Strange Animals (5 page)

In the days
that followed Karen's decision to postpone the abortion, she became increasingly aware of the unique position pregnancy afforded her. Her hatred for religion and the patriarchal culture it inspired in America was something she'd felt from a very early age. She'd never been able to understand why any woman would adhere to the constraints of Christianity, or any major religion for that matter. Most of them described an ethos of subjugation for women in their primary texts.

The event that stood out in her mind as the moment she became aware of her active hatred for religion was in junior high school. She was walking to algebra class, and she began to feel something making her underwear wet. It was her first period.

She looked up and down the halls for a female teacher, but the only adult she could find was the male physical education teacher, Mr. Forman. She explained what was happening and
asked Mr. Forman for help. Mr. Forman explained to her that all women menstruate, and that this was their punishment for Eve eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. He further explained that she'd have to deal with this punishment every month of her life, forever, then turned and walked away down the hall, offering her no assistance. Embarrassed and ashamed, Karen tied a sweater around her waist and sat through her next class hoping no one would notice. At lunch she was able to get to the nurse's office, where her mother was called and she was allowed to go home. She never told anyone about her encounter with Mr. Forman, and for a few years she assumed this was the way all men thought of women: as the reason humanity was cast out of paradise, as inconsiderate children who must be punished regularly, as the objects of men's disappointment.

As she gained reason with age, she grew to understand that only the most devout Christians felt this way about women, and it was on this topic that she focused her academic mind. She was curious to find out why Christian men had such an innate disdain for women, beyond the simple explanation that it was written into the Bible, and she became anxious to end that mode of thinking if at all possible. She began to study every Christian and conservative sect and mode of thought she could find, believing they were all simply new ways to hate women. Pro-life activism, the drive to defund Planned Parenthood, to protect the supposed sanctity of heterosexual marriage, to enact stricter voter identification requirements, and several other movements were all simply ways for men to maintain control over women, in Karen's mind.

As she sat at her computer, considering ways she could use her pregnancy to draw attention to the double standard that existed in Christianity, she began to think that what she was doing was much bigger than just a dissertation. For the first time in her life, she began to feel that she could do something that changed the way people thought, something that could have impact beyond the insulated world of academia.

Her initial idea, as she'd told Tanya, was to have the child and publicly give it to a gay couple who was seeking to adopt. This would very clearly outrage the religious right, and she was more than happy to be the cause of that outrage, but she realized that the idea wouldn't uncover any new hypocrisy in the church. It was already widely known that Christians viewed homosexuality as an abomination, and although they sought to protect every unborn child, they condemned those same children if they grew into anything other than heterosexual Christians. Her first plan would shed no new light on this subject.

She searched the Internet for statistics about percentages of gay and straight couples who were actively trying to adopt a child as compared to percentages of couples who were granted the ability to adopt on a per capita basis. There was clearly a double standard, but again this felt like old news. Karen understood that one more log on that fire wouldn't make it burn bright enough to draw much new attention.

Searching for other statistics, she found that of the 314 million citizens of the United States, 51 percent described themselves as pro-life. The number was shocking to Karen, who assumed it would have been much lower, but it began to give her an idea. If there were 157 million Americans who would honestly claim that saving a child's life was a moral imperative for them, then there had to be some way she could force them to prove this claim or be revealed as hypocrites.

After teaching a class later that afternoon, an idea came to Karen as she was driving home. It might be the best idea she would ever have, the idea she would be known for academically for the rest of her life. If executed properly, she knew, it would garner attention far beyond her supervisor and the PhD board. It could make national news, maybe even global. After thinking through some possible outcomes of her plan, she realized that some of them frightened her. The outcome that frightened her most was the one she most hoped for. For that reason, she
knew she had to carry it out—and that she would have to remain anonymous in her efforts.

So, without consulting Paul, the father of her unborn child, Karen turned her car around and drove back to campus. She entered one of the public computer labs there so that what she was about to do couldn't be traced back to her personal computer. She sat down and began to craft a rudimentary website. The website was a single page of text that read:

I am a twenty-six-year-old female. The direction in which this country is headed, in terms of its treatment of women, is deplorable, and I feel is due in large part to the influence of the religious right in the guise of the pro-life movement. In an effort to expose the hypocrisy in that movement, I would like to extend the following public challenge to the 157 million Americans who identify as supporters of the pro-life ideology.

