The Disillusionment Chronicles 2
Wed, 02/06/2008 - 16:21 | rlp
The Mission Trip: Part One
In March of 1982 I was a sophomore at Baylor University. I was a religion major, which meant that I was following a track of study designed to lead me nicely into seminary. I was getting my first taste of serious biblical study and theology. In addition I was beginning other studies common to liberal arts degrees - philosophy, anthropology, psychology, and the like. It was a mind-opening time for me.
I was also very involved with an organization called The Baptist Student Union, also known as the BSU. Some people said, “Don’t let the BSU BS You,” which I’ve always thought was pretty funny.
BSU was a Christian organization on campus that had Bible studies and worship services. We also did various ministries of one sort or another. We were a spiritual community of college students who were sincerely trying to be faithful and serious Christians. The community was very important to me, and I still treasure many memories from those days. I especially remember one of the BSU directors, Shawn Shannon, who was smart and funny and engaged with life. I had a profound respect for Shawn, both for her intelligence and her commitment to Christ. She was very helpful to me when I began to struggle with various doubts and concerns about Christianity.
Most of us in the BSU had been brought up in the world of evangelical Christianity. We were taught that everyone should become a Christian. This was what God wanted. We had a number of phrases that we used to describe the moment of conversion. You made a “profession of faith,” or “accepted Jesus as your personal savior,” or “asked Jesus to come into your heart.” These days I avoid that kind of language because it doesn’t communicate very well, but in that time and place, those phrases worked for us. We understood them to mean that you believed Jesus had died for your sins, and you were seeking to live as a disciple of Christ - a follower of his teachings.
We were also taught that if a person did not become a Christian during his or her lifetime, that person would go to hell. Hell itself was highly debated, at least in my circles. There were those who felt hell was literally a fiery place where poor, unrepentant sinners roasted for all eternity. Yes - devils, pitchforks, lakes of fire, that sort of thing. Many Christians I knew couldn’t stomach the idea of God burning people, particularly those nice Buddhists who had never even heard of Jesus. Some of these Christians believed hell was some kind of separation from the presence of God, a kind of a gloomy existence in the hereafter that no one could explain or define.
But whatever hell was, fire or gloom, it was a not a place you wanted to be. Particularly if you considered you could go to heaven instead. The exact details of heaven were never clearly laid out for us, but it was supposed to a pretty sweet place. In order to go to heaven, you had only to say a simple prayer, confessing your sins and proclaiming your belief that Jesus died for you.
Various religious leaders - pastors, Sunday school teachers, Bible study leaders, and others made no bones about this fact: It was our sacred duty to tell people that they needed to become Christians. We called it “witnessing,” and it was a thing we were all supposed to be doing. All the time. Wherever you were, at any time or place, if the opportunity arose, you should tell people about Jesus. There were even training classes you could take to learn how to get a Jesus conversation started, if you were a shy person and needed help with things like that. It was serious business and the implications were obvious. If you don’t tell people about Jesus, they might end up in hell. And you would be at partly to blame for that.
Leading someone to Christ was kind of the holy grail of Southern, evangelical Christianity. That’s when you told someone that Jesus died for their sins, and they believed it and prayed to God confessing their sins and proclaiming that belief. If you led someone to the Lord it was such a wonderful thing because that person was now going to heaven and was also going to enjoy the benefits of living as a Christian here on earth.
This is what my people told me. And they were good people. They were people from the churches I grew up attending. They were the people who knew my name and gave me hugs and were truly happy to hear about my life. They were the gentle adults who were warm and present and demonstrative with their love. This was my world and the only way I knew to think about life.
Consider what this kind of thing would mean to a sensitive, well-meaning young man who truly wants to do the right thing in life. He wants to make God and Jesus happy, certainly. And he wants to please the authority figures in his life by being a good Christian. Consider also how impossible the task is. No matter how hard you try, you will always be leaving streams of hell-bound people in your wake as you travel through life. It’s easy to see how that could be a lot for a person to carry around. I’m just saying.
Okay, so going back to March of 1982. A Spring Break mission trip to Milwaukee was organized by the BSU. I don’t know why Milwaukee was chosen, but we were told that “up north,” a lot of people didn’t go to church at all and weren’t Christians.
Clearly these people needed our help. So ten BSU students and one BSU director bought plane tickets and headed for Wisconsin.
Yours truly was among them.
rlp
To be continued...
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This really hits home for
This really hits home for me.
VERY evangelical backround, grew up southern baptist (in the 90's and 2000's mind you, not the 70's and 80's...theology in the SBC had really changed.) always talked to about witnessing...
I look forward with great interest to the rest of your story. Espeacially as a college student at a Christian university right now.
p.s.
