LeavingEdenPodcast

It's still strange and shocking to me that men and women outside the IFB ride in cars together and exist in rooms together without a chaperone. We were not allowed to be alone with the opposite gender, ever, because the IFB taught that that was too much temptation for anyone to handle. Of course, I've existed in cars and rooms with men alone and managed to survive without throwing myself at anyone or being struck down with lightning from above, but the whole thing still feels "off" and strange to me.

I always knew we were different, because being "different" is seen as a positive in the fundie world. I was hearing about how "God has called us to be a peculiar people" and "if you look different and act different you're doing it right" in church pretty much from birth.

The main things I noticed as a kid were clothing and TV shows - by age 4 or 5 I was definitely noticing that other kids on the playground were wearing pants, while I was wearing skirts or culottes, and I wasn't allowed to watch the same shows as other kids my age (Teletubbies and Barney were both banned). But I was hearing about "being different" and why those things were sinful in church, so I knew why I was different. My perception was "I should feel bad for those kids, because their parents don't love them enough to teach them to do right." Which is terrible, both because it's self-righteous and also because little kids shouldn't have to be concerned about things like that.

I'm not heterosexual (I'm proudly bisexual, just didn't know it while I was in a cult), but I don't feel as awkward alone in a room with a woman. The cult sees any non-straight identity as a sin, not a real part of who a person is, so it's not addressed in the rules. Therefore, it wasn't brainwashed into me.

1. Yes, there is a LOT of variation. And it does typically go by family, and also by church. I talk a lot about this on the podcast, but Independent Baptists fall into "camps". Each church is independent and makes its own rules, but they tend to fall into association groups based on what prominent pastors they follow and what Bible college the pastor of their church attended. So a church will be at a certain point on the scale of fundamentalism - let's say the church is a 7 on a 10 point strictness scale. Families within that church might range between a 6 and an 8 on a 10 point scale, but it would be rare to see a family that's a 4 on the scale attend a church that's a 9 on the scale, or vice versa.
2. The attitude toward health care in the IFB has a lot of variation as well. There are some churches that are fairly anti- modern medicine, likely to have an anti-vax bent (for all vaccinations, not just Covid), and do a lot of home remedies and homeopathy, and there are other churches that are much more moderate, in line with typical American evangelicalism. The beliefs of the pastor's *wife* actually have some bearing here.
3. Yes, many IFB people love ice cream. Food is the one allowable vice in a group that bans premarital sex, gambling, smoking, drinking, and movies, so dessert is A Big Thing. I also personally love ice cream.

I hope it's okay to continue using my completely arbitrary 10-point strictness scale:

A family that's a 4/10 might have a TV but watch only PBS and other kids' programs, rent G and PG rated movies for their children, and rent PG-13 rated movies for the parents to watch after the kids go to bed, but feel bad about the cuss words.

A family that's a 6/10 might have a TV but watch nothing on live TV except for Fox News, and rent or own only G-rated movies and 1950's type movies for their kids, and maybe PG rated for adults. (This is roughly where my family was in childhood, we got a little less strict when I was a teen).

A family that's an 8/10 or higher would not own a television.