I'm new...

[Guest Scorpio]

I wasn't raised in any church until my dad married my step mom. He was, of course a believer, for the mere fact that his father was a bible thumping Baptist. My biological mother is what one might deem a "lost soul". To my knowledge, they never went to church, and they were pretty ok with it. Until they got divorced, anyways.

 

So my dad and I drifted over to his also Christian-but-not-practicing sister's house. We stayed there, still not going to church. My guess is, this is the time when the seeds of doubt were slipped secretly into my brown beans.

 

A few years passed, and I was five, and my dad had met a woman. A reborn-again Christian, who said that if he wanted to be married, he would take church and the Methodist religion with it. She had also been married, and had lived much the way my dad had during her marriage. They were married, and I was baptized two years later with their new baby.

 

We all moved into a house that was 20 minutes away from the church she went to, where her sister worked as the children's minister, and therefore, we didn't go to school with any of the people in the children's area, and later, the youth group. But I knew my cousins, and I quickly settled into believing that this was probably right. Everything was dandy until I hit middle school.

 

Middle schoolers at the church were youth, and all of the youth did mission trips. Nothing terribly exciting, just working at a food bank. To get us there, the youth pastor had to bribe us with things like baseball games and water parks. It seemed kind of weird, but I like water parks, so I put up with the baseball, and had fun with the food bank. I did the mission trip twice. Neither time did I feel as though in the presence of Christ's diciples.

 

When middle school ended, and the high school mission trips (significantly much cooler than putting carrots into bags) were available, my parents decided that we would not going until we had both earned the money for them, and could prove that we were going for something other than the fun. That kind of proof is hard to come by, so our mission tripping ended. And a new phase of doubt had begun.

 

I would still go to church, everyday, because not to do so was a horrible travesty that would be discussed at family gatherings until needles through the eyelids became a fun alternative. But every Sunday, I found myself getting more and more bored, and less and less convinced. So I joined the youth choir. I'd always been told I sing rather off key, but the choir director liked my voice, and tried many, many times to encourage solos or duets on my part. He also failed many, many times. I wasn't in choir to be the best person. I joined because I needed something to do during church besides sit in the pew and day dream about things I could've done, or things I could be doing, or how much of an utter nerd I was. I stayed in choir because I found the spirituality in the music that I never heard in the preaching.

 

After a while, the novelty wore off. My choir director, though still kind to me, was showing more and more signs of being a misogynistic egoist, which conflicted greatly with my growing feminist inclinations. So I finished out my third year, and didn't show up the next.

 

I kept up with Sunday School, which became increasingly more like romper room playtime as I grew older, coming to a head on the last day I attended, when we drew cards about Christ, sometime during my Freshman year.

 

I started working in the church nursery during the Sunday School hour. I was desperate to find something that I could find faith in, and I found it in the innocence of the under-two year olds that I "taught" each Sunday. I did this for two years, until we got an assistant youth pastor, when my step mother gave a not-so-gentle shove to give it another shot. So I did.

 

It was great. I connected with this woman, who treated me as an adult. She tried to reach us in ways that we could understand. For bible studies, we would take selected movies, and watch them, ever-so-slowly, and apply the Bible. It wasn't until we began discussing other religions that I began to feel uncomfortable. Sure, I'd researched the Hindu religion in freshman year. But their main diety had 50 heads. I didn't exactly buy it, though I clung to the belief in reincarnation. When we started talking about it, my brother brought up the idea that other religions were ok. They just didn't see Jesus as the ONE TRUE WAY, but they still saw him as a good teacher and man. She explained how their reasoning was flawed, telling us that Jesus was "either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord." So, it seemed, I must pick one. If he was a liar, he wasn't a very good person. If he was a lunatic, he couldn't be a very good teacher. So if we believed him to be both a good man and a good teacher, then he must be Lord.

 

Later that afternoon, my step mother asked what we'd done that day. My brother told her, since I wasn't really certain. She asked me for my opinions on other religions and beliefs, and I told her that I believed in reincarnation. This, of course, is Not What The Bible Says, so she attacked me. Not physically, but backed me into a corner, until I was stuttering that I wasn't really sure. After that day, I was determined to a ) make my beliefs mesh with Christianity, and b ) never speak about religion again.

 

As I grew older, my opinions on political matters called into question the things I was being taught on spiritual matters. I'd grown up around gay people, so I always thought the Christians in my church were nuts when they said that homosexuals hated god, and were bad people. Misogyny was also rampant in the church, generally evidenced in the pay scale:hours/quality worked ratio. This all came to a head my senior year, when we left the church. We began looking for a new one.

