Creationism and Dispensationalism and Complementarianism, Oh My

On my Christian fundamentalist upbringing

Disclaimer: I attended my school from late ‘90s to late ‘00s. My experiences do not necessarily reflect the school’s current state.

I was 28 when I took a module entitled ‘Christian Fundamentalism and the Modern World’ for my theology degree. The more I read, and heard, and discussed, the more I realised: Oh Lord, this was my upbringing. I knew that I’d gone to a Christian school; what I hadn’t realised was that I‘d gone to a Christian school with clear fundamentalist overtones.

One of my earliest memories was huddling beneath the wooden-framed bunk bed at the back of our 2nd grade classroom where our teacher would lead the twenty of us 6–7 year olds in kids’ songs: ‘Somewhere in outer space God has prepared a place / for those who will trust him and obey’. Talk about bad theology – N. T. Wright would have a field day with this notion of heaven – but I guess it was effective since I can still sing all the songs by heart. (I also remember feeling really pleased when I earned a sweet for memorising the first 20 verses of Luke 2.)

I was the smallest and youngest in the class so I was never let on to the top bunk. Sad.

We had Bible class, as well as Chapel every Wednesday – none too surprising. (I wish we had Religious Education; we never properly learnt about non-Christian religions, and when we did briefly touch upon them it was perfunctory and/or denunciatory.) But in almost every single piece of written work, it was compulsory to include a ‘biblical perspective’. It’s easy enough to understand with English class, for example, the biblical injunction against greed (Tolstoy’s ‘How Much Land Does a Man Need?’), or humanity’s hubris in trying to control destiny (Beowulf). But what baffled me most was that we even had to do it for classes like maths.

Here’s an actual example:

You may feel called to bring compassion to a hurting world, with the help of God’s Holy Spirit. What should a Christian mathematician’s response be when others are in trouble?

Math is a vital part in helping others who are suffering and to ease their burdens. A Christian mathematician should immediately look at the problems of the world and say, “I can help.” Many times pain occurs in the poverty stricken third world countries. God commands us, “Do not oppress the poor, whether they be slaves, neighbors, or strangers” (Deut. 24. 14.15). Instead, we must help support be it through means of sending money or clothing or food, or directly getting involved in helping them. Specific examples a mathematician can do is to teach others the basic foundations of how to calculate food rations and when to give them out. By calculating just the correct amount needed, people can continue to eat and live, not fearing the disasters and problems.

I hadn’t reached puberty yet.

My school was also really American. Like, in elementary school we had to memorise the Introduction and Preamble to the United States Declaration of Independence, as well as the fifty states and fifty capitals; we also celebrated Thanksgiving by dressing up as Pilgrims and cooking cornbread. US History was mandatory in high school, whereas World History was optional and we only learnt Japanese history in piecemeal chunks. Let me clarify: This was an international school in Japan. It utilised a North American curriculum and was originally founded to educate American missionary kids – yet during my time there, white North Americans quickly became the minority whilst East Asian and mixed-race students became the majority. So you had all these Asian kids, many of whom had never set foot in America before (including myself), reciting ‘When in the Course of human events…’ and ‘Helena, Montana’.

They sought to have this influence extend beyond graduation, insisting that we prioritise attending private Christian colleges in America (e.g. Biola, APU, Wheaton, Moody, Gordon) in order to keep ourselves protected from and untainted by the ‘secular’ world.¹ We needed to withdraw from public society and be contained within a Christian sphere where we would be taught only the ‘truth’. Otherwise, if (God forbid) we were exposed to the ‘outside’ world, it was a gateway drug – a slippery slope – to every sin imaginable and ultimately to hell. Now, this was a real problem for me and several of my classmates, many of us Asian overachievers who really wanted to go to Ivy League colleges. We essentially had to fight and pave our own way, overcoming active discouragement in the process.

Well, here I am. I’ve emerged all right… right? right?

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Let me give a summary definition of Christian Fundamentalism which has its roots in late 19th/early 20th century. Christian Fundamentalism views the modern age negatively (e.g. moral decline, social crises) and is single-mindedly determined to oppose the modern age by reclaiming basic ‘fundamentals’ of the Christian faith. Three identity markers: 1) separation from ‘the world’; 2) biblical literalism; 3) dispensationalism – with our current trajectory headed towards the end times.

The key paradox about Christian Fundamentalism is this: although it vehemently opposes the modern age, it also depends on the modern age to be meaningful. And because the modern age keeps shifting, so too does the language and focus of opposition. For example, in the early 20th century it was against Catholicism; in the 1960s it was against feminism and the sexual revolution; in the 21st century it’s against religious pluralism (e.g. Islam).

Here are three particular fundamentalist beliefs I grew up with, along with some accompanying anecdotes.

Creationism

Creationism most often refers to belief in special creation; the claim that the universe and lifeforms were created as they exist today by divine action, and that the only true explanations are those which are compatible with a Christian fundamentalist literal interpretation of the creation myth found in the Bible's Genesis creation narrative. (Wikipedia)

One random day I came to the realisation – without anyone else's prompting – that if I wanted to know how old the earth really was… I could just add the ages contained in the genealogies in the Bible! Genius. I excitedly got out my TI-83 Plus calculator, flipped through the first few chapters of Genesis (particularly chapter 5) and began adding. It totally helped that the ages seemed totally random – like Enosh's 905 years or Methuselah's 969 years (not a symbolic number like 12 or 40) – and therefore more authentic. Oh. my. gosh. The world was only 6,000 years old! Cool.²

Photo by Eugene Zhyvchik on Unsplash

We were never taught evolution in school. Not that we were ever taught how to disprove it either. ‘Evolution’ itself was a dirty word, and any reference to it was taboo, anathema. I remember when a new South Asian student joined our class in middle school, and after making a remark in science class about how we’d all come from monkeys, the entire class erupted in laughter and disbelief.

