Q&A #5: The Barbed Wire Faces Inward
Q: What do you think about groups that separate themselves from the mainstream? Examples... intentional communities, religious groups like the Amish, or all girl schools. Do you think there is advantage to creating islands of people separate from the rest of society or do they greatly lose out because of missing out on diversity? Obviously, people have the right to do it, just curious about what you think of it and whether you would do it.
--Anonymous
A: I already have been part of such a group, actually.
I graduated from high school a week before I turned seventeen. My family had a low income level, and my stepfather had already spent the college fund my grandparents had started for me. We couldn't pay for college.
My mom and I picked out Pensacola Christian College as a place where I might be able to get an education without having to pay so much money. They were unaccredited, but they told us that Harvard and Yale weren't accredited either (I was later to learn that this was a lie). Their tuition was very low. You could work there and put the money toward your bill. Of course, you weren't allowed to work anywhere but on campus, and you weren't allowed to have financial aid except for PCC scholarships; but I didn't have a car so I knew I wouldn't be able to work anywhere else anyhow. They had a long list of things you weren't allowed to bring to campus--headphones, most kinds of music, many kinds of books, most computer games. You couldn't bring a TV or access the Internet. You couldn't own a cell phone.
I was still a minor, and my mother was naive. We didn't see the red flags. We should have.
Let's put it out there, plain and simple: PCC is a cult. They control every aspect of the lives of their students and staff. We didn't have curfew--we had bedtimes; and people came in to check. We went to seven church services each week (fourteen, during Revivals). During some of the sermons, we were encouraged to rat each other out for rules violations. At one point, a preacher twisted Scripture severely to make the statement that PCC was God's will for our lives; and if we went out of God's will, God might decide to let us die. Males and females weren't allowed to touch until marriage, not even indirectly. There were designated areas where a person was allowed to talk to the opposite sex. Telephones and mail were monitored. If you wanted to go on a date, you had to hire a chaperone from the PCC approved list, pay for their meal, and their babysitter if they had children. There was a list of approved destinations, and we had to go everywhere in groups, with the groups containing at least one higher-level student. The library was censored and we weren't allowed to go to any other libraries. We weren't allowed to watch TV (except for the censored, pre-taped news) or listen to radio stations other than the PCC station.
And we were constantly monitored. Cameras were everywhere; but, worse than that, you couldn't trust anyone, ever. Not even your best friends. Sooner or later, they would take you up to the Dean's office and talk to you for hours and hours until you confessed. If you didn't, they'd put you with a floor leader (a higher-ranking student) and you'd have to sleep on their floor and not talk to anybody but them. You couldn't leave their presence, had to go to their classes. Most of the time, if you got "shadowed" like that, you'd be expelled pretty soon. Nobody wanted to be expelled; the school was unaccredited and you couldn't complete your degree anywhere else. Off campus, the Deans' red vans patrolled the town, looking for cars with the identifying PCC sticker. Around the campus, where there wasn't a high wall, there was barbed-wire fencing--with the tilted top of the barbed-wire fence pointing inward.
PCC has a culture of its own. People have a vocabulary that they use that nobody else seems to even know about. I used to get "campused" for missing dinner. That means you're grounded to staying on campus and can't go off-campus with the pre-approved groups who have already told everyone where they are going. The reason I missed dinner was that, after a day at work, I was too exhausted to do anything but lie on my bunk and stare at the ceiling. They assigned me to work in the distribution center for their textbooks--essentially, it was free labor, since my salary went straight into my tuition bill. The work was hot and hard and most of the time, by midafternoon I was so overloaded I was a zombie. I used to sit in the bathroom stall and just stare into the distance, unable to think anymore. We had multiple safety violations... girls in skirts (we were required to wear either skirts or culottes "wide enough to look like skirts") worked near the conveyor belts leading into the shrink-wrap machine. I was eventually transferred to cleaning duty, and I was never really sure which chemicals I was using because they were all unlabeled. Cardboard dust hung heavy in the air, making us cough. Most people wore wrist braces due to repetitive-motion injury.
The PCC culture is one of fear, rule-following, a rigid hierarchy, and a strong sense of "If you complain, you're out of the will of God". Complaining--in fact, failing to look cheerful--was considered to mean you weren't a good Christian. They were all about forming their own culture, their own world, keeping the outside out. PCC is its own little island of fundamentalism that's lost what it means to be a Christian.
