For those of you who don't know, I graduated in 2003 from Logos Christian School in Moscow. I entered the school in 5th grade, and very shortly after began to have problems with it, even at such a young age.
Logos, while not explicitly funded/run by Christ Church in Moscow, is heavily influenced by their archaic and close minded view of society, due to the fact a large percentage of the faculty, and the Superintendent himself, are members of the church. The school's main founder is none other than the pastor/pope of Christ Church, Douglas Wilson.
It is easy to argue that Christianity in itself, is a patriarchial, sexist religion. However, Christ Church's "brand" of Christianity takes sexism a step farther, and their heinous and ancient view of women (i.e. women's place is in the home (unless they're nurses or teachers), women are not allowed to speak in church. ever. a woman's main objective in her marriage is to "serve her husband" and be "at all times submissive to his will." the list could go on much longer) has infiltrated Logos School to an alarming degree.
Even when I began school there, Logos was becoming more and more conservative and preaching fundamental Christianity as the only way of life. Things have only gotten worse through the years, and the girls at the school are the ones to suffer for it.
2000: Mr. Harken, my history teacher, during a tangent on elections and voting, informed the class that it would have been better if women had never gotten the right to vote. In his opinion the "head of the household" (meaning, the husband) should be the only one to vote and his vote should count for as many people as lived in his house.
2002: At a student council meeting, one of the sons of a school board member put forth the idea that in future years only males should be able to run for ASB President and Vice President since men have the duty to lead women.
2002: The school board/principal does away with our traditional "Spirit Week" and impliments "Knights Festival." The boys and girls are given separate contests to enter. The boys get to fashion fake swords and shields and duel in front of the school in hopes of winning an old fashioned replica sword. The girls get to compete in a "pie baking contest" and the winner wins a gift certificate to Williams/Sonoma.
* And although I don't have a set year that it was put into practice, Logos now functions in such a way, that beginning in kindergarten boys must at all times show preferance to the girls i.e. opening, closing doors, pulling out chairs, letting them go first etc. In itself, I don't have a problem with the idea of teaching boys to be gentlemen. However, when boys are taught to do things for girls because girls are too weak to do them for themselves, I have a problem. Logos/Christ Church seems to have a preoccupation with producing weak men who want even weaker women.
And finally. 2007. The reason I started this rant in the first place.
Today I got home to find the latest copy of The Knight's Page (quarterly student newspaper) in my mailbox. I can never read through it without being appalled at some new social limitation they are placing on their students in the name of "serving our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." Today was no exception.
Logos High School will no longer have a girl's basketball team. Its not that there's not enough players, coaches, support. Oh no. Nothing that mundane and reasonable.
" There were two broad reasons for the decision, the first being philosophical which Mr. Garfield [Superintendent] deemed as the more important. He said that he and others have had growing concerns for the nature of girl's basketball. It has undergone a radical shift towards a very masculine approach. However, God made it very clear in His Word that He created man and woman distinct from one another. "The girls on many teams are coached like guys, and our girls are in danger because of how the other girls are coached," Mr. Garfield said."
It never ceases to amaze me how weak the school board thinks women are; (did I mention, btw, there are no women on the school board??) how completely incapable of handling adversity and pressure we can be.
But then it occured to me, horrible thought, that perhaps Mr. Garfield was right on a certain level I couldn't understand. Could it be that Logos had so adequately produced weak minded and over emotional girls that they honestly couldn't handle basketball? Did my fear of what would become of the future classes of Logos girls come true? That after being told daily, for years, they were weaker and inferior, they had come to believe it?
Either way, I'm even more disapointed and disgusted in the place I graduated from. It pains me to know that Logos has been able to scrape by for 30 years, paying their teachers SO little to mis-shape the minds of so many. If they only knew how many Logos graduates were out there, continuing "the Lord's work" and using their "Classical and Christ-centered Education" to binge drink, load a bong, and pop birth control before rampant pre-marital sex, they'd be amazed, and possibly reconsider sharing more of the real world with their students before they were thrust out into it, wide eyed and unprepared.
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16 comments:
Amen. Thought the same thing when I read that Knights page about them quitting girls basketball.
