My Religious History

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Somewhere "Under" the Rainbow

I grew up as a Kansas country-boy in the suburbs of Topeka in a strict conservative (Republican) family.  For most of my youth we lived in the country in a little town outside Topeka called Berryton.  Our house sat off of a little dirt road and was right next door to a pig farmer--a smell you will not soon forget and also a fact that caught my attention when I first read Mark 5:11, and the horrible act Jesus inflicted on a large herd of swine. 

For 10 1/2 months out of the year I was an only-child (I had a step-brother who came to stay with us for six weeks in the summer) and I had a lot of time to think and contemplate many things during those long hours I spent each day clearing brush, mowing grass (we had 3 acres of grass that I mowed with a 20-inch Lawnboy push mower--I'm not kidding!), picking up thousands of hedge balls that fell from the giant hedge trees throughout our property, and numerous other activities.

My father, like his father before him, was a strong adherent to the Christian idea of the father as the "head" and who also had the "final say," with the wife being second in the hierarchy rather than an equal.  He used to say to me "this family is not a democracy"--a stipulation that also applied to my mother.  

We held to other "Christian values" as well, which included the biblical adage "withhold the rod (belt), spoil the child." (Proverbs 13:24; 23:13-14)

 

A Carpenter's Son Meets Falwell

My father was a carpenter (contractor) by trade, another "Jesus parallel" that did not fail to come to my attention.  He was (and is to this day) a very hard worker, a good businessman, and frugal almost to a fault.

As a result of "divine intervention," or possibly because my father provided the "low bid," he won the contract for installing the suspended ceiling and doing other carpentry work at my new church.  And being my father's "helper," I spent many extra hours doing grunt work on this job. 

But the most interesting part of this piece of history is what happened after the new church was completed:  Jerry Falwell himself came to see the finished product!  He was a friend or at least an acquaintance of my minister (which should give you a good idea about the type of church I attended), and one day while I was working with my father on the final touches, my minister brought Falwell up to meet us.  My dad shook his hand, as did I.  I remember that he had a strong handshake and was wearing an expensive-looking dark blue suit with shiny shoes and a red tie.  I was only 11 or 12 at the time, but as he shook my hand he told me to be sure and go to "Liberty University" (which he founded)!  I later told some of my "Christian" friends of this encounter and one of them was so excited he quickly took hold of my hand to shake it, as if some of Falwell might still be lingering on me and thus rub off onto him.

 

Reagan the Anti-Christ

My father was a huge Reagan fan, which pretty much made me a huge Reagan fan as well.  However, so brainwashed was I in my apocalyptic Christian fundamentalism, that when Reagan was shot (and recovered) I came to believe him to be the anti-Christ, the "beast" of Revelation 13 which would appear to be "mortally wounded" and yet be healed (Rev. 13:3)!  The "confirmation" of this, for those who may remember, was the "mathematical proofs" in the name "Ronald (6) Robert (6) Reagan (6)."  Six letters in each name made for, gasp, 666!  And 6x3=18 and the 18th letter of the alphabet is "R"!  That's the English alphabet, not Hebrew or Greek, but hey, everybody knew that the King James Bible was the "divinely inspired English version."  It had to be true!  I was terrified!

An interesting postscript to this little incident of hysteria is that Ronald Reagan's middle name was not Robert, but Wilson!  It just lends further credence to our gullibility, especially when we are riding in the wake of the "crowd mindset."

 

The First Epiphany

I was baptized as an infant and throughout my youth was an ardent churchgoer and attendant of Sunday School classes, where I would sometimes get in trouble for asking "disruptive" (translation: "disturbing") questions that bothered me about the Bible.  Now some might suggest here that I was simply being rowdy and not paying attention during class and that was really the reason why I was getting into trouble, not for asking questions.  But that would be a false assumption.  To the contrary I was very shy as a child and I rarely spoke-up unless I had something I felt I needed to say or ask.  And this was one of them!