Maybe the BS you joke is why they changed the name :-)
I really struggle with the
I really struggle with the whole concept of leading people to Christ (I do not come from a baptist background but I sure work with a lot of baptists and wesleyns can drive me bananas). I know I became disillusioned for other reasons.
I still believe that there in a hell due to experiences I have gone through.
look forward to your story.
becky
Milwaukee?!
Hey, all of us in Milwaukee could still benefit from some missions work... just a different kind. :)
its not BS without U
its not BS without U
looking forward...
looking forward to this story...
--
"May the god of your choice bless you." - Kinky Friedman
My life too
You have described my life as a child, young adult - except it happened in Australia in the Brethren community. Amazing how common life was at that time.
Janet McK
BSU Alum
I too played in BSU waters. Things at UR were a little different than at Baylor it seems. Yeah, the evangelicals were there, but somehow after Freshman year they all hightailed it to IV or Campus Crusade. I left after Freshman year, too, but for different reasons. I returned senior year after some difficult soul searching.
BSU was the place my step-grandfather (a baptist minister) suggested I turn to when as a young man I started asking all the hard questions. I was not raised in the church and thus had nothing to lose in the BSU. Disillusionment was not my issue there. Watching everyone else spin out of control was. But that's another story for another day. Suffice it to say that my New Age/long-haired/Anne Rice loving self did not necessarily fit in Freshman year. Oy.
Senior year was much better all around. Our little BSU was apostate. There was dancing and the occasional unofficial kegger. I think out of my senior class of 14-ish, half of us went to seminary. I know a few are teaching. Some are preaching. We still scare our Baptist kin.
Thanks for posting this, RLP. I'll be swimming in memories for the rest of the day.
Tripp Hudgins
Wilmette, IL
www.anglobaptist.org
Wow, RLP. You have started
Wow, RLP. You have started to spin an intriguing tale. I can't wait to read more of the disillusionment chronicles.
I am gripped by your story. I too am an SBC seminary graduate (isn't everyone?). But unlike you, my disillusionment has begun to occur later in life. I grew up in a "liberal" church, "got saved" in another church, and went running down the trail of conservative, evangelical Christianity. This is pasture in which I now graze. This is the flock that I shepherd.
It is hard to be a pastor and fulfill your calling (which indeed I'm confident I have) and have doubts about certain "cherished" and seemingly "non-negotiable" beliefs. I haven't jettisoned my Christian faith and love of Christ, but I just have questions, doubts, and some things I don't believe anymore. This is even more difficult when you are the pastor and the people you shepherd possess those conservative beliefs that you now question.
I wish I could openly discuss this with the "church folks," but I think that would be the end for me. And until I work some things through, it is better to just keep it to myself. I hate this, but this is the downside to religious faith.
Honestly, I'm a bit scared. Sorry for whining, but it feels good to vent and for others to read, even if anonymously.
Change a few details...YWAM,
Change a few details...YWAM, not BSU...late 1980's...
and you're telling my story, not yours.
And yes, yes! Disillusionment--even doubt--is a powerful path to deeper faith.
Thanks again, Preach
Change it to Southern
Change it to Southern California, and agnostic, never went to college, and didn't go on any trips, and you're telling--
Er.
I'll come back later.
What a burden!
I'd never thought about how the whole witnessing bag placed such a burden on all my friendships. Looking back, I cut myself off from a lot of potential friends because of this pressure. That and a concern to not be "unequally yoked with unbelievers."
Cutting oneself off
Chutney, I did the same thing - drove away a number of potential good friends in my fundie days, in the name of witnessing. One of those things I wish I could go back in time and change....
Shawn was cool to me too
Shawn was cool to me too when I was at Baylor as a religion major in the BSU. I remember how the girls in the BSU all began talking just like her, with the same inflections and everything. I didn't make the cool cut to be on the "freshman council" so I started smoking cigarrettes at George's instead. God led me to the better choice. Peace, Rev. Patrick Moore
It's amazing who you "see"
It's amazing who you "see" in cyberspace. Interestingly, the confines of Truett actually prompted my journey toward some "better choices."
Scott
Hits close to home
Man, do I know that guilt of "not witnessing" firsthand. In high school I was in Campus Crusade, the Christian club on campus. One day, the leader guy who would come and preach during lunch once a week had us go out and witness on campus. I was mortified. I don't remember the day well, I think I just wandered off, fastidiously avoiding my usual lunch friends. Should have been a clue to me then. I no longer believe in hell - I wish I had come to the same conclusion then, I would have just chilled out and enjoyed myself so much more.
Never could figure out the hell thing
OK,first of all, I'm 100% atheist.
I can imagine, however, how someone could believe in a god, if that's what their parents instilled in them from a very young age.
