Don't Hold Me Back
I know that everyone has their struggles and problems, but growing up in a cult-like church really puts a stranglehold on your development because pretty much everything is forbidden. For example, my siblings and I weren't allowed to take swimming lessons because swimsuits are immodest clothing. We couldn't watch a lot of popular TV shows because they were "dirty" or "immoral." Same thing with popular music. Surprisingly, they didn't censor our reading, which was good for me. I never would've learned anything about sex otherwise. (Speaking of sex, that's going to be a separate post entirely. I still haven't gotten past the negative attitude the church has toward sex and the human body and struggle with a lot of guilt.)
We couldn't participate in school activities on Wednesday nights because we had to go to Bible study every Wednesday. Sundays were a total wash because we had to go to church twice, for a grand total of 3 hours (or more): an hour of Bible class (NOT Sunday school--Sunday school is "denominational") and an hour of church in the morning, and then another hour-long service in the evening. Given that the preacher was enamored of his own voice, those Sunday services usually ran overtime, so it almost always ended up being a total of 4 hours spent in church. If you add in the commuting time (since the church of Christ in our town wasn't "scripturally correct" enough for my dad), you're looking at a 5-hour church extravaganza once a week. It was exhausting and demoralizing. I never wanted to go.
More important, the church held us back socially. We weren't supposed to associate with anyone except members of the church, but since we were the only ones in our school, we didn't have too many other options. To be fair, my mom was aware of this and never forbade us from having non-CoC friends. They did have to come from good church-going families, though. Every now and then, dad would have an attack of guilt and try to order us not to associate with non-CoC people, but mom would always make him back down. Thank goodness she had a more-level head. If it hadn't been for her providing a buffer between dad and me, I probably would have killed myself when I was 15.
So we were allowed to have friends who weren't part of the CoC, but we were also supposed to be trying to convert them. I hated being told to invite my friends to church. I disliked going myself, so why would I want to inflict that on people I liked? I did invite them a few times, just to assuage my guilt or make my dad happy, but I always felt sick about it.
What makes me most angry about growing up in a sick, twisted church like that is that you can never stop judging people. You can't ever open up and love them because you're supposed to be busy judging and converting them. Leaving the church was liberating on many levels, but perhaps none so important as letting go of that need to judge. For the first time in my life, I felt free to fully accept another human being, flaws and all, and love that person in return. You can't do that when you're a fundamentalist. It's not a healthy way to live.
We couldn't participate in school activities on Wednesday nights because we had to go to Bible study every Wednesday. Sundays were a total wash because we had to go to church twice, for a grand total of 3 hours (or more): an hour of Bible class (NOT Sunday school--Sunday school is "denominational") and an hour of church in the morning, and then another hour-long service in the evening. Given that the preacher was enamored of his own voice, those Sunday services usually ran overtime, so it almost always ended up being a total of 4 hours spent in church. If you add in the commuting time (since the church of Christ in our town wasn't "scripturally correct" enough for my dad), you're looking at a 5-hour church extravaganza once a week. It was exhausting and demoralizing. I never wanted to go.
More important, the church held us back socially. We weren't supposed to associate with anyone except members of the church, but since we were the only ones in our school, we didn't have too many other options. To be fair, my mom was aware of this and never forbade us from having non-CoC friends. They did have to come from good church-going families, though. Every now and then, dad would have an attack of guilt and try to order us not to associate with non-CoC people, but mom would always make him back down. Thank goodness she had a more-level head. If it hadn't been for her providing a buffer between dad and me, I probably would have killed myself when I was 15.
So we were allowed to have friends who weren't part of the CoC, but we were also supposed to be trying to convert them. I hated being told to invite my friends to church. I disliked going myself, so why would I want to inflict that on people I liked? I did invite them a few times, just to assuage my guilt or make my dad happy, but I always felt sick about it.
What makes me most angry about growing up in a sick, twisted church like that is that you can never stop judging people. You can't ever open up and love them because you're supposed to be busy judging and converting them. Leaving the church was liberating on many levels, but perhaps none so important as letting go of that need to judge. For the first time in my life, I felt free to fully accept another human being, flaws and all, and love that person in return. You can't do that when you're a fundamentalist. It's not a healthy way to live.
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