I am not sure how many GAGers grew up in religious homes. But I did. This mytake is not an indictment of kids who grew up with religious parents -I have friends who went to church every Sunday and had normal lives. I, however, did not. This is my story and my perspective based on the experiences I have had with extremist fundamentalist circles. There are some stories worse than mine though, so remember that.
What is christian fundamentalism? In my words, it is a type of Christianity that takes the Bible in a literal sense. In this branch of Christianity, the Bible stories aren’t pleasant little fables to learn from - they are bloody and literal and kinda horrifying. The lesson isn’t basic common decency or morality; it’s about unquestioned obedience and fear of the Lord. A great summary of what I was taught as a child can be found here.
So what did this look like in my life? What was my childhood like?
My childhood was comprised of many church services; both Sunday morning service and Wednesday night bible study. I also participated in church activities so I had to come to church again on Saturdays for practices.
My parents were deacons. Our church was semi-progressive and allowed women to preach and hold leadership positions. My mother was the finance director of the church. And my father was a regular deacon on the Deacon Board.
I spent a good percentage of my time under the tutelage of the head pastors. They call themselves “apostles” now but before, the title was Bishop( In these circles, they’re always coming up with newer and fancier sounding titles for the same jobs). I was trained to be a minister myself from a very young age. I was indoctrinated very young in somewhat radical ways and they picked up on this. So, I spent a lot of time studying the Bible, reading literature and being trained to be an effective traveling minister. I even had a few speaking engagements and performed on a circuit. True story.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention speaking in tongues. Oh man. My church was truly obsessed with speaking in tongues. If you couldn’t, it was like you weren’t “holy” enough. You had to become a Christian, get baptized, but the truth sign of devotion was to speak in tongues in front of everyone. As a kid I didn’t really *get* this, but you better believe I did what I could to blend in. Apparently, I was quite good at pretending so much so people still think I was serious.
What did I like about my upbringing?
1. There definitely was a sense of community and belonging.
My church wasn’t in some back woods somewhere. We were in a suburban area with regular amenities. But the church wasn’t connected to some larger organization per se, so it allowed the pastors some creative license. There were plenty of church events, plays and musicals, basketball games and much more. They created a tight knit community of people very well I think.
2. Exceptionalism
The people at my old church (I no longer attend now) truly believed their church was special. The congregation believed and internalized the idea that NO other church was like theirs - it was unique, divine and highly favored by God over other churches. How did this happen? In a stroke of genius, the pastors have this story they tell every year about how against all odds the church came to be. Every Thanksgiving, the church is reminded about how a corporation tried to steal the church land 20 years ago (now a huge multimillion dollar property), the ability to purchase said land for 40,000, and the many testimonies of random people seeing “angels” sitting on the church. It’s a spectacular story and not entirely untrue - but it is littered with suspiciously convenient prophecies and rambling testimonies to evoke more emotion from the listeners. As a result of repeatedly hearing this fantastical story, people are 100% devoted to the church and its mission.
I liked the “exceptionalism” of the church because it made life interesting. Everything was in service of a larger mission or goal - it gives you a sense of divine purpose to be apart of something so cool.
3. No money scandals
When people think of churches, they usually think of the late Bishop Eddie Long or money scheming pastors who tap dance for “tithes and offering.” We are accustomed to hearing about misappropriation of church funds or exorbitant purchases by wealth pastors. Or that incident with Joel Olsteen during Hurricane Harvey.
My family’s church definitely didn’t have any of those. Was there drama? YES. Was there money problems? No. My mother was the finance director remember? She was in full control of how money was appropriated and sorted in the church - everything came through her. And she worked overtime to make sure everyone filed taxes appropriately with the correct tax deduction form from the church. Every dollar and cent went to the appropriate place, thanks to her.
4. Invested Leadership
I try to give credit where it is due. The leadership of the church, known as “apostles,” were actually really nice. The title sounds egotistical and pompous but they were always very approachable. They invested countless hours and time reaching out to congregants, counseling the church members for free, and lending a hand in times of trouble. Despite their faults, they were honest people who genuinely believe they know the “truth” about the Bible. Their family is pretty spotless as well - no weird perversion or money problems. My beef with them is related to doctrine and malpractice. Also homophobia.
