Normal Is Not An Option

I like to joke that, on any given Sunday at any given church of Christ, one of only four possible sermons is being preached: (1) Everything Fun Is Sinful, (2) Why We're Right, Everyone Else Is Wrong, and They're All Going to Hell, (3) Let's Study One Word from One Obscure Bible Passage Until We All Pass Out from Boredom, and (4) Women Were Put on this Earth to Make Dinner, Make Babies, and Keep their Mouths Shut. But there's one more sermon that's possibly even more toxic and soul-crushing than all the others combined: Why Everything You Do, No Matter How Small and Innocent, Could Send You to Hell. Such sermons usually went along these lines: "Billy was a good little CoC boy who went to church 3 times a week with his parents. When Billy was 7, he became good friends with Bobby, a boy from his school. Unfortunately, Bobby's family was not part of the one true and right church. Things were innocent enough when they were young, but as the boys grew, Bobby temp...

Recently I told a friend about the measures I have to take to hide from the church of Christ. I have to be very careful about what I post on-line under my real name, because any hint of impropriety will immediately be reported back to my family, and then the CoC Mafia will come after me with all guns blazing. They call it "love bombing," a practice whereby they take extraordinary measures to get a person to "return to the fold." It'll start with letters and phone calls asking me to come back and wondering whether someone in the church hurt my feelings (it's never assumed that you have studied and reasoned and come to the conclusion that the CoC is wrong about something), and if my response isn't sufficiently conciliatory, then they'll start showing up on my doorstep unannounced asking to "study" with me so they can show me the error of my ways. My friend said, "Gee, it's like you're living in the witness protection program!...