A review of “The Well-trained Wife” and book challenge/ban news

A Well-trained Wife

A Well-trained Wife details Levings’ descent from strict Baptist to Gothard woman (think the Duggars) to Calvinist following the model of Puritan Jonathan Edwards. Levings quotes “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,”(1) a sermon I know because we taught it in high school junior English (American Literature) to give the students a sense of Puritan beliefs. Edwards (1703-1758) was a Great Awakening (1730–1755) minister, so he came after the earliest American Puritans, after the Salem witch trials (1692-3). But his fire and brimstone homilies drove some believers to suicide. 

It’s hard for a modern secularist to imagine why anyone would find themselves in a position to think this sort of spirituality could be righteous or in any way helpful. Levings’ narrative of her experiences show the reader exactly how this happens. 

Before I go on, I want to note that I’m adding this book review to my School Library Lady blog as well as to Substack. With all the craziness going on right now in the book challenge/ban arena, there will be those who believe, considering what happens to Levings, that a book like this has no place in a high school library. Clearly I’m not one of them. As I’ve said often, terrible things happen to adolescents and pretending they don’t puts them in danger. Levings was very young when making her life-altering decisions based on her understanding of God and God’s plan for her. Some teens, particularly girls, will see themselves in Levings. So, I’m going there. If we can teach the origins of American Calvinism in high school English, we can also have a look at how it plays out hundreds of years later. 

From Baptist

Levings grew up in a strict Baptist household, albeit one that was within the norms of conservative evangelism/Christian patriarchy. Not fulfilling for a girl with ambition, but not physically dangerous moment to moment.

In her desire to serve God as that mission is granted in Christian patriarchy (subservient wife/dutiful mother), Levings falls further into unhealthy religious views and depends on her (seriously unwell) husband for guidance, ultimately landing in two cults. Out of fear, she looks for a “new mentor to help me solve my personal ambition, before I headed for hell and took my babies with me. I knew I needed more help—books and Bible verses weren’t enough to prevent dents beneath the wallpaper when Allan slammed my head.”

To Gothard woman

She finds her first cult through Gothard women at her church, followers of Bill Gothard and the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) which holds that women should obey men in every way in all of life’s forums: home, school, workplace, and marriage. TV’s “Nineteen Kids and Counting” Duggars are IBLP followers/Gothard folks.(2)

“I’d asked Judith if I could sit at her feet and learn, like it said about older women teaching the younger in Titus. I got to join the mother club of Gothard women spreading through First Baptist. We sat together and nursed our babies, discussing Scripture, child training, recipes, and household rules.”

Levings learns that the group follows “biblical principles, not instincts.” By this, they mean to have ‘quiverful families’—that is, lots of kids (a quiverful). They don’t use birth control, ever. They practice blanket training, which is basically child abuse of infants. (Putting them on a blanket with a toy out of reach and then hitting them if they try to crawl off the blanket to get it.) Levings is even told that she can’t wear jeans, not only because it’s tempting to men, but is even tempting to her two-year-old toddler. 

When Levings refuses to blanket train her kids, Judith nodded. “‘That’s fine. But setting up your child to be rebellious puts them in danger of hell. Is that what you want?’ Hot acid rose in my throat, triggering an old and familiar stomachache. What if my children were left behind? What if they burned in hell, and it was my fault? What if Y2K came and the clocks never rolled over and everything exploded, and we died? Was I being the kind of mother who could bring her children to salvation? Maybe I should try one more time.’”

Levings has babies in rapid succession, with one particularly tragic result. (3)

To Calvinist 

Levings’ husband isn’t satisfied with their relationship and seems to need to degrade his wife further. He loses jobs through his temper, removes the family from support systems, and physically abuses Levings. He decides to become a Calvinist.

”Our new pastor explained. Humans are depraved worms in need of a savior but we’re such filthy sinners—insects, really—that we don’t deserve to be saved. Thankfully, a limited few are elected for heaven. Christ and His grace are irresistible to the chosen—we’re unable to say no to God. Even if we try, it’s only a matter of time and suffering until we’re broken and returned to Him. This is why Christianity hurts. Suffering aligns us with Christ, and it’s a good thing when love hurts—that’s how you know it’s real.”(4)

At this point, the abusive relationship becomes bizarre, unthinkable. Allan has determined that it’s okay for women to have sexual pleasure, so he will command Levings to have orgasms. But women also need direction and that means they need “spankings.” I’m using the quotes because there is serious physical abuse involved. 

“‘They have threads on what constitutes spankable offenses. How to conduct a spanking, how to use time-outs and the corner, and what happens afterward.’

“‘You want to put me in time-out?’

“‘It’s often used in conjunction with physical discipline.’ He hurried to his next point. ‘CDD repairs problems in the marriage. And it’s done in love. Every spanking resolves with intercourse.’ 

“‘So, it’s sexual.’ My stomach clenched. Wife-spanking was kink in church clothes.

Levings believes that a good wife protects the family image more than her own safety. She goes along.

To seeker

The reader wonders how Levings will find her way out of this. She quotes Fred Rogers on looking for the helpers. But Rogers was quoting his mother telling him what to do in scary situations. Normal scary situations, where there would be helpers in the environment. As we know, the helpers don’t come from inside the cult. The abused have to look outside. Levings is able to do this online, through a community called Trapdoor. “The topics we studied there taught me women supporting women led to ideas. To underground networks and whispers that led to freedom and change.”

