marichiko

In 8th grade my parents sent me to a school run by the Missouri Synod (read "fundamentalist") Lutherns. The faith I had been raised in was a church called The Disciples of Christ or The First Christian Church. The Disciples beleive that no one should stand between you and God. Just as Jesus communicated directly with the first Christians - the 12 Disciples - He still does with us to this very day. You just pray and read the Bible.

The church bulletin lists the minister as "Entire Congregation." There's no doctrine to learn, and the Christian God I was exposed to until I met the Lutherns was all loving and all forgiving. The Disciples of Christ really is a pretty cool denomination.

Anyhow, I was stunned when I was introduced to Fundamentalism for the first time at age 13. All my classmates were members of the church and getting ready to be confirmed or something, so everyday, the Luthern Minister would come in and harangue us for an hour about unbaptized babies being burned in hell, and how THE END OF THE WORLD was coming any minute now and God was going to get you if you didn't watch out.

I didn't understand how this could be Christianity. The belief system was so different than what I had grown up with, and my Dad who was the one who took me to the First Christian Church was over in Vietnam. My mother is an atheist and wouldn't take me to church, and I knew it was hopeless to try to discuss religion with HER.

One day at lunch hour, one of my little fundie classmates asked me if I was "saved." I'd already given this question some considerable thought while enduring the daily harangues from "Pasteur Devil." I knew that the God of the Missouri Synod Lutherns wanted nothing to do with ME and the feeling was mutual. So, without hesitation I replied, "No, I am NOT saved!"

My shocked classmate ran straight to Pasteur Devil and snitched me out. I was called into Pasteur Devil's office, and we had quite the theological argument which ended with Pasteur Devil announcing to me that I was going straight to hell. I replied, "Good! Someone has to look after all those poor little unbaptized babies and it might as well be me." I think the only reason I wasn't expelled on the spot was because Pasteur Devil wanted the tuition fees my parents were shelling out for this so-called "education."

Still, I was only 13, and I felt worried about going to hell, but after a while I decided that it would probably be actually kind of fun to go to hell. My favorite writer, Samuel Clemens, would be there, as would a whole lot of other folks that I admired. If I went to heaven, I'd have to put up with folks like Pasteur Devil and a God who seemed little different from the supposed real devil.

All the other kids shunned me like I had the plague, and I persuaded my folks to forget private education and send me back to public school in time for the 10th grade. I walked away from Christianity at age 13 and seldom look back.

At this point I am sort of a Buddhist Deist, Navajo, nature worshipper. I beleive in an Intelligence of the Universe, but beyond that, I just try to follow my Buddhist practice.