Job, for example, always bothered me.  And I remember reading that story over and over as a child, trying to make sense of it.  I had difficulty understanding how a loving God could allow Job's children to be murdered.  But, as I always did, I just accepted the standard answers from my Bible teachers, such as, "God is good, and when He does things that we think of as 'bad', they aren't really 'bad' but rather part of the greater goodness in His "divine plan" for each of us.  And what we need to do is to 'stop questioning so much' and  just keep our faith in Jesus, and one day all will be revealed." 

Of course, thinking about it now, 'accepted' doesn't seem quite accurate in describing my feelings at that time.  Perhaps 'burying' or 'pushing aside' or 'covering' would be better terms since those 'answers' were never fully satisfactory for me (more on this below).  Something just wasn't quite right and deep inside I knew it.

 

"Sinner"

I was "saved" in my own living room by a Baptist minister whom my father invited in.  It was made clear to me that I was a "sinner," and like all sinners I was "unworthy of heaven."  But because Jesus loves me he will "forgive me" for being me and allow me to "be with him" in heaven--that is if I will affirm my "belief" in him and "ask for his forgiveness."   I cried . . . and then I accepted (the Baptist version of) Christ as my personal savior.

 

Bible Camp

My parents sent me to "Bible camp" in the summer.  Lots of games and crafts . . . and, of course, lots of Jesus evangelism and lots of "you're a sinner, don't you feel bad; but don't worry because as long as you 'believe' you won't be left behind" rhetoric.  Talk about systematic brainwashing of little children...

 

Troubling Questions and Veiled Threats

I regularly read from the Scofield KJV Bible my mother gave me (the same one her mother had given her as a child).  Well, I should say I read NT material regularly since Christianity tends to avoid the OT, save for the Psalms and a cacophony of pick-and-choose passages throughout the other books that support their cause (I later discovered why that is).  Occasionally I would venture further and read OT tales in their entirety, and promptly get into trouble in Sunday School for persisting with troubling questions (see above)--It seems I was never fully satisfied with the stock answers "you just have to have faith," or "God works in mysterious ways," or worse, "that is a question you will have to ask Jesus 'if' you get into heaven."  Suddenly it's "if" not "when" you get to heaven--talk about veiled threats! 

 

WWJD

I always said my prayers and I thanked Jesus for just about everything, but without fail he received ultimate credit for my successes. 

I never left the house without putting on my cross, and if those WWJD bracelets had been going around at that time, you could bet I would have been wearing one. 

The Second Epiphany

I believed that I was part of some special group in the world that had a lock on the "one true religion" and that anyone who didn't accept Jesus would suffer in Hell.

It's interesting, however, that even as a child I had the good sense, or moral fortitude, to feel bad about those "millions of lost souls" in foreign countries who "have not been saved," as I remember being told from the pulpits (always pushing for more missionaries...).  I felt bad not so much because they were not "saved" (although I did feel bad about that), but because it bothered me that a "loving God" would send people to suffer in Hell if they died without being saved (pretty intuitive thinking for a 10-year old). 

For years, however, I bought the stock answer afforded me from the church: that "some time in their [the unsaved millions'] lives, they would be given the 'opportunity' to know and accept Jesus as their personal savior and they would only go to Hell if they rejected it."; and "those children who die without having the chance to accept Jesus for themselves are taken up to heaven automatically" (sort of a catch-all implied consent theme, although, according to the NT, children are not exempt from the fires of Hell, since so-called Original Sin is with them from birth, or even from conception for many sects).

Years later it would occur to me to take this idea to its logical conclusion and ask: 

"If those people who never have the 'opportunity' to hear the 'truth' are taken up to heaven automatically, while those who do hear the gospel, but deny it, are sent to hell when they die, then wouldn't it make more sense NOT to share the gospel at all?  Wouldn't we be doing a disservice to people by sharing the gospel, and in so doing giving them the OPTION of denying it, when by simply keeping silent we would assure their entry into heaven?"  

