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Re: Ronna Russell Book
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sherri
Has anyone read Ronna (Fisher) Russell’s new book on her abuse as a pastor’s kid growing up? 😳 I gather it’s slamming her UPC heritage just from the stuff I saw online. Her dad married us and was one of our favorite teachers at JCM before he walked away from his family, God, and all he’d ever known.
My childhood in UPC was so different. I don’t feel like I was abused, weird, mistreated, or misguided. It’s not what I’m a part of now, but I cherish it nonetheless.
Just wondered if anyone had read it and what you thought. I did order it just because that family was very dear to me, including Ronna and her sisters.
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Sherri,
There is already a thread here about the book. I bought the kindle version and at first thought Amazon had downloaded the wrong book as chapter one is totally pornographic. Which explained why in a video clip I saw of her reading an except from the book she wisely chose chapter 2.
I just remember her as a shy young girl and it breaks my heart to see where she is at in life as a non believer in God, etc. I can't help but wonder if her recollections are somewhat skewed by the trauma of her father leaving the ministry and enbracing a gay lifestyle then dying of AIDS. Like her I grew up in the UPC and have many, many, many disagreements with it's traditions, doctrines, etc but NEVER have I felt traumatized by it's teachings as she and a few others have. I could understand it better if she had been at some places but her years in Jackson were not at a church where hellfire and damnation was the focus. There was the typical UPC dress code but the focus was not on that. I found it a refreshingly positive enviroment.
I thought the world of her dad and family. I was so upset those many years ago when I heard what Don Fisher had done I literally had a dream where i confronted him about it. Despite how he ended up he had a very big impact on my life and I know many others at JCM. His life and ministry was not in vain.
__________________
"I think some people love spiritual bondage just the way some people love physical bondage. It makes them feel secure. In the end though it is not healthy for the one who is lost over it or the one who is lives under the oppression even if by their own choice"
Titus2woman on AFF
"We did not wear uniforms. The lady workers dressed in the current fashions of the day, ...silks...satins...jewels or whatever they happened to possess. They were very smartly turned out, so that they made an impressive appearance on the streets where a large part of our work was conducted in the early years.
"It was not until long after, when former Holiness preachers had become part of us, that strict plainness of dress began to be taught.
"Although Entire Sanctification was preached at the beginning of the Movement, it was from a Wesleyan viewpoint, and had in it very little of the later Holiness Movement characteristics. Nothing was ever said about apparel, for everyone was so taken up with the Lord that mode of dress seemingly never occurred to any of us."
Quote from Ethel Goss (widow of 1st UPC Gen Supt. Howard Goss) book "The Winds of God"
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