I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior when I was five years old. At least, that's what I was told. I've got a certificate of baptism to confirm it, but I only vaguely remember the event. I don't remember accepting Jesus into my heart at all.
I wish I would have waited.
See, I'd been trained to believe in God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but I didn't understand them. God was a wrathful father, meant to punish us, even as He loves us. Jesus was the one who was nice and loving, meant to be God's whipping boy. The Holy Spirit was the Holy Spirit. I was brought up to believe, in essence, that I should be ashamed because I'm just never good enough, and only when I'm dead will God truly and unconditionally accept me.
I can't speak for the Southern Baptist church at large, but the culture I was raised in taught salvation by works, that you have to feel guilt and shame to know you're a Christian, and to avoid feeling proud for the good you do, because it's never good enough. It hurts trying to sort the logic out now, because it doesn't make any sense.
Had I known what I was really getting into, I still would have accepted Christ. But I remember being told that I could not lose my salvation, and yet if I didn't obey "Christ" (by which my church meant "the church"), I couldn't be sure I was really a Christian. Consequently, I lived in constant fear that my previous prayers hadn't really been sincere, and I answered every "benediction call" that came across my path.
I remember being the kid who "rededicated" his life to Christ every Sunday and Wednesday, praying for God to forgive me for telling a lie, for not cleaning my room, for accidentally wetting the bed, or for forgetting my schoolwork. In my mind, any failure was moral failure, because it had been made clear to me that God's standard was perfection, and I was drowning.
The church sold itself as the authority. Their interpretation of Scripture was right, and if the pastor gave a commandment, it was necessary to follow it. In fact, it was best to steer clear of any and all possibility of sin, even if we went above and beyond the Bible. Modern music was scary. Television was scary. Everything was scary.
I knew who Jesus Christ was by name, and maybe I had a sufficient knowledge to attain salvation, but it was a long time before I met Him personally, I think. But before I got to that introduction, I had a rough road to go down. I'd blindly enlisted in something I can only categorize as a cult, and there were a lot of pitfalls to endure on the way out.
I wish I would have waited.
See, I'd been trained to believe in God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but I didn't understand them. God was a wrathful father, meant to punish us, even as He loves us. Jesus was the one who was nice and loving, meant to be God's whipping boy. The Holy Spirit was the Holy Spirit. I was brought up to believe, in essence, that I should be ashamed because I'm just never good enough, and only when I'm dead will God truly and unconditionally accept me.
I can't speak for the Southern Baptist church at large, but the culture I was raised in taught salvation by works, that you have to feel guilt and shame to know you're a Christian, and to avoid feeling proud for the good you do, because it's never good enough. It hurts trying to sort the logic out now, because it doesn't make any sense.
Had I known what I was really getting into, I still would have accepted Christ. But I remember being told that I could not lose my salvation, and yet if I didn't obey "Christ" (by which my church meant "the church"), I couldn't be sure I was really a Christian. Consequently, I lived in constant fear that my previous prayers hadn't really been sincere, and I answered every "benediction call" that came across my path.
I remember being the kid who "rededicated" his life to Christ every Sunday and Wednesday, praying for God to forgive me for telling a lie, for not cleaning my room, for accidentally wetting the bed, or for forgetting my schoolwork. In my mind, any failure was moral failure, because it had been made clear to me that God's standard was perfection, and I was drowning.
The church sold itself as the authority. Their interpretation of Scripture was right, and if the pastor gave a commandment, it was necessary to follow it. In fact, it was best to steer clear of any and all possibility of sin, even if we went above and beyond the Bible. Modern music was scary. Television was scary. Everything was scary.
I knew who Jesus Christ was by name, and maybe I had a sufficient knowledge to attain salvation, but it was a long time before I met Him personally, I think. But before I got to that introduction, I had a rough road to go down. I'd blindly enlisted in something I can only categorize as a cult, and there were a lot of pitfalls to endure on the way out.
