As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I am starting to explore writing about my faith journey. As with any experience it requires context.
There are five overarching areas that I hope to cover:- Family Life
- A Profound Death
- We All Fall Down
- I Rise
- I Fall and Rise Again
As I write that I realize I've just come up with the structure of my journey/book. It will be something that, with God by my side, I can "write into". The more I pray on this the more I'm coming to believe this is the right time for me - to recall some extremely painful experiences, emotional & physical, with the nearness of God. He is certainly closer to me now that he was even 10 years ago. Noting that my faith journey spans nearly 50 years.
I know writing this won't be linear. Which will be helpful because, as I approach anything in section 5, I will need God to tell me when to write what because that is the most painful part of my journey and where I really start to welcome God into my heart.
And so I give you another part of what it meant to be Christadelphian in my formative years.
[Recap from Pt 1] - It (Christadelphian) is a strict faith with unyielding rules and beliefs. Not unlike many others. However, Christadelphians believe in a vengeful God even while believing in a benevolent God who gave us our ultimate savior, Jesus Christ. There is also much hate and bigotry taught in Sunday School. That will become important later. Overall, as I look back on it with decades of distance, I can see how my earliest traumas were a result of this hateful, vengeful faith. My inevitable low self-esteem and sense of unworthiness can be traced, in part, to my activities with and belief in being Christadelphian.
On Being Christadelphian, Pt 2 - A Family of Faith
And so, we were a Christadelphian family. We went to church school & services every Sunday. Attended special talks on Sunday nights. Participated in church events and socials. We were not allowed to join in things like voting in any political election or serving in that capacity. We were forbidden from being police officers and military service was a big no-no. Conscientious Objection was the only appropriate response to a wartime draft. Being unequally yoked, meaning married but practicing 2 different faiths, was strictly forbidden with harsh punishments.
My father was deeply faithful, once declaring that serving his church was the #1 thing in his life, more important to him than his family. He served in several capacities in our church, including as a leader of church services, public speaker, religious guide and counselor, as well as business and financial advisor. My mother was more agnostic and went along with my father as all good 1950s housewives did. She did what all Christadelphian women were allowed to do - played the organ, served with all the women in their “womanly duties” as defined by the 1950s and 1960s (meaning cleaning the church building, preparing meals and serving them to hungry Christadelphians, and then cleaning up after them), and lent her considerable vocal prowess (she was a trained Mezzo Soprano opera singer) to Sunday services. As a child and even as an adult Christadelphian I followed my mother’s lead, cooking, cleaning, and ministering as a good little woman. Eventually my brother would lead church services and be a speaker. And so too would my husband. At least for a little while.
Being part of a fringe Christian faith was intimidating as a young child. When you are in school, learning who everyone is, the inevitable question about faith comes up. Until I was 10 years old, I applied my young mind to explaining my faith to any friend who asked what brand of Christianity I observed. I spoke with all the passion and eloquence I could muster to share all the ways in which my faith was better than anyone else’s. You see, Christadelphians also teach that they are the only ones who can inherit the Kingdom of God. And if Christadelphians don’t convert others to our way of thinking, then we ourselves are sinners who will be dealt with on judgement day.
Heavy stuff, especially for a little kid trying so much to fit in. My faith made that extremely difficult to be sure. By the age of 10 I had found a new way of answering the question about my faith – we were Protestants. Period. No more uncomfortable conversations, no more strange looks from my friends and classmates. My parents were extremely displeased to learn this is how I explained my faith. They tried to give me words that a 10-year-old would be able to relate to; I listened and did as I pleased anyway. As I look back, I see this as my first rebellion against the constrictions of a fundamentalist faith.
But I would continue to be an obedient Christadelphian daughter, attending services and events happily (at least as much as I could muster so my parents wouldn't make my life more of a living hell than it already was). I’d like to say I made friends in church, and I suppose I did, to a point. We had nothing in common beyond our church identities. Plus being in a fringe religion it’s not like there are tons of others like you in your town or school. The friends I had at church were only seen at church and church events. My parents took the snobbery of being Christadelphian to an enormous degree, feeling that we were better than all the others in our own ecclesia. They saw us in an elevated status, despite that being 100% against the rules of being Christadelphian. We didn’t associate with all those people outside of church. A position which severely hindered my ability to make friends with a common ground.
Up Next: On Being Christadelphian, Pt 3 - Rebellion
I pray to God to keep me safe during this journey, to be with me with every word I type, to guide my voice to conform to his will for me. In Jesus' name, Amen.
