even when I was just One Of Us, I never understood the hatred.
I'm trying to get past it. I really am. But it's not easy. I was raised in the Catholic church, and spent a few years at the Crystal Cathedral (which is about as far off from Catholicism as you can get, but it's every bit as heavy-handed) between the ages of seven and twelve, until my mother had a crisis of faith and came back to the church of her childhood.
In both churches I consistently got the message: "Christians are BETTER THAN any other faith. We are the only ones who are RIGHT. Anyone else is GOING TO HELL." Sure, that might not be what Robert Schuller teaches with his "God loves you and so do I" message, but his Sunday School teachers weren't as enlightened, and I was in the Sunday School.
I spent many years afraid of God. I spent many years afraid of anyone who wasn't "just like us." When I'm afraid, I get angry to protect myself (as I'm sure everyone who knows me has seen). And I built up a lot of resentment and a lot of hair-triggers and hot buttons around the entire subject of Christianity.
It's hard to get past that kind of indoctrination. I hear "I'm a Christian" and the first thing that comes to my mind is not kayre, but the priest who told me and my ex-husband that unless I was confirmed in the Catholic church, he wouldn't permit us to get married (even though that that is *not* a Catholic doctrinal requirement, as I found out much later!).
What comes to my mind is not halibut, but the Sunday School teacher who painted a gruesomely loving picture of the agony waiting for anyone who didn't give their heart to Jeeeeee-zuz (I was nine) and scared an entire classroom of fourth-graders into crying fits, and didn't see anything wrong with what she had done.
What comes to my mind is not my father, who is a good and gentle man, but Pat Robertson telling America that it was pagans and gays who were really responsible for what happened on 9/11/01.
What comes to mind is the woman in my Microsoft Word class from this past quarter who took it upon herself to bring tracts and Bibles to class and pass them out to everyone during class time, and when I said "no thank you," to get up in arms about it and tell me I was going to hell.
What comes to mind is my ex-mother-in-law guilting my ex-husband into doing so many things connected to their faith, including turning the guilt on me to go through confirmation classes, even though I was really not sure about it.
What comes to mind is those same classes where every question I asked about the "whys" of Catholic doctrine was answered with "We do it that way because that's the way we do it," which is one of the biggest non-answers of the century.
What comes to mind is the priest who told me in confession when I was fifteen that the fact that I'd been raped meant that I'd committed a mortal sin, "because you must have tempted him or he wouldn't have tried it," and refused to give me absolution.
What comes to mind is people excusing God for doing terrible things to his people and his son, "because he's God."
What comes to mind is a stack of unanswered questions and past wrongs.
Yeah, I'm still angry about it. Yeah, it's hard for me to get past it.
And I'll do it on my own time, and pushing me to "get over it" will make it take that much longer.
I have my reasons for being wary of Christians. I haven't been shown nearly enough examples of "good" Christians to get past those reasons yet.
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Date: 2003-01-21 05:14 am (UTC)I'm trying to get past it. I really am. But it's not easy. I was raised in the Catholic church, and spent a few years at the Crystal Cathedral (which is about as far off from Catholicism as you can get, but it's every bit as heavy-handed) between the ages of seven and twelve, until my mother had a crisis of faith and came back to the church of her childhood.
In both churches I consistently got the message: "Christians are BETTER THAN any other faith. We are the only ones who are RIGHT. Anyone else is GOING TO HELL." Sure, that might not be what Robert Schuller teaches with his "God loves you and so do I" message, but his Sunday School teachers weren't as enlightened, and I was in the Sunday School.
I spent many years afraid of God. I spent many years afraid of anyone who wasn't "just like us." When I'm afraid, I get angry to protect myself (as I'm sure everyone who knows me has seen). And I built up a lot of resentment and a lot of hair-triggers and hot buttons around the entire subject of Christianity.
It's hard to get past that kind of indoctrination. I hear "I'm a Christian" and the first thing that comes to my mind is not
What comes to my mind is not
What comes to my mind is not my father, who is a good and gentle man, but Pat Robertson telling America that it was pagans and gays who were really responsible for what happened on 9/11/01.
What comes to mind is the woman in my Microsoft Word class from this past quarter who took it upon herself to bring tracts and Bibles to class and pass them out to everyone during class time, and when I said "no thank you," to get up in arms about it and tell me I was going to hell.
What comes to mind is my ex-mother-in-law guilting my ex-husband into doing so many things connected to their faith, including turning the guilt on me to go through confirmation classes, even though I was really not sure about it.
What comes to mind is those same classes where every question I asked about the "whys" of Catholic doctrine was answered with "We do it that way because that's the way we do it," which is one of the biggest non-answers of the century.
What comes to mind is the priest who told me in confession when I was fifteen that the fact that I'd been raped meant that I'd committed a mortal sin, "because you must have tempted him or he wouldn't have tried it," and refused to give me absolution.
What comes to mind is people excusing God for doing terrible things to his people and his son, "because he's God."
What comes to mind is a stack of unanswered questions and past wrongs.
Yeah, I'm still angry about it. Yeah, it's hard for me to get past it.
And I'll do it on my own time, and pushing me to "get over it" will make it take that much longer.
I have my reasons for being wary of Christians. I haven't been shown nearly enough examples of "good" Christians to get past those reasons yet.
I still have good reasons to be afraid.