The Baptist
Church is the church I was first exposed to and with which I have had the
longest contact. When my parents were young, it was common for people to have a
home church yet visit churches of different denominations whenever they had
revivals or gospel meetings or whatever. My mother grew up primarily in the
Baptist church. I never heard my dad speak of having a home church. I believe
that was because he really didn’t attend church very much. You see, he only had
a 4th grade education and couldn’t speak very well. As he got older,
he became more and more embarrassed about it and therefore didn’t feel
comfortable in a group setting, especially if it was likely someone might call
on him to speak or lead a prayer. Even so, I know that he did attend church
services on occasion.
As I was growing
up in Louisville, Kentucky, I do not recall a single time that my dad attended
a class or worship service at a church.
He would go to a church building for a funeral or a party or whatnot,
but not for a service. My mom didn’t drive, so she was dependent on someone
taking her to church. My dad mostly worked evening shift at his place of
employment, so was used to sleeping late in the mornings. Fortunately, Mom had
a cousin that drove herself to church, so she started picking my mom up to go
with her. As a young child I attended with them. I went to Sunday School, but I
don’t remember anything about it other than being in a Christmas play one year.
We performed the play in a room, the stage being in one corner. I recall it
being my turn to talk and totally forgetting my lines. My SS teacher started
prompting me from offstage by saying the first few words. I repeated the words
and was able to finish.
My mom had a
fear of putting her head under water. So, although she had attended church for
years, she had never been baptized. It took a lot of courage on her part, but she
finally decided she needed to be baptized. I remember going to that service. I
was sitting about halfway back in the sanctuary and watched the event unfold. I
was concerned about what she might do upon being dunked under the water. She came
out of the water floundering a bit and wiping her face, but nothing too embarrassing.
I was proud of her for overcoming her fears for the sake of doing something she
really believed in and had wanted to do for many years.
I believe I
was in junior high school when a good friend of mine invited me to go to church
with him. He attended a Baptist Church not too far from my home. A young man
was teaching our Sunday School class, and somehow he got onto the topic of
marriage. He asked the class what we thought about interracial marriage. I
guess he felt the need to address this topic since it was becoming a societal issue
after the civil rights movement. Being young whippersnappers with keen insight,
we all sat there like bumps on a log. Hey, how was a bunch of dumb youth
supposed to answer a deep philosophical and religious question like that? Well,
I actually had some thoughts on the matter, but feared they might not be the
right ones, so I kept my mouth shut. He went on to explain how he thought the
Bible taught us to keep the races pure. He may have made a point about the Jews
in the Old Testament being commanded to not intermarry with other nations, but
I don’t recall for sure. He did say something about how the birds of a feather
flock together and how the natural thing to do was to only marry your own kind.
I have not been able to find this justification for same-race marriages in the New
Testament, so I guess he was trying to make his point by observing nature. But
apparently he somehow overlooked dogs during those observations. As he was
making his argument for same-race marriages, something just didn’t feel right
about it. Why would God care what race of person someone married? It just
seemed like a non-issue to me, but I didn’t say anything. After all, who was I
to question an adult? I wasn’t yet aware of the story in the New Testament
about the 12-year-old Jesus questioning the teachers of his day.
When I was
in high school, I had several friends who attended Hazelwood Baptist Church,
which was near the school. As it turned out, it was the same church that my
future mother-in-law and father-in-law would join when they left the United
Church of Christ. Occasionally, these friends would invite me to participate in
their youth group activities. One day we went to a Putt-Putt miniature golf
course. In the middle of a game, a large thunderstorm started approaching, so
the youth pastor decided we needed to leave early so we could get back to the
church building before the storm actually hit. We all piled into the vehicles
and headed back. When the vehicle I was in came to a stop at the back of the
church building, I opened the passenger door, got out, and then closed the
door. Just as it slammed shut there was a loud explosion. I froze, thinking, “The
Lord has returned.” But I soon realized that I was still standing next to the
car in the church parking lot. I looked up and saw purple smoke wafting away
from a transformer on a nearby power pole. “Okay,” I thought, “it was just
lightning hitting a transformer.” But then I realized that the lightning was right
overhead, so I hightailed it to safety inside the church building.
I don’t
recall ever attending an actual youth group meeting or a Sunday School class or
a worship service at my friends’ church. I just remember doing things with the
youth group or a few of the people in that group. I remember one girl from this
church that apparently wanted to be a race car driver and proved it on the
streets. One night I went out with a group when she was driving. She drove as
fast as she could down the street, slowed some at red lights, and then ran them
when she didn’t see any cars coming her way. Needless to say, I was a bit
terrified. I promised myself that I would never again get in a car that she was
driving. I kept that promise.