Thankfully, PCC made one mistake with me: They forced me to read the Bible, multiple times, and constantly. And, even through the Shakespearean English, I understood that the Jesus that PCC preached about was little more than a puppet for the administration--he wasn't the person in the Bible, who socialized with prostitutes, overturned the marketplace that had taken over the temple courtyard, touched lepers, and saved the life of a woman who was going to be stoned for adultery. Thanks to PCC, I nearly lost my faith; thanks to the Bible, I kept it. And after a year and a half, I left.
PCC is one form of isolationism--the worst sort. It's the sort that tries to turn people into a homogenous group, with everyone thinking and acting the same. It's the sort that tries to put a rigid wall in between the group and the rest of the world, allowing nothing to penetrate. That sort of isolationism is harmful.
But there's another sort of separation that is neutral, or even positive. This sort of separation isn't a group with a rigid barrier around it, but a group naturally drawn together by common circumstances or tendencies. For example, when I go to church now, I have a lot in common with the people there; we have a common philosophy, and we share quite a few personality traits. But--and this is the important thing--there's no barrier between us and the community. We separate ourselves and gather periodically to reinforce our identities as Christians and to talk about issues that are common to all of us; but when that meeting is over, we go out into the rest of the world and participate in all of the other groups we're a part of.
When people with similar ideas and circumstances get together, they can often work very effectively together. Think of what happens when you have a very narrow hobby and you finally meet someone else who shares it--the exchange of ideas gets rapid; you finish each others' sentences, use shorthand, feel out each others' store of knowledge, swap what you know for what they know. That's the benefit of separating out as a group.
The dangers of separation, though, are very real. If you separate with a group and stay only to yourselves, then in a very short time all the ideas are old and being recycled constantly like stale air in a closed room. New things are rejected because they go against the group's identity; and sooner or later, people start to suffocate.
In order to be a positive, healthy group rather than a cult, it's necessary to have strong connections to the rest of the world--to bring in new ideas and to share the group's ideas with the world. If you don't do that, then sooner or later, you will find yourself wearing khaki culottes and worrying about whether it's against the rules to catch someone of the opposite sex who has just fallen on a wet floor. (If you were wondering: Yes, at PCC, it is.)
Q&As update Mondays and Fridays. Use the Q&A Submissions entry to submit your questions.
--Anonymous
A: I already have been part of such a group, actually.
I graduated from high school a week before I turned seventeen. My family had a low income level, and my stepfather had already spent the college fund my grandparents had started for me. We couldn't pay for college.
My mom and I picked out Pensacola Christian College as a place where I might be able to get an education without having to pay so much money. They were unaccredited, but they told us that Harvard and Yale weren't accredited either (I was later to learn that this was a lie). Their tuition was very low. You could work there and put the money toward your bill. Of course, you weren't allowed to work anywhere but on campus, and you weren't allowed to have financial aid except for PCC scholarships; but I didn't have a car so I knew I wouldn't be able to work anywhere else anyhow. They had a long list of things you weren't allowed to bring to campus--headphones, most kinds of music, many kinds of books, most computer games. You couldn't bring a TV or access the Internet. You couldn't own a cell phone.
I was still a minor, and my mother was naive. We didn't see the red flags. We should have.
Let's put it out there, plain and simple: PCC is a cult. They control every aspect of the lives of their students and staff. We didn't have curfew--we had bedtimes; and people came in to check. We went to seven church services each week (fourteen, during Revivals). During some of the sermons, we were encouraged to rat each other out for rules violations. At one point, a preacher twisted Scripture severely to make the statement that PCC was God's will for our lives; and if we went out of God's will, God might decide to let us die. Males and females weren't allowed to touch until marriage, not even indirectly. There were designated areas where a person was allowed to talk to the opposite sex. Telephones and mail were monitored. If you wanted to go on a date, you had to hire a chaperone from the PCC approved list, pay for their meal, and their babysitter if they had children. There was a list of approved destinations, and we had to go everywhere in groups, with the groups containing at least one higher-level student. The library was censored and we weren't allowed to go to any other libraries. We weren't allowed to watch TV (except for the censored, pre-taped news) or listen to radio stations other than the PCC station.