Never could figure out, however, how anyone, ANYONE, beyond the age of 10 could think that there was a god up there who would send people who didn't believe in him (like RLP's nice Buddhists who had never even heard of Christ) to an eternity of suffering. Maybe these posts will illuminate that for me. Looking forward to the sequel.
These posts will probably
These posts will probably not provide much illumination, since they are coming from someone who used to believe that but does not anymore. However, I can tell you that it breaks down like this:
1. People trust their pastors to be Biblical scholars or at least Biblically knowledgeable.
2. Pastors tell them that God's holy word (ie the Bible) says that all who do not become Christians will go to hell.
3. Pastors tell them that it sounds harsh, but it is God's word and we must submit to it.
4. The people may or may not like the idea. Strangely, I've met a few who seemed to relish the thought of evil people burning in hell but didn't give much thought to honest people of other religions. But they trust that it is the truth.
One more thing. I actually think very few modern Christians REALLY buy into the idea of hell for everyone but Christians. Because they don't act like they believe that. If they did, wouldn't they bear a heavier burden to tell everyone? Wouldn't they? What happens is, subconsciously, no one can bear that burden. The emotions shut down and the person just goes about life much the way we all do.
That ought to be a clue. The fact that no one can live with the burden that unless they somehow convert people, those people will burn for an eternity. Sometimes people cling to orthodox ideas because they want to be known as a "conservative, Bible-believing" person, but their actions reveal the truth.
Our actions always reveal the truth, just as our body language often reveals our thoughts and feelings.
These posts...
I'd love to think that what you say is true, Preach, but my time as a fundamentalist taught me that very few of the people who believe in Hell b/c "no one gets to the Father but by me..." actually *feel* that kind of compassion.
Part of what I love about the Universalist side of my tradition is that it insists that if God is Love, God would never be able to send his children to hell. Like any father, God would do whatever it takes to "reconcile all souls to Himself."
I also love that the Universalists were humble enough to say, "How?" Eh, we'll leave that up to God...
Revsparker
huh
A saying prevalent where I work is about belief. "You only get sick if you believe in sickness". That sounds stupid I know but it works for this guy. Now we know cancer blows belief or not. I watched another guy at work die in 13 months of a cancer he shouldn't even have gotten (not an oncologist, he just showed no signs until it had already eaten his liver). I will not belabor the point. The issue of heaven/hell is not the source of the debate. The book is clear on that point. the point of contention is this, in my life do I believe my faith enough that I am willing to speak to someone about staying out of hell, or do keep quiet to maintain the illusion that the god that made baby ducks did not make the snakes. Following Christ is not ala carte.
How could anyone over 10 believe...
I greq up Seventh-Day Adventist. Most all of this post hits me, too. Change a few details, etc.
How could anyone over 10 believe in this? Easy. In addition to what's been posted already, here's this to add to it.
In all forms of Christianity that I am aware of, God is assigned the male gender exclusively. He is spoken of in the male sense, not female. And more specifically, He is the Father.
In my youth, there were enough analogies made between the role of a father and God the Father. If your family was like mine, whatever Dad says, goes. No negotiating, no stalling, no whining. You just did it. And if Dad says I must be punished, then so be it. Heaven forbid that we don't honor our fathers and mothers. (NOTE: Dad never once claimed to be God, but you still never argued with him...)
So why wouldn't God the Father similarly punish his own children? "The Bible Says..." that there's a lake of fire, and eternal damnation, and a lot of other prophetic imagery. It's not up to us to understand or question the Almighty or His methods. As good Christians, we just follow along. Were we there when God made the heavens and the earth, my good Job? Of course not. And if God (and Cotton Mather) say what happens to a Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God, well then, that's what's got to happen. You don't question it. You just go with it.
I myself was "trained up" in the way certain people thought I should go, and I went there for many years. In the end, I have departed far from a lot of it.
Various religious leaders -
Various religious leaders - pastors, Sunday school teachers, Bible study leaders, and others made no bones about this fact: It was our sacred duty to tell people that they needed to become Christians. We called it “witnessing,” and it was a thing we were all supposed to be doing.
This is particularly sad for me, because Jesus Christ is such a compellingly controversial human being that people should be eager to talk about him, regardless of their beliefs, affiliations, or intellectual commitments. It's just so one-dimensional to limit those conversations to a one-sided presentation of a heaven-and-hell gospel where Jesus is employed as a means to an end. It does him a huge disservice, and it encourages those who "become Christians" as a result of such conversations to view him strictly in terms of what he can do for them. Ironically, it discourages genuine curiosity about him.
ha! Milwaukee for mission
ha! Milwaukee for mission work, this makes me smile! Growing up 40 minutes from there I think we ended up going to Texas to be missionaries! :)