Jay

Hi there. My name is Jay, and I’d like to thank you for taking the time to read my story. I tend to think it’s an interesting one, but perhaps it’s just because it’s me! Either way, perhaps something I say will be interesting or useful to you.

I was born into a very severe fundamentalist branch of the Protestant side of Christianity, called Pentecostalism. Now, this wasn’t just your garden-variety charismatic-Pentecostal church, it was a bit more intense than that. We were called UPC (United Pentecostal Church) and sometimes we also called ourselves Apostolic, it was never really clear to me which one we were (or even what the difference was). All I knew is that, from infancy, I was taught that the bible was true, literally true. Every word. More fundamentally true than anything else I could ever learn. Physics, psychology, geography, biology, zoology, even mathematics – every concept – all took second place behind the fundamental truth of the word of god. If there was some conflict, the bible was true, end of story. Let science be wrong, let your own perceptions be wrong, but the bible remained true. [Rom 3:4] God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged. This is what I was taught, and this is what I believed.

We had extremely stringent standards, both of personal conduct and for the path of salvation. As an example of this: we basically held to a dress code that was approximately along the lines of what was socially acceptable around the year 1900. Females wore dresses and skirts, (pants on women were a one way ticket to hell) their hair was to be uncut, no jewelry was allowed. Make-up was forbidden.

For men it was much easier to assimilate into society (how very typical of patriarchal religion), but we were subject to the other moral criterion. No smoking or alcohol was allowed, television was forbidden. No dancing. No movies. No bowling or pool playing. The list goes on. I believed then, and still do today, that these positions on conduct were all biblically defensible.

As for theological issues, some highlights: There was only one god, no trinity (Jesus was God). Communion was symbolic, not literal blood. Baptism was by submersion, in the name of Jesus only (“the way the apostles did it”). Salvation was obtained by faith and works, specifically by speaking in tongues – if you didn’t, you weren’t saved (Mark 16:17). The pastor was the final arbiter in all disputes, whether civil or theological.

Unlike many of my family and friends, I was determined to live the life, to be saved, to be right. I took the whole thing extremely seriously and prayed, fasted, and studied regularly. I believed in truth, honesty, and above all integrity. Interestingly, these qualities are what eventually led me away from this morally inverted philosophy. But it didn’t happen quickly.

I lost my faith in stages.

First, I lost faith in the people. Hypocrisy was rampant, and despite all the public proclamations of Love, there was a serious lack of it in my own church as well as every congregation I visited. Now, I’m not saying there were no decent people, there were, but it eventually became clear to me that many secular people were actually wonderful, and conversely, my church peers were not automatically “good” simply because they were a brother or sister. Some of them were flat out immoral, and some of the best people I met were non-Christians. So first there was that small glimmer of doubt, but this actually served to strengthen the position of the doctrine in my mind. People were imperfect by nature, but God, the word, was perfect.

Next, I lost faith in the ministry, ie. pastors, preachers, and evangelists. I will not go into those details in this format, but let me simply say this: If it comes down to a question of authority in your life, there is only one person who holds responsibility for your actions. You – and you alone. In all fairness, the bible supports this concept with scriptures like [Phil 2:12] Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Also in fairness, there are biblical scriptures that support the opposite stance; [Heb 13:17] Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.

This simple inconsistency leads me to the next inescapable conclusion I reached: the bible is self-contradictory. This was not an easy thing for me to understand, even though the proof was literally right in front of my eyes every time I would study the bible. I had worked so hard to believe it, I wanted to believe it. The mental acrobatics (read: self deception) that I employed in an attempt to keep all of the disparate elements together are rather astonishing to me now. If something seemed to be incongruent, I would try to “put it in context” or rationalize the issue until I could convince myself that it was cohesive. It took many years, much soul searching, and a good deal of comparative scripture reading until I finally admitted to myself the truth. In many different ways the bible can be (and, historically, has been) interpreted to support opposite theological perspectives, and in quite a few areas, it flat out disputes itself. If the Word was perfect, why was it not written in such a way as to be perfectly clear, beyond reproach, and without fault? At one point, I particularly struggled with the concept of the Trinity, and the nature of God and the Godhead. Try as I might, I just couldn’t understand it. What I didn’t know then (at least explicitly) is that it was not for any failure on my part. The reason I couldn’t understand it, is simply because it is irrational. As a matter of geometrical fact, the number one is not three, and three is not one. One is one. Three is three. Hey, don’t laugh. It was a big deal to me then, and to many, it still is.

The more I would study, the more elusive the answers became. And scriptures like this made me feel guilty for even trying: [Prov 3:5] Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

COMPARED WITH: [2Tim 2:15] Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

So which was it? Should I be trying to understand the bible, or not?