This leads me to what I didn’t like. And what I absolutely loathed.
1. Misinterpretation of doctrine
The problem I have with Christian fundamentalists is that every sentence in the Bible is taken quite literally. There is no room for nuance and especially not for critique. To criticize the BIBLE is to say it is fallible - and that was heretical. I don’t like explaining to people that my mom believes Revelations is real and that the rapture is coming soon. All the prophecies in the book of Daniel? She believes it. My family literally thinks God and his followers can raise people from the dead and can heal terminal illnesses.
I wish I could point out the many flaws in the Bible toy parents but I would not like the direction that conversation would go in. The Bible, and it’s preachers, shouldn’t be questioned.
In the same way Chairman Mao had a cult of personality surrounding his leadership, many Christian pastors do as well. Not all, but a good percentage of fundamentalist pastors don’t like to be questioned. Their authority is always assumed and there is very little room for respectful disagreements.
I can recall times where the pastor openly named his critics during a sermon, lecturing about how wrong they were. This may seem like in defense of himself, until you realize that the context of the criticism was never shared. It was always portrayed to me that the “gossip” surrounding the pastors was wrong and evil, and that the gossipers would suffer. Even without sharing specific names of pastors in the area, sometimes we all kinda knew who he was talking about.
And of course, we can’t forget the visions. One part of personality cults in communist nations is the ability to unite a group of people based on a shared vision or ideal. Whether it’s Stalinism or Maoism or that weird shit North Korea is on, there’s always an ideal to strive toward. And in this case, the pastors would claim to have actual VISIONS of the future. Sometimes apocalyptic, other times harmless, the visions were pretty detailed. People were often swayed by these moments, awed by how much God revealed to certain people over others.
3. Mental illness
I touched on this in #2, but i need to further elaborate. It seemed like having visions
and prophetic dreams was on trend. People were praised for having supernatural or psychic abilities, as a litmus test for how spiritual you were. Truly psychic people called “seers” had a prominent place in these churches. They saw demons and angels everywhere - it kinda led me to wonder how much of it was true and how much of it was schizophrenia.
In my personal life, my father was having mental problems. He was claiming to possess “demonic entities” that coerced him to do certain things. He even claims to this day that “Satan” told him to kill our family. At the climax of a horrific marriage, hearing his claim that he was hearing whispers of homicide led my mom to divorce him. It’s very traumatic to hear my father admit openly to wanting to kill my mother and possibly the kids as a byproduct. Individuals like this thrive in leadership positions of churches, claiming entities tell them to hurt others or that certain acts of abuse are god’s will.
(My father left my mother’s church before the divorce. And in another city, he is a minister and preacher of a different church. No one knows his past.)
The pastors of my mother’s church counseled my parents for many years during their problematic marriage. And despite many instances of mental illness, they continued to see him exclusively. As far as I know, they never recommended for him to see a psychiatrist. This was malpractice and could’ve gotten me killed in a very literal sense.
4. Alienation of others
Part of fundamentalism is about building a tight community. There’s so much bonding that takes place, you don’t realize how interdependent you become. You slowly become ingrained in church life so much so (taking on leadership positions, volunteering, etc) that you don’t realize how hard walking away is.
For many, to come out as LGBTQ is a death sentence. Not everyone believes in “freedom campus” or those camps where they claim to turn you straight. Those are rare. But churches make it explicitly clear that you will go to hell if you don’t find a way to be straight. They make it obvious that if you are found out to be gay, your life is over. Community is yanked from you and you are alienated from the church.
I know people who left the church, due to their own reasons, and it shunned them. It was like they dropped off the map and we were encouraged to disconnect from them. It’s kinda weird and I’m still processing how damaging this was to existing friendships and relationships with family members. As a result, I am personally afraid to openly admit that I am agnostic. All of the connections and important people I know would be yanked from me, and it would surely disrupt my relationship with my mother.
Does this sound kinda cultish to you? That’s because fundamentalism often is. I am still coming to terms with a lot of the stuff that happened to me, and this is the smallest piece of my earlier life I can give in under 20,000 words.
Thank you for reading.
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