I'm currently eight weeks pregnant. I live in a state that allows me up until the end of the second trimester of my pregnancy to decide whether or not I want to have this baby. At the bottom of this page you'll see a link for donations. If the donations reach 100 million dollars by the end of my second trimester, then I'll have the baby, give it up for adoption, and every cent of that 100 million dollars will be put in a trust fund to be released to the child when he or she turns twenty-one. I'll keep none of the money for myself, so if I am to be vilified in this process, it can't be for that. If the 100 million dollar goal is not met by the end of my second trimester, any and all donations that were received will be refunded, and I will have an abortion. Mathematically this means that every pro-life American only needs to donate about 64 cents to save this child's life.

What I aim to prove in doing this is that the conservative movement in America doesn't actually care about the life of
a child. They care about controlling the lives and decisions of women.

As Karen typed the last period, she looked over her shoulder to see if anyone near her might have been paying attention to what she was typing. She realized her paranoia was unwarranted, but the possible ramifications of what she was doing seemed so enormous to her that she could already feel their weight. She read over what she had written, and without publishing the page live onto the Internet, she saved it to a USB storage device, which she unplugged and dropped in her purse. Then she purged the computer workstation of any evidence of her project and left the computer lab. As she walked back across campus to her car, all she could think about was the storage device in her purse. She felt almost as though she were smuggling drugs across a border or carrying a loaded weapon in public. She told herself that she'd think about this for a few days before making it live. Once she put this out in the world, she knew, there was no taking it back, and once again she was scared.

James entered one
of the meeting rooms of Woodstone Church a few minutes before seven on a Thursday night. At the end of the prior Sunday's service, Pastor Preston mentioned to the entire congregation that he would be holding the inaugural meeting of a new proactive outreach group he had decided to name the Anointed. He explained that his goal for this outreach group was to be as involved in the community as possible, and to help spread the word of Christ to nonbelievers through action. He extended an open invitation to anyone who wanted to know more.

James took a seat along with a few other people, only one of whom he recognized from church, in a small grouping of chairs directly in front of Pastor Preston. Pastor Preston looked at his watch and said, “Okay, folks, thanks for coming out tonight. It does my heart good to see that there's real interest in helping spread the word. So many Christians think they can come to
church on Sunday and that'll make them right with God, but real Christians know you have to praise his name every day, all day. And let's not forget that all of you are here tonight because it's part of God's plan. He wants you here just as much as you want to be here, or you wouldn't be here at all. Keep that in mind as we proceed tonight. So again, thanks for coming tonight. Now, before I get into the nitty-gritty of what this is all about, I thought we could go around and say a little about ourselves. Just because we all worship at the same church doesn't necessarily mean we know each other. To get the ball rolling, I'll start. I'm Pastor Gary Preston. I first heard my calling when I was just a little boy, and now I'm fulfilling it here at Woodstone. God has blessed me with four lovely children, twelve, eight, four, and seven months, and a beautiful wife. And all of them have their own deeply personal relationships with Jesus Christ. When I'm not here at the church, I like to golf and watch KU football. Go Jayhawks. Other than that, I'm just humbled every day by the beauty that my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, bestows upon me.”

With that, Pastor Preston nodded to the man seated to his left, indicating that he should speak next. The man said, “Hello, everyone. I'm Phil Hagerman. I've been coming to Woodstone for about a year now, I guess. Me and my family—wife and six-year-old daughter—moved here for my job, and a few of our neighbors recommended this place. So far we like it a lot, and I just thought I'd get more involved, seeing as how we're trying to be better Christians and set a good example for our daughter now that she's getting a little older and dealing with other kids at school, who are, you know, not really Christian. It's just kind of scary, you know? There's a kid in one of her classes who's Hindu or something. I just want to make sure I'm doing everything I can to keep her safe.”

The world was a scary place, filled with countless potential evil influences and life-threatening situations. The only way to avoid these things was to accept Jesus Christ as your personal
savior and pray to him for protection and guidance. The price of gas, putting food on the table for your family, and when your wife would next allow you to have sex with her were the only things worth worrying about. Although contraception was a sin, the consideration of being able to properly financially support the endeavor of bringing a child into the world warranted using it. No one should have more children than they were financially capable of caring for. People who did were one of the chief reasons America was in such turmoil. He hoped God would help America, but he knew better than to question his motives for initiating the current state of affairs. These were things that Phil understood to be true.

