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In this episode, Dan continues decoding a card from a church bulletin that outlines the features of a particular church. This week’s focus is the second item listed on the card, “obedient children.” This description will strike many as weird or “cringy,” but why? What is it doing on this list, and what does it tell us about this church’s views on gender, the family, and its vision of proper social order? And how does it relate to the focus of the previous episode, “Smiling Wives”? Check out this week’s episode to find out.
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As always, I want to say welcome to It's in the Code, a series that's part of the podcast Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Dan Miller, professor of religion and social thought at Landmark College, and I am your host.
And again, as always, I want to just say welcome.
I want to thank those of you who listen, those of you who reach out, Daniel Miller Swag, danielmillerswaj at gmail.com.
Love the ideas, love the feedback.
Keep that coming.
Continuing to try to close the gap on the emails, but I do appreciate them, respond to them, and invite you, if you're not a subscriber, to consider doing that.
If you like what we do at Straight White American Jesus and the content and the discussion, please continue supporting us financially, if you're able to, and consider doing that.
It just helps us to do what we do.
That's my pitch, that's my shill, so I'm gonna step back from that, dive into this week's episode, Last episode was the first, looking at a bulletin insert, a little card that probably came out of a church bulletin.
Now, it was submitted, I said it was submitted by a listener, I didn't give the name.
It was submitted by, you ready for this?
Tom Legrand.
Tom, there you go, there's your shout-out.
Hey, Tom reached out humorously to chide me for not giving a name shout out, so I do.
It's funny.
This is one of those things where sometimes listeners like it when you say their name, sometimes they don't.
Sometimes I get emails from folks who are like, I'd love to hear you talk about this, but like, don't, don't say my name on the air.
That's weird.
So, you know, never know what to do, but no, in all seriousness, Tom, thank you for this.
This church bulletin is like solid gold for sort of decoding popular American Christianity and high-control religion.
So I'm going to continue on with this, and for those who maybe didn't listen or just need a reminder, the first thing on the list, this card just has like a list of seven or eight You know, phrases of presumably things that one will find in their church and the church that produced it.
The first one was Smiling Wives, and that was last week's episode theme was Smiling Wives.
I invite you to go take a listen to that if you haven't yet.
This week I'm turning to the second item on that bulletin insert, which was Obedient Children.
And once we take a look at this, we're going to see a few different things.
We're going to try to draw out a number of insights that I think apply to this.
And I think we're going to see that it also fits pretty well with that idea of smiling wives.
And so I want to start with this.
The first point is just that I think for a lot of us when we hear this, it's just a little bit weird.
Obedient children.
And I was thinking about this and it reminded me of a story when I was a pastor.
I was a pastor when I was pretty young.
I was in my 20s.
Got married after my first year of pastoring.
Did not have kids.
And I remember in church one time, I heard this parishioner whose children were running around being kind of obnoxious and so forth, and he kind of pulls one aside and is disciplining them, not in any physical way or anything, but is scolding them.
And what he said was that, I remember he concluded and said, you will obey me.
You will obey.
And he used that word obey like multiple times.
And it struck me as strange, and it really rubbed me the wrong way.
But at the time, I was unsure why.
I also knew that, again, I wasn't a parent.
It's not my kid.
I was also in a context where that notion of children obeying was, you know, a big emphasis for a lot of folks.
And so I didn't really, you know, I didn't say anything, didn't do anything.
Again, he was, he was not physically aggressive with this child.
He did that.
And then, you know, the kid calmed down and they went and did whatever it was they were supposed to be doing.
But it has always stuck with me, obviously.
And now, as a parent of two kids, one teenager, one who's not there yet, but obviously have been through the phases of, you know, having toddlers running around like crazy, and now I've, you know, older kids running around like crazy.
I've thought about this more and you know I'm aware that I have to spend a lot of time telling my kids what to do and certainly if you have toddlers and young kids you spend a lot of time all of you know this if you have littles in your life you know that you have to spend a lot of time sort of redirecting them and telling them what to do and trying to direct their behavior
And I was thinking about this as I read the obedient children thing, which still, you know, strikes me as weird, rubs me the wrong way, that of course I want my kids to do what I say.
But when I think about why, it's not because I prioritize obedience as a primary aim.
It's not, I don't think I've ever said something like what this parent, this parishioner said, you know, you will obey me.
This appeal to obedience as the reason why a child should do what I say.
And one of the reasons is, goes to me as an individual, I hate arbitrary policies and requirements.
No matter where they come from.
If it's in a work relationship, if it is a policy at the DMV, if it is, I don't know, a rule about when a store is allowed to sell you beer.
That's a whole story.
Whatever.
I hate arbitrary policies and requirements.
I want rationales and justifications for being compelled to do particular things.
And if I have that, even if I don't agree with that, I can at least say, okay, fine, I get why you want me to do this or require me to do this or I have to hop through this hoop or I have to fill out this form or I have to pay this fee or whatever.
But I hate it when it just feels like it's arbitrary, when it's like the answer is essentially just because, or just because some agency or individual or boss or whatever has the authority to make you do things in a particular way.