And an even more disturbing thought: 

If we are to believe that all children, regardless of the religious background of their parentage, are automatically granted entry into heaven if they die (like those thousands of children in 3rd world countries that die of starvation every day), and THIS LIFE is really insignificant in comparison to the REAL LIFE of eternity in heaven, then why not end the life of our children as soon as they are born in order to guarantee their passage to heaven?  Why allow them to live and, as in my case, go from being a 'saved' believer to being a 'condemned' nonbeliever?

And finally:

If God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving, then wouldn't he have known all of this in advance?  When he was sitting up in heaven and reaching into his big bag of souls and placing one in each of the babies he placed in each mother's womb on Earth, wouldn't he know EVEN THEN that this child or that child would eventually grow up and use their "free will" to deny the "one true religion" that he had set up for them to follow?  Wouldn't he know EVEN THEN that those precious one-of-a-kind "Souls" he had placed into these individuals not only would NEVER be returning to Heaven, but would be condemned to eternal torture in the fires of Hell?  Wouldn't he HAVE to know of these events in advance?  And if so, then WHY would he bother making that person at all?  Why not just keep that pre-condemned soul in Heaven, if only to "save" it from unmerciful suffering in Hell? 

 

Spawns of Satan

For a time in my life I would happily "inform" people of the "truth of Jesus" and the consequences awaiting them if they failed to accept it. My goodness, what arrogance! I had no idea at the time just how intolerant this position was, and what a cruel message it was for adults to instill in the mind of a child.

Worse, I was horribly ignorant of the fact that there were thousands of religions in the world, and that many of them were thousands of years older than mine. I also didn't know that there were other religions that threatened me with Hell-fire if I failed to accept their truth! My belief in, and fear of "Hell" was so strong that this knowledge would have terrified me.

It's ironic how Christians find those "other religions" to be mean-spirited and evil--spawns of Satan--but don't see why people in those religions should view the "believe, or else!" theology of Christianity in the same light!  O' what a tangled web we weave. . . 

Disturbing Similarities

I remained a very devout "True Christian" (because my sect was the "true one," of course) up until my mid-teens when, in high school, I began to read and learn about things I was never taught in Sunday school (and for good reason!); things like Greco-Roman mythology and the ancient Egyptians.  This isn't to say that I suddenly came to disbelieve my religious convictions per se, rather I experienced a sizable speed bump of sorts that jolted me into some trains of thought I had not previously considered.

I remember two books in particular that I had read while doing class research papers: Mythology, by Edith Hamilton, and Egyptian Religion, by Sir Wallis Budge.  There was also a third book that I had utilized but didn't read in its entirety.  It included a wide range of mythological themes from many cultures throughout the world, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was.  Looking at my own library today, I'm thinking it may have been Joseph Campbell's Primitive Mythology: The Masks of God, or possibly Frazer's classic The Golden Bough). Incidentally, if you haven't read Homer's classics the Iliad and the Odyssey, you should, they are brilliant works on par with Shakespeare, though an admittedly difficult read.  I recommend an annotated translation.

Almost immediately I began noticing similarities in these ancient tales about their gods and heroes that were strikingly, I should say disturbingly, similar to those characters I had read about in the Bible; people like Eve, Noah, Moses, Samson, Jonah, special trees & gardens, serpents . . . and Jesus! 

Those of you who have invested even an introductory study of comparative religion & mythology will know what I'm talking about.  For example, anyone reading about the fantastic "labors" of Herakles (Hercules), and who has also read the Bible, could not help but be reminded of the equally fantastic feats and adventures of Samson.  Indeed, anyone reading them side-by-side with no preconceived notions about either would be hard-pressed to separate one from the other in terms of their closely related themes, let alone suggest that one of them should be taken as literal history (i.e., Samson) while the other is "clearly" just the product of imaginative ancient story tellers (Herakles).  And yet Herakles was a classic and well known tale throughout the Near East centuries before Samson's tale was crafted.

