I think I was born into a cult. V2

I think I grew up in a cult. Not one of those cults where the kids are physically abused and the adults are all sleeping with each other but a cult nonetheless. 

I was full immersed in an environment of beliefs, words, actions and rituals every day for 18 years that dictated every decision that was made for me and every decision I made for myself for years following.

The core dogma of the cult is a requirement to achieve one’s own personal salvation from the eternal punishment that is due to you by being born a despicable and worthless sinner. This can only be achieved by accepting God’s truth into your heart; that his son died on a cross to save you, as made clear in the inherent word of God, the Bible, and through his grace, not by your own works or efforts, you will then have eternal life in heaven with God.

To assist in achieving this, my childhood was wholly contrived to ensure the least amount of pollution to my soul. I attended classes where I was taught our doctrine, with children whose parents and grandparents had received the same teaching. I attended play dates, school, church, youth groups, camps and conventions only with people who held our beliefs. I was encouraged to commit to ‘quiet times’ where I would read material on my own that directed my quiet contemplation to the importance of my personal salvation. Our schools were built by our grandparents who also built our churches and were attended by the generations that followed. This ensured I was so immersed; it would have been outrageous of me to question the beliefs and values of so many people.

My life was comprised of a set of rituals which were adhered to without exception. These rituals were stoically implemented with the good intentions of keeping my soul safe from the outside world and to ensure I stayed on the right path.

The most important of these rituals was Bible reading. The Bible was the corner stone of my childhood and provided clear instructions on how I should be raised, what my values should be, what decisions I should make in life and that I was required to accept the whole truth of, with absolute certainty, to be saved from the perils of hell. During the reformation Martin Luther swapped out the Pope for the Bible and we got personal salvation.

The second was church attendance. This was mandatory and twice every Sunday. For 18 years, I dressed appropriately and sat quietly in my pew, sang along to hymns, closed my eyes in prayer and listened intently to sermons.

From birth I was told I was a dreadful sinner. This is what God’s word, the Bible, taught us. Every sermon I heard made clear that I was nobody without God in my life guiding my decisions, and saving me from my sinfulness. I would burn in hell without God and so would all of those around me who didn’t believe in God and his grace.

I was encouraged to allow him to move my heart, through prayer and Bible reading, and accept the incredible thing he had done for me 2024 years ago by dying on a cross and to repent from my wickedness. Without God’s grace my life would be meaningless and if I didn’t follow the truths of the bible, I would end up like all non-believers; mindlessly wandering through life seeking meaning in all the wrong places like alcohol, secular music, television and movies, drugs and worst of all – sex. 

I was paradoxically both an incredible human that was fearfully and wonderfully created in God’s image and I was a piece of shit.

I was told I was useless and I was worthless. At times, this message was delivered straight-up. I would never be good enough or achieve anything of value or contribute to society in any meaningful way unless I believed the Bible and repented, through which I would then ascribe to our higher value system. I would no longer lead a meaningless life; because the entire meaning of life is to be saved and be assured a place in heaven with God.

Despite every facet of my life being deeply and rigidly immersed in this environment, despite the prayers, Bible reading and sermons, I never understood it.

The Bible.

When considering the absolute truth of the Bible, I could not make sense of how that could be so. If we accept the dire sinfulness of man and that Jesus was the only human ever to walk the earth that was free of sin and pure of heart, and we accept that he didn’t write the Bible, he merely inspired it, thus sinful men wrote the Bible, how can the Bible therefore be the inherent word of God?

We know that the Bible is a document which was put together by hundreds of men from multiple cultures and backgrounds, from tens of thousands of texts and snippets of manuscripts originally written in three different languages over many, many centuries and then translated by men over many more centuries into thousands of languages and then put together in one document, the inclusions of which books was decided upon by a committee of men.

How can the Bible and it’s teaching therefore not be influenced culturally, historically and selfishly by those that wrote it, and those that subsequently translated it, to impart information that was important at the times in which the writers, some of whom we can’t actually attribute to specific writing, were living? How can we say this is the inherent word of God, that is entirely appropriate as a complete guide to living in 2024 when it was written by sinful men 1000’s of years ago and has undergone thousands of translations and interpretations. How can we possibly be so confident these words are God’s exact words?

