Zoe's Spiritual Deconstruction - Part One: In the Beginning
Also, yes that is me in the above photo. I know - I was hideous.
Okay.
I was raised within the Christian Reformed Church. My dad was a pastor for most of my life. His dad and brothers were pastors (still are). Both sides of my family considered themselves staunch Christians (still do). That's the reality that I was born into.
For me, being a Christian meant that you believed in the Trinity - God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. It meant that you believed Jesus was the Son of God, sent to Earth through the Virgin Mary to die for our sins and rise again from the dead. Because of him we were what Christians call "saved", meaning that our sins were eternally forgiven and we could have a personal relationship with God, culminating with our acceptance into Heaven when we died.
I was taught that God was omnipotent and loving and that his counterpart was Satan - who represented everything that was evil and repugnant. As a child I believed that Satan was just as real as God was, only less powerful. I believed that angels and demons were real and surrounded us every day.
My family read the Bible regularly and went to church every Sunday. My dad preached. We sang worship songs, witnessed baptisms (not full immersion), prayed, and took communion. I attended Sunday school with the other kids. Sometimes I would convince Mom to let me stay with the adults so I could hear Dad's sermon.
Rhett addressed something early on in his Spiritual Deconstruction episode that I, too, feel the need to address: There's a type of religious person who, upon hearing anyone explain how they strayed from Christianity, will assume that you were never a real Christian. If you could turn your back on God, give in to your doubts, or convert to a different religion - then you could never have been a true Christian, because a true Christian could never do such a thing.
Just like Rhett, I'd like to stress that I was, indeed, a "real" Christian. God was a part of my every day - my every moment, even. I had a relationship with him - a deeply personal one. To me, he was as real as you are. To me, nothing could ever shake my faith in his existence or in his love for me. I believed that I heard his voice on a daily basis; I believed that we had conversations.
Church, God, worship, the Bible - all of these were core values in my life. They played a part in my daily routine, in my weekly routine. I wanted to share the Gospel with others and spread the same joy I felt. To me, Christianity was at the center of who I was because I believed that God had made me. How could you not feel 100% indebted to the one who created you? My commitment to him was steadfast.
Now, I want to clarify that I, too, would judge people who doubted God or left the faith behind. I had the same thoughts - "well, they must not have been a real Christian", "they must never have truly believed". I know that saying, "no really, I was a true believer!" won't change the minds of certain people. They're going to believe what they want. I just feel it's pertinent to the story to clarify that I took my faith very seriously.
To say that I must never have had a real relationship with Jesus would, to me, feel incredibly dismissive. I had a real journey, a real faith, a real lifestyle permeated by a belief in God, and it will always be central to my life and to who I've become.
Anyone who hasn't experienced religion in this way may find it difficult to understand why shifting a belief system is difficult and requires a blog to explain it. For so many other things in life we can evolve our ideas and opinions and exchange old beliefs for new ones without much fuss. The difference with religion is that it's ingrained into who you are, and it shapes everything in your life - from relationships with friends, relatives, coworkers, spouses; to your interactions with strangers at the grocery store; to the way you absorb media like books and movies; to the music you choose; to the opinions and thoughts you form; to the decisions you make; it is all affected by the faith you cling to.
Not that Christianity means less to someone if they convert to the faith later in life, but there's something to be said for literally being indoctrinated since the day you were born. There's never a "before" for you. Not that I always believed (my Mom recounts me deciding to accept Jesus into my heart at age 4, whereas before that I showed no interest), but as far as my memory is concerned, God was always a part of my reality.
When something is taught to you the same way that walking and talking is, you don't question it. You might have questions, sure - because you're curious, maybe even skeptical - but you ask in much the same way as you would ask why the sky is blue or if Santa is real.
When I was little, I couldn't understand why someone would choose not to believe in God when they had the option to. I couldn't understand why other parents wouldn't tell their kids that God existed. I felt it was my duty to chase my peers around the playground yelling, "Do you know Jesus?!"
To me, Jesus was the best guy in the world and everyone should have the privilege of knowing him! For whatever reason, probably because of how my parents taught Christianity to me, introducing others to Jesus was never about saving their souls - it was literally about sharing someone I loved with them, the way you'd introduce your best friend to your classmates.
My parents never told me that if I had a friend who didn't believe in God they would go to Hell. I don't think that theory sat right with them. I also don't think they wanted to plant fear of eternal damnation into the soul of a toddler. Instead I believed that the truly evil people went to Hell and that everyone who loved Jesus would go to Heaven. I don't remember what I thought happened to the people who were neither evil nor Christian when they died.
So now you know the beginning. I'm going to let this sit as Part One and begin writing Part Two. I promise it gets more interesting than this.
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