My First Experience with Religion
Proverbs 22.6: Train up a child in the way he should go, and “when he can think for himself, he’ll want nothing to do with your bullshit religion!”
So—being raised to “know” god, to believe in him, to trust him, etc., all a good thing, right? Well—hold on a minute. As a former pastor at a drug and alcohol treatment center, the reason I heard most often as to why people don’t go to church is because they have been to church. The experience of being raised in a “religious” home and going to church has often turned them off of church and more telling—turned them off of having anything to do with God. It appears that atheism’s biggest alley is religion! Let that sink in—the undoing of many people’s religious beliefs is religion!
The religion I was brought up under—Allegheny Wesleyan Methodism, is certainly no exception. We were taught that god was this distant, mean, angry being who from afar was watching our every move, keeping track of everything we did, said, or thought, and reacting accordingly. That was anything but good news, as everything imaginable was considered a sin, and sinning was not met with anything loving or good by god. The result of sin was an extremely pissed off god who would let you know in no uncertain terms how he felt about your sin, and ultimately, how he felt about you. Your sin was met with his wrath and anger, which was so often the subject of the many sermons we had to endure. And the altar calls…we’ll get to those a little bit later.
It is not unusual for people to see or comprehend god through the lens of their earthly father. Uh-oh, this can’t be good! Just as I had no relationship with my dad, there was no relationship with god, either, despite the dozens and dozens of trips I would take to the altar following a hell, fire, and brimstone sermon, designed to scare the hell out of you—literally.
The church had no clue about a relationship with god that they claimed to have; becoming a christian—getting saved, being born again, accepting Jesus—whatever you want to call it, meant subscribing to an exhaustingly long list of do’s and don’ts. You did the do’s, and didn’t dare do the don’ts. There literally was no relationship; you merely became a “keeper of the rules.” And part of the problem with that concept? They decided what the rules were; they “made up” many of the do’s and the don’ts.
They defined sin—supposedly according to the bible, as well as according to…well, a good way to explain it escapes me, as they had no logical way to define sin. Some of those rules will serve to say what I am attempting to convey.
Let’s start with Sundays, the day of the week I hated most.
On Sundays, we:
· couldn’t go out and play.
· couldn’t go out to eat.
· couldn’t spend any money, unless it was an emergency. I once shoveled snow for an elderly neighbor lady on Sunday, as that was the day the blizzard came through. I had to wait until Monday to take the money she insisted on giving me.
· had to take a nap in the afternoon. (Something I actually enjoy nowadays!)
· had to go to church twice—in the morning and the evening.
· couldn’t listen to sports on the radio.
· And last, but certainly not least: when Christmas fell on Sunday, we had to wait until Monday to celebrate. That’s right, all Christmas day, we had to pretend like it wasn’t Christmas, and walk by the gifts under the tree without opening them. The reason we couldn’t celebrate Christmas on Sunday—it’s what the world does. (I kid you not; I couldn’t make this shit up!)
Other crazy do’s and don’ts:
· We couldn’t watch TV; we never even had one.
· Wedding rings were taboo, as was all jewelry. And makeup—forget about it.
· Women couldn’t cut their hair—at all.
· Women had to wear dresses—always. My mom once went horseback riding, and to be modest, wore pants—under her dress.
· We couldn’t listen to any music other than music recorded by a “song evangelist” who was one of their own. We couldn’t even listen to Amy Grant or Sandi Patti.
· The only true “Word of God” was the King James version; all others were fodder.
· We couldn’t dance—ever.
· We couldn’t go to concerts.
· We couldn’t go to the movies. After all, as they would ask, “What would you do if Jesus came back while you were in the movies?” Again—I can’t make this shit up.
· We had to read the bible and pray—daily.
· We had to be “separate” from “the world.” Whatever that meant.
The list goes on and on, but for your sake, I will stop with these. We never really knew if we were on the wrong side of heaven or the righteous side of hell, as so eloquently stated in the Five Finger Death Punch song, “Wrong Side of Heaven.”