Pastor Preston said, “Very good, Phil. Glad to have you out tonight.” He nodded to the man sitting next to Paul. “What about you?”

The man said, “My name's Brad Fine. I have two children, both grown and out of the house. Uh, this next part is still kind of fresh and hard to talk about, but I feel I'm among friends here, so . . . I'm newly divorced, and I've recently come back to the church after a long time away. I kind of figured out that the reason my marriage was having so much trouble was that I was having so much trouble spiritually. I wish it didn't have to end the way it did, but I understand God has a plan, and I don't question it. If it took the end of one relationship to repair my relationship with God, then I'm thankful. Now I'm just looking to throw myself into Christ, and do everything I can to show him that I'll never turn my back on him again.”

Although there was no positive, concrete evidence of his existence, God was very real. It was this absence of evidence that made faith such a difficult thing to adhere to, but it's also what made it so powerful and personal. Even though God never intervened in human affairs, he was constantly watching and judging, so that everything a person did, no matter how small, was noted and cataloged for the final day of judgment, when all
souls would be granted access to heaven or condemned to spend eternity in hell. Science had its place, but only as a supplement to faith, only where technology could enhance our understanding of the spiritual world. Sexual intercourse was a gift that was given to us by God Himself to be shared between a loving man and wife. The perversion of this act, when engaged in without love, without commitment, or between two people of the same gender, led to spiritual ruin. Children were God's way of letting a small piece of our spirits live on after we are called back to heaven. These were things that Brad understood to be true.

Pastor Preston said, “Brad, it means a great deal that you're willing to be so open with us here and now—and not just to me, but to Christ.” Pastor Preston got up from his chair and patted Brad on the shoulder, then said, “And how about you?” nodding to James.

James explained that he was single, with no children, and that he was still waiting for God to deliver into his life the soul mate he knew was out there somewhere, waiting for God to bring James into her life. He said that he wasn't in a hurry, because he knew God had a plan, and part of that was understanding patience. He went on to say that he had never heard the sound of God's voice, that God had never spoken to him, but he knew that meant he just needed to listen harder, and that's why he was there. He felt that every act he could do in God's name would bring him one step closer to hearing his voice.

Pastor Preston said, “Well, James, that certainly is a very thoughtful and, um, personal introduction. Thank you. Let's keep going.”

The woman next to James said, “Hi, everybody. I'm Brenda Tammer. I've been spiritual all my life, and I've always felt like I had a really great relationship with Christ, but my family is a different story. My husband and my kids, I mean, all they do is watch TV and play video games. I just really want them to have what I have with Christ, you know? I mean, it's the greatest feel
ing in the world to be that loved and to know that he's there with you in everything. I just want them to have that. So when I saw the flyer for this group in the hallway last Sunday, I kind of felt like maybe instead of trying to force a stronger relationship with Christ on my family, I should strengthen my own and show them what they're missing.”

Jesus Christ was the best man who had ever lived. He was perfect in every way, and unyielding faith in him was the only way to heaven. But while on Earth, a relationship with him was the most fruitful and fulfilling relationship a person could have, and it would strengthen all other relationships in a person's life if they allowed it. Christ had the power to do anything, but he left it up to people to make their own choices and come to him of their own free will. Scientific endeavors and matters of academia were things that the average person had no business thinking about. Sex was something that could have dire consequences if the participants weren't right with God before they engaged in the act. Ideally, sex should only happen within the context of marriage, but sex outside marriage was acceptable as long as the people involved intended to marry at some point in the near future. Having a child was a blessing from Christ himself. Children were magical and to be protected at all costs. The best way to protect them was to introduce them to Jesus Christ. These were things that Brenda understood to be true.

Pastor Preston said, “I think it's great that you're taking it upon yourself to help your family get closer to God. Really great. Thanks for coming tonight. And how about yourself?” Pastor Preston indicated the next person in the group, an older woman.

