Have You Heard the One About the Religious Woman Who Stops Being Religious in College?

Nov 17, 2012 12:50 PM
Mallory Ortberg

In my final year of attending a Christian sports camp in rural Missouri, the year before I started high school, they began to offer an elective Bible study group for young Christians who wanted a chance to read in the afternoons instead of learn to water-ski. The leader was a very kind, very impassioned man with a bristling chestnut mustache. He spent an hour every day for three weeks drawing the geographic conditions that led to the Flood and charting out the life spans of the Patriarchs on an old whiteboard for a group of prepubescent Christian nerds. I thought he was the most compelling person in the world. He had everything I could possibly aspire to have: a masterful command of the Bible, a deep and abiding love of God, a pleasant speaking voice, a dry-erase marker, a captivated audience.

One afternoon, on a bus ride to Branson (a highly anticipated reward for final-year campers), the two of us fell to talking and I ended up confessing my admiration to him. I spoke of how much I loved writing and spirited discussions and studying the Bible; I spoke of my hopes of someday becoming a pastor or a Christian author like some of my other family members. He looked grave. He also looked a great deal like Ned Flanders, something I don't think a lot of the other campers noticed because most of them were not allowed to watch the Simpsons.

"Mallory," he said, "I know you are a strong woman of God." So far, so good. "I know you are very gifted, very intelligent." He paused and wiped his glasses. "I think this impulse you have to – wield authority – over others, over men – comes from the Devil." He said it kindly; he was not angry with me but concerned.

"Ah," I said. Something to consider.

http://gawker.com/5959784/have-you-heard-the-one-about-the-religious-woman-who-stops-being-religious-in-college