Thursday, June 02, 2005
| God, Jesus and the Men that Ruin it for Us Lately I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking on religion and the role it plays in my life. To give you a little bit of background…I was raised Baptist by my wonderful parents. I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal savior when I was 8 years old and then again at 13. You see, at 8 years old, I thought I understood what it meant to become “Born Again”, but to be on the safe side, I went through the whole process again when I was 13. Just to make sure I covered all my bases and understood completely what I was agreeing to. :) In the Baptist religion, we don’t believe in baptisms until the individual fully comprehends the choice that he/she is making. There is no sprinkling of water on a baby’s forehead, although that seems to be a beautiful tradition to me. Also, as a Baptist, we don’t practice our faith in almost ANY of the same ways that Catholics do, although we do admit to being as judgmental as them. It was this type of attitude that eventually drove my family away from organized religion in its entirety. During my formative middle school years, I attended our church’s Baptist school. It was K-12 and to be totally honest, I was the only 6th, 7th, and 8th grader. When I graduated from middle school to the high school, I was valedictorian and salutatorian all in one! Hahaha lame. It was at this time that I was going to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and a major part of our church’s youth group and various other ministries. I was completely submersed in the culture of the Baptist religion. And for a long time I thought that the world was a very small place and that only SINNERS didn’t live their whole lives within the church walls. I even planned on attending a Christian college. Most likely Pensacola Christian College in Florida. However, during my 8th grade year at the Bible school, our church fell apart. Our pastor took off and left the congregation high and dry. We all voted on a new pastor and his reign of terror began immediately. Within a matter of months, this devil man had run most of the original members of the church from the congregation. There was actually a meeting held in which the members of the church voted whether to keep him or not. He won the vote by a very small margin and we were all forced into a “church split”. A “church split” is one of the most ugly and hurtful things that can happen to a congregation. Essentially what happens is that half of the church follows one member to a new place of worship, while the other half of the church stands behind the current pastor. It was a VERY horrible time in my parent’s life. Our old pastor called my mom a whore and told us that we were living in sin by befriending black people. WHA?? Yeah, the man was totally nuts. And this was only the beginning of the threats and turmoil that he caused the CuttheShit family. Anyway, we moved church’s and started fresh with a new pastor. The five years or so that we were with him were again wonderful. Of course we still had some lingering bullshit with our previous pastor, but as a new unit, our church grew exponentially. But then it happened again. Our wonderful pastor moved upstate and we were once again forced to pick a new leader. As had happened before, we loved the new pastor until he showed his true colors and once again we were stuck in the middle of ANOTHER church split. Shit got really ugly again and things were said from the pulpit that (I’m sure) God was furious about. Over time, my parents and a number of other families were asked to leave the church. So in a matter of 15 years, our belief system and trust in the “church” was destroyed by two horrible Christian leaders. It was incredibly upsetting and my family has not joined another church again. In fact, my dad ran into one of our old friends from the first church a week or so ago. After a few minutes of the conversation, this man told my father that he just found out his brother was gay. My dad was incredibly responsive and explained that his own son (me) was gay too. Instead of being any sort of a support, this man told my father that I would burn in hell for all eternity. AND that he could give him the number of a Baptist preacher who’s been known to turn gays straight with the Lord’s help. My dad told him to get the “fuck out of his face” before he “went ballistic”. Needless to say, the man tucked his narrow minded, judgmental tail between his legs and walked out. Turning gays straight through God!??! Is there ANYTHING else more offensive?? Or ignorant? Not in my world! Both of my parents, my brother and I believe to our core that Jesus is the savior of mankind. I, in particular, believe so truthfully in the Bible that it’s hard for me to imagine there NOT being an ark built by Noah or an apple eaten by Eve. To me they’re not just stories. They’re factual accounts of real life events. My friend Rita has always said that she admires my blind faith when it comes to the Lord. And I guess I admire it too. It makes everything a lot easier. I don’t think I’ll ever join a church again that proclaims to be Baptist, or Lutheran, or Methodist, or Catholic or any other religion underneath the Christianity umbrella. I’m so tired of the judgmental nature that each one of these religions spew forth. God didn’t put us on the planet to criticize and drag each other down. God put us here to love each other, help each other, and to focus our eyes on Him. Anyone that tells you that you are going to hell for one reason or another needs to shut their mouth immediately. There is one person that makes that decision and I wouldn’t want to mess with Him, if you know what I mean. The hardest aspect of the Bible for me to understand is the difference between Heaven and Hell and who ends up where. I personally believe that if you don’t accept Jesus as your personal savior, you will go to hell. It is very clear in the Bible that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. But that’s not a decision for me to make for you. And it’s not my job to remind you every day that you will go to hell without passing go. Haha. Ha? God judges us and it’s up to Him to make that decision. I’ve talked to my Jewish and atheist friends about this many times and while it hurts me to tell them what I truly believe, deep down I just hope that God has a better comprehension of what it means to be “saved”. It breaks my heart to think that ANYONE would go to hell. Yet, I believe in it and am completely unwavering when it comes to understanding the pathway of salvation. Quite the dilemma. I don’t know why I’ve decided to write about this topic today. It’s been on my mind a lot lately and I’ve just begun reading The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. I’m truly hoping that by the end of the 40 days it takes to read it, I will feel much more fulfilled spiritually than I have in the last year. I also need to find a church that will accept me for who I am. And most importantly, a church that won’t spew hate from the pulpit every Sunday morning. I need to find God in my every day life in order to be happy. And most importantly, I want to make Him proud by the work I do here on Earth. It is a BIG deal to me and lately I’ve felt as though I’m letting Him down. For those of you out there that think Joe CuttheShit has gone mad, I understand. I’ve heard it all before. It’s so funny, cuz I don’t come across as a Born Again Christian, but you would be surprised how deeply convicted I am with all of this stuff. God is my life and the one that I report to on everything. I talk to God more during the day than I talk to my own boyfriend. Weird, right? I wish it wasn’t so hard to find the truth in the world. But if it takes blind faith to do so, then I guess you really could consider me one of the lucky ones. |