Despite these niggling doubts, I had no basis from which to contradict the inherency of the Bible outside of a feeling, I did not have exposure to alternate beliefs or the internet. Questioning the Bible would be to question the foundation of my community’s entire value system as without the inherency of the Bible, so much appears to collapse.

Adding to these technical doubts was the way the Bible was used in our home and our community and still today I can’t hear the Bible or a prayer read aloud without feeling a ball of discomfort build up deep in my stomach.

My father would come home from work in the foulest of moods, he would trip on one of our school bags and throw it out the door into our front garden. He would walk directly to the radio and switch off the Christian music radio station and turn it to Classic FM. He would cold shoulder us all including our mother with the exception of barking orders to set the table for dinner, clean up our mess and tell us to be quiet. We would then sit down to dinner at a table, like God intended, and we would fold our hands and close our eyes and he would deliver a prayer of some duration in calmness and thoughtfulness. We would eat our dinner in suspended fear keeping our elbows off the table and when speaking we ensured our mouths were completely empty. And once we had finished eating, my father took a Bible off the shelf nearby and without ever missing a meal, he read from it and an accompanying devotional, and we sat with our arms crossed and listened silently. Then we would pray again to ask that the words we had just read would enter into our hearts and make us better Christians. Then silently we would get up from the table, no discussion, no questions, no follow-on, and do the dishes.

Regardless of the mood he would read the bible and a devotional and pray twice. This happened at breakfast and at dinner. It mattered not that one of us had just taken a verbal bollocking for not much reason or that someone was crying in distress or that someone was angry with someone else; we stringently maintained reading a bible passage and associated devotional in the order the book we were reading contrived. This ritual was completely unrelated to the goings-on of the day, we would hear what the Bible was telling us as relates to whatever topic the author had decided to write about next.

Likewise, our commitment to church attendance. The impression we gave of ourselves to others, regardless of the truth behind the façade, was most keenly displayed through how we behaved in church. It was irrelevant that we were all shouting at each other 20-minutes earlier, the requirement was to be in church, look good, sit still and listen to God’s word.

Again, the dichotomy of the unresolved tension at home and the ritual Bible reading we undertook was uncomfortable. The fractious exiting of the house to get to church on time, with anger and resentment boiling over on all sides, only to then have the Bible read down at me from a raised platform whilst those responsible for easing my anger and frustration appeared to be piously reading along untroubled by my angst in their pews.

It appeared far more important that we were seen reading the Bible, praying and attending church, however meaningless this pursuit was on account of its ritualism, than if we were happy and content children who felt valued and loved by God and had this unconditional love demonstrated to us through our parenting and our community. 

The theory appeared to be that rituals would cement the beliefs and our lived experiences would fade into the background; if we read the Bible enough then by osmosis, we would become saved, it would all make much more sense than the pick and mix approach to adopting the bible’s teaching we were experiencing.

Personal Salvation

As a family, sitting around the table after dinner, multiple times throughout my childhood, the accompanying devotional read to us was Pilgrim’s Progress written by John Bunyan. It is a story focussed on the dreadful burden of sin we are carrying as Christian sinners and tells a tale of all the sinful, evil people we meet along our life’s journey that have potential to lead us astray in our mission to achieving our personal salvation. Achieving our salvation is depicted as a solo and personal battle and is the entire focus of Christian’s (aptly the name of the title character) life in the book. This praised interpretation of Christianity is widely accepted; a struggle, a burden, a fight, a sacrifice, right vs. wrong, a solo journey of endurance through a lifetime of persecution to get to heaven.

This sentiment of our own personal journey of endurance results in significant naval gazing over the purported discomfort of being a Christian in a godless and sinful world. I still hear regular complaining that one’s Christian values and way of life are under attack and that standing up for one’s faith requires sacrifice and fortitude. From our middle-class suburban homes in ‘the lucky country’ this sounds rather self-centred given the lack of action that appears to take place to change this sinful and godless world in any meaningful way. The correlation between complaining and action is not directly obvious.