 

We found a non-denominational church just down the road. My aunt found a job here, too, as the children's minister, and so we attended it with her for 9 months. We moved 40 minutes away after I graduated, which was part, but not all of the reason we left that church. We had spent 9 months watching my cousin (literally) roll around on the floor and jump up and down to praise Jesus, and verbally incorporate him into every aspect of her life. She didn't live the words she preached though, and the whole family was and is rather holy-rollerish, but no one is allowed to mention this but my step mother, so forget I said anything.

 

After we moved, we spent another 5 months looking for a church. During this period, I started going to college. It was a massage college, so we had a much closer relationship with our teacher than do most college students. Mine was a mystic type person. An absolutely lovely human being, and she started to open my mind to beliefs outside of Christianity as ok. Without a consistent church every Sunday to drill into my head that non-Christians were WRONGWRONGWRONG, I opened my mind a little. I still badly craved a relationship with Christ, mostly because I knew how very happy it would make my parents to know that I wasn't going just because I was too lazy to say no. So I opened my mind to other beliefs, but I kept trying to incorporate them with Christianity.

 

I tried this for about six months. Then I came across a website, run by a atheist libertarian. He was hilarious. And welcoming. And so completely NOT what I'd always been told non-Christians were. I was amazed, and felt my pitiful Christian threads I was still grasping to slipping slowly out of my hands. I was still determined to fit this new information into Christianity. A month or so after I found the site, I found their chatroom. I was floored. They were mostly all non-Christians, most atheists. AND THEY WERE FUN, NICE, AWESOME PEOPLE. This completely unraveled every conception I'd ever had. I had always been so terrified to accept that I might not be a Christian, not only because of my step mother, but because I didn't want to be one of "those" people.

 

A few months passed, and I altogether stopped identifying myself as Christian. I continued my church patronage, to appease my parents, but I would fantasize about sex, and other things that the Bible does not like. At the age of 19, I fell in love with one of the people from the chatroom. Not with a Christian boy, like everyone expected, but with an agnostic, who had simply decided that he didn't really care if there was a god. There were more important things in life. I moved out this past February, and finally stopped going to church. There are still parts of me that want to cling to some kind of spiritual possibility, but I'm slowly feeling that need disolve.

 

For once, I actually feel like I'm at peace.

[Caretaker]

[spamandham]

Welcome Scorpio! I hope you find what you're looking for here.

[pitchu]

So glad you're here, Scorpio.

 

Sounds like you've had a well-functioning mind through all of that erratic growing-up experience. And your sense of humor will fit right in at Ex-C!

[♦ nivek ♦]

Sounds like you've weathered the storm amigo..

Welcome to dry land and hopefully a bit of friendly space..

 

ExC is a fine land to settle in, set back and take stock of what you want, where ya need to go, and tons of good advise on how to proceed if wanted..

 

Feel Welcome, join in.

 

Freedom, it feels good on a mans body... Toss the chais away, you'll not need them again.

 

n

[Guest Peyton]

WELCOME Scorpio. I hope you find us a welcoming and accepting bunch. All the best matey!

[Guest Scorpio]

Thanks everyone. It felt good just to get it out.

[Guest JP1283]

Welcome to ExC! Thanks for sharing your story. You're a great writer!

 

JP

[Saviourmachine]

Welcome Scorpio, welcome. I almost never read a whole testimony, but you kept my clustered. Am I a liar, a lunatic, or the lord!?

[Guest RevJ]

Hi Scorpio,

 

I'm Rev James, a spiritualist minister in southern California. Welcome! Reincarnation is real for me.

Interesting post. I've always rebelled at regimentation but wanted to be a Rev, so here I am.

 

Peace and Tranquility

 

RevJ

[Loren]

Then I came across a website, run by a atheist libertarian. He was hilarious. And welcoming. And so completely NOT what I'd always been told non-Christians were. I was amazed, and felt my pitiful Christian threads I was still grasping to slipping slowly out of my hands.

I'm continually amazed at how thoroughly and deeply we've been lied to by Christianity. The more time goes by, the longer the list gets. Christianity tells me, "Reality is this way," and I look and see clearly that it's definitely not that way at all.

 

The deceptions are so many and deep that it would take a lifetime to catalogue them all.

 

Welcome to the site, Scorpio.

 

Loren

[Eponymic]

For once, I actually feel like I'm at peace.

 

Mellow greetings, eh.