They taught that you needed to get “saved”, an act with which they were all too happy to assist you. It would occur on many a Sunday evening, and always on the last night of a weeklong “revival”, during which we would have to go to church…Every. Single. Night! Come that last night—Sunday night. The guest speaker, or as they called him, the evangelist, would see that as his last chance to get your ass, or in my case, my fat ass to the altar. Oh joy—this would be the onset of a harrowing, excruciating, long scare tactic—the hell known as an altar call. During that time, which would often be 10-15 minutes, they would sing guilt-inducing, shaming songs, people would come up to you and harass you in an attempt to convince you to go to the altar, and as if that weren’t enough, the evangelist would tell stories intended to scare you into coming to the altar. One such story went something like this:
“Johnny went to the weeklong revival service. During that time, there would be an altar call every night. The holy spirit was faithful and would convict Johnny each night. However, Johnny was determined not to go to the altar; each night, he grasped the pew in front of him until his knuckles turned white, committed to continuing in his sin. Finally, it was the closing night, and once again, Johnny was there, and the holy spirit was convicting him—more so than ever. You could see it on his face. God was tugging at his heart, trying more than ever to get him to the altar. However, Johnny was even more stoic in his determination to resist the holy spirit. The evangelist continued the altar call longer than usual, just for Johnny. However, Johnny remained steadfast, and never did go to the altar to do “business” with god. On the way home, as they merged onto the highway, a semi came bolting out of nowhere, out of control, heading straight for Johnny’s car. Johnny never knew what hit him; he was killed instantly, and went straight to hell, where he is burning and being tortured forever and ever, all because he didn’t come forward during the altar call, just like this one you are in right now.”
Holy shit…by then, I was older, so it didn’t scare me enough to go to the altar, but it did make me scared shitless to go home that night!
Another “teaching” of the church was that of being “sanctified.” Their meaning of this was somewhat different than many other denominations, to say the least. They taught that once you got “saved”, you then had to get “sanctified.” Doing so consisted of yet another altar call, during which you would go forward, and “receive” a second work of grace. This second work of grace—sanctification, was, in essence, the removal—a “root canal” of your sin nature, thereby making you nearly perfect. Once sanctified, you did not sin again. They had a song they would sing called “Glorious Freedom.” Some of the lyrics from that song are, “glorious freedom, wonderful freedom, no more in chains of sin I repine”, and “freedom from evil, temper, and anger.” After singing this, my dad would sometimes have one of his fits of rage and beat the hell out of me. My dad was also my Sunday School teacher for a while, and would often ask us boys, “What does it mean to be a christian?” His answer would always be the same, “To be a christian is to be christlike.” And you know it—after claiming to be christlike, he would then go on to beat me.
Another crazy example of this vengeful, horrible, asshole god they portrayed took place while we were on vacation. We were staying in a cabin in Pennsylvania where we vacationed many years. It was a Sunday (uh-oh, look out), we had finished dinner, and mom decided to make her family a cake. This, of course, was a no-no; a big one on the list of many “don’ts.” After all, we had already eaten dinner, and now it was unnecessary work on the “Lord’s Day.”
The gas oven in the cabin was an old one and wasn’t working properly. Mom had difficulty getting it to light, and in the meantime, the gas kept building up. You can probably guess what happened next. She finally got it to light, but by then, a dangerous amount of gas had built up in the oven. Once lit, the gas exploded—into her face. She suffered severe burns on her face and forehead; I remember a lot of hair being burned off the front third of her head. She suffered significantly and was in great pain. Her remark about the incident afterwards? “That’s what I get for baking on Sunday!” Holy shit. Do you realize what she was saying? She was saying that god burnt the hell out of her face—that he was directly responsible for her being burnt, all because she made a cake for her family on Sunday. Welcome to the god I grew up with. Nice guy, huh? ~continues in Part Three
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