Deborah 13: Servant of God

BBC Three recently aired a documentary film by Linda Bruscasco that follows the life of a young girl brought up in an evangelical Christian home in rural Britain. Deborah and her nine brothers and sisters are growing up in an isolated house in Dorset where their home-schooled existence leaves them cut off from most of the rest of the world, with the exception of Deborah’s “outings” to preach to other teens about hellfire and damnation.

As I was watching the first twenty minutes of the film I found myself waning back and forth about the quality of Deborah’s life. Her inability to identify Britney Spears and Victoria Beckham elicited a moment of envy, and her incredibly bright mind and eagerness for learning made me sympathetic to the desires of her parents to raise her without the corroding influences of our modern culture.

But it wasn’t long before the cracks in the system began to show.

Debbie believes herself to be the property of her father, until such time as she is given to her husband. She refers to the sexually active as “used goods” (as if people are, again, merchandise). Her knowledge of the universe is painfully distorted by creationist non-science, and her devotion to Christianity stems from a deeply rooted terror of damnation and eternal punishment. He cringes at the thought of hell and is brought to tears toward the end of the film by the prospect of Jesus dying for such a wretched and unworthy person such as herself. They’re not tears of joy. They are tears of guilt and terror at her own evil nature.

The psychological implications of such a world-view should be immediately apparent. Deborah alternates between the sedating joy of her salvation, and the self-loathing and self-degradation that comes with the belief that she is fundamentally flawed, wicked and depraved. The facade of the charmed life collapses under the weight of parentally-inflicted brainwashing and guilt induced religious indoctrination.

When Deborah ventures out for a few days with her brother in University, the tension rises. And indeed, the contrast between her quiet, distanced existence in Dorset and the hedonistic chaos of Buxton comes to a head when a drunken teenage girl asks her group if anyone wants to sign her breasts. You can’t help but wince at the polarity, but at the same time I had to wonder if Deborah was, once again, again getting a skewed view of the world.

It is painful to hear the regurgitation of deluded and distorted views of science, the continual stream of condemnation for even the slightest of sins, and the sheltered half-existence of societal isolation. But most of all, it’s painful to watch the tears and sobbing of a girl so young, who will likely never escape the guilt and despair of believing that she is a wicked, condemned, and ultimately undeserving Servant of God.

Watch Deborah 13: Servant of God

Advertisement