Connecting Some Dots

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” according to the Preacher and the Psalmist, but for all the abuses inflicted upon that proverb, the word “terror” might more aptly be substituted for “fear.” Because I lived much of my life within terror-based religious systems that stoked unholy anxiety at every opportunity, I learned the hard way that “the terror of the Lord” can get a person into some serious trouble. For decades I was a people-pleaser at heart, starved for male attention and approval, a susceptible mark for terror doctrines.

For starters, the Pentecostal churches of my adolescence and young adulthood insisted salvation was a tenuous state that may be either granted or recalled by a capricious God whose standards were not entirely clear. Salvation was a gift, I was told, and although I could do nothing to receive it (technically, anyway), I could commit crimes that would jeopardize, even eradicate, my salvation. However, I was never sure what constituted the final straw, the salvation-obliterating crime. What if, in a brief moment of anger, I blurted “Shit!”? Was that a deal-breaker? I somehow doubted it. I figured some kind of sin-hierarchy existed, though, something along the lines of ten Shit!s = one Fuck, which was, perhaps, a deal-breaker all by itself (this was 1970’s Orange County, CA, remember; f-bombs were reserved for significant cussage). Although I could (and did) get saved as many times as I deemed necessary, what would happen if I were to die, say in a car wreck, or if Jesus were to return, while I was exercising my tenth Shit! option? Fiery preachers constantly reminded me of the plausibility of either scenario. Altar calls notoriously included anecdotes about young people who, having neglected God’s persistent calls for repentance, exited the church only to be killed by out-of-control vehicles plowing through the street and onto the church sidewalk. Let scoffers beware.

The 70’s were virulent with talk of the Rapture (the surprise appearance of Jesus in the clouds, coming to gather believers to Himself), most often depicted as God’s most impressive “Gotcha!” moment; therefore, hyper-vigilance was in order. I not only attended my tiny church each time the doors were unlocked (Wednesday nights were reserved for the preacher’s two-year-long, panic-inducing Revelation series), I took every opportunity to attend the events of local churches. Calvary Chapel’s home-base in Costa Mesa hosted Saturday night worshiptainment services, led by long-haired, often hot, hippie/surfer-types whose conversion made them benign targets of my male-obsessing. These concerts were followed with a sermon by Chuck Smith (“Pastor Chuck”), Calvary Chapel’s founder and patriarch, who frequently emphasized the impending appearance of Jesus, warning us to be ready at all times. My inner Nellie Oleson delighted when Pastor Chuck frequently called out the people who had shown up for the music but not for the sermon. Right there, before God and a couple-thousand folks, Smith would stop preaching to the masses, turning his attention toward some poor schlep who was making his way toward the nearest exit. “Church is not over,” Smith would intone, before adding the admonition that people who attended Saturday nights only for the music should stay home in the future. That would show the bastards, I’d think, while making eye contact with nearby parishioners, who, like me, had come to truly worship the Lord.

Like many of his colleagues, Smith preached that Jesus would return for His church before the end of the twentieth-century, this based on a prevailing conviction that Israel’s 1948 declaration of independent statehood had initiated God’s Last-Days timeline. Contemporary Christian artists echoed this dogma. One of the most popular tunes, forever embedded in my mental database, was written and first sung by Larry Norman:

Life was filled with guns and war, and everyone got trampled on the floor. I wish we’d all been ready. . . .

A man and wife asleep in bed; she hears a noise and turns her head; he’s gone. I wish we’d all been ready. . . .

There’s no time to change your mind. The Son has come and you’ve been left behind.

Left behind. The worst fear of a young woman oblivious to her debilitating abandonment issues. Norman’s song pervaded contemporary (read hip) Christian culture, providing the soundtrack for the first horror film I ever watched: the 1972 masterpiece, A Thief in the Night (YouTube it if you dare). While my Pentecostal church-home did not host a viewing of this popular movie (attending “moving picture shows” remained verboten within our doctrinal guidelines), I had no trouble finding a local Baptist church (they were compromisers) that featured it on Friday evenings. Mission accomplished, Mr. Movie Producer. I was now irrevocably scared shitless. The terror perpetuated by 1970’s Christian culture, in combination with my greedy yearning to find favor among authoritative (male) fountainheads, made for a toxic partnership, thereby shaping my decision-making impulses and fixing my future for thirty years to come. Most of that period would not be characterized by "wisdom."

When the Saints Go Marching Out

After spending more than twenty years as a stay-at-home mom, my restlessness and discontent were getting the best of me. ("Best" being a generous word since I had not, up to that point, given my best effort to many endeavors.) Seeking identity apart from the roles of someone's wife and someones' mother, I began volunteering at my church. Established in the 1930s, by the year 2000, it was on its way to becoming a mega-church, a sure sign of its relevance and hipness, in my book. Therefore, when I was allowed to relieve the front-desk receptionist for several hours each week, I felt closer to the inside track, quite literally nearer the seat of authority. A variation of Sally Field's infamous Oscar speech echoed in my head: "They like me. They really, really like me!" I would have continued doing the work for free, but when, after a few months, they offered me a "real" part-time job, I accepted as though I'd been crowned Homecoming Queen. I was now officially a member of the in-crowd. And while I was merely a handmaiden within the king's court, I was at least inside the walls and periodically acknowledged (by name!) by the authorities. For a woman existing within a fundamentalist mega-church, I felt I had arrived ("but where?" might have been a productive question; then again, probably not, given my mindset).

After working there for a while, I realized that most of the church's female employees did not attend the church's Sunday services despite the fact that such attendance was an explicitly-stated condition of their employment. Besides fueling my sense of uber-righteousness, this fact piqued my curiosity for three years. However, during my final two years of employment, my curiosity was satisfied. One week after resigning from my job, I sent a letter to the board of elders, requesting that my name be removed from the membership roll.

I have stories to tell, believe me. But most of them target me as often as they target others. After all, when used as a controlling device, the fear of the Lord is not the beginning of wisdom; rather the seedbed of arrogance and intolerance. I both upheld and acquiesced to distorted versions of such fear. I am still making sense of all I once knew to be certain. One thing about which I'm fairly sure: Church is not a shortcut to righteousness; in fact, it may be a longcut.

While many young women in their 20s and 30s are now blogging about their experiences as recovering fundamentalists, I have noticed only a handful of baby-boomer bloggers among these escapees. I am now joining their ranks.