With one’s sole focus in life to find one’s personal salvation in a sinful world comes an interest predominantly in the outcomes of one’s own life and this has detrimental side effects.  There is a carelessness, a loss of focus on the earthly that comes with a total focus on the heavenly. There is Biblical comfort in the inevitability of the world being a shit hole.  The Bible tells us it is a shit hole and therefore the drive and ambition to make an impact, to make things better in this life for others, is completely diminished with full Biblical back-up. It appears better to focus on nurturing your own saved soul, keeping it from harm than devote time to even considering the plight of others. There seems very little energy left for our neighbour whilst one is in the midst of fighting an almighty battle.

There is indifference to making a difference; what would the point be in trying as Jesus may return soon. Far better that I encourage Bible reading and pray that others can discover the truth and find their personal salvation too. The focus on social justice today is undermined by the notion of justice eternally.

Meanwhile, despite the Bible reading and prayers, around us women and girls remain at high risk of violence or death perpetrated by a domestic partner, children live in poverty and our indigenous population have limited access to health and education; this is the fait accompli of living in a sinful world it seems.

I believe in the Biblical teaching of compassion and in pushing back against just accepting what is wrong and un-just in the world. I feel the very least we can do for our brother and sister humans is be mindful that our privileged position in life exceeds that of 99% of the world’s population and that diminishes our right to complain and increases our responsibility to make ourselves aware of what journeys of suffering, hardship and persecution looks like in real life, not just in the make-believe of Pilgrims Progress. It is surely not enough to just thank God for the blessings he has bestowed upon on us or perhaps sub-consciously assume our privilege is as a result of our faith, we need to pay it back. On this one I do think the Bible is clear.

Right vs Wrong

The corner stone of the Protestant belief system is that everyone can and should read the Bible and interpret the Bible for their own personal salvation. However, the outcome of this, unlike the Catholic church of which there is only one, is that Protestants have splintered into thousands of denominations around the world, over differing interpretations on topics such as baptism, communion, predestination and styles of worship amongst many, many more; and each believes they are right.

Despite Protestantism praising and supporting personal interpretation, an inevitable lack of acceptance of others interpretations as new ideas arose and hard liners grew, meant new denominations appeared; and they all think they are right. Some are more militant than others. Each denomination chooses which version of the Bible they read, choosing an interpretation that supports their theology or even re-writing it with a little casual leaning to make the theology fit better. For example, conservative denominations prefer the autocratic King James Version (it was sponsored by a King who didn’t want to lose his power) and the Anglican church prefers the New International Version which is softer on hell and damnation whilst the English Standard Version is accused of reinforcing male hierarchy to suit conservative evangelicals. Each version of the Bible has a leaning towards the doctrine or theology of the writers; bias is as real for Bible translators as it is for everyone else in more lowly professions.

The definition of ‘faith’ is that we are confident in our position regardless of the facts. However, confidence has been replaced with certainty; certainty of each one’s own beliefs, denomination, doctrine, dogma, rituals and version of the Bible. Within some denominations, it is unacceptable to have differing interpretations of much of the above. You could be deemed a troublemaker and the suggestion might be made that you find yourself another congregation to join rather than upsetting the other congregants with your heretic thinking.

Ever-present is the concept of right vs. wrong. Our church is right and the other churches are wrong; wrong on their doctrine, wrong on their style of worship, wrong on their version of the Bible. You are a sinner, i.e., wrong, or saved i.e., right. Parents and people in authority are right and teenagers are wrong. There is a right way to live and right values and there is a wrong way to live; those that don’t believe our dogma live the wrong way.

Growing up in an environment obsessed with rightness, combined with perceived persecution, inhibits the ability to see the grey and to meet someone in the middle. Conversations are had to influence and convince people of your perspective as opposed to active listening and learning from others. This results in terribly unproductive and combative situations where victory over someone else is the only intended outcome of an interaction.

There is a lack of empathy and respect in conversation and a lack of ability to take into account personal experience. Defensiveness is rife.