I agree for the most part. I dont think they are sexist. I think they carry small truths out to an extreme. I believe that the school has more inconsistencies and faults than most know about. I experienced enough to write a book. As for what you wrote here. I find it hilarious as well about the basketball team. Its funny that they teach us that there is nothing new under the sun, yet they act like girls swearing and playing physical is something "new". I watched plenty of girls bball and it was in some ways more dirty than men's basketball from the getgo. I think its important for us to be exposed to that at young ages. What does logos think; that we should run and hide from those that cuss? Students will enter the real world after they graduate and be appauled by the cussing because they never heard any before. as to the knights festival, that is sexist. The girls should be allowed to play with swords if they want to. And since 2 of the guys in my class turned out to be fags, the men should have the option to bake pies. As far as what the teachers say about women and voting, thats just another story all together. When you are hiring teachers that know less than the students they are teaching, you can expect dookie to come out of their mouth daily.
Esther-
Hey, been a while. Found your blog through a link on your brother's.
I think that Logos could accomplish a great deal more if it devoted less of itself to the theatrics of being "Apart from the world." Being apart from the world is all well and good, but there are better ways of accomplishing it than reinstituting sword fights and hoop skirts. There's a definite "Ivory Tower" mentality at work there, which is all the more ludicrous when you consider that the Ivory Tower in question is a damn cinder block.
God bless, and I'm glad I found your blog.
Tom
Hey, Esther. Jason directed me to your webpage. Bethany has just as many tales of weird-patriarchal doofiness from her time there.
So you're certainly right to see a great deal of silliness at Logos. I can go along with you on the voting thing, the Knights Festival, and even the basketball team -but it seems to me that the issue there is not so much that women can't or shouldn't be playing competitive sports, but they are unable to balance competitiveness with the desire to glory in feminity.
And no doubt there is a great deal of misunderstanding about the weaker vessel issue, but the Biblical distinction is not sexist in the least, the direction is men are grunts, women are glorifiers.
I'm particularly surprised at the lack of women on the Logos board, because I've heard Doug Wilson say it's important to have women on the board. I'm wondering if that's just an oddity currently, but not something that has been true since the beginning.
But regardless, we can take comfort from the fact that Christ still lends us His name despite our hypocrisy, idiocy, and mere lameness. We can all be thankful for the good that has come from Logos and pray that it continues to grow.
I would pray it changes and repents, rather than grows.
Esther,
If you really feel so strong about it all, don't waste your wrath on petty words and indirect complaints. Please, come to my house and break my windows and kill my dog and slash my tires. Bring a gun. Be true to yourself, Ms. Gibbs.
Josh
Feel that family love. I sure do. I think that you get just as riled up over doctrine and articles in the paper. This post was no different than any of yours. Maybe a little better written though. I also know people who I respect greatly who are pulling their children from the school because of the sexism, and many other things. Esther this was a valid point worth throwing up a fist about.
WOW Josh way to be rude to your sister.....so....."christian like" and so ironic that you are telling her " don't waste your wrath on petty words and indirect complaints" Have you ever been to www.thecedarroom.org?
What a strange arrangment this is. Esther represents everything Jason can't stand. She's liberal, approves of homosexuals and hates Bush. Jason represents everything that Esther can't stand. He likes big tits on women, claims violence towards others as signs of his masculinity, hates homosexuals, basically approves of Bush. In fact, asshole Christian guys like Jason are the kind of people that drove Esther away from the Church and turned her against Jesus.
The fact that Esther is an unhappy condition and confused and blazing a trail to hell matters little to Jason and his wife. Both are willing to encourage Esther's bittnerness to prompt another disgruntled believer into talking shit about Wilson and Christ Church and so forth.
Jason and Helen, there's far more to this situation than might appear on the surface. Do Esther a favor and don't goad her on to greater hatred. Pray for her. She needs it badly.
Actually what she needs is people like us. Those that verbally dont condemn her to her face. If what you say is true about her, i can understand it. I was in a similar boat before, and what helped me out of it, was people encouraging me, not telling me i was blazing a trail to hell. They didnt preach at me they just listened to what i had to say, and didnt push me away. You may be right about esther, but you arent acting anymore like a christian than she is.
amen to jason. josh you obviously don't have much experience dealing with people, especially women. just because we may not agree with esthers political beliefs, and from what you are saying maybe not religous either, doesn't mean we can't support her in a post that she writes a lot of truth about logos and christ church.
and if i were her, people like you would be the ones driving me totally away from christianity...if my own family would have treated me like you are obviously treating her, i would have turned away from my faith. and i was close, but it was people, family, friends and jason supporting me through the toughest times that led me back to Him.
lose all the biblical/theological lingo that you "preach" so well and practice what Jesus did.God will speak to esther if he wills, you should just love her and keep her close.
Esther and Josh-
If I said anything in my post that contributed in any way to getting either of you pissed off at each other or anyone else, I'm sorry. While I stand by the substance of what I wrote, I would've altered my tone accordingly if I had realized the situation here, familial and otherwise, was as sensitive as it obviously is.
My best to you both.
I haven’t checked my blog in almost two weeks – so I was genuinely surprised to find that it had been read, and even more surprised to find the comments left on this Logos post. First, to Jason and Helen (and Tom and Remy), thank you for your encouraging comments, both about the post and in response to Josh’s comments. I appreciate it more than you know.
Second, to Josh. As rude and genuinely un-Christlike as your posts struck me, I will try not to sink to that level in my response. However I do feel like I need to defend myself and clarify what you obviously don’t understand.
To your first comment Josh – I have to admit I was taken back by the fact you seemed to find my post about Logos a personal attack on you. I wrote my post to blow off steam against the school, and articulate reasons for my anger. If there was anyone’s tires to slash or windows to break it would be Logos’ – not yours. I’m also confused – in what way am I being untrue to myself by voicing my opinions for others to read? Why on earth would being violent to you display more loyalty to myself than choosing my favorite medium to showcase how I feel about the subject? I'm shocked you think I'm that full of hate.
And as a sidebar – I couldn’t agree with Helen more in finding it ironic that Josh attacked me for “petty and indirect complaints” when his blog sometimes contains multiple posts in one day of self righteous, pretentious drivel that is often just as pointless as it is difficult to understand.
To your second post Josh – congratulations on showcasing your complete ignorance of who I am as a person in less than four paragraphs. First, Jason is hardly the embodiment of the things that turned me away from Christianity. To find a perfect example of what did, look no farther than the bathroom mirror. Jason and Helen’s willingness to support my statements about Logos and Christ Church even though they may disagree with my religious and political beliefs, shows only that they appreciate truth that resonates with them, not that they want me to continue to stew in my own anger. Please don't attack them for that.
Second, my “condition” is a lot of things – but “confused” is not one of them. Simply because I no longer cling to one single book or a pulpit full of hypocrisy to validate my life and beliefs anymore, does not make me confused. Having the freedom to believe that God loves me in spite of my faults and questions has made me more happy and less confused than I ever felt in Christ Church believing that God predestined millions of people in the world to never ending damnation for some “unknowable” reason.
Lastly, Josh, you are correct to say that I need prayer. To the faithful Christians reading my posts, if you would like to pray for me, please pray that I find direction in my search for God, and that my genuinely fragile spiritual state is protected from the harshness and the cruel judgment that displays itself so clearly in my brother’s (and people of his opinions) attempts to scare or threaten me back toward Jesus Christ.
Esther, you will figure it all out. And you are exactly right, all excommunication or "their" ideas about "helping" those who are confused about christianity or shying away from it, is to scare them back to christ, rather than help them. I find it interesting that your brother thinks he has reason to treat you like this. Of all people, I who fully hates homosexuality, actually have a sister who is flirting with homosexuality. I of all people have a "reason" to possibly mistreat or denounce my sister, but i dont. I just know that she will have to figure it out for herself and telling her that she is blazing a trail to hell is not going to help her find her way to christ. funny stuff. We will pray for you, and your brother. lol. Its good to see that it's not just non-christians that are crazy people, some christians are on their way to crazy town.
One thing Logos did teach you was to be well written. If I was wherever you are right now, we'd hang out and relax and talk about happy stuff.
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