Religion

Several prominent Muslim groups, like CAIR and the Islamic Society of North America, have called for women's right to pray in U.S. mosques without being forced to hide behind a partition, but it has so far been a losing battle. The women in the Daily Beast protest footage below just might be able to change that.

This comes as no surprise, given that just a few months ago, a Muslim teenager sued the clothier for allegedly refusing to hire her because of her headscarf. It would be an understatement to say that the company isn't really into displays of modesty, no matter if it has a religious basis. Have you seen the half-naked beefcakes they put in the front of A&F's retail stores during the holiday season, or the innumerable naked romps models have taken through the pages of its look book? And, more important, Abercrombie has a storied past of discriminating against those who don't fit its narrowly-defined vision of all-American beauty. 

Last year, a British employee sued A&F after her prosthetic arm was deemed inappropriate for the sales floor. In 2004, the clothier handed over $40 million to settle a federal lawsuit alleging that the company discriminated against minority employees. There are plenty of other cases of employment discrimination, not to mention offensive merchandise -- remember those racist t-shirts? In A&F's alternate universe, the men have washboard abs and crunchy highlighted hair, the women have freckled noses, tiny waists and perpetual beach-hair, and everyone has lily white skin (or at least they did before becoming regulars at the tanning salon). I wonder just how many lawsuits and complaints it will take to crush this false reality.

This month, another child has died: 7-year-old Lydia Schatz, an apparent victim of repeated beating with -- as it turns out -- quarter-inch plumbing supply line. Her parents, Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz of Paradise, Calif., who reportedly called 911 to report that she was not breathing, stand charged with her murder. They are expected to enter a plea on Thursday. According to the authorities, forceful and numerous whippings, apparently with plumbing line, may have caused tissue breakdown so massive that Lydia's vital organs could no longer function. The Schatzes also face torture and abuse charges for significant injuries sustained by Lydia's also-adopted sister Zariah, 11, who was hospitalized in critical condition, as well as for extensive bruising on a 10-year-old biological son. (The Schatzes have six biological children and three adopted from Liberia.) Though the remaining children showed no visible signs of abuse, they told police they'd been "disciplined" with the tubing as well. Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey told Salon that the Schatzes had explicitly described to police their adherence to the Pearls' philosophy, which, as one of many horrified anti-Pearl bloggers within the conservative Christian community observes -- recalling precisely what prompted the Schatzes' call to 911 -- includes the admonition that a proper spanking leaves a child "without breath to complain."

It's one thing for those of us outside the fundamentalist Christian/Christian home-schooling world to point fingers at the Pearls and voice outrage at their methods. What really matters, and what stands to have actual impact, is the outrage inside the Pearls' world. And right now, more than ever, an anti-Pearl movement within the conservative Christian community is rising up in heated, if sometimes whispered, fury. Some say -- even pray -- that Lydia Schatz's death will bring Michael and Debi Pearl exactly the kind of attention they deserve.

"I think many in the Christian and/or home-school community wanted to see Sean Paddock as an 'extreme' example. Lynn Paddock was 'just' a foster mom. She already had issues. Whatever someone could use to rationalize away the influence of Michael and Debi Pearl, they would. Because they did not want to admit that a 'normal' home-schooling mom could abuse her child to death, they did not want to admit that a book that has been normalized in home-schooling circles was a factor in the death, they did not want to admit their own vulnerability to being deceived or hurting their child," says Alexandra Bush, 35, a "home-schooling mom and theologically conservative Christian" in Sarasota, Fla., who grew up with Pearl-style teaching around her (though not in her family) and who is an oft-heard anti-Pearl voice online. "Now, with Lydia Schatz, it is harder to explain away. I have seen a stronger response than before to her death and her sister's hospitalization. The defensiveness has cracked a bit. This is the logical outcome of the spank-until-submissive teachings of the Pearls. People are no longer able to see it as just an 'exception.'"

