Yes, I have chosen my own path, but in the same breath, I feel as though I have no logical choice but the path I am currently on... Not sure if that makes sence, but it's what I feel. I started out in very conservative Christianity. I was taught that my particular denomination was the only one who practiced 'true' Christianity, and that we were the only ones going to heaven. How sad. I remember being troubled about this as a child, and asking the mininster about it. "One cannot argue w/ God. He cannot bear to look upon evil." It was troubling, but true. As a teenager my family became even more involved in church. My dad became a lay preacher (no formal training, but would preach at small congregations that couldn't support a FT preacher). Lots of kids that went to our church were allowed to do things like go to dances, wear stylish clothes, ect., but I wasn't. My dad would rail against this, and make poor examples out of these kids. I felt left out, and a misfit at school (and I pretty much was). I remember talking to other kids about thier churches. I found that most didn't give an extra thought to God, and just tried to be good people. That was enough. When I met my DH, he was baptist. My parent about flipped, but didn't forbid me to see him (why, I have no idea!). I constantly heard "sermons" from my Dad about what made baptists wrong. My DH went to church w/ me every Sunday night, and I remember actually being aware of how the teaching sounded to someone not in the "church". The preacher at the time (not my dad) would start sermons out by making jokes about other religions. It was embarassing. My DH (BF at the time) could not believe that anyone would have the nerve to actually attack anyone else's beliefs. Now, I had been taught that ALL churches do this. Why else would one chose the Methodist over the Baptist church unless he believed that the Baptist church was wrong? Why not point out the things others are doing against God? (Publically). As I stated earlier, my dad would point out things others did that was 'wrong.'
I went to church twice w/ my DH before we were married. Both times I had to listen to how horrible I was for going, and turning against truth. Once was the day of my wedding shower. I would have considered it rude to not attend church, but go to the shower afterwards. My parents didn't feel this was a valid excuse for God.
After we were married, we went to the church my Dad preached at. It is very small with few young adults. Now, I must say here that I had not always agreed w/ everything the 'church" taught. There is no where in the bible that forbids musical insturments, there is no command not to dance, the love taught in the bible was and is clearly not being conveyed by this church. My DH and I decided that our needs were not being met, I didn't agree w/ everything the church taught, so we decided to look for the "truth" before we had any children, and make our home at a nice church that we were both happy attending. That was late 2000, early 2001.
We researched different denominations on-line, and real alot about the beginning of both my church (wow, it's not even that old
) and the baptist church. We read about different philosophies, calvinism, ect. We couldn't agree on what we both wanted.
We started by reading the Bible, only there was a problem, we both had different "interpretations" on what different scriptures ment. Clearly we had to first understand Judaism to understand if the NT scriptures were speaking of commands to christians nowdays, or in cultural context? We needed to understand the culture. Here was our first real venture into other religions. Of course, we thought it wasn't really considered another "reglion" per se b/c we "came" from Jews, right? What a SHOCK!!! Judaism is nothing as we thought it was. We learned about jewish history, and also about jews today. I even lurked on Jewish mama discussion boards. We also started looking into the actual history of the Jesus story, and we started to actually understand the old testament, and how it was possible for Judasim to be so different that we had percieved. We learned about other prominant religons in the area at different times, Mithraism, Zorastrianism, ect. We were now liberal Christians
We no longer believed in scriptural inerrancy, but chose to just keep christianity as our main focus.
All this time we were still attending the church my Dad preached at. It was becoming more and more uncomfortable to stay and listen. My DH was liking it less and less,an so was I. Unfortunatley I didn't have enough of a backbone to share my new thoughts, at this time my DH didn't even know my true feelings and thoughts. In March of 2002 (yes, it took me that long) I finally told my parents that we were no longer members of said church. It was hard, and I asked to not talk about it for a while. They thought (and still do) that I needed psychiatric help. They have never accepted this. It has been 2 years of feeling uncomfortable, still being invited to church functions, being invited over to find that there are 30 other church members invited over too. It would be so easy to go back, admit that I have sinned, and want to be welcomed back to the fold. Right now things are especially bad. My parents have disowned me... When I said at the beginning that I chose this path, it's true. I chose to question and to learn more. I still do, and my DH and I still enjoy reading about other religions very much! It's one of our favorite topics. Currently we are interested in Buddhism. When I say I have no choice but this path, I mean that I have to listen to reason. The way I was raised is not right for anyone. Hatred, arrogance, judgemental criticism, these things were not for me, and never will be. I cannot go back, I cannot unlearn, I cannot forget. I must continue to enlighten myself. I cannot dwell onthe bad, I must look for the good. I do see some good in Christianity, and all relgions for that matter. I try to not let my experience color my views, though it is very hard.
Absolutely.
: ) law, which we read from one of my translations. This made it easier for me to look up the Hebrew and talk about how I understood those words. We had a really good time with it..
: DH and I converted together with our then three children.
