Full Text of the Excerpt

VIVION LENON BREWER:

Well, I had grown up . . . My mother was a staunch Baptist, and I went to church every time the doors opened, and I was really a leader in the young group at the church, in what they called the Baptist Young People's Union. I taught Sunday school; I went to church. When I was twelve years old, a minister came and stayed at our home, had a revival. And through pressure from him, I joined the church and was baptized, and I've often thought of what happens to young people in religious organizations, because I am convinced I had what amounted to a sort of fit.

ELIZABETH JACOWAY:

Oh?

VIVION LENON BREWER:

You know, you lose your own mental powers. You're completely under [unclear] control . . . A sort of brainwashing, if you want to call it that. But at any rate, I did, and, until I went to college, I was extremely active in the church. At college one of my very favorite courses was "The Bible as Literature." I learned a great deal from it, and I was appalled to think that, until that time, I really hadn't known what was in the Bible.

ELIZABETH JACOWAY:

(Laughs)

VIVION LENON BREWER:

And so the members of the church learned that I was enjoying the Bible as literature (laughed) and not verbatim, and they sent a committee to see me and asked me not to come to church anymore because I would be a very bad influence on the young people.

ELIZABETH JACOWAY:

You know what happens when you send girls off to those schools. (Laughs)

VIVION LENON BREWER:

(Laughs) So I didn't go back to church. But then the thing that really turned me against the church was, I had gone to work, you see, then, and they would each month come to me and ask me for a contribution, but they didn't want me in the church. (Laughs)