I learned a lot of strange theology while I was going to Sunday school programs on different buses, and trust me, it has to be out there for me to think it strange to this day. One that really sticks out in my mind was being taught in Junior church (it’s where most Baptist churches put kids during adult services) that the wheel of fire the Prophet Elijah saw was actually a UFO and that several key figures in the Bible were very likely aliens. I told my mom about that one and she wouldn’t let me go back to that church after that.

Most of the lessons that were pushed on me during those very formative years were that I was to remain a virgin until I married, that there was only one God, that Catholics worshipped idols, and that I was to never, ever question God’s word. There was to be no stealing, no lying, no backtalk, good Christian women submit to their husbands, good Christian children submit to their parents, no drinking, no smoking, no drugs, no dancing. I was ok with those teachings, I wasn’t wanting to do anything of those things anyway, for the most part. I did smoke a few cigarettes when I was in 4th grade – but I swear I didn’t inhale!

We moved out into the country when I was 10, and that put us closer to the little storefront church we had been attending, and made it easier for my mom to get fanatical about attendance again. My dad also changed jobs that year & wasn’t out of town anymore, so he got more involved in church at that point, too. I’m pretty sure that Craig had to go every Sunday, at least at first, then he got a job & had to close on Saturday nights, so mom left him alone. (that was at a different church buy then). What you probably don’t know, unless you were raised Baptist, is that the members fight amongst themselves more than any other religion. Things eventually came to a head at that church and we got out while we could. We found another church, further out into the country and started going there.

I was very involved in that church, all of the programs for youth, helped teach vacation Bible school every summer, went to a convention in Kansas City with the girls in that church, went to all of the joint youth programs that were held and pretty much went to church 3 or 4 times a week. I had a very close friend in middle school that went to another Baptist church in town & we’d see each other at the youth programs all the time. I didn’t really fit in at my church & in the youth group. Most of the girls had known each other forever & were only really nice to me when there was no one else around or there were adults present and they had to behave. One of the girls, Laurie, though she was a beauty queen, whipping out  one of her little makeup mirrors every few minutes to check her face (she didn’t really wear much makeup at that point, not sure what she was checking), making a dissatisfied expression and snapping it shut. I thought that was fairly rude in the middle of a sermon, quite frankly.

That church ending up eating itself too, after awhile. My mother was called many names, like “witch” (Baptist women are afraid to swear, so they actually meant to call her a b*tch), “liar” and so on. It came out that the pastor’s marriage had ended and his wife was not visiting her parents, she had moved out & that she was his second wife. Divorce is pretty much forbidden or at the very least frowned upon in that religion & a pastor can no longer hold a congregation if he has been divorced. My parents were caught right in the middle of this big split and ended up being chased out of the church. They stopped going again & I started going to the church my friend Debbie went to. I loved that church, and felt like I could be myself there. I still didn’t agree with everything it taught, but as a youth, it was stuff I could handle.

Tomorrow? The Family that Worships Together