Adding further complexity to the intellectual clutter was Matthew 1 and Luke 3, each claiming that Joseph was the father of Jesus. Wait. Doesn’t that fly in the face of the virgin birth? Question of the day: Did Jesus share biological stuff with Joseph? The answer has to be “yes” or “no”. He either was, or he wasn’t. It can’t be both. And who is the father of Joseph? Matthew claims in chapter 1 verse 16 it is Jacob, Luke holds in chapter 3 verse 23 that it was Heli.

Contradictions, contradictions on every hand. And I had only scratched the surface, as I would later come to understand.

So there I was, a young man in my very early twenties with huge gaping holes in my worldview. My faith in the people was gone. My faith in the ministry had been utterly destroyed. My faith in the bible was in its death throes. So what did I do? I reaffirmed my belief in God.

Yes! Oddly enough, it all made a perverse kind of (non-) sense that the bible could contain errors, but it must be the fault of mankind. Human beings must be responsible in some way. Bad copying, bad translating, bad Council of Nicea. Or maybe some kind of dark conspiracy by the (satanic?) Catholic Church. Somehow, it was “mans” fault.

I still had my relationship with God. I could feel him in worship. I could sense his hand on my rather charmed life. He was real. He healed me when I was sick. He protected me when I was in danger (well, except for that time when I ran my bicycle headlong into an oncoming car and nearly decapitated myself). Still, I just felt that God was real.

That’s what it all boils down to: feelings.

Did I feel God when I worshipped? Yes, I did. But was that a reflection upon God or me? And what does it really mean? Did those silly Mormons “feel” the god that they worshipped? Do Catholics? Do Muslims feel Allah? Or Hindus, Brahma or Shiva? Do devil worshippers “feel” Lucifer? And when I “feel” like throttling my neighbor, does that make it a rational course of action?

I won’t even get into my desperate fleecing-of-god attempts. Except to say it doesn’t work. It can’t. But I digress.

Now, those feelings were enough to carry me through for quite a while, but eventually reality has a way of setting in. Plus, I have this really bad habit of learning. When the pastor would teach, I would listen. This got me into all kinds of trouble. I became this stickler on consistency. It had this snowball type of effect. More than ever, I began to listen critically and pay very close attention to the information that was being taught. It amazed me the things that began to emerge. Sometimes within the space of only a few minutes, completely incompatible and contradictory assertions would be made. Every service became an emotional roller coaster, as I would sit there mentally taking in every statement and asking myself if it was cohesive and coherent. Sadly, the vast majority was not. And in the midst of it all I felt this intense sense of personal failure. How could I have lived my whole life hearing these messages, and never realized how nonsensical and incompatible they were? How could I have only seen beauty in what increasingly appeared to be at best childishly immature philosophy, and at worst outright immoral? I couldn’t even bring myself to spank my nephew, how could I have believed that God was willing, even eager, to retrofit me (his “child”) with an indestructible body for the sole purpose of burning me for all eternity? How could I have believed in a God who required blood (either human, animal, or divine) in exchange for transgressions? How barbaric.

So I lived in a kind of twilight area for a few weeks, trying to decide what to do; afraid to leave, but hating every moment of where I was. Finally I mustered up my courage, and I quit my life.

I wish I could tell you things improved overnight, but in reality I was in emotional detox. Everything hurt. I had been heavily involved in the music program and that was gone. All my “friends” disappeared, trying to put as much distance in between them and myself as possible, as if I were leprous (and from their perspective, I guess I was). I had lived my life by my emotions, and now I was rejecting emotional reasoning.

The best way for me to describe the process I went through is with the word “stripping”. I began stripping away all the old ideas and philosophies that I had unquestioningly held, and I began to try and see things in their simplest forms in order to identify the root issues. I began to realize that information has exactly five ways of getting into your consciousness: via the five senses. I realized that emotions are not sources of information. And I began to understand that where I had gone wrong (indeed, where we all go wrong) was on a conceptual level. In other words, I had access to the same information that everyone else does, only I had synthesized it incorrectly. I began to repair the damage.

Today, I’m more than seven years past this experience. Looking back, I understand that what was so hard for me then is the crowning achievement of my life so far. I had the integrity to separate myself from what wasn’t right, and search for truth without blinders. Without putting my own desires into the equation.

And I have gained so much. I’m no longer a hypocrite. I’m honest about the way that I live, and there is no dichotomy between what I say and what I do. I understand now that life itself is the basis of values, and I am deeply moral. This, to me, is priceless.

One other thing that I have gained is the first thing that I lost: my faith in people. I no longer feel that people are basically evil, as Christian dogma teaches. I understand that people are basically good. If you are alive, and if you choose life over death, then on a fundamental level, you are good. I am so much more optimistic than before, because I now know that we aren’t all bound for hell in a hand basket! In fact, one quick trip down to Sears to see the microwaves, washing machines, and air conditioners should be enough to convince anyone that the human race has done nothing but become better.

I’m so glad to be a part of that progress. I’m glad to be alive. I choose life--my life.

Jay

wiseguyz@hotmail.com

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