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Goodbye Jesus

Spike Spiegel's Adventures In Fundyland


Spike Spiegel

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I consider myself a proud member of this site, and a (strongly) ex-Christian. However, as a teen, I am still forced to attend my mother's Pentecostal church. To give myself a chance to vent and maybe create some humor for the forum, I have decided to journal my experiences in this thread.

 

Saturday, April 10, 2010, 9:09 p.m.

 

I find it hilarious that I am typing this entry from the church's computer lab. I just attended a "youth meeting" this evening, and I am now waiting for my mother to get out of the "Spanish service" (she doesn't know any Spanish at all, but she loves her some good old fashioned church) while listening to Coldplay on my mp3 player here in the lab.

 

It was my first "youth" service since I started deconverting...and it felt very strange. The ice-breaker was an eating contest and trivia game about cereal (I felt slightly saddened, as an African American male, that the two visitors that won the said eating contest were two stereotypically overweight black girls...*facepalm* and that nobody really talked to them after the service at all). It's amazing to me how this stuff, which is supposed to bring people together, creates these barrriers. They treat people that havve a different cultural or racial background from them like they're missionary projects. After the thing ended with an emotional altar call and a rather long and drawn out explanation of why the magical sky-daddy incarnated himself into human flesh and how he killed himself by dying on that cross, and how we'd better believe in him, or else we're going to a VERY BAD PLACE called hell, etc., etc., everyone separated into their little established groups, and the people that weren't really part of the established group were scared shitless. The youth leader and his sister swarmed around the three visitors, proclaiming how happy they were that they attended the service, and how it was "meant to be" (they did the same routine to me when my mom started attending the church three years ago, but now they pretty much ignore me)...

 

I just couldn't escape this feeling as the night went on, that scales were falling from my eyes. The visitors were disoriented by all these weirdos standing around them chattering in tongues, screaming exhortations, rubbing each other's backs...but at the same time they felt the false guilt created by the sermon...so they were powerless to reject the "pull of the Spirit," and afterwards, the awkwardness of the group seemed to be heightened...I walked into one of the lounge rooms where all the older teens were talking, and I noticed one guy sitting there all alone. He looked like he really didn't want to be there (of course, I didn't really want to be there, either). I said to him, "You're new to all of this, huh?"

 

"I've been coming--to this church--for about three months." He plastered on his best fake fundy-smile, you know, the "I'm-fine-don't-ask-me-questions-leave-me-the-hell-alone" kind of smile.

 

"What do you think about it all?" I asked.

 

He shrugged. "It's...taken some getting used to."

 

"I've grown up in this thing my whole life," I told him, "and even I feel like there are some real 'WTF?' moments, you know? I guess you just--" I made a swimming motion with my hands--"go with the flow, huh?"

 

"Yeah, sure, just go with it."

 

When I came back later, he was just sitting there, again, and NO ONE was talking to him. If you don't conform to the ways of the church establishment in every possible way, it's like you don't even exist! I felt sorry for him because I know the feelings that he's feeling, how he hates the shit completely, but feels like he has to go through with it to save his soul...it's a nasty feeling, and I had to relive some of those same feelings of anxiety tonight by attending that service that I had no desire to take part in.

 

But, on the bright side, I go to eat some free popcorn!

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I find it hilarious that I am typing this entry from the church's computer lab.

 

Always remember to cover your tracks. If your church and/or your mom finds out you've been posting here, I imagine you'll be in deep shit. I see that you have to remain in "the closet" for now until you're able to move out and go somewhere far away.

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The aloofness from new and different people persists into adulthood.

 

In the last few churches I visited before deconverting, nobody talked to me but the people whose "job" it was. Even they didn't make much of an effort.

 

It was okay for me. Although I wanted more people to "fellowship" with, I realized through those experiences that church people operate under the same sociological principles as any other group of people. There was nothing that really made them more able to connect with a diverse group of people. Nothing drives them to overcome social barriers and social norms for the sake of a greater good.

 

It's too bad for teenagers and people who have a more urgent need to social acceptance. They won't really find acceptance in the overwhelming majority of churches.

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Being at a youth group meeting was the worst I've ever felt in my teenaged life - well, I was committed to a psych ward once, but I think that was about equal in anguish to youth group. At least in the psych ward, there was one little sane kid who I colored pictures with. In youth group, they all treated me like a leper because I wasn't baptized. I'm still not, thank the gods.

Best of luck to you, sticking it out in fundyland. BTW, as I type this, Cowboy Bebop comes on Adult Swim. :HaHa: See you later, space cowboy.

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Guest Valk0010

I went to a youth group for awhile, but it seems so damn cliquey that my one friend from the place stopped going, I stopped.

 

On another not, would love to see for Adventures in Fundyland from you, your a great writer and quite funny

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