Another day and yet another reminder of Evangelicals and their fear of female mammary glands. Today’s story comes from cool, hip, loaded-with-cash Steven Furtick and his monument to Evangelical excess, Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. Last Sunday, a woman who has been attending Elevation Church since 2015 was discreetly breastfeeding her baby when a church volunteer asked her to leave the auditorium and go to the designated — exposed breasts allowed — baby feeding area.
The Charlotte Observer reports:
A group of mothers who breastfeed plan to stage a “Nurse-In” during Sunday worship at Charlotte’s Elevation Church this month to show support for a South Carolina woman who said she was asked to leave the church’s sanctuary because she was breastfeeding her baby.
Last Sunday, Amanda Zilliken of Lancaster, S.C., sent out a Facebook post saying, “I just got kicked out of church for breastfeeding with a cover on and directed to the bathroom. … Shame on you elevation.”
Her Facebook post, which also featured a photo of the bathroom at Elevation’s Ballantyne campus, has since been shared by more than 1,500 people.
On Wednesday, Zilliken, a 29-year-old stay-at-home mom, told the Observer that she “definitely” plans to participate in the “Nurse-In.” But it’s up in the air whether she’ll decide to continue as a regular at Elevation, a church she’d driven an hour to attend most Sundays since 2015.
As much as I love hearing the word of God from Pastor Steven (Furtick) … I’m not sure at this time if I’ll feel comfortable going back because of the way this was handled,” she said. “If anything difficult arises (at Elevation), they try to hush it up.”
Elevation Church said in a statement: “We do not have a policy that nursing mothers can’t be in the sanctuary. A volunteer had a conversation and felt both parties arrived at the same conclusion to exit mutually. We are sorry that this in any way offended anyone. We welcome everyone and anyone to attend Elevation church.”
Elevation, one of the fastest growing churches in the country, draws more than 20,000 worshipers to its nine Charlotte-area sites every weekend. Furtick, who launched the Southern Baptist church with wife Holly and seven other couples in 2006, speaks most Sundays in person at the Ballantyne campus. At the other sites, he’s on screen.
Zilliken said she did last Sunday what she’s always done since the birth of her youngest child, Idamae, who’s now 4 months old and breastfeeding. Zilliken said she dropped off her two other children – ages 5 and 4 – at the church’s eKidz child-care area. Then she went to the church auditorium’s second floor, headed for the last row and took the seat nearest the door. From there, she thought, she could quickly exit in case Idamae caused any disturbance during the service.
As she’s done many times before, Zilliken said, she then waited until Furtick’s sermon to begin breastfeeding “so she’s quiet.”
That’s when a volunteer approached her, Zilliken said, turned on a flashlight in the dark auditorium and asked that Zilliken follow her to the “mother’s area.”
“It embarrassed me, and drew people’s attention,” said Zilliken, who was led to a restroom to finish her 20-minutes of breastfeeding. “To take me to the mother’s restroom was totally unacceptable, humiliating – and illegal.”
The volunteer returned to the restroom to inform her she could go back to her seat “when you’re done,” Zilliken said.
But Zilliken said she was so upset by then, crying and angry, that she left after sharing her feelings with other staff members at Elevation. She said they were “unsympathetic” even though they agreed the volunteer should not have pulled her out of the service.
“I drive an hour to this church … and I missed the whole sermon,” she said. Zilliken cited laws that allow women to breastfeed in public and said she saw no one in the church complain about her quietly feeding her baby, with a cover, in the dark.
And yet, Zilliken said, the volunteer told her, “Honey, you have to understand that my job as a volunteer is to make sure everyone is comfortable, not just you.”
Elevation added in its statement: “We have several designated areas for nursing moms at Ballantyne specifically – one private to allow pumping and it’s close to the auditorium for convenience and the other in the actual baby area with a TV to allow mothers to still be part of the worship experience.”
….
What drives this irrational fear of female breasts? Notice what the volunteer told the offending woman, “Honey, you have to understand that my job as a volunteer is to make sure everyone is comfortable, not just you.” There ya have it. Someone in the church might be offended by seeing her breast — a supposedly God-given gland used to feed precious little Christian babies — and if it is a man, he might not be able to contain his sexual urges. Once again, a woman is punished because some men are unable to keep their minds on the sermon.
Don’t think for a moment that this volunteer was acting on her own. It is clear, at least to me, that nursing mothers who attend Elevation Church are expected to feed their babies in rooms other than the auditorium. Steven Furtick would have had to sign off on such a rule, so the blame, in the end, rests with him. Furtick needs to make a clear, unambiguous statement that states women are free to nurse their children in the auditorium during church services. And those who are “offended?” Grow Up, and start acting like adults.
The underlying purpose of evangelical zeal is to emotionally masturbate in the presence of others. This takes on various and sundry forms, depending on the individual harm in a person. Some just want to love everybody to death, please all the people for Jeezus and some want to correct the livin’ bejeebers right out of you! It all serves the fundamental purpose, getting your rocks off, so to speak, orgasms in the aisles.