So: my biology knowledge was/is deficient to say the least. BUT there was one instance when even trusting and submissive me secretly disputed what was being taught. Remember that elderly white American biology teacher I mentioned in a previous post who would tell us off for speaking Japanese? Well, we got to the section on ‘adaptation’ in our textbook – not ‘evolution’, just ‘adaptation’ – about how people and animals in colder/hotter climates adapt to colder/hotter climates. Great, common sense. Then our teacher, with no irony, gruffly said, ‘There’s no such thing as adaptation,’ turned the page and moved on. Even I was dubious; I concluded that he had to be wrong and there was such a thing as adaptation. (Not that I ever voiced that to anyone.)

Dispensationalism

Dispensationalism is a system that was formalized in its entirety by John Nelson Darby. Dispensationalism maintains that history is divided into multiple ages or "dispensations" in which God acts with humanity in different ways. Dispensationalists generally maintain a belief in premillennialism, a future restoration of Israel and in a rapture that will happen before the second coming, generally seen as happening before the tribulation. (Wikipedia)

If you know the Left Behind series (1995–2007)… let’s talk. If you read not the adult versions but LEFT BEHIND >THE KIDS<, then we really need to talk. I remember owning 20 or so books of the YA series, and I was hooked. Yes, the premise of Christians being raptured and everyone else ‘left behind’ on earth to deal with the apocalyptic tribulation was engrossing – people waking up to discover their loved ones (e.g. parents, children, friends) suddenly gone, leaving behind a literal pile of clothes – and there were exciting Hollywood-esque set pieces, some shocking deaths. But what made it really unputdownable was the romantic interest between the teenage protagonists. The pull! The flirting! The tension! Surely Judd and Vicki had to get together – after all, true love would be strong enough to help them overcome the end of the world. (I was 9 or 10.)

Photo by Josh Marshall on Unsplash

Thankfully it didn’t cause me any nightmares. Rather, my belief in the rapture manifested simplistically and childishly: always on my best behaviour, always striving to be a good Christian in order to reduce the risk of being ‘left behind’ if and whenever it happened. But then again, maybe I actually didn’t care – I was too focussed on and invested in the lives of these teenagers who were just trying to find love (i.e. hold hands, even get kissed) whilst literal fire and brimstone rained down from heaven.

Note: You can watch the Left Behind 2000 film adaptation on YouTube. There’s a more recent adaptation starring Nicolas Cage but apparently it’s so abysmal it’s not even worth a Google.

Complementarianism

Complementarianism is a theological view in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, that men and women have different but complementary roles and responsibilities in marriage, family life, and religious leadership. […] Complementarians assign primary headship roles to men and support roles to women based on their interpretation of certain biblical passages. One of the precepts of complementarianism is that while women may assist in the decision-making process, the ultimate authority for the decision is the purview of the male in marriage, courtship, and in the polity of churches subscribing to this view. (Wikipedia)

There was so much talk about the man pursuing the woman romantically – in fact, the only one permitted to pursue. It was shameful, humiliating, even emasculating for the man if the woman pursued him, as if she’d usurped his rightful leadership role. And this was just one of many different ways men and women needed to stay in their lanes and fulfil their proper responsibilities in order for a Christian relationship/marriage to be successful.

The enforcement of strict gender roles was exacerbated by the boom of ‘purity culture’ in the ‘90s and ‘00s – here’s a good summary by Linda Kay Klein; plenty has been written about how damaging it was, especially to women (e.g. Angie Hong) – of which Joshua Harris’ 1997 I Kissed Dating Goodbye was a primary, seminal text. As someone who desired a romantic relationship but had never been in one, it was as good a guidebook as I could get my hands on. Unfortunately I never comprehended at the time how misguided and insidious the advice was. (Worth noting that Harris has since then disavowed the book, discontinued its publication, separated from his wife and is no longer a Christian.)

Oh, clueless me… thank God for growth.

Here’s a helpful summary of the effects of purity culture:

The permeation of purity culture into church teachings and cultures can be seen in anxieties around male-female friendships, relationship expectations, the Christian idolisation of marriage, the equation of virginity with value, and inferences that women are responsible for gatekeeping men’s sexual behaviour. (‘The impact of Christian purity culture is still being felt – including in Britain’, The Conversation)

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I’ve spent the previous post and this post surveying my fundamentalist upbringing, not just because it allows for anecdotes that people might find either relatable or unbelievable, but because I wanted to demonstrate just how thorough and all-encompassing my particular western (American) Christian context was growing up. It sought to define and dictate everything in my life from start to middle to end: ontologically (creationism), eschatologically (dispensationalism) and everything in-between (complementarianism). There was no room whatsoever for a differing viewpoint or lifestyle, theology or belief. I was essentially trapped by my ignorance.

Like I mentioned in my introductory letter: deconstruction first, then reconstruction. Now that I’ve shared about my background, I can move on in future posts to exploring the positive integration and reconciliation of my faith with East Asian culture. Stay tuned.

1. One of my ex-classmates advocates for a clear separation between religious and educational institutions, contending that ‘Christian schools’ shouldn’t exist. I guess the UK equivalent would be Church of England (CoE) and Catholic schools. The recent 2021 Census results (less than 50% of UK population identify as Christians) have elicited increasing calls for the CoE to disestablish and end its role in schools and parliament.

2. I can now label that particular view as Young Earth creationism. There are other positions you can take that accept evolution and still believe God was involved in creation, but it was only in my late 20s when I realised this was even possible.