And I think I want to extend that same principle to my kids.
So I hope, and I try to, at least in my best moments, I try to have and to express good reasons for the things I ask my kids to do.
And I've, my oldest in particular has gotten old enough that sometimes she'll ask why.
And if, you know, if I'm honest, well, you know, actually, maybe I don't, I don't have a great rationale.
We'll talk about that and maybe we'll change what I'm asking her to do.
Again, I'm not going to say I'm super parent who always lives up to that ideal, but I think that's my standard.
I want to be able to express to them the why of what I'm asking.
So my aim isn't obedience.
It's their well-being.
It's not just obedience for the sake of obedience.
So, obedience, again, is a term I almost never use, is a means to an end.
So, the demand for kids to obey or an emphasis on obedient kids, in and of itself, it sounds weird to me because it just doesn't fit with my understanding and, I guess, my personal parenting philosophy.
Okay?
We're talking about this list on this card in a church bulletin, and we've got to do a little bit of work to understand why this emphasis shows up where it does.
And to do that, I think we've got to get just a little bit into theology—the theology of the church that I imagine, with high confidence, this bulletin comes from.
And to do that, it's a really basic point that for centuries, a defining emphasis within Christian theology, and especially Protestant theology, has been God's omnipotence, the fact that God is all-powerful.
And within that emphasis, God's power has been understood not just as one of God's attributes, as a defining feature of God, but as the primary defining feature of God.
And within many theological traditions or regimes, and this is really prominent within the kind of conservative, high-control Christianity that I believe is reflected in this little card from the church bulletin, okay?
Within many of those regimes, God is virtually identified with power as such.
Being all-powerful is what makes God, God.
If God was not all-powerful, God would not be God.
And other divine attributes like justice or love are really subsumed under this notion of power.
Okay?
Now, within a theology like this, what God primarily does with regard to human beings is to command.
God has given and continues to give commands that reflect God's will and God's power And the status that defines us as human beings is that we fail to obey these commands.
This is what it is to sin, and when we say that human beings are fallen, it's to say that we fail to obey God's commands.
If somebody says, what is sin?
On this model, it is failure to do what God wants us to do, what God has commanded that we do.
And so, the defining feature of being a Christian, of living a good Christian life, becomes obedience to divine command.
So, command and obedience are fundamental defining features of this kind of Christian vision.
Now, that can sound pretty harsh, and in my view it is.
And within popular Christianity, even the forms of popular Christianity that affirm this image, people often work to soften it.
And the way that they do this is they give exactly the kind of parental image of God that sounds like the parenting philosophy I presented.
So within that, what they will say is—and I can hear the person now, if I just present all this—say, no, no, no, no, no, everything you said about parenting is what we think about God.
God doesn't just give commands to humans because God is God, or it's arbitrary because God wants us to obey.
He gives us commands because He loves us and cares for us, and these commands are for our own good.
I have heard that sermon more times than I can tell you.
I have probably given that sermon.
But the fact remains, in my view, that that's kind of a sleight of hand.
It's a way—I did an episode a long time ago in this series on the notion of a kinder, gentler conservative Christianity, a way that tries to preserve the core of a theologically conservative, high-control Christianity, but sort of soften it, make it feel more appealing and more welcoming.
This is what I think is going on here, because no matter how much that person says, God cares for us and loves us and this is why God gives commands, That notion of love and care remains secondary to the primary image of God as all-powerful giver of commands.
And here's the reason why I say that, here is how you know it, is that if push comes to shove, if we can discern no positive or beneficial rationale for a supposed divine command, We are still obligated to obey because it's God who gave the command.
This is when the person who says, no, no, no, there are good reasons.
God loves you.
You've been digging through your Bible or wherever.
I don't see the reasons.
Maybe we need to rethink this.
Maybe this isn't what God commands or maybe it's not something God commands anymore or whatever.
They're going to say, no, no, no, no, no.
God commanded it.
We're going to do it.
It's like that boss that you have, who has a policy that they tell you is somehow for your own good, but there is no clear rationale for it, and they hold to it and ultimately have to appeal to their own authority.
Well, you know, there's a reason I hold this position, and part of holding this position is having to make these decisions, and this is my decision.
Their appeal to their authority is nothing but their appeal to their authority.
That's the only explanation for their exercise of power.
That's what this comes down to.
So, I would suggest, please, don't be misled when somebody tells you that they're softening this emphasis on God as divine command giver But that's the role that they'll never actually give up for God.
Okay?
So within this frame, obedience is not simply a means to an end.
It is the goal.
Okay, so that's the theological piece.
And so we move down and we say, okay, so if one is governed by this theology—and I'm going to say that theology is a point of pride for a certain kind of Christian expression, it's a point of pride that that is what they hold to—if one is governed by this theology, a theology of God the Father as preeminently God the Commander of Obedience,
It follows that obedience becomes a primary aim of human parenting and of human fathering.
Just as God's love is expressed primarily in commands, and just as the love of God's children is expressed in the form of obedience, so parental love is expressed in the form of commands, and a child's love is expressed in the form of obedience.
Okay?
