Several folks who read my web log have expressed how mystified they are at how I could have grown up as a Southern Baptist, attended a Southern Baptist college and seminary, spent 17 years in the ministry, and wound up as an unabashed liberal who at times comes across in this forum as being anti-religion (for a vivid example of my liberal leanings, read my “year in review” post below). I thought I would commit an entry or two to the subject. Therefore I humbly offer:
MY JOURNEY AWAY FROM FUNDAMENTALISM, PART 1: WHAT I LOVED ABOUT BEING A FUNDAMENTALIST.
I was listening to an interview on “All Things Considered” on NPR the other day with Christine Rosen the author of My Fundamentalist Education: A Memoir of a Divine Childhood. In her book she discusses what it was like to grow up attending a very fundamentalist Christian school. Although she has abandoned the beliefs of her childhood and no longer considers herself a fundamentalist, she describes her elementary education with absolutely no rancor. In fact, she describes her childhood with a tremendous amount of affection and delight.
As I listened to her describe her journey, I thought about how closely it resembles mine.
When I was seven, my mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia. In retrospect, I think she knew how turbulent our lives would become. She wanted to provide me with some stability and so she decided to start taking me to church. Prior to that, I only remember being inside a church one other time. At the invitation of a friend, we began attending a Southern Baptist church in
As the years rolled by and I went to High School and then to College, the church became the center of my life. It was the one place I flourished. It was the one place I excelled and was accepted. It was the one place that kept me sane.
Here are some of the things I loved about my life as a Southern Baptist:
I loved my Sunday school teacher that year I first started coming to church. I liked to collect rocks and it happened that he was a geologist for an oil company. Each week he would look for unusual rocks on the job and he would bring them to me on Sunday morning. I thought he was a god. He knew about my situation at home, but he never let on, he just made me feel special and important.
I loved
As a teenager I loved all of the activities the church provided. I sang in a youth choir that toured all over the
I loved going to
Once I was in the ministry, I loved the things the Southern Baptist Convention stood for. Rather than individual churches supporting individual missionaries, the 43,000 Southern Baptist Churches across the U.S. pool their resources and support over 5,300 missionaries world wide. No other single charitable group in the world does more food distribution to impoverished areas than the SBC does. I loved the fact that when they talked about being against abortion they put their money where their mouth was and funded homes for unwed pregnant teenagers across the country. I worked as a house father in one of those homes for three years and even though it was difficult, I look back at it as being one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
I have no doubt that my fundamentalist upbringing saved my life. I have nothing but love and respect for the people in my church that loved and supported me through some very difficult years.
I imagine I sound like a cheerleader or public relations person for fundamentalism. So what happened to bring me to where I am now? Well…that’s in part 2.