Speaking of
driving, there was a two lane winding hilly road just outside of Louisville
that was affectionately referred to as The Devil’s Backbone. It was a good test
of one’s driving skill if you could make it all the way along this road at an
elevated speed. One evening I was out with some friends, including Lester from
Hazelwood. He was driving his Pinto and decided he wanted to try out his skills
on The Devil’s Backbone. Although he had never driven it before, meaning he
wasn’t familiar with where the sharpest turns were located, he decided to drive
it at an elevated speed. He was navigating the turns pretty well until he came
to a sharp 90 degree left-hand turn. As he was about to attempt the turn, he
realized there was no way he could make the turn at the speed he was driving.
Fortunately, there was a gravel driveway near the turn and Lester was able to
hit his brakes and skid to a halt in the driveway. Wheeeeew!
After
joining the Church of Christ, but before I was married, I hung out with a group
of Christian friends consisting of both girls and boys. We did a number of
things together such as taking a trip to Gatlinburg one winter. One thing we
did occasionally was play volleyball. Ken was an avid runner and a member of
Woodmont Baptist Church (WBC). At that time WBC had a gymnasium that doubled as
their worship center. They also had a volleyball net and ball. Ken would
reserve the gym for us and we’d set up everything to play volleyball. It was
always a blast. I recall being at Ken’s house one time and our conversation turning
to the topic of salvation and whether or not it could be lost. As you may know,
most Baptists believe in “Once saved, always saved”. This basically means that
once you have gotten right with God and have been saved, you can’t lose that
salvation under any circumstances. But what about a person who was saved, but
comes to reject his faith? What happens to him? Some skirt the issue by saying
that that person was never saved to begin with. Others say that he will still
be saved. Ken was one of these latter people. I remember asking him, “What if a
person comes to a point where he totally rejects his belief that Jesus is the
Savior and shakes his fist to the heavens telling God he doesn’t want to be
saved? What happens to him?” Ken’s response was, “He’ll still go to heaven.” I
was dumbfounded. At that time I was a member of the Church of Christ and believed
that a person’s salvation could be lost. I wanted to get into the Bible with
Ken and discuss it further, but Ken said he had studied this issue in depth
years before and was totally convinced of his position, so didn’t want to study
it further. There was nothing more for me to do.
When Kathy
and I first married, we would attend Camden Ave Christian Church whenever we
visited her parents in Louisville, Kentucky. This was the church where Kathy had
been a member and where we were married. However, this church eventually
disbanded. Afterwards we started attending Hazelwood Baptist Church, which I
mentioned earlier. It’s where a number of high school friends attended and
where Kathy’s mother and father moved to from the United Church of Christ. One
of my good friends from high school, John, was still a member there along with
his wife and kids. John is the person who got me interested in playing
classical guitar. He is still very interested in music, playing a number of
different instruments. He would lead some of the worship at the church and
eventually became its music minister even though he had a fulltime job as a
veterinarian. Hazelwood was a pretty traditional Baptist Church and I enjoyed
attending there when we were in town. John always did a good job leading the
music.
Kathy had
quit her teaching job when our son, Andrew, was born in the early 1990’s. When
he was about to enter K-5, we had decided to put him in an all-day program at
Woodmont Christian School, which was a part of Woodmont Baptist Church (WBC).
As it so happened, the school was about to expand their top grade from the
sixth to the ninth and needed a new math teacher. Kathy applied and got the
job. As a result of teaching there, she made friends with several other teachers
who attended WBC. She decided to attend there to see how she liked it. She
liked it so much that she decided to switch her membership. Before she did,
however, she asked me if I minded her switching. I was not attending church
much at the time so I told her it was totally her decision.
Shortly
after Kathy started attending WBC, someone told her that I might like attending
a Sunday School class taught by a local lawyer named Jess. I decided to try it
out. One Sunday Jess started off the class by having us read some verses about
people having demons driven out of them by Jesus. Then he started discussing
homosexuality. At first I wasn’t quite sure the point he was trying to make,
but eventually it became clear. He was attempting to blame homosexuality on
demon possession. As the discussion progressed, I could feel my insides about
to burst. I wanted to respond to what he was saying, but was unsure if I
should. I eventually could not stand it any longer. I raised my hand and said,
“Could I express an opinion from a non-Christian perspective?” I was told I
could. So, I began expressing my opinion that homosexuality was not caused by
demon possession. I told them that I did not necessarily agree with every
agenda item in the homosexual movement, but I had no problem with homosexuality
itself. Anyway, the rest of the class time ended up centering on me and my
religious background. A discussion ensued as to whether or not I was still
saved since I had once confessed the name of Jesus and had joined the church.
Opinions varied. Anyway, the discussion was very cordial, and no one attempted
to throw me out of class. In fact, one lady came up to me after class and told
me how impressed she was with my courage to speak out given the venue. She said
that she didn’t know if she would speak out in an opposite situation or not.