In a statement issued in response to the Schatz arrest, Michael Pearl said, "We do not teach 'corporal punishment' nor 'hitting' children. We teach parents how to train their children, which sometimes requires the limited and controlled application of a spanking instrument to hold the child's attention on admonition ... No Greater Joy does not advocate spanking to the point of serious injury. If indeed these parents were abusive, and that has not yet been proven by the courts, it is regretful that our teachings were not able to turn them from their predisposition to abusive habits."

Many critics of "biblical chastisement" -- notably, those close to the controversy, and even to the Schatz family -- might say that Pearl has it backward. They suggest that his teachings, with all the weight of their godly imprimatur, could exacerbate, or even create, the impulse to abuse. Paul Mathers, 32, a used bookstore owner in Chico, Calif., knows the Schatzes well, or thought he did. They attended his church for about eight months. He and his wife, Laurie -- who wrote in a wrenching blog post about her special bond with "little Lydia" -- have had dinner at the Schatzes' house; the Schatzes, remembering that the Matherses needed a bookcase, dropped off an extra just to be nice. "There is nothing about the Schatzes that would ever have made us think abuse of any kind was going on," Mathers says. "They are the dearest, sweetest people. This is completely unimaginable." Could the Pearls' principles have triggered abusive tendencies out of nowhere? Obviously, Mathers -- who says he finds the Pearls' "chastisement" philosophy "morally repugnant" -- can only speculate. "But one of the things the Pearls suggest is to have the piece of piping in every room and possibly even hang around your neck as you go around the house to keep the child in line," he says. "If you're going around wearing an instrument with which you hit things many times a day -- I could imagine that does do something to people."

As Laurie Mathers wrote on her blog: "The Pearls' system does not just mold children, it molds well-meaning parents into the kind of people who think they can and should expect perfect obedience and perfect behavior from imperfect and defenseless little creatures. In fact, it teaches them that if they don't succeed in this, they are not fit to be parents at all."

Or take Meggan Judge, interviewed by the Raleigh News & Observer and then by Salon in 2006, who found that her postpartum depression and the Pearls' principles were such a toxic combination that she had to lock herself in a separate room for fear she would "beat [her son] senseless."

"Obviously, I don't think Mr. Pearl stood over Lydia's body with plumbing line in hand," says Rebecca Diamond, a Bible Belt-born observant Christian and home-schooler in eastern Canada whose blog is critical of the Pearls. "But when he uses phrases such as continuing to whip until the crying turns into a 'wounded, submissive whimper' or 'without breath to complain,' I'm not sure how he doesn't bear moral guilt for this. Legally, I don't know if he can be charged. But morally? I believe that absolutely, anyone who advocates treating children like that bears responsibility."

It's not just about parents who lose it or children who die. A Pearl spokesperson says that more than 1,400,000 copies of their book "To Train Up a Child" are in print worldwide, distributed at conferences, in church-member welcome baskets, and to military families. What about the kids who live with this "discipline" every day? Diamond, for example, recalls hearing a mother talk about hitting her 6-month-old with a glue stick because the child "cooed and wriggled during a two-hour-long church service, and she wanted to 'train' the child to be silent."

"My wife and I are Christians and the Pearl system is one of the most anti-Christian systems I've ever heard of," says Mathers. "Part of what unnerves me is how many Christians I've encountered in the past week who either follow the Pearl system or step around it, saying, 'They may be a little extreme, but there's some good principles in there.' It scares me that there are people walking around with such things being acceptable in their heads. It scares me that people who call themselves Christians are willing to be so mean and merciless, or at the very least, that they feel OK condoning people like that." (Mathers is also not alone in believing that -- long hermeneutical story short -- the Pearls’ entire ministry is based on flawed, even heretical, theology.)

He adds: "Not to be crass, but you slap the title 'Christian' on something, and all of a sudden it's the 'Christian' thing. Sometimes, in my experience, that's all it takes for Christians to start following something. There's not a whole lot of discernment."

There are other, more concrete hypotheses as to why the Pearls' extreme philosophy -- though based on principles that are hardly brand-new --  has taken such hold now. Some see it as another weapon, taken up out of fear, in the ever-escalating conservative Christian vs. "secular" culture wars. Diamond's theory: "Pearl's books play on common fears in the subculture of the deeply religious home-schooling family, who is already by their own choice on the fringes of society: the fear that 'the world' will steal children away, the fear that somehow the parents will be to blame."

