I’m Not Born Again
My experience with salvation
religion vs. knowledge
I was walking near the marina, enjoying the view of boats bobbing in the blue sparkling water, and the green hills across the Carquinez Strait when I was approached by two young, neatly dressed men. They asked, “Do you know about Jesus?”
I smiled. “Yes, thank you,” I said, continuing my walk.
Now, my head went to a different place, the town of Nampa, Idaho in the late 40s and early 50s, where I grew up on a farm without television or even an indoor toilet. As a kid, I was saved or born again many times. When the preacher loosened his tie and pleaded with us all to come to the altar, to ask for forgiveness of our sins and be saved, well, the categories of sin being so broad and long, I was always guilty of something. Sin — in word, thought, or deed, was easy. Not sinning was the hard part.
Wear a sleeveless dress or a piece of jewelry — ding, sin. Think a mean, angry, or bad thought — ding, sin. Disobey your parent, the teacher, the preacher, or any other adult — ding. You get the picture. I knew myself well enough to know that unless the Lord took me right after I went to the altar and asked for forgiveness for, well, being human, I was destined for a fiery hell.
Nampa was filled with churches of many Protestant denominations and a Catholic church. Kids talk, and as we got it from our peers, if you were a Catholic, whatever you did on Saturday night, you could just slip into confession the next morning and your afterlife was safe. The other protestant churches — in kid speak — taught “once in grace, always in grace” — so get forgiven once and you were good.
In our church, backsliding, that is, getting saved and then sinning again, meant the GPS signal rerouted you toward hell. So, we got saved, backslid, got saved again. It was a revolving door.
Years later, I heard Patsy Cline sing, “I go to church on a Sunday. The vows that I make, I break them on Monday. The rest of the week, I do as I please. Come Sunday morning, I’m back on my knees.”
- Image property of Lois Requist
If we weren’t told about sin often enough at the Nazarene Church we attended regularly, there was that special time each summer when the huge revival tents were erected in some open fields near Kurtz Park. Sometimes, with our large circle of family, we’d have a picnic at the park, then pack up what was left of the potato salad, chicken, fresh tomatoes, and lemonade, and head over to the revival.
The gathering was large, so we kids could skip out of the church service with friends, run through the warm night air, peeking in the windows of cars where other, older kids were making out in the backseat. We’d giggle until the couple inside knew we were there and then run away.
In the distance, we could hear the singing, the minister painting a picture of heaven and hell.
“Your parents will look down from heaven, see you roasting in hell. They won’t care. There’s no sadness in heaven!”
Maybe my dad, but I couldn’t see my mother enjoying all the comforts in her locale without giving a thought to my sorry state.
When I was about 12, I went to a different church that my parents had taken some interest in. The minister said, “There is no hell.”
I was, gob smacked! Really? I’ll buy that. And I did. I must have already realized that there were interpretations of the Bible. Many, just among the people I knew. This was perhaps my first sliver of doubt about everything I’d been taught.
It would be many years, and tears, thinking, reading, reasoning before I gave up on heaven, as well. As I became an adult, I was an avid reader. I read The Source by James Michener. He described various elders of the tribes of Israel writing the books that would become the Old Testament. I listened to the PBS Series, “The Power of Myth” in which Bill Moyers interviewed Joseph Campbell, who spent his life studying all religions. All of them have a creation myth and there are similarities.
When I became a mother, I could no longer believe that we were all born sinners. Staring into the faces of my babies, I just didn’t think they were born in sin. Not that they couldn’t do bad things, but by then, I thought that most evil acts were more likely a result of nurture (or the lack thereof), not nature. The circular reasoning of a god who created us all, in the process deciding on making us all sinners, then sent his son to die and allow us to be saved from sin, once I stepped away from the church environment, I couldn’t wrap my head around that.
During the Vietnam War, I listened to the battles raging here about whether the United States should be there, and began to question other “righteous causes” I’d grown up to believe in.
Raising my sons in the 60s and 70s, I heard about women’s rights. I thought the Bible was written by men, not by god, because women aren’t given an equal status. Always subject to men as “head of the house,” the church, the state, the world, that’s the society I grew up in.
I’ve lived and worked with men and women. I raised two sons and was married for 31 years to a corporate executive. I was a supervisor at the telephone company, an executive director at a chamber of commerce, and have founded more than one nonprofit. I don’t think men are inherently smarter, better at leading, or wiser. Some are exceptionally good at these things, others not so much. Just like women!
None of these changes of belief and attitude were easy. What we are taught and what we experience in childhood lies heavy upon us throughout our lives.
I’ve travelled a good deal in the United States and around the world. Eventually, I saw what I was taught as a child as one perception of how the world is, one of many. I continue to read and think and discuss ideas with others. I’ve read Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan, and Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. (It’s not that brief.) Currently, I’m reading Enlightment Now by Stephen Pinker. Though I mention certain experiences and texts, my change of mind came, not from one source, but a lifetime of learning and living.
At 81, I’m free from any concern about going to hell. I believe in leading a good life, treating others with kindness and respect, and being fair to everyone — something I learned from my mother and have tried to pass on to my children and grandchildren. I have good relationships with my siblings. My sister is a Christian minister. Most of the family I grew up in have always built their lives around their Biblical beliefs, though even among them, those beliefs vary a good deal.
My life has been a long and winding road, of learning and experiencing, of sorrow and pain, of laughter and joy.
So, I smiled when the missionaries approached me to find out if I knew about Jesus.
I thought of the words of another song, “I’ve forgotten more than you’ll ever know about him.”