Reply #68: I'm in. I will pray with you. [View All]

[LittleClarkie]

This thread is killing me. I don't want to cry at work, damn it.



I don't know if this is appropriate, but I feel like sharing my own history.

I'm an ELCA Lutheran, the liberal ones. The fundie Lutherans disapprove of us greatly.

My parents never made me go to church as a child. They'd stopped before I was born because a pastor pissed them off when they having financial difficulties by coming at them for their pledge like it was an unpaid bill, and a few other reasons. My mom would bring out the Bible story book during thunder storms though. Grandma belonged to what I called the "Church of the Month" club. She changed from Lutheran to Pentecostal to Christian Scientist to Jehovah's Witness by the end.

Grew up in Virginia for the first 10 years of my life watching the "Jim and Tammy Show" and the 700 Club because it seemed they were always on. I had the weirdest idea about what a Christian really was.

I ended up going to church on my own when I was 18 because I wanted to. No one even brought it up. All my parents did was point me to a church where we had some history as a family. Even so, I had to fight my way through the image I had of what a real Christian was, because I never measured up. I try not to let fundamentalists make me feel like a second hand Christian anymore.