And I should point something else out here which may or may not be of significance, but there was no one, neither my teachers nor anyone else, pointing these similarities out to me.  I was discovering them for myself.

This was all so troubling because these ancient tales were in most cases much older than the biblical tales (by millennia in many cases), and yet they were presented to me as just "mythology," "fantasy," "folklore," "literature," "legend," "superstition," while I was always told in church that the Bible stories were literally true historical events.  

What I had not realized, however, was that to those ancient cultures these stories were not mere mythology, it was their religion and the people who believed in those gods and heroes believed in them with just as much if not more devotion than I did in Jesus and my own modern religion of Christianity.  Worse still, most of these ancient religions dwarfed my own in age, existing many hundreds, even thousands of years before Christianity was taking its first baby steps as a distinct religion.

Such revelations as these led to many other questions in my mind, although I rebelled against the disturbing thought that my religion might be no more a reality than I perceived the Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian and thousands of other ancient gods worshiped by cultures throughout history to be reality. 

The thought did not escape my attention, for example, that if Adam and Eve were not true historical figures who "ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil," thus bringing "sin" into the world, then there was no need for Jesus to "forgive me" from my "original sin" since that too would necessarily be no more a reality than the myth preceding it.  But, one "must have faith," and so I did, for a while . . .

 

Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi, too, played a role in my journey out of darkness.  In the 9th grade we were studying great historical figures of civil rights, which of course centered around Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  But we also learned about Mahatma Gandhi, who was, incidentally, one of Dr. King's biggest inspirations for his civil rights movement, particularly in terms of Gandhian "religious tolerance" and "passive resistance." 

The movie "Gandhi" (in which Ben Kingsley won an Oscar for his portrayal) was a new release in theaters at the time, and my social studies teacher managed to get our class clearance to go on a field trip to view the movie.  I knew little about Gandhi at this time, let alone the political-religious history that surrounded his complicated story. 

But the movie was an eye-opener for me, not only in terms of civil rights and freedom, but it was the first time I really came to consider and acknowledge the religious beliefs of other people in the world (note: as mentioned earlier, I had a moment of clarity along these lines when I was ten, but not until now did the hypocrisy really hit home).  All my life I had lived in this self righteous box, always being told of the millions of "heathens" in the world worshiping "false gods and false religions," and WHERE these "lost souls" were destined to go should they "fail" to repent and accept Jesus and Christianity--the "one true religion." 

So here was this tremendous figure of Gandhi before me; a righteous man if ever there was one, and yet he was not a Christian but a Hindu (a heathen!) who preached not for the "truth of Hinduism" but religious tolerance and the "truth" of all religions, whatever they may mean to those proclaiming them.  But according to my religion, this great man was doomed--God was going to make this man suffer and burn in Hell for all eternity, simply for not being a "Christian."  I cannot begin to express how much this thought disturbed me.  Something was wrong, terribly wrong!  

A Tragic Death: The Third Epiphany

When I was seventeen one of my closest friends was killed in a tragic freak accident.  He was down in the woods on his grandfather's property sawing wood with a chainsaw when the saw suddenly kicked back on him and cut deep into his chest.  He ran approximately 50 yards before he fell to the ground.  Because he was all alone there was no one to go for help, not that that would have mattered in this case since he had been mortally wounded.  Night came and no one knew where he was.  His family became worried and while his mother and father were calling people trying to find out where he was his younger brother went out in the woods to search, and there he found his brother, dead.

Now, if someone were to ask me to mention a particular family that exemplified the "model family" in terms such as loving, kind, compassionate, close-knit, hard-working, dedicated, supportive, family-oriented, and just all around good people that you cannot help but love, this is the family I would place in that frame.  

