Fred Clark, in his recent post, gave me a label for an event in my childhood that helps explain why my bland skepticism about religion sometimes gives way to some bitterness. He calls it “salvation anxiety.”
It’s the summer of 1980, I believe, and I am in Colorado, visiting my father and my stepmother. For whatever reason, my sister and I are sent to some sort of Vacation Bible School; probably with our step-siblings. The teacher at this facility tells us earnestly that we need to say some particular words about loving Jesus and accepting him as our savior or we’ll go to hell. I was panicked. I couldn’t remember the words. During a break, I made my sister repeat the words over and over until I could say whatever it was correctly so I didn’t go to hell.
I think back to that day and the person who scared me like that as a child, and I hate her. Now, maybe I misunderstood the particulars of what she said. Maybe she didn’t say that one had to say particular magic words verbatim. But the tactic was as undeniable as it is common: use fear of hell to compel worship of a particular god. Using that fear at all is questionable. Using it on a child is reprehensible.
Says Clark:
Those who have ever been a part of the American evangelical subculture know all about salvation anxiety. It’s why churches have altar calls even when everyone sitting in the pews has already come forward several times in that very church. It’s why evangelical youths re-re-re-dedicate their lives to Christ every time they’re invited to do so. It’s why many of us early on mastered the multi-leveled self-awareness required to pray with utter sincerity while simultaneously gauging that sincerity in the hopes that it will seem sincerely sincere.
This also reminds me of one of my earliest logical/philosophical breakthroughs. I was maybe six, and I was worried about whether I really believed in Jesus; again, because I had been taught that if you don’t believe in Jesus, you go to hell. Then, it occurred to me that, if I was afraid, it meant I believed. Otherwise, why would I be afraid?
Putting kids through that sort of mental trauma is obnoxious.
Altar call after altar call in Churches that do not have, and resolutely insist there’s no need for, an altar in any historic sense is one of the things we who have escaped to Rome or Constantinople wryly observe.
I never really experienced salvation anxiety, having always trusted that my first “sinner’s prayer” was sincere and that it “took.” But I know through the grapevine of aging adults who keep responding to altar calls “and this time I really, really, really mean it, Lord!” Ironically, you’ll pore over the Bible for any instance, or even any hint, of this prayer so beloved of “Bible-only” folks. It’s more an artifact from the Second Great Awakening forward.
I don’t follow Fred Clark, though I’ve read several of his blogs at your recommendation over the years. Fred has the blessing to have recognized that the Evangelical subculture is not the whole or Christianity and is not in historic Christianity’s mainstream. I would even go so far as to say that its soteriology, ecclesiology and typical eschatology are all heretical (I express no opinion on its pneumatology), though the Church never has held that those who are in error are necessarily condemned: “There are many sheep outside – as well as wolves within.”
I’m enjoying Ross Douthat’s Tuesday book release, Bad Religion, and not just because it confirms what I’ve increasingly thought. He’s got some good observations that I’d not picked up on previously. I’m sure he’ll have some wry words for the revivalists.
Very well said. And ask anyone who as a Roman Catholic kid (at least prior to the 1960’s) how he/she was thoroughy inclucated (at least prior to the 1960s) that (1) even so much as a lingering sexual thought, not to mention playing with one’s self, was a mortal sin,,,,(venial sins in the sexual area were as rare as icebergs in the Sahara), and (2) just one mortal sin, if not confessed and forgiven, would outweigh all the good things you might have done, and would send you to eternal hellfire if you went to sleep and didn’t wake up the next morning.
That for many was the equivalent of what you describe for the evangelical churches.
Considering the entire so-called Sermon on the Mount was sarcastic,, we could learn more from Jerry Seinfeld. Religion codified a joke.
When I was a kid in the early 80’s, my single mom was being bullied by some neighborhood Christians because she didn’t take me to church. To the point that she was honestly afraid they would do something to get child protective services involved and put me into a nice christian foster care.
