One of my favorite party tricks in the past has been to reveal the true nature of my past – militant fundamentalism of the Bob Jones University variety.  I was sent to a Christian school from the age of 5 until I graduated from high school.  I can talk circles around an average Christian because during those 13 years I went to church a minimum of 3 times a week, I had chapel services every Wednesday, we had Bible class every day of the week for every one of those 13 years.  I was a member of AWANA clubs for every year that was available to me.  (AWANA is sort of like Girl/Boy Scouts on Jesus.)  Every summer I went to Bob Jones summer camp.  The year that I graduated I was sent to Summit, a Christian apologetics boot camp for sending young people off to the liberal world of higher education.  During school I competed with other students in Bible memory, memorizing whole books of the Bible and/or 100s of verses that stood alone.

What I mean to say is: I know the same stories they know.  I know the basis behind their fears and the twisted logic behind their arguments.  So when I see a video like THIS I am not shocked.  (I was not raised in the charismatic tradition, but I had lots of friends who were.  We looked down on them, naturally, because they didn’t know any better, but we were “friends.”)  The militant language used by those interviewed is perfectly natural to a fundamentalist, who believes that he or she is literally at war… they are at war against the powers of darkness, at war against the liberal forces in the media and in scholarship/universities, at war against those who threaten to “further” divorce Christianity from the moral structure of the U.S.  In high school I read a novel written by a prominent fundamentalist teacher in which Christians were being hunted down and killed or jailed, because the liberals had finally taken over the country.

In short, fundamentalism is a life of fear: fear of sin, fear of not doing enough before Jesus comes back and judges you, fear of losing power to control the morality of others, fear of being exposed to temptation just by going outside and seeing evil billboards or hearing rock music in the grocery store.  It goes ON and ON and ON.

I left the church 3 years ago, more or less, and it has been one of the most healing experiences of my life.  I have always credited my breaking free to the book Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeleine L’Engle.  There is more than one revolutionary idea in this book, but the one that started my journey was the idea that a God of LOVE would have a plan for the redemption of all of humanity… that there could be no such thing as an eternal hell.

Naturally, this terrified me.  But like many of the other fears in my life at that time, the concept became an obsession, and I found my freedom in the pursuit of this truth… the truth about love.

Current Events P.S.

This prayer was spoken before John McCain spoke at a convention last week:

“I would also pray, Lord, that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their god — whether it’s Hindu, Buddha, Allah — that his opponent wins, for a variety of reasons,” Conrad said.

“And Lord, I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you will step forward and honor your own name with all that happens between now and Election Day,” he said.

Now, let me call your attention to a few things in this little jewel.

1. This man, the Reverand Arnold Conrad, is telling his god that if John McCain loses it’s Buddha’s fault?!?!  How outrageous and offensive and…  On second thought… I’ll take that.

2. The only people praying that Obama wins are not Christians.  Put another way, one cannot be a Chrisian and be a supporter of Barack Obama.

3. This man’s god needs to be threatened with “His” reputation in order to get “Him” to act in a way that the Rev. Conrad considers godly.