Of course there are many such families and people that I have known over the years that would equally fit this billing, and what their personal religious beliefs happen to be seems to be of no consequence whatsoever.  But there is something in particular about this family that sets them apart, and that is the two devastating tragedies that have befallen them which most people never have to deal with.  The worst of the two was the second tragedy, the untimely and gruesome death of their teenage son.  The first happened about two years prior to this when their house burned to the ground.  They lost everything!  Fortunately they had a lot of family and friends close by to help them.  But they are also strong people and they pulled themselves up by their boot-straps and rebuilt their house, rebuilt their lives.  It was wonderful to see real joy in their eyes when their new house was finally completed.

So, here is a church-going, God-fearing, "Christian" family that not only lost everything in a fire, but shortly after suffered the unfathomable devastation of losing a child.  

Now, remember that I was a devout Christian at this time who believed that Jesus was God and that he was at once all-knowing, all-loving, and all-power; and further, that everything that happened in the world happened as part of "HIS DIVINE PLAN."   

Sometime over the next few months I thought about these events very deeply.  I was troubled by them because I could not see what possible "plan" a "loving god" would construct that REQUIRED such a wonderful family to suffer such loss.  What was the "plan"?  What IS the "Plan"? I wondered.  There had to be some "message" to be understood, some "higher good."  Or were they being "punished" for something they had done (or not done), just as God had so often punished his children in the Old Testament?  Nothing made sense.  I could never find closure, and always felt like I was waiting for the proverbial "other shoe" to drop.  

NOTE: I want to point out something in my thinking at that time that I didn't realize until years later, but was probably key to what happened next.  And that is that through all this it was not the loss of my friend that consumed me (although that was certainly painful), rather, it was the CONTINUED SUFFERING of his family who survived him!  

And then it hit me!  One day I had what I call my third and last epiphany in my journey out of the darkness of Christian dogma and self righteous arrogance.  And it came with a simple question:  What if there WAS no "plan"?  

And then more questions:

What if there WAS no "message" to be devised from such tragedies?

What if this fire and my friend's death were just accidents and not part of some "master plan" predestined by God?

In a flash I found relief, because if there was no plan, no message, no master plan, then there was also no need to try and rationalize such horrors in the framework of a loving God who not only knew such events would occur in advance, but could have prevented them!

And still further questions:

What if accidents and disasters just happen sometimes, as they seem to happen all over the world?

What if those "starving children in Africa" (the ones your parents always told you about when you didn't want to finish your peas) were not really suffering that fate as part of some "higher good from God" in order that Christian missionaries might come and "nourish them through the Gospel" and in so doing "alleviate their hunger for eternity in heaven when they die"? (This was one such explanation my pastor used as justification for missionaries)

What if my church got it all wrong?

What if my religion is wrong?

These are just a few of the many questions and thoughts that entered my mind over the next few months, although I have to admit that at this time I could not take these questions to their logical conclusion and consider the bigger question, "what if God does not exist?", but it was still a monumental awakening for me that not only changed my outlook on life, but it allowed closure, it allowed "the other shoe" to finally drop.

Looking back, I can only describe what I felt as analogous with the fable of The Little Dutch Boy who is said to have saved his town from flooding by placing a finger in a small hole that sprung a leak in the dike.  But whereas the boy had put his finger into the hole to prevent the destruction of the wall, I felt the opposite.  I felt like I was just one person among millions standing at a dike that was full of holes, and each of us had a finger inserted to protect us (our religion) from the reality on the other side.  And then I pulled my finger out, allowing, indeed welcoming whatever may come.  But when the wall crashed I found that it wasn't a drowning flood I had been keeping out, but fresh air. 

 

Good Bye Yellow Brick Road 

Sometime after the death of my friend, around age seventeen or early in my eighteenth year, I broke the knot of indoctrination, a move that caused me much trepidation still (and something I kept a closely guarded secret for more than a decade), but one I have never regretted.  Quite the contrary, in fact, it felt wonderful to realize I wasn't the "sinful," "unworthy," "wretch" I was always taught to believe I was from the pulpits. I no longer had to feel guilty for things I didn't do.