After that, in my early high school years, I used to get verbally abused by “christian” kids about being a “satan worshipper”. (the irony never really made it to their brains apparently) Until one day in my junior year when I had had enough and I started debating this one very pious girl on my bus about it. She ended up crying at the end, said that I would go to hell, and I never heard anything about it from any of them again.
Whether someone is religious or not makes no difference to me. It’s what they DO that tells me their true character. I’ve met angels and assholes from all religions and lack thereof. My goal in life (and politics) is to make sure the assholes don’t rule.
It’s like Patrick Swayze said, “be nice until it’s time to not be nice.”
But they are all assholes unless they constantly expand your genuine freedom every moment of every day. And, if you prefer “love”, it should still meet that sole definition.
Doug, have you ever been to a Unitarian Universalist Church? I go to UUCC in Hendricks County, and your thoughts about religion remind me of many of our Sunday sermons and discussions afterwards. There’s a fairly large UU church in Lafayette–it might be worth checking out to counteract the evangelical brainwashing that permeates Hoosier culture. Our covenant is “We proudly carry the flame of religious freedom. We respect the interdependent web of all existence, of which we are a part. We encourage each other to spiritual growth, that makes for peace, ethical living, and community service.”
I have not, but my current thinking is that either: a) there is no deity; or b) if there is, he/she/it is a bit like the police in Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues:
UU, UCC, et. al. cannot get far enough from Religion. I attended a UCC grad seminary and quit after two semesters. It is still organized religion with dogma despite being more socially acceptable. Chaos is much closer to genuine Spirituality.
I can relate.
When I was in elementary school a friend asked if I would like to go to Christian summer camp with him. My parents thought that it would be a good experience for me to get out of the house for a week and get to socialize with people my own age (or maybe I’m applying my ideas to them; more likely they thought they’d get rid of the loudmouth for a week).
I was born into a Catholic family, and had spent most of my life attending Catholic Mass every Sunday, Ash Wednesday, Easter, Christmas… all the major church holidays. I guess at that point I didn’t think much about religion. At church we talked about Jesus and Mary and God and the Holy Spirit. And at church camp they didn’t talk about anything that was unfamiliar to me. And yet it was entirely different.
At the end of the camp week, there was a big going away ceremony when the parents arrived. During the ceremony, youth ministers baptized anyone that requested it in the swimming pool. All was well, and I was just waiting on my parents. Then a counselor caught me and told me I should be baptized. I said that I already had been and was just fine. He told me that it wasn’t the same and if I didn’t get baptized I would go to hell. It freaked me out, as well. I told my parents, and while they didn’t say anything to me about it that I can recall, I remember thinking they were angry.
As years passed, I began to realize that the town I lived in was not very welcoming towards Catholics. I drifted in and out of the church. It was a slow process moving away from religion and first to an agnostic… and later to where I am today. I guess you could call me a realist, or a naturalist… some say scornfully atheist. I prefer to think rationally, and keep myself in the empirical world.
Oh, and I too, years later when I was old enough to realize what had happened found myself very angry at religous zealots. It’s pretty disgusting to attempt to manipulate a child like that.
The authentic good news of Jesus, occupies less than 1/3 of “New Testament” canon—the remainder is what has empowered Religion, not the former.
The central message of Jesus in the Christian Gospels is fairly straightforward despite efforts to make it more complicated: salvation is achieved by loving others totally and acting in accordance with that love. Adults who claim to speak for the church and do not communicate that simple point to children, or, worse, fill them with fear and loathing, are perverting Jesus’ message. Whether young Doug would ever believe in any deity or not, young Doug should have been told the true meaning of the Gospels. Even if he ended up as a non-believer he might have a more favorable view of Christians, which would have been better for all concerned.
No it’s not. That was a 90s. CE innovation, mostly influenced by the Mystics, who sought to retain a post-Grace ethical protocol for ascending into Heaven, that was still controlled by Self, albeit with an anesthetizing word.