I haven’t written for quite awhile, so I’ve decided to jump right in and talk about one of the two taboos: religion. I’m not very religious anymore, but I am by no means an atheist or even agnostic. I’m quite spiritual and consider myself to be very open minded. I’m wary of anything that claims to have a monopoly on absolute truth.
I need to begin at the beginning. This will take several entries.
I was adopted (at birth) into a fairly conservative Christian family and I don’t have any problems with that. It’s my history and part of what has made me the way I am today. The first church I remember attending was a CMA (Christian Missionary Alliance) church. I think it’s moderately conservative in the Protestant spectrum, although my family only attended there until I was almost five years old. Then we moved. Over the next two years, I went to school at a private school run by the Assemblies of God (which is basically über-conservative) and we attended a Baptist church occasionally, which is also on the right-hand side in the Protestant denominations. Through the end of kindergarten, I went to church and Sunday school, attended a Christian school, and watched ample amounts of Bible cartoons. Then we moved again.
It was the church we moved to afterwards that I stayed at until I was 22. Then the shit hit the fan. But I’m going to talk about the intervening years first because there’s a lot to tell. This church was a non-denominational one, which means it’s once again pretty far to the right of the Christian spectrum. In elementary school, we learned about inviting Jesus into your heart, going to Vacation Bible School (VBS), praying to God, and watching loads of Bible cartoons at Sunday school. I still marvel how I didn’t get stories like Jonah and the Whale and Jack and the Beanstalk mixed up.
Anyway, the summer after sixth grade was transformative. I had been going to church summer camps for the previous two summers, but for whatever reason, I got really freaked out that year that I would be going to hell if I died. I had just moved up to the junior high youth group at church and didn’t know anyone. To top it off, I was just about to begin junior high and I knew I was rather awkward and probably wouldn’t be in the “popular” crowd. I went to two church summer camps that year and during the latter, I got baptized. I think I had finally convinced myself and felt secure that I was, in fact, “saved.”
This was a horrible way to begin junior high. I went to church every Sunday and now that I was “religious,” every Wednesday night, too. Whereas in elementary school, we learned standard Bible stories and very little theology, now we were being told what to believe about the modern world. Suddenly, we were being persecuted for our beliefs. It was inevitable that we would be learning about the dreaded evolution in science class, but we must remain strong and believe that God had created the entire universe in six literal days no more than 6,000 years ago. (Despite whatever ALL the branches of science had to say about the matter.) We had to get all of our friends and classmates saved, bring them to church parties and crusades, especially the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Back in the mid to late 90s, there weren’t very many Muslims or Hindus to be reached, although one did run across the occasional Jew. In short, now that we were teenagers, we were at war with the world.
We were also at war with ourselves. No one but us had the truth. Catholics were damned. No one knew who the Eastern Orthodox were and they were never mentioned at all. The Jews were probably going to hell. Everyone else, no matter how well-meaning, were going to be damned to hell. Also, homosexuality was obviously a sin because the Bible said so. (The Bible also condones slavery, but how many Christians are advocating that nowadays?) Relationships were frowned upon or discouraged because they could obviously lead to premarital sex. I think junior high is probably too young to be having sex, but at least allow kids to experiment within reason! I mean, I had the whole NO SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE so crammed down my throat that I’m a 27-year old virgin! Granted, I’ve never been in a romantic relationship, but it’s probably because of the near brainwashing I received for so long during my teenage years.
After completing eighth grade, I started going on summer mission trips, like every good Christian teenager. Most kids go to
Then I moved on to high school. Those tails will ensue with Part II.
