.

.......

Tarian: Speaking of psychologists, why don't you meet my friend, Pop Syke?

Socrates: Why don't I? But I do. Hello, Dr. Syke.

Syke: Hello, Socrates. Please call me "Pop." I'm very glad to meet you.

Socrates: Why?

Syke: What?

Socrates: Why? Why are you very glad to meet me?

Syke: Oh, because Rex and Attila here have told me so much about you, and they played for me your last two days' conversations on tape.

Socrates: Ah, yes. Your external mind.

.......

Socrates: I have told you already, if you had ears to hear. Has your external mind failed you already?

Syke: What do you mean?

Socrates: Do you not remember what I said on the tapes? That's the problem with an external thing: it still needs to be internalized. The memory of a tape memory cannot itself be a tape.

---------

Note that Kreeft's Socrates is riffing off of Plato's Socrates, who made similar comments on memory in the Phaedrus:

I heard, then, that at Naucratis, in Egypt, was one of the ancient gods of that country, the one whose sacred bird is called the ibis, and the name of the god himself was Theuth. He it was who invented numbers and arithmetic and geometry and astronomy, also draughts and dice, and, most important of all, letters. 

Now the king of all Egypt at that time was the god Thamus, who lived in the great city of the upper region, which the Greeks call the Egyptian Thebes, and they call the god himself Ammon. 

To him came Theuth to show his inventions, saying that they ought to be imparted to the other Egyptians. But Thamus asked what use there was in each, and as Theuth enumerated their uses, expressed praise or blame, according as he approved or disapproved. 

The story goes that Thamus said many things to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts, which it would take too long to repeat; but when they came to the letters, “This invention, O king,” said Theuth, “will make the Egyptians wiser and will improve their memories; for it is an elixir of memory and wisdom that I have discovered.” 

But Thamus replied, “Most ingenious Theuth, one man has the ability to beget arts, but the ability to judge of their usefulness or harmfulness to their users belongs to another; and now you, who are the father of letters, have been led by your affection to ascribe to them a power the opposite of that which they really possess. 

"For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. 

"You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise.["]

.....

He who thinks, then, that he has left behind him any art in writing, and he who receives it in the belief that anything in writing will be clear and certain, would be an utterly simple person, and in truth ignorant of the prophecy of Ammon, if he thinks written words are of any use except to remind him who knows the matter about which they are written.

Calvin on overcoming perfectionism

These days I'm listening to the audiobook for Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make -- and Keep -- Friends by Marisa Franco. She talks a lot about vulnerability and testing out how much to take risks with revealing our true selves to those around us. Her words, and a comment I heard last night by Joel Burnell on Bonhoeffer, reminded me of an extended quote from Jean Chauvin (John Calvin in English).

In the following excerpt, Calvin makes an important point about vulnerability overcoming fear and perfectionism as we realize that we are God's children. I would paraphrase it as, "God takes even our most pitiful works and puts them on his fridge." (I think this paraphrase itself may be borrowed from a sermon by Gregg Harris.)

Jean Chauvin (John Calvin), Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 19, "Of Christian Liberty", Section 5.

See how our works lie under the curse of the law if they are tested by the standard of the law. But how can unhappy souls set themselves with alacrity to a work from which they cannot hope to gain any thing in return but cursing?  On the other hand, if freed from this severe exaction, or rather from the whole rigor of the law, they hear themselves invited by God with paternal levity, they will cheerfully and alertly obey the call, and follow his guidance. 

In one word, those who are bound by the yoke of the law are like servants who have certain tasks daily assigned them by their masters. Such servants think that nought has been done; and they dare not come into the presence of their masters until the exact amount of labour has been performed. 

But sons who are treated in a more candid and liberal manner by their parents, hesitate not to offer them works that are only begun or half finished, or even with something faulty in them, trusting that their obedience and readiness of mind will be accepted, although the performance be less exact than was wished. Such should be our feelings, as we certainly trust that our most indulgent Parent will approve our services, however small they may be, and however rude and imperfect. 

Thus He declares to us by the prophet, “I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him,” (Mal. 3:17); where the word spare evidently means indulgence, or connivance at faults, while at the same time service is remembered. This confidence is necessary in no slight degree, since without it every thing should be attempted in vain; for God does not regard any sock of ours as done to himself, unless truly done from a desire to serve him. But how can this be amidst these terrors, while we doubt whether God is offended or served by our work?