Also, the particulars of child-training are only one aspect of the Pearls' ministry. "The focus when their teachings are promoted isn't on the spanking, but on the 'tying heartstrings' and enjoying your kids," says Alexandra Bush. "It is easy to filter out the harsher teachings, the extremism, when surrounded by word pictures of peaceful, loving, fun families. The Pearls seem to tell parents that they just have to 'win' once and make sure their children know who is in charge, and then they will never have to spank again. That's how parents get sucked in -- promises of a fun, peaceful home, minimal confrontation, doing the 'right thing' for their children. Basically, the BS detectors are turned off by the pretty promises that are made."

Bush believes that's why the Pearls' teachings hold so much appeal for conservative, home-schooling parents who are, overall, "highly motivated to spend time with their children, love their children, willing to make sacrifices for their children, want the best for their children. They are not, in general, people prone to neglecting their kids or motivated by abuse and anger," she says. "So when people criticize the Pearls and in the same breath misrepresent parents who use Pearl parenting, those parents easily tune out the criticism."

And that's where the Pearls get their relatively "free pass," she concludes: "People know parents who are amazing and love their kids and don't abuse them -- and recommend the Pearls -- and so they have trouble believing the truth about the awful teachings. After all, if your home-school neighbor family looks like they have it all together, has sweet children and a calm mother -- and they use the Pearls, and they don't beat their kids -- then obviously it must be the critics who are wrong. Add to that the loyalty home-school parents have to the home-school movement -- hard to criticize one's own. Finally, even if someone can see the problems with the Pearls' words, they may be unwilling to admit that the Pearls are completely wrong and off their rocker, because that would be admitting that they themselves were susceptible to bad advice and may have harmed their own kids."

In other words, says Diamond, Pearl devotees are "loving people, people who take joy in their children, in their marriages, who like to participate in the community and do good for others. They aren't monsters. It would be easier, I think, to speak up loudly if they were."

Well, with the Schatzes, the anti-Pearl agitators have their monsters. Diamond believes that the already growing criticism of the Pearls within conservative Christianity -- which, beyond child-"training," also involves complex doctrinal differences and quasi-feminist debate over Debi Pearl's view of "heavenly marriage" -- will now continue to gain in volume. It's already happening, Diamond says: "I know of many women and men who are quietly speaking out. When material from the Pearls is suggested for parenting classes or Bible studies, they are speaking with the pastor, refuting the materials, begging people to really read what is being said. When another parent mentions the material, they politely respond with the reasons why they'd never use or endorse it. And they are often successful."

Bush reports the same thing. "In my local circles I've seen [Lydia Schatz’s death] as a catalyst for people and leaders in the church to speak up," she says. One church is planning a Sunday school event to focus on abusive parenting, aimed at parents and at grandparents, given that they might also be effective at intervention. In other churches, a mothers’ group director and other lay leaders have vowed to remain silent no more when they hear someone promoting the Pearls. 

Christian and home-schooling bloggers are also voicing increasing anti-Pearl sentiment, and not just the ones who already reject any form of punitive parenting, Bush notes. Timberdoodle, a highly regarded and influential resource for conservative home-schoolers, responded to Lydia Schatz's death by exhorting its community to speak up: "Read, be informed, and share with your friends. There are many new, well-meaning parents who are looking for instruction and help in parenting. Use your knowledge to help them keep away from this dangerous path."

But discrediting the Pearls shouldn't depend on word-of-mouth or the grass roots, Bush argues. "As a Christian, I believe it has been a failing of the evangelical church in the U.S. as a whole for not warning their members about this type of harmful teaching. It is something the church cannot, biblically, ignore," she says, noting that increasing resistance to the Pearls comes at a time when even those in the most conservative Christian circles are reevaluating, on theological grounds, the evangelical movement's embrace of the practice of corporal punishment.

