Salvation

Between my 11th and 12th years I was "saved" which meant that one Sunday morning at the end of church service I "went forward" to accept Christ as my savior.  Recalling that moment now, over 50 years later, brings up a swarm of feelings associated with that action.

It was an emotional moment, more so for members of the congregation than for me.  Why did I do this?  Had I been moved by the holy spirit to make this commitment to Christ or did I do this as a result of pressure from my parents and their church friends?  Even at the time I knew it was for the latter reason; I wanted those around me at church to get off my back about this, so at the "altar call" that Sunday I "went forward".  I had no feeling that some unseen presence guided my decision; I merely wanted these adults to leave me alone, so I walked down the center isle at my parent's church, was welcomed by their minister, and for all intent and purpose became a card carrying Christian.   

My thinking, even then at age 11 or 12, was not in line with their fundamentalist thoughts.  My fundamentalist parents, who instilled in me a common sense approach to life, always encouraged me to listen to what was being said and then to evaluate what I was told, and decide accordingly.  Great advice, and I understood that what their church friends and pastor were selling was something I need not buy.  I found that by being "saved" these people backed off of their concerns for my soul burning in Hell; a welcomed relief that allowed me to get on with my life with only occasional concerns or interference from the church.

My parents never insisted that I have close friends with other young people in the church, so I had my "Sunday" friends that I hung around at church, and my real friends came from school.  These friends all went to various churches, we all did back in the day, but they compromised a wide assortment of religious practices and beliefs.  My friends came from different Protestant beliefs, Catholic, and Jewish faiths.  This allowed for diversity in my experiences, my beliefs, and tolerance in my thinking.  These friends were a big part of my salvation; more so than the "altar call" that Sunday morning at the end of church service.

The church we attended was a big gray stone building with many stained glass windows in the sanctuary.  These windows were beautiful representations of Christian art, and sitting in this room at Sunday morning services I would escape into this awesome display of sunlight shinning through these magnificent pieces.

The words spoken from the pulpit assaulted my common sense logic, but the beauty of these windows pulled me into their rich cornucopia of color and intricate design.  As the pastor's voice droned on I move away from his words and into these beautiful sunlit panels.  I was transported to an ecstatic landscape where my imagination ran free, no longer inhibited by the vitriolic rantings of this man.  His sermons ran on for an hour, but I was energetically nowhere to be found; I was free inside the colors, texture, and images created through my imagination and these stained glass windows.

      
At the end of the sermon a great pipe organ began playing whatever the closing hymn for that services was.  At the sound of the first chord of the organ I was brought back to myself sitting on a hard pew in this well appointed sanctuary and to the weekly invitation to "come forward" and accept Jesus as lord and savior.

As an adult I love stained glass and I dislike organ music.  In my childhood and youth the one gave me reprieve the other rudely and loudly pulled me back into a reality that I knew was not true.  I have often said that my early experiences in that church taught me how to dissociate.  Psychologically dissociation is a protective reaction to a traumatic or extremely fearful situation.  As a child fundamentalist Christianity was both traumatic and frightening because it invaded the safety of trusting and relying on the common sense of the beliefs that I knew were correct for me.

My salvation did not come through the "altar call" I responded to; that was a clever subterfuge that kept fundamentalist thought at bay in my young life.  Salvation for me came through the rich diversity I was exposed to in my non-church life. Friends, parents of friends, and teachers kept me grounded in diverse thinking and experiences in life.

I am grateful that my parents encouraged critical thinking in me.  Their encouragement helped me move beyond the trap of fundamentalism in all areas of life.  Salvation comes from this and it gave me the awareness that this subterfuge would hold me safely until I became an adult.  That is my salvation.