There is an arrogance that comes with absolute certainty and it inevitably leads to one party being diminished.

As a child I was inquisitive, I wanted to understand things more clearly. Invariably the response to my questions was ‘stop asking why!’ My questions were seen as troublesome, I was apparently only asking questions, on a variety of subjects, to be difficult and ultimately, I was constantly dismissed.  My thoughts and opinions were not heard and therefore not valued. Every time I spoke up, I was treated to phrases like; ‘Why can’t you just accept it like your sister?’ or ‘Why do you always have to question everything?’.

There was no room for discussion, there was no back and forth exchanging of ideas. My father was the head of our household as the Bible teaches and therefore could not be wrong as the Bible could not be wrong.

My parents were right and I was wrong and the combativeness of this was destructive.  I would not go so far as to say our combative household was on account of our evangelical faith but I would say that our household reflected our evangelical beliefs where right vs wrong is a very comfortable norm. In an environment such as this, it was virtually impossible to improve the tension and frustration we were all experiencing.

Firstly, one has to admit to failings to address that something was wrong; but how could it be wrong when my parents were doing everything right? They were parents; right, and I was a teenager; wrong.

Secondly there would have to be give and take to resolve the chasms in our family and my father was the head of the household and true to our whole belief system, he was right.

Once outside of our community I learned the joy of listening to others and learning from their personal experiences and the joy of being heard. It was eye-opening to discover that people could articulate why they believed something and why they didn’t without anger, defensiveness or a need to convince me to agree with them. The people I had been led to believe were mindless, virtue-less wanderers through life seeking meaning in the wrong places actually had just as much meaning and as strong values and morals. They also didn’t feel obligated, under a miss-placed sense of persecution, to impress their beliefs on others and equally were completely comfortable respectfully accepting differing beliefs.

People were living fulfilled and happy lives making an impact in the world and valuing the lives of others; without the Bible, church, rituals, family values and fear of hell.

Fear

I have no doubt that people cling on to belief systems that are non-sensical because of the fear of hell. Our church preferred not to talk too much about hell in the later years of my attendance because it was a bit outdated to rant from the pulpit about hell and damnation, we preferred to focus on grace, but hell always hung about like the elephant in the room. I have certainly heard people say that they hold uncertainty but what if hell is real, surely one is best off believing just in case?

There are many scholars who very clearly argue that Jesus doesn’t mention hell as a place of burning fire and punishment for all eternity, this became an interpretation in later versions of the Bible. Equally ancient Jews didn’t believe in a hell either. The interpretation that makes more sense to me, with a God of love and compassion, is not to punish eternally but to separate, to not have the wonderful outcome of living with God in heaven for all eternity upon death but to be outside of it; gone, dead.

The concept of using hell and damnation for all eternity to scare the populous into good behaviour is as old as time and appears in multiple ancient mythologies. It is in essence a theory that continues today in our capitalist cultures; fear and consumption. We are scared into making purchases with the fear that we won’t be cool enough or beautiful enough or respected without said thing. This is a similar concept to heaven and hell, if you miss out you will be subjected to gnashing of teeth from the intense pain of hell fire for all eternity

How gracious is it when the alternative is burning in hell for all eternity because you were born a piece of shit?

Conforming seems a rather more preferable outcome.

To be told you are a piece of shit and will burn in hell for all eternity unless you believe, with a community of people watching your every move, however well intentioned, is no small amount of pressure to conform.

Family values.

From the beginning of my existence, I was taught that I was better than the other children living outside of our community. This was due to my having two parents who were married, my attendance of a private Christian school with real values, our church attendance, our avoidance of secular popular culture via television, movies and music and our adherence to our rituals.

My family had real values; the right family values. We were not like those other families living pointless lives without God, morals or principles, attending state schools, full of ‘broken’ families, using drugs alcohol and sex outside of marriage to find meaning in their regrettably miserable lives. We were right and they were wrong.

Given people in my community knew so few outside people, it was easy to draw conclusions and reaffirm beliefs that they were right. Today we call this confirmation bias. Our beliefs are never challenged because we live apart from the others making it entirely comfortable to judge from afar and assume that if everyone upheld our values, the world would be a much better place.

