Rift Quotes

“When I tell my story, some Christians will say, ‘That wasn't really Christian. Your church wasn't really Christian.’ It's easier to call my story an anomaly than to face the reality that Christians have caused both great good and great harm. But that only perpetuates the problem, and the harm. Instead I wish they would say, ‘That was wrong.’ I wish they could acknowledge how they are tied to a broader group of people, that they would seek accountability and justice instead of washing their hands clean of the so-called bad apples.”
― Cait West, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

“Everything from birth control to condoms to IVF would have been immoral in the world I grew up in. They all resemble an attempt to play God, to take control over our bodies, our fertility, the number of our children. … A woman who tried to control her own body was a woman who hated families, hated herself, hated God.”
― Cait West, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

“Patriarchy thrives anywhere men are praised for their will to dominate – and Christian patriarchy blesses this pursuit of earthly power by imagining it's a heavenly duty. Like abuse, Christian patriarchy, at its core, is about power and control – at any cost.”
― Cait West, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

“For a long time after leaving the Christian patriarchy movement, I still went to church, wanting to hold on to a divinity that loves me, while throwing away all that has harmed me. But the very experience of being inside a church building, interacting with people who seem to have no problems with church and no questions about God, became too much for me.”
― Cait West, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

“I was raised on a fundamentalism that kept me thinking in binaries. We were ‘us,’ and the world was ‘them.’ You were either evil or good; There was no fence-sitting.”
― Cait West, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

“He was a reader of our diaries, a listener to our phone calls. He controlled every aspect of our lives. He found a home in the Christian patriarchy movement because that justified this control. Perhaps authoritarianism was the outcome of his own anxiety or insecurity. Maybe he would have joined any group if it meant he could be in charge.”
― Cait West, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

“The truth is patriarchy forces conformity. It relies on hierarchy and oppression to survive. The men at the top benefit, and everyone else is left trying to get close to power. The enablers are often girls and women who unknowingly believe their safety relies on obeying the rules that a society made by men has created for them, rules of behavior and clothing, of outward appearances. We teach each other how to behave.”
― Cait West, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

“The Dutch community in West Michigan has managed to squeeze a nation-sized ego into a few small towns huddled next to the lakeshore. Being blunt is a virtue here. David’s grandfather would often say, ‘If you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much.”
― Cait West, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

“According to Dad, I was a rebellious, sinful, disobedient feminist – the worst insult he could imagine. I've grown up hearing things like feminists want to be free from the family, feminists destroy families.

I worried that it might be true, that I was killing my family.”
― Cait West, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

“I had been told so many times that I needed to submit to my father no matter what, that I mistook his abuse and control over my life for love.”
― Cait West, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

“On Facebook and blogs, I found stories of homeschoolers who had survived abuse. Reading their stories was like reading my own.”
― Cait West, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

“I didn't know what to do when I found out that spiritual abuse was using God and the Bible to control someone, that my father had shamed me into submission by telling me I was sinful if I made decisions for myself.”
― Cait West, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

“I'd had my own laptop for a couple of years by then, and I could access the internet. Before, I wouldn't have dared to look up my questions online. I only used the computer to write stories for myself, to post articles about home schooling and teaching piano on a freelance writers’ website, and to write a blog under a pseudonym about my life in Hawai’i.

But one night I opened up Google and started searching.

Slowly words surfaced, coalescing into a description of my reality: control, authoritarianism, manipulation, coercion, abuse.”
― Cait West, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

“I didn't know how contraceptives really worked, much less sex, but I had been taught birth control was an arrogant way to manipulate God's design. I had heard that to think you could stop God from giving you a baby was ridiculous. Even if you took the pill, you'd get pregnant if God wanted you to.”
― Cait West, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

“My father became the center of my life – everything I did had to meet his approval. I moved freely only within the boundaries he’d created.”
― Cait West, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

“Dad said the scriptures were inerrant – perfect. God gave men special knowledge. I was a girl, so my job was to listen to their wisdom in interpreting it.

I had been taught this so often that it became my only way of seeing myself: as a woman I would always be a helper to a man.”
― Cait West, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

“We visited Baptist churches, Assemblies of God, nondenominational services, and Calvary Chapel. If a woman was preaching, my father would walk us out.”
― Cait West, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

“When Matthew’s letters came in the mail, my father would open them and read them first, to make sure there was nothing inappropriate or overly emotional in them.”
― Cait West, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

“My father would make me try on clothes for him to approve, and he would often scan my body, look over my shoulder down at my top, check my him and neckline to ensure I was covered, my curves unseen, my skin hidden.”
― Cait West, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

“Cover up. This was one of the first rules I learned.”
― Cait West, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

“I am calling this a movement because Christian patriarchy is an ideology that cuts across many Protestant denominations. Some might call it a cult, a high-control group ruled by hierarchy and oppression.”
― Cait West, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy