Monday, October 15, 2007

Blaspheme Part One

To understand where I am in my religious beliefs, it is important to know where I have come from.

I was born into a southern black family with roots in the Christian Baptist church. Like most black folks, and especially like most southern black folks, religion is a centerpiece of good family living. Religion (i.e. God) comes first before everything else. This fact stems back to the origins of Blacks and Christianity, to the time when religion was in fact ALL that you had. When you could own nothing in life, your God and your knowledge were the two things that could not be taken away from you, and this fact has been passed down through the generations right up to my mama.

So you better believe that we grew up in the church. We did not grow up IN (Sun-Mon) the church like some, but church was definitely an active part of our livelihood. I still remember Pleasant Grove Baptist Church and Reverend Scott and how they strengthened my faith at a young age. This was the first church I can really recall, and it served as the basis for my spiritual foundation. As a young kid, I was rowdy everywhere and that did not exclude the church. So for the most part, my memories of church at that age consisted of scolding and spankings from my mother. Eventually I was sent to Sunday school where the youth were indoctrinated with the beginnings of Christian thoughts and the foundations of its beliefs. I enjoyed Sunday school and actually took to religious thoughts very easily. I remember agreeing to being baptized (my sister and I performed the ceremony at the same time, but she later has explained that she had issues with me for that) and that ceremony was just fine. Although I do remember having particular evil thoughts even then. I remember scheming to be baptized again when near death so that my sins will be reallllly wiped away just before I die. Either way, I was baptized and became a regular Christian boy.

As I grew older my faith grew along with me, and I recall even wanting to be a preacher when I grew up. My family seemed to be fine with my religious development and all was well. This continued until about my junior year of high school. I hung out with mostly cool but conservative-thinking friends my first two years, but towards my senior year, I began hanging out with a different type. I can now label these friends heathens (I mean that in the most endearing way) but they began to challenge my faith. Or rather, I began to challenge their lack of faith. I remember one statement from one of my favorite persons in life, Adey, and she said “I could not go to heaven knowing that so many other people were suffering for all eternity.” That amongst many other statements and consequent conversations really started corroding the foundation of my faith. How could a loving God be content with his children suffering for all eternity? What happened to all those people that lived before Jesus? What about those that have never heard of Jesus or the Bible, why do they have to go to hell? These questions and many more were bouncing around unanswered for the rest of my pre-college life, and it did not help that I was beginning to be disillusioned with fellow church goers. Our new church (as a result of moving to NoVA) was Antioch Baptist Church, and it was during that phase of life that I was beginning to become aware of some of the more relevant issues of the church. Why was our church the uppity church where everyone seemed a little full of themselves? Why were the vast majority of the youth promising God to stay abstinent and screwing around on the side? Why did beliefs other than that of the teacher immediately get shot down as un-Christian or just wrong? These issues led me to become more and more distant from the Church (something I still live with).

Once I left for college, I was sufficiently confused about my beliefs that I realized I needed to press the reset button. I wanted to start all over and erase all that had been originally taught (a fact that my friend Jonathan has reminded is impossible). Initially my plan was to learn all about different religions and then to decide what I believed after that. I imagine a significant part of my freshman year of school was spent learning about other religions and considering how I could deal with them. I concluded that each was just as likely to be believed as the other but that they all were basically saying the same thing. Be socially accountable (Be Good). I remember looking at a church pamphlet with my mother. It had all of the major religions and the basis of their beliefs listed out, and counteracted each with why Christianity is best. I remember saying something along the lines that I was confused and that it seemed that everyone was going to hell in at least somebody’s book. And her response was something of the sort: I went through that as well and ended up picking Christianity.

Well for a good chunk of time (a year or so) I did not pick Christianity or any other religion for that matter. I was starting over AGAIN and not believing in anything until I was sure. I decided to give Christianity the first shot by reading the Bible, but I did not receive the divine inspiration that I expected. I have later learned that the Bible is something best read when you already have faith than when you are trying to find it. Well anyways, I gave up on the idea of being a Christian and entered this state of logical conclusions. If it could not be deduced logically then I did not really want to deal with it. This lasted until I received my first real revelation in life.

I remember sitting in the dorm room and this idea took over me. Everything is faith. That belief honestly has changed me more than anything else I can think of. As I explored this idea more and more fully I became so much more secure as a person. Now do not jump to conclusions and assume that everything is faith applies only to religion, this idea applies to everything. I am saying it takes faith to believe two plus two equals four just as it takes faith to believe that a man was conceived without intercourse occurring. They just take two different levels of belief. But I am not focusing on that idea too much, if you want to talk about it, talk to me. Suffice it to say that I was no longer content with just the logical explanation of all things, I was now interested in delving deeper into my beliefs. I had begun with the wrong assumptions, I was searching for something concrete (or irrefutable) and there is no such thing. I know had the freedom to believe.

If anything, this caused me to step further away from organized religion. It pushed me deeper inside myself to examine what it is that made sense to me. What ideas spoke to my soul, what rang with that undeniable sound of truth (cliché I know). I also began to realize that I am afraid to believe anything other than what I was expected to. In this phase of being most non-Christian (by the rules of Christianity) only my closest of friends knew of my non-traditional beliefs.

It is only recently that I have come to terms with my beliefs. I kept wanting them to change back to my unquestioned faith of childhood, but it was not to be. I can admit to myself that my Christian beliefs of past no longer hold now, at least not in the ways that count, and I can begin to document some of my beliefs.

I have prayed and will continue to pray for Jesus Christ to speak to my heart and to bring me to the light that is Christianity, but I realize that my ears are not wide open to hearing his message. I still pray that it happens, because I truly do see the advantages to believing. I just do not have it in me now to do so.

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