The confirmation bias is the belief that Christian ‘family values’ are right and therefore should be adopted by, or inflicted upon, the wider world for a positive outcome. The Bible is claimed to be very clear on many more cultural and societal issues than are actually written in it. The arrogance of this can be quite confronting.

The Bible has frequently been weaponised to incite righteous rage amongst Christians so, predominantly, men can obtain and hold power. Through the creation of ‘family values’ as in essence a marketing campaign, the many Protestant denominations were able to be pulled together under one rally cry, which is a very useful tool in obtaining votes. However, for many of these family values, there is no clear evidence at all of a Biblical position.

In many cases it appears irrelevant who is the most well-equipped, intelligent or best placed person to undertake leadership roles in our society; if their values don’t match Christian values, that individual will not be supported to a position of authority and Christians may even feel it appropriate to discredit them. This also works the opposite way, despite the actions of an individual, if they espouse Christian values, there will be support to obtain a position of authority or leadership. 

The most divisive and emotive of these values is abortion. Abortion has been used as a political weapon since the 1970’s when it was calculatedly chosen as an emotive issue that could rally Christians together behind a united cause to gain votes in the USA. People are now elected not on their skills in leadership, financial acumen or even their commitment to betterment of a community but on their stance on abortion.

As a closer to home example, the Australian Christian League, in a e-newsletter circulated to subscribers, interviewed candidates standing in a recent election, one question asked was; ‘Do you support drag queens reading to children in public libraries’. It is inconsequential what the individuals gifts and talents are for leadership, the answer to this one question apparently demonstrates an allegiance to Christian values or otherwise and would sway the support of the ACL and therefore its subscribers.  

The absurdity is the ease with which one could to say ‘no, I don’t believe drag queens should read to children in public libraries’ and achieve votes. It is irrelevant that you might not have even considered the issue or claim to even be a Christian or that you might have a dreadful past track-record and you might be a terrible leader… this is ringing an all too familiar bell.

The Bible has been weaponised and Christians have fallen into a divisive trap; there is no clear mention of abortion in the Bible or Drag Queens and yet one would think the Bible was absolutely clear on the matter given the rhetoric. Christians have been, and continue to be, incited to anger using the perceived notion of their values being under attack by the ‘other’ who are trying to change the God-ordained way of things.

The majority of ‘family values’ espoused by Christians are not clearly Biblical at all, they are more of a harking back to the good old days when we were apparently living in a simpler time.  There weren’t fewer gay people, gay people just stayed shamefully in their closets. True, there was less divorce but this was because there was too much shame in obtaining one so family violence and abuse was swept under the carpet. Women stayed home and raised children because men needing jobs on returning from the war was governmentally prioritised and families could subsist on single incomes.  But as with all things, times change, science, culture and economics move, this is entirely normal and has been happening since the dawn of time.

Change does not naturally equally bad, it isn’t the thin end of the wedge to total destruction of decency that for example gay people can now marry. I recall hearing conversations during the referendum on gay marriage that if passed into law, we would see people marrying their pets or inanimate objects, I have heard of no such thing in the years since the yes vote.

Those pushing for change are not aiming to take anything away from Christians as a means of subversive persecution. I still believe that the majority of humans are decent and want the best for themselves and others. 

The idea that in a democratic, multicultural society that upholds individual human rights that Christians values are more worthy than any others is absurd.  Why is it not enough to hold your personal beliefs and respect those of others? To insist that all the ills of the world are due to a lack of family values and that if we pass into law anti-abortion bills or ban gay marriage that somehow we will all be better off is nonsensical.

If the sub-conscious intention of instilling Christian family values into all areas of society is to just not have to see, interact or accept that there are people in the world that are different to ourselves, then good news; that has already been achieved in my home town.  The cult has created a perfect eutopia of good people with the right values and you will be very comfortable there surrounded by people who affirm your beliefs.

If you only want to convince the world that you are indeed right and have been all along then I suggest you find a hobby.