There are other elements here that would be worth exploring.
A couple generations of Christian parents shaped by the teaching of people like James Dobson, for example, who spoke of children as being innately disobedient and willful and stubborn and in need of being broken, having their spirits broken by parents.
That's a piece that feeds into this.
It's that theology written into so-called child psychology as a means of child rearing, and it didn't end with Dobson.
There's also the obvious suggestion that parents, or any other authority figures, that the reason they project an image of God as divine command giver is because it legitimizes human authority figures in their own practices of commanding.
So we could add complexity to this.
But my point and the takeaway here, because we don't have a lot of time, is that this emphasis on obedient children, it makes sense once we contextualize it within the kind of Christian community where it arises, within a Christian community that is focused on high control.
And I think that brings us to a little bit more decoding that has to go on here.
So we've got theology and this notion of God as divine command giver and this notion that human parents are sort of an analog to God in relation to their children.
And so just as God gives commands to followers, parents gives commands to children.
And just as followers of God are called to obey, children are called to obey their parents.
Okay, that's fine.
Let's say some more about this, though.
The first thing to notice is that when you start with these theological reflections and you go on down, the focus is proper social order.
And I know people hear me say this all the time, but I think maintaining proper social order is a key central focus within a high-control religion context like this.
What obedient children represent is a social order that reflects God's ideal.
This is what is advertised and communicated in this card from the church flyer.
If you come to our church, you're going to encounter a social order that is proper and as God desires it.
And a second point here is that it also reflects the fact that within, you know, this conservative popular American Christianity, proper social order starts with the proper ordered family.
And that means properly ordered cisheteronuclear family.
The family, that family, that vision of the family is the basis of social order.
It is the basic unit.
And this, of course, brings us to gender, to gender roles, and it brings us right back to smiling wives.
Okay?
Now, we've got plenty we can say here about men and their role in this, and we're going to get to that when we get down the list.
Okay?
But so far we've looked at smiling wives, now we're looking at obedient children, and I see these two things as intimately connected.
Okay?
Within this framework, this framework of proper social order, of the family as the basis of proper social order, women's highest calling is to be not only wives, but mothers.
The whole point of being a wife is to become a mother.
That's why we hear the kinds of things we do from people like J.D.
Vance and Harrison Butkert.
Mothers are expected to love and to give themselves for their children, but they are also the primary figures, often, in enforcing and maintaining the order of the family.
Again, we're going to get to men in due course, but women have a role to play in enforcing and maintaining the order of the family.
So why do the wives in this church smile?
We talked about this some last week, but here we find that part of the reason is that they are also committed, successful mothers.
Their mothering success is reflected in obedient children, which are the real measure of their values as individuals.
Part of what makes them successful mothers, mothers who fit the ideal of what mothers should be, is that there are, in fact, obedient children, children who carry out the commands that are given to them and properly enact a social order.
And I think that the acceptance of their divinely commanded role, their role as women, is to be wives and mothers.
Their acceptance of their obedience is symbolized in their smiling.
It's not something they are loath to do.
It is not something they are forced to do.
It is something they gladly do.
They gladly obey God and take up that role.
So, disobedient children, on the other hand, demonstrate a couple of real problems.
One, they demonstrate a breakdown of proper social order.
They illustrate a failure of women to be proper women.
And overall, they are an illustration of a failure or refusal of divine authority.
It's not just about parental authority or human authority.
It's ultimately about divine authority.
So, if we dig into this, there's a lot going on in this seemingly weird, cringy emphasis on obedient children.
Again, it's two words.
But for me, if we dig into it and we pause for just a minute to think about the context in which this occurs, As well as, in my view, the fact that it follows on Smiling Wives, an awful lot comes together in these phrases, Smiling Wives and Obedient Children.
And as I say, both of these points imply a lot about men as husbands and fathers.
Okay?
And we'll get to that when we get to the emphasis on firm handshakes.
That's, I think, number four on the list.
Firm handshakes.
And we'll get to firm handshakes.
Next episode, though, we've got the third thing on the list, which is loud singing.
And if that one strikes us as strange, we're going to dive in and see what that might be doing there, what it might fit, if it fits with smiling wives and obedient children and so forth.
But for now, we've got to call it an episode.
We're out of time.
Smiling wives, obedient children, what more could you want?
Maybe loud singing.
We're building toward firm handshakes, working our way down the list.
Stay tuned as we continue to decode this card from the church flyer.
Again, thanks to Tom LeGrand for sending this really, really fruitful illustration that we're going to spend some more time on.
In the meantime, again, thank you for listening.
Thank you for supporting us.
Thank you for the ideas, the feedback.
Keep the topic ideas coming.
I have a long running list of topics and issues and ideas.
I have been trying to get on to the Discord a little bit more, and I'm going to try to make a concerted effort to do that, so hopefully I will hear from some of you there as well.
In the meantime, Daniel Miller Swag, DanielMillerSWAJ at Gmail.com.
Always welcome your thoughts and insights, and if you are not a subscriber, like what you hear, appreciate what we do.
Please, if you're in a position to support us in that way, consider doing so.
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