She said, “I'm Gail Lafleur. Honestly, I haven't been involved with this church or any other church for a while. I, um, got some bad news earlier this year, that my dad was diagnosed with cancer, and I've been taking care of him for the past few months, and I've started to feel much more in touch with spiritual things. I've been coming to Woodstone a few days a week to services, and
that's been helping me a lot. So I thought I'd see if coming to something like this could help me even more. That's about it.”

Life was so complex, and filled with so many conflicting emotions and thoughts, that there certainly had to be some kind of God who created it all. And each human soul was too precious to end in death. There had to be something more—a heaven, a hell, maybe reincarnation, just something more. Everyone deserved to see the people they loved in life again after death. While medical science had certainly advanced enough to prolong lives, it never really saved anyone. All people died, and science would never be able to stop that from happening, so before you died it was a very good idea to let God know that you put your faith in him. Sex was something that could be engaged in for a wide variety of reasons, and in a wide variety of circumstances, none of which would prohibit you from going to heaven. As long as you were a good person, you would get in. These were things that Gail understood to be true.

Pastor Preston said, “As we begin to see our loved ones near their time to journey back into God's glorious kingdom, sometimes it reminds us that we need to be a little more aware of God ourselves. I'm happy to have you here tonight.” Pastor Preston nodded to a man sitting next to Gail and said, “And I know this next great guy here, but no one else does, so tell us about yourself, please.”

The man seated next to Gail said, “I do indeed know the good Pastor here, because I'm a pastor myself over at Forrest View—Pastor Jacobs. You can call me Ron. I've been a pastor there for almost seven years. I have a wife and two sons, who I love like Christ loves me—unconditionally, unless they get out of line, and then I show them wrath just like God does me. Just kidding. Just a joke. Anyway, I know that Jesus wants me to be the best pastor I can be, and I really think that means being as involved as I can be in as many Christlike things as I can be. So I try to stay active in as many different church groups as I can,
especially groups outside my own church. I think you can lose sight of being a good Christian if you get locked into your own little spot, and you forget that there are other Christians outside your church who might do things a little differently. Anyway, I just want to help as much as I can, and when Pastor Preston told me he was starting up this group, I told him he could count on me to be here. So here I am.”

Every person on the planet who has ever lived or would ever live had a calling from Jesus Christ and his father, God Almighty. Following that calling to the best of your ability would lead to eternity in paradise. Ignoring that calling to engage in personal pursuits was a sin punishable by eternal damnation. Science that was more complex than things like phones, televisions, cars, and other functional technologies that aided in daily life was clearly indulged in by people who were ignoring their callings. The primary function of sex was obviously reproduction, and it was something that only a man and wife should engage in, but once the man had his wife, he alone dictated everything that happened in the sexual relationship. No matter how depraved an act might seem, his wife had no choice but to obey her husband and grant him every demand, as long as it involved no other partners or outright denunciations of Christ. These were things that Pastor Jacobs understood to be true.

Pastor Preston patted Pastor Jacobs on the back and said, “It's great to have you here, Ron. Thanks for coming. And, last but not least, who do we have here?” Pastor Preston looked at a young woman sitting in the final chair.

She said, “I'm Catherine Hobart. My friends call me Cathy. I'm twenty. I currently attend Allen Community College, where I'm the president of our local Intervarsity group. As president, I've taken it upon myself to be as involved as I can be with my church and really lead by example for the other Christian students in my Intervarsity group. Tonight I thought I'd see what this is all
about, and if you don't mind, maybe I could bring some other students to the next meeting?”

God granted all children the unmatched gift of being clean from sin at birth. It was up to those children, as they grew up, to keep themselves clean. And if a child could avoid sinning until death, or at least avoid committing too many sins and sincerely repent before death, then he or she would go to heaven. There were certain unforgivable sins, including murder, rape, and sex before marriage, that no amount of repenting would erase. Children were sacred. Having a child and introducing that child to Jesus Christ was the most important thing a woman could do in her life. It was what God made women to do. Science and the contemplation of things like the origin of the universe were wastes of time and human resources. The world would be much better off without science. These were things that Catherine understood to be true.

Once everyone was introduced, Pastor Preston said, “It's good to see we've got hope for the next generation through Christ. All right, everyone, thank you from the bottom of my soul for coming here tonight. I'm sure you're all wondering what exactly this group is all about. So where to start? I suppose we should start with the name. I'm calling this group the Anointed. Does anyone here know what that means?” No one made any indication that they did.