Levings starts to have two lives and her husband doesn’t know about her experiments with freedom. She marvels at the hypocrisy of her church fellows during the aughts.

“The Christians we knew were angry about the burkas we saw on the news. It was un-Christian, they said, to force women to be invisible and uniform. But I silently laughed at that. American Christians had burkas too. I wore one. The denim jumper was the American burka.”

Even religious instruction is out of bounds if it is conducted by women. “Leah shared she also wanted a woman’s Bible study or book group, but she’d been cautioned to stop asking. ‘The elders feel that women getting together is dangerous, because of our propensity to stray from spiritual topics into gossip when unattended by a head of household.’”

Levings reminds the reader that patriarchy isn’t actually good for many men. (My feeling is that it generally exists to feed one ego, that of the ‘prophet,’ church leader, etc.) “Winning didn’t feel like having won. At the end of his religious quest for covenantal belonging, Allan appeared more whipped and exhausted than triumphant patriarch, without spark or fight, without spirit or zeal. His shoulders bent with burden and regret, like an ox caught belly-deep in mud.”

To finder (of the helpers!)

Levings finally comes to the most important questions about her cult.

“What was I getting from this faith? Peace, love, joy? No—that’s not how I felt at church. Reassurance of eternal security? No—I still begged God to save me anytime the intersection of death felt close. A sense of belonging with Special Christians doing life right? I belonged, alright. I belonged too much. But what if we weren’t ‘doing it right’?”

Levings does step outside the cult on a very dangerous night when it appears her husband is about to kill her. She finds the helpers.

“Every day it was as if the more I made choices that saved me, the more others showed up to help save me too. The world, actually, was beautiful.”

And that is an excellent lesson for teens to learn. 

Footnotes

1) The basic idea is that God is doing all he can to hold back from sending man into the pit of a literally fiery hell. Not only is he not that into you; he loathes you. Some images that struck me when I first read it were God about to open the floodgates upon man; man dangling as a spider over the fiery pit. It is also a call to seek forgiveness in Christ, who can save mankind from its deserved fate. (But only the few elect will receive that salvation, so be afraid anyway.)

2) Of course, now we know how well that worked out, with oldest son Josh incarcerated for child pornography. He also molested his sisters, but the statute of limitations ran out on that.

3) She stops for a beat to show how mean medical professionals can be to postpartum women, another bit of info I can vouch for and that it might be good for teens to read and prepare themselves for when the time comes. 

4) I happened to read this the same day I read: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” – 1 John 4:7 Just thought you might want a counterpoint.

Library and book challenge/ban news: what I found interesting this week

What’s a book ban anyway? Depends on who you ask

Here are a handful of definitions from people entrenched in the issue.

Book about book bans banned by Florida school board

A book about book bans has been banned in a Florida school district.

Ban This Book, a children’s book written by Alan Gratz, will no longer be available in the Indian River county school district since the school board voted to remove the book last month.

Gratz’s book, which came out in 2017, follows fourth-grader Amy Anne Ollinger as she tries to check out her favorite book. Ollinger is told by the librarian she cannot, because it was banned after a classmate’s parent thought it was inappropriate. She then creates a secret banned-books library, entering into “an unexpected battle over book banning, censorship, and who has the right to decide what she and her fellow students can read”, according to the book’s description on Gratz’s website.

In a peculiar case of life imitating art, Jennifer Pippin, a parent in the coastal community, challenged the book.

… Pippin is also the chair of the local Moms for Liberty chapter, … Besides Pippin, two of the school board members who voted in favor of banning the book, Jacqueline Rosario and Gene Posca, had support from Moms for Liberty during their campaigns.

Book ban lawsuits one step closer to Supreme Court

Some lawsuits challenging the bans have reached the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, while others remain in the district court system.

Protecting pages: The culture war on literature and fighting for literary freedom

This LA Times High School Insider article from Corona Del Mar High School doesn’t have new information, but is a nice overview that can be shared with students. The author also discusses their reading of Looking for Alaska by John Green, an often challenged and removed (banned) book.

How Alabama Library Supporters Took Action and You Can, Too

The work is long. It is tiring. It is at a high personal cost. We’ve got enough awareness campaigns and resources. We know that in the last four years, how to fight book bans and challenges hasn’t changed — you need to vote, you need to show up to board meetings (and/or be involved on the board if possible), you have to get into your elected officials’ ears, you need to stay on top of the news, and then, choose one more thing if time and energy permit. One of those choice things might be getting involved with groups who can collaborate on a bigger mission than can be accomplished by an individual alone.

That way forward is most likely through legal and legislative actions.

If you are interested in book challenge/ban news, please subscribe to my Substack, Be a Cactus, where I include information each week.

What I’m Reading

Although I haven’t read Looking for Alaska by John Green in a looong time, it’s the often challenged book discussed in the high school article above, so here’s the link from the review I wrote back in the day. I had many copies and book-talked Alaska regularly. It was super popular with students. For many, it was their introduction to the author. They became fans. When The Fault in Our Stars, also by Green, came out, I got a grant to buy fifty copies for my two libraries (hello, budget cuts, double that job!). We had a poster contest. It was so much fun. 

The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes Four Irish sisters are left to struggle as teens when their parents die tragically. The novel is about how that pulls them together and apart, and—hopefully—together again. A bit of philosophy. A lot of sisterhood.

A Well-trained Wife by Tia Levings (reviewed above).