And we were constantly monitored. Cameras were everywhere; but, worse than that, you couldn't trust anyone, ever. Not even your best friends. Sooner or later, they would take you up to the Dean's office and talk to you for hours and hours until you confessed. If you didn't, they'd put you with a floor leader (a higher-ranking student) and you'd have to sleep on their floor and not talk to anybody but them. You couldn't leave their presence, had to go to their classes. Most of the time, if you got "shadowed" like that, you'd be expelled pretty soon. Nobody wanted to be expelled; the school was unaccredited and you couldn't complete your degree anywhere else. Off campus, the Deans' red vans patrolled the town, looking for cars with the identifying PCC sticker. Around the campus, where there wasn't a high wall, there was barbed-wire fencing--with the tilted top of the barbed-wire fence pointing inward.
PCC has a culture of its own. People have a vocabulary that they use that nobody else seems to even know about. I used to get "campused" for missing dinner. That means you're grounded to staying on campus and can't go off-campus with the pre-approved groups who have already told everyone where they are going. The reason I missed dinner was that, after a day at work, I was too exhausted to do anything but lie on my bunk and stare at the ceiling. They assigned me to work in the distribution center for their textbooks--essentially, it was free labor, since my salary went straight into my tuition bill. The work was hot and hard and most of the time, by midafternoon I was so overloaded I was a zombie. I used to sit in the bathroom stall and just stare into the distance, unable to think anymore. We had multiple safety violations... girls in skirts (we were required to wear either skirts or culottes "wide enough to look like skirts") worked near the conveyor belts leading into the shrink-wrap machine. I was eventually transferred to cleaning duty, and I was never really sure which chemicals I was using because they were all unlabeled. Cardboard dust hung heavy in the air, making us cough. Most people wore wrist braces due to repetitive-motion injury.
The PCC culture is one of fear, rule-following, a rigid hierarchy, and a strong sense of "If you complain, you're out of the will of God". Complaining--in fact, failing to look cheerful--was considered to mean you weren't a good Christian. They were all about forming their own culture, their own world, keeping the outside out. PCC is its own little island of fundamentalism that's lost what it means to be a Christian.
Thankfully, PCC made one mistake with me: They forced me to read the Bible, multiple times, and constantly. And, even through the Shakespearean English, I understood that the Jesus that PCC preached about was little more than a puppet for the administration--he wasn't the person in the Bible, who socialized with prostitutes, overturned the marketplace that had taken over the temple courtyard, touched lepers, and saved the life of a woman who was going to be stoned for adultery. Thanks to PCC, I nearly lost my faith; thanks to the Bible, I kept it. And after a year and a half, I left.
PCC is one form of isolationism--the worst sort. It's the sort that tries to turn people into a homogenous group, with everyone thinking and acting the same. It's the sort that tries to put a rigid wall in between the group and the rest of the world, allowing nothing to penetrate. That sort of isolationism is harmful.
But there's another sort of separation that is neutral, or even positive. This sort of separation isn't a group with a rigid barrier around it, but a group naturally drawn together by common circumstances or tendencies. For example, when I go to church now, I have a lot in common with the people there; we have a common philosophy, and we share quite a few personality traits. But--and this is the important thing--there's no barrier between us and the community. We separate ourselves and gather periodically to reinforce our identities as Christians and to talk about issues that are common to all of us; but when that meeting is over, we go out into the rest of the world and participate in all of the other groups we're a part of.
When people with similar ideas and circumstances get together, they can often work very effectively together. Think of what happens when you have a very narrow hobby and you finally meet someone else who shares it--the exchange of ideas gets rapid; you finish each others' sentences, use shorthand, feel out each others' store of knowledge, swap what you know for what they know. That's the benefit of separating out as a group.
The dangers of separation, though, are very real. If you separate with a group and stay only to yourselves, then in a very short time all the ideas are old and being recycled constantly like stale air in a closed room. New things are rejected because they go against the group's identity; and sooner or later, people start to suffocate.
In order to be a positive, healthy group rather than a cult, it's necessary to have strong connections to the rest of the world--to bring in new ideas and to share the group's ideas with the world. If you don't do that, then sooner or later, you will find yourself wearing khaki culottes and worrying about whether it's against the rules to catch someone of the opposite sex who has just fallen on a wet floor. (If you were wondering: Yes, at PCC, it is.)
Q&As update Mondays and Fridays. Use the Q&A Submissions entry to submit your questions.