Fundamentalism

A quiet triumph — Writer/Director Laurel Parmet makes her feature debut with The Starling Girl, a vulnerable and personal story of a young woman growing up in a fundamentalist Christian household in Kentucky who develops feelings for her youth pastor. Taking a deeply naturalistic approach without any kind of narration or judgment of the…

My religion is the right one Your religion is wrong My God is bigger than yours My dog is my therapy My tears are my daily bread There are lessons not to be forgotten My skin has different seasons Grasses are green and clean in the north They are sad and angry in the south Numbers are hard to keep in my head This subway has no hope There’s no way out Bullets are crossing us They have no discrimination One was gone A cloud of dust makes me feel untrue to myself The economy has many lips these days There’s no time for laughter.

May heaven come upon us there is only animosity a stone on the table, a silver tear an instant, an instant. May the inferno come upon us gone with the wind there is only animosity not but a prayer. I am nothing but a blood-stained complexion. May life come upon us a child, Possessed by the devil for it is written, torn, tear-stained.

Over the years, many have questioned, given the level of control the Holdeman church exercises over members’ lives, thoughts, and emotions, is the organization a cult? Many hesitate to apply that label to any organization, because it is often used as an arbitrarily applied insult for groups one disagrees with. …