Baptists. I was raised with them ad nauseum. As George Carlin put it, "I was a practicing member until I reached the Age of Reason". Every time I go home I'm more and more amazed and nauseated by the whole culture. Some of the things I hear coming out of these peoples' mouths just make me want to puke on their shoes.
Now I really have no problem with people who choose to go to church and practice organized religion, but let me explain why I don't. (Before I begin this rant, let me give you a little history.)
I grew up in a city suburb in Alabama, arguably one of the more progressive ones in the state, too. I was thoroughly indoctrinated into the Southern Baptist Church, and thought absolutely nothing of it.
It wasn't until I moved out of state to go to school that it started to come unstuck a little bit. And boy, when it did, it was scary. Although I had a very good experience with the church growing up, it wasn't until I had a basis for comparison that I realized exactly how insane and insidious a system it was.
Now, this is not to say that all churches are horrible and that I think it's all a joke or something-- in many ways I did have a great experience growing up in the church. I can honestly say it kept me out of a lot of trouble and walking the straight and narrow in those crucial and crazy teenage years.
However, there is a more scary side to it as well. Until I left the Bible Belt, I never thought about questioning my beliefs-- God was everywhere, God was watching, and I'd better watch my step if I wanted to cash in on that Hell Insurance Policy when I met St. Peter. But little by little, that certainty began to be chipped away, beginning even before I left.
Until I graduated high school, I lived with the daily reality that unless you belonged to some variety of Christian church, you were an anomaly in Southern culture. In my high school, I can honestly tell you that there were only two practicing Jews that I knew of and no Muslims. (I envy those children in D.C. that I teach who have a very diverse experince in their schools. I really think it makes you a better person.) This kind of separation tends to perpetuate some of what everyone thinks of as Southern racism-- down there, even if they don't say it, people really ostracize those of different religions. The Jewish community in my city was located in one small corner, surrounding their temple. That was it. I remember frequently hearing people say, when something bad befell a family or person, or someone did something wrong, "Well you know he/she is a (insert religion here)", implying that that certainly explained everything.
This didn't just extend to other religions, either. Just as often, this kind of feeling was directed at other denominations as well (Presbyterians-"well, they only sprinkle", Methodists-"well you know how they are", Church of Christ-"what kind of weirdos don't believe in music in church?", and on and on...)
And even within the denomination (this applies especially to Baptists) if people somehow got the impression that you weren't being as "Godly" as you should, the condescension would pour out on you like a flood. This happened to me quite a few times. On my favoite occasion, I was the result of an outpouring from both the youth pastor and the preacher's wife.
At our church, there was a praise orchestra that played during services, which I joined in the seventh grade. This group rehearsed on Wednesday nights after the church service and during the choir practice. At this point I also started going to youth group services on Wednesday nights, which just barely overlapped the rehearsal. Now, I had great respect for the leader of the orchestra, who was my high school band director. He is still one of the people that I respect and look up to most in my life. Therefore I didn't want to be late for his rehearsals, and asked the youth minister if I could leave youth group a little early to go over to orchestra for rehearsal. He kind of hmm'd and haw'd but said maybe it was okay. As a result I was usually a little late for orchestra, but the director didn't mind a bit and told me so.
The organist at our church was the preacher's wife, who, if I may say so, always rather fancied herself a little more a musician and pious person than she actually was. On one particular night she took me aside and proceeded to lecture me on how being late was wrong and that I "needed to get my priorities straight". Ordinarily I wouldn't have cared but I had just had the same lecture from the youth pastor as well (we won't even go there).
For Pete's sake, all I was trying to do was "praise the Lord" with the "ample gifts he had bestowed on me". Gimme a break.
This kind of sums up my whole church experience-- everyone was so busy picking up on what they thought you were doing wrong that they missed the whole point. Getting to know God and worship Him, right?
The church was so full of hypocrites and liars that I wanted to stand up and scream at them all. It was at this point that all of the puzzle pieces began to fall into place for me. It just didn't all add up.
Some churches said you had to be dunked. Others sprinkled, Some said you couldn't dance, others at liturgical dance praise every Sunday. Some said no drinking, others just said don't get drunk. Most agreed on the whole sex thing and let me be clear that I have no problem with that. Except that gay, lesbian and bisexual people were told, thanks, you're not welcome here (and usually "you're going to hell, you're sinning by choice" which I do NOT agree with). I'm not weighing in on the whole right/wrong gay question here, just that they were and are never even given a chance.
By the time I went to school, it was all weighing very heavily on me and started coming unraveled. I saw that people were still okay if they didn't go to church every Sunday. I saw that gay people didn't have to be ashamed and downtrodden in their lives just because they were different. I saw that it was all right to like yourself in spite of the fact that other people thought you were a raging sinner and going to go straight to hell, and that their opinion didn't matter anyway.
In short-- I escaped.
Now, I know some of you are preparing the argument in your heads that all Christians are not like that, that I shouldn't judge like that. Why not? I've met the exception to the rule (my sister and my friend Eric, for example) but the vast majority are exactly what I've just described, and I have no interest in that.
I'll make my own decisions, thank you very much, and be very happy with them. If your version of God minds, too bad. Mine is just fine with it, thanks.