Listen to the ‘music’ in the successful charismatic preacher’s words. Furtick speaks fast and always stays on the move. His masturbation is much loved and he has lots of locations and offering-givers. The fact that very real problems get swept-under on the highway to heaven is only normal evangelical policy at work. People seem to seek Denial to manage their own pain. Preaching or being a church usher/guard are fine roles for the one needing Denial. The young reverend and his wife have built themselves a plus six thousand foot mansion on 19 wooded acres to the tune of a million and a half or more. It is the blessing. Meanwhile, the devil is lurking around and causing women to undress in his church. Somebody had to act! Now Satan is telling other breastfeeders to embarrass the dear rev by acting out in God’s holy sanctuary… Imagine, all those breasts naked and being sucked. What man of God wouldn’t be tempted to sin! Oh dear oh dear… Is there no common decency anymore?
(Just how coo-coo do you like it? There are just so many flavors to choose from in the U.S. of A.)
I feel sorry for the woman who was harassed for doing what any good mother would have done.
At the same time, I find it very ironic that the best argument–as much as it pains me to say this–for breast-feeding is a religious one: God gave her the breasts to feed the baby God gave her.
Of course, the scientific and medical arguments for breast-feeding are pretty convincing, too.
When will people get it through rock hard heads not to shame women for breastfeeding? How about not shaming in general?
Like 1000s of women, I b/f my babies in many public places and with the use of a shawl or cardigan we were completely discreet. No one would have seen anything to embarrass them, if they were that way inclined. The wonderful J K Rowling tweeted in response to trolls who called her a whore and ‘a synonym for a vulva’. She said ‘being female is not a design flaw’. I hope that b/feeding women stage a mass b/feeding demo around his church, or better still inside it. That’s what happened at a museum in the UK when it threw a woman out as she b/fed!
1. Who is going to see a mother breast feeding in a darkened auditorium? Which brings me to another beef: why in the world do these churches darken their worship space? Too many of there look like a flipping night club rather than a sanctuary.
2. If a breast feeding mother offends you, turn your head. Don’t look.
3. She drove an hour to go to this church. Find somewhere closer where you can get involved. I pastored a small church and I had one member that drove an hour to get there on Sundays. The only thing he did other than come on Sunday morning was to be on the Board and he tried to make my life hell. Don’t drive long distances to church unless that’s the closest one.
4. Stop supporting churches that make the pastor an idol. For a time, the children’s church had a coloring book that featured Furtick. These churches, which are usually male dominated, make the pastor out to be the greatest thing since Jesus. No one preaches like them. Right.
I am ALL for women being able to feed their babies anywhere they need to. However, I’m not sure the laws the woman found would be admissible in court, seeing as Church & State are kept separate. Being a member of a church since I was born, this situation is difficult to come to a one sided answer. It is a church, and congregants of churches come from all different aspects of life. There very well could be drug addicts, child molesters, even RAPISTS in the congregation. It is SO much more then people being ‘adults’ and paying attention to the sermon. The church allows anyone to come, just as they are. It could be a rapists first day in a church and one of the first things he sees is some woman’s breasts. Whether she is feeding her child or playing with her nipples, it could be a huge disaster especially if said rapist is not in the right frame of mind and he hasn’t even given himself over to God yet. I know that’s a long shot but again, it’s a church and God willing there are people in bad ways that are looking to Him to change their lives and get on the right course. Churches even have rules where people who get slain in the spirit have to get blankets laid over their legs just Incase their skirt or dress flies up. It’s all precaution. Churches try to make sure everyone is comfortable, just like the volunteer said. It’s difficult but something that may need to be done.
You are kidding, right? Surely, you are fucking kidding. Naw, you really believe, as many Evangelicals so, that it’s up to women to cover their breasts while feeding their child lest drug addicts, child molesters, and RAPISTS get a hard-on and not listen to the sermon.
You do know that rape is about power, not sex, right? You do know that not even God himself can change rapists and child molesters, right?
I find it interesting that you think the goal is to make sure “everyone is comfortable,” yet “everyone” doesn’t include nursing mothers. Oh no, Gawd forbid that weak, pathetic Christian horn dogs get a glimpse of a woman’s breast and go into cardiac arrest. How about these men own their sexuality and be held accountable for their behavior? And if they can’t act like decent human beings, how about banning them from church?
Dude, you are just another pathetic man blaming women for your lack of self-control. Grow the fuck up.
And yes, your comment is patently offensive. That you would ever think it’s okay to utter these words out loud speaks volumes about you and your warped understanding of women, breastfeeding, and even Christianity itself.
Well said Bruce.
Thank you Bruce.
Michael. Honestly, your issue is with your God. Take it up with him for giving women breasts that feed their young. What the hell was your God thinking?
Let me encourage you to do some research and think for yourself. Rapists don’t rape because of nipples.