Still, Bush doesn't believe that the Pearls will ever be fully discredited or lose their influence in the Christian home-school community. "But," she says, "I do believe that their teachings will be more vocally warned against, more critically evaluated."

At the very least, critics of the Pearls are holding fast to the hope -- or, rather, growing evidence -- that Lydia's death will, somehow, not be in vain. "I hope that this will wake up enough people who follow them," says Rebecca Diamond. "If everyone stopped buying their books and hiring them to speak, they'd be as powerless and voiceless as all the children who have suffered under their teaching."

Paul Mathers shares that vision. Though unlikely to be fully realized, it's a pure expression of his and his wife's grief and rage -- for 7-year-old Lydia, for their friends the Schatzes, who had them for dinner, who gave them bookshelves. "If there were a strong enough popular opinion against the Pearls you wouldn't have a large number of Christians in a system like this, and then you wouldn't have a small number of Christians who go too far or make a mistake," he says. "I would love to see the people rise up and say no to the Pearls, that this will not stand. I would love to see the Pearl system become anathema, disgusting, and shunned by the world. I would love to see the Pearls out of a job. Before another child dies."

A life completely focused on religion

The "parallel universe" Mayan used to live in has around 550,000 inhabitants. It is the world of the Orthodox Jews in Israel, whose adherents live in tight-knit communities where everything revolves around religion. They radically shield themselves from modern life. Television is frowned upon, as is non-religious music, telephones and the Internet. News that is important to the community is disseminated via notices posted on walls. Boys and girls go to school, but their education is primarily focused on religion.

"Everyone can read and write, but math was over after simple multiplication," Mayan says. "When I left school, I didn't even know what New York was, and I had never even seen a dog because nobody kept any pets."

According to Irit Paneth, it is this lack of education, in particular, that makes it almost impossible for doubters in these communities to break out of the inflexible corset of their belief. Paneth is a member of Hillel - The Right To Choose, an organization that helps those leaving the Orthodox faith start a normal life. "We are not against the religion," Paneth explains. "But Ultra-Orthodoxy is more like a cult that intellectually cripples children in the name of religion." For most young people who break away from the Orthodox life, she explains, it's like leaping off a cliff into the unknown. "They come without money, without education in the classical sense, without any chance of employment," Paneth says.

One of the fastest growing groups in Israel

According to government estimates, ultra-Orthodox Jews make up one of the fastest-growing groups in Israeli society. By 2025, the government forecasts that roughly 22 percent of school-age Israeli children will come from one of the groups with strong religious beliefs.

Over the 19 years it has been operating, only around 2,000 defectors have turned to Hillel. "There are tens of thousands who have doubts and want out," Paneth says. But only a small number are ready and willing to make the sacrifices that defection demands. For example, most families completely break off contact with defectors. "Some even hold wakes," Paneth says, "as if the daughter or son has actually died."

Mayan grew up in Beitar Illit, an Orthodox settlement just south of Jerusalem in the Judean Mountains of the West Bank. There, men wear black suits and wide-brimmed hats. The women -- whose style of clothing is intended solely to denote chastity -- wear high-necked blouses, long skirts and often a head scarf. Likewise, the men don't hold jobs but, instead, devote their lives to studying the Bible. The women feed their families and often raise up to 12 children.

Mayan's childhood finished when she was seven, when her widowed mother remarried. From then on, she had to wear socks and long pants to bed under her nightgown -- even in the summer -- lest the bed cover slip off and expose here bare skin to her stepfather. And since her stepfather was not a blood relation, he was not allowed to touch her. In fact, he barely spoke with her, either.

No preparation for puberty

Puberty was a time of great anxiety for Mayan. As her breasts began to grow, Mayan thought she had cancer. The taboo about anything physical was so great that she snuck off to the doctor rather than having to ask her mother what was happening. Her first period brought renewed panic and shame. Mayan hid her dirty undergarments. And when her mother found them, she was scolded rather than given an explanation. What if her stepfather had found her dirty panties?

Mayan first began to doubt her lifestyle when she switched to a school in central Jerusalem. She saw fashionably dressed young people and noticed that the boys "from the other world" looked at her with interest. At 14, she hatched a plan together with some other curious school friends. They told their mothers that there was a study-group meeting. But then the girls used money they had earned babysitting to take the bus to Luna Park, an amusement park in Tel Aviv. Even today, Mayan beams when she talks about the lights and the music. "I felt like Cinderella," she says, "like I was in a dream."

No more contact with family or friends

Still, the second expedition Mayan organized with her girlfriends ended in disaster. They took a trip to the beach, but their fresh tans gave them away once they arrived home. The result -- for Mayan, at least -- was a three-year odyssey through various ultra-Orthodox reformatories and foster families. Her insubordination had to be driven out of her -- if need be, by lies. "We were contantly told that the secular world was only waiting to turn us into prostitutes or slaves," Mayan explains, "that there was nothing but drug addiction waiting for us out in the modern world."

With help from Hillel, Mayan eventually managed to make the leap out of her religious life. The organization helped her financially so she could go to a boarding school and get her high school diploma. Mayan then completed the obligatory military service that all Israeli women must perform and, today, she is studying special education in college. She no longer has any contact with her family, and she suspects that her sisters have paid a high price for her defection. "When my sisters' marriages are arranged," Mayan says, "they won't get the men they deserve."

"Staying would have meant death"

Every week, 25-year-old Shimy Levy gets to re-pay the price for abandoning his religion. The rabbies in the ultra-Orthodox divorce court granted him two hours a week with his two children. And whenever they are up, Levy realizes once more the price of his freedom. "But leaving was still the right thing to do," Levy says. "Staying would have meant death -- and I couldn't kill myself for the sake of my children."

Levy grew up in the Orthodox faith, and -- like Mayan -- he began to have doubts when he reached puberty. The rules of the religious school he was supposed to spend the rest of his life in were increasingly getting on his nerves. "With the help of the Bible," he says, "they manage to control every small detail of everyday life." Then he begins to count the ways: In the morning, you have to put the right shoe on before the left shoe. Then the shoes had to be laced up the opposite way -- left shoe first, then right. On the Sabbath, you could only eat fish if you managed not to touch any bones. At most, a young man was only allowed to meet his potential bride in an arranged marriage twice -- and then only for an hour during a chaperoned conversation. After that he had to decide whether he would marry her.

Eventually, Levy bought a small radio with earphones. At night, under the covers in the communal sleeping hall of the yeshiva -- the male-only religious institution where he studied -- he would eavesdrop on the outside world. But, like Mayan, he was caught and spent time in reformatories. At 20, he was married -- in another attempt to tame his desire for freedom. For four years, he played the role of the strictly religious husband and father before coming to the decision that he couldn't live like that any longer. He confessed to his wife that he had lost his faith, and he asked for a divorce.

"If God exists, he wouldn't want this"

Then, without any particular regrets, he cut off the long, traditional sidelocks he had worn his whole life. "It was already clear to me that all of these rituals were just empty gestures," he says.

For Levy, the last year has been one long attempt to catch up on what he's missed. At breakneck speed, he has developed his taste in music -- everything from Abba to techno -- and he's gone from a being a television novice to owning an iPhone. His first sneakers, his first movie, his first pork chop. "Every day I tick off another thing that was previously withheld from me," Levy says. He is already concerned about the indoctrination that his children will be exposed to. "Every time I see them," he says, "they tell me that the whole family is praying for my return to the faith."

Irit Paneth of Hillel hears stories like those told by Mayan and Levy with mixed emotions. Of course, she says, she is as proud "as any mother" when her charges find their way in the modern world. "But what about the many others," she asks, "the ones not strong enough to tear themselves away?" They have to adapt to a life of pretending to be pious, she explains, and of following the rules of a religion they don't believe in. "If God exists," Paneth says, "he wouldn't want this."

Now his wife Gayle is coming forward with her side of the story with "Why I Stayed: The Choices I Made in My Darkest Hour."

Speaking to the "Today Show" on Wednesday, Mrs. Haggard told Meredith Viera that the scandal "was such a shock and such a heartbreak, I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t put the words together. They didn’t fit with the man I knew."

There may be brief satisfaction in seeing hypocrisy exposed – especially for those of us who have the luxury of living as openly and shamelessly as we please. But it's small potatoes to the sadness one feels knowing that Haggard now attributes his self-destructive behavior to childhood sexual abuse, or watching his wife tell Meredith Viera "sexuality is conditioned."

Yet however unorthodox -- and perhaps still denial-rich -- their continued union may appear to outside eyes, both the Haggards seem to have come out of their very public disgrace a little more humbled and open minded.

On "Larry King Live" last night, Haggard admitted, "I have some thoughts in my life and some processes in my life that just don't fit neatly into the boxes, which I think is true for a lot of people." Not quite a rousing dance on a float during Pride Week, but surely a far more tolerant position than staunch, gritted-teeth "total" heterosexuality.

His wife Gayle added, "I haven't doubted my faith in this process, but I have redefined it." Despite all questions and contradictions she and her husband clearly still struggle with -- and the fact that the lady is out there because she's got a book to sell -- Gayle Haggard seems truly to be trying. So when she tells the world, "I learned so much about the diversity of our human makeup and that all of us are the way we are for a reason," that's a good thing. Because she's got a better shot at convincing her fellow evangelical Christians of that sentiment than a whole lot of us ever will. 

And the people around you are all in the throes of relaxation. As we know, people are at their best when engaged in the endless heroic quest for whatever -- truth, love, literary excellence, supremacy in tennis, a royal flush, the perfect salad -- and relaxation makes them dull. It's true. We're hunters. Once we chase down that wildebeest and devour its hindquarters, we get suddenly stupider.

I'm sitting with wife and child at a cafe at a marina, and the big motor yachts parked in the water bring back the memory of long boring afternoons aboard boats. There is no boredom like that boredom, sitting in the stern of a big expensive boat as it churns through the coastal waters, watching your host, the wheel in one hairy hand and a bowlful of scotch in the other, woofing at you about how much he loves this, meanwhile the sun is beating down, turning your brain to tomato aspic. The conversation deceased an hour ago and the cheese dip has gone bad and the jouncing of the waves is making you very queasy.

And yet -- you yourself have gazed at million-dollar cruisers in boatyards, imagining the euphoria that could be yours. It's a beautiful dream and God forbid it should come true and you become just one more drunk driving a boat.

Some of the people around us at the cafe under the palms look like boat people. Geezer gents and their geezerettes looking a little exhausted in the company of grandchildren, tired of their incessant questions -- e.g., What do we do tomorrow? Why can't we go back to Reptile World? Can I watch a movie now on my iPhone? -- longing for a quiet deck chair and the muffled rumbling of the generator and the burbling of the hot tub. The grandmas sip their Campari and sodas, the grandpas sit back walrus-like, digesting their seaweed and krill, and I know I'm not going to walk over and strike up a conversation with them. I wouldn't know how.

What we talk about up north in December is the existence of God, but I don't sense much theology here in paradise, just a large sense of entitlement. Up north, you talk about God because life is brutal when the wind blows hard on the borderline. You need a reason to keep trudging forward across the frozen tundra.

The fundamental religion of most of mankind is the faith that God has revealed Himself to us and not to the barbarians. Our tribe is the one God chose and so if we vanquish the other tribes and rain fire and destruction on them, we're only carrying out God's Will.

There is a countervailing faith that says that God is in and of the world and has bestowed vast gifts to be shared with others, and that our understanding of God is faint and incomplete and so we should walk softly and not assume too much.

When I'm up north, I naturally tend toward the warrior view, believing myself to be one of the Chosen, the select few to whom The Great Giver of Truth has vouchsafed the sacred secrets, but now, in the suburban tropics, eating blackened grouper under the Southern moon, I am sliding into hedonistic pantheism, slouching down the coast of Florida toward Key West, on a quest to make my wife and daughter happy until the money runs out and we regain our senses and head home. More certitude next week. Meanwhile, Happy 2010, dear reader. I lift a glass of sparkling water to you.