She encouraged me to come back to class, and I intended to. However, the
following Saturday morning I received a call from Jess asking me to meet him at
a local restaurant for lunch. I did. He told me that he could not continue to
have his class disrupted as it was the previous Sunday. I told him I understood
and that I never intended for it to go the way it went in the last class. He
told me that I could attend his class as often as I wanted, but I couldn’t
speak during it. I told him that I totally understood since it was his class
and he could set the ground rules anyway he wanted. At first I planned to
attend again, but then I realized how difficult it was for me to keep my mouth
shut when I really needed to say something. So, I never returned.
Later,
someone suggested I attend a Sunday School class taught by a friend of mine
from work named Bill. I was hesitant at first, but decided I would tell Bill
about my experience in Jess’ class and see what he thought. Bill told me that
his class was pretty tolerant of other ideas and that I should fit in just
fine. So, I started attending. I was greatly impressed. The class members were
very tolerant of my speaking my mind and even engaged in conversation about my
positions. There was really only one conflict to speak of. It was Easter and of
course we were discussing Jesus’ resurrection. I made a few comments about the
possibility that Jesus was not really resurrected. One of the regular class
members then said to me, “But he’s resurrected nonetheless, right?” I said I
didn’t think so. “Then where’s the body?” he asked. I answered, “We don’t know.
It could have been buried in a pauper’s grave. Just because we don’t know where
a body is doesn’t mean that it was resurrected.” I said this off the cuff
because I had just read this as a possibility in a book I had been reading. It
was the end of the class, so the conversation ended that way. The next week my
wife was in class but I was not. I heard Kathy getting home early and soon
after the doorbell ringing. I found out later that the fellow I’d had the
discussion with the previous week had been offended by my comment and thought I
was intentionally trying to provoke him. My comments had ruined Easter for him.
He apparently wanted Bill to chastise me over it. Kathy defended me by saying
that I was just speaking what I believed and was not trying to provoke anyone.
After all, he had asked me a question. I answered it honestly. The conversation
apparently got a bit heated. Kathy got very upset and came home rather than go
to worship service. The doorbell was the SS teacher, Bill, coming to check on
her. Upon talking to Bill later, he did not think I had been out of line and
had no intention of chastising me in class. When I showed up in class the next
week, the fellow brought it up again, but Bill refused to rebuke me. This
impressed me very much. I told Bill that I would gladly quit attending his
class if my presence was going to cause problems. But Bill was insistent that I
had done nothing wrong and encouraged me to keep attending. I did.
We were
attending WBC when Andrew decided to become a Christian. The pastor at the time
was Bill Trapp, and he baptized Andrew. I can still remember going with Andrew
to the back of the baptistery and helping him prepare for this event.
Unfortunately, Bill later came down with Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) and
eventually had to relinquish his pulpit ministry. He ended up dying from this
disease despite an around-the-clock prayer vigil. While Brother Bill was sick a
visiting evangelist was speaking at a WBC revival meeting. He said that he had
been talking to the Lord on his way to our city and He had told him something.
But he was hesitant to say what it was. He then relented and said that the Lord
had told him that Brother Bill was going to be healed. I was stunned. This
preacher was really going out on a limb with that prediction. But then he
clarified that the Lord had told him that Bill would either be healed in this
lifetime or the next. My jaw dropped. Even though a number of people in the
audience were Amen-ing him, I considered this statement to be an insult. He
basically was saying that the Lord had revealed to him that Brother Bill was
going to either live or die. I could have told the audience that without
consulting the Lord.
You might be
wondering what my thoughts and feelings were about Andrew being baptized when I
had just a few years before converted from Christianity to agnosticism. Well,
when I fell away from Christianity, Kathy and I had a serious discussion about
how we would raise any children we had. We both agreed that our children would
have to determine their own faith themselves; else it would not truly be their faith. Thus we were both okay with
having children. As it turned out we only had one child. Over the years Andrew
has delved into a number of different religions and asked his mom and me about
our beliefs. We never pushed him into any particular belief, letting him decide
what he personally believed based on his own search.
I often hear
atheists and agnostics talk about the narrow-mindedness of religious people.
However, my experience at Woodmont Baptist Church does not reflect that at all.
Everybody knows I am an agnostic, yet they are all very warm and inviting. In
fact, one time when I was attending a discipleship class on Sunday afternoons,
the teacher actually asked me to conduct the class one week when he was going
to be out of town. I was friends with Bill Trapp, the pastor who was there when
we first started attending. I was also friends with the interim pastors after
his passing. The current pastor, Jerry, is a friend also. Occasionally I run
into him at the YMCA. It rarely fails that we end up having a 1-2 hour theological
discussion. When I was completing my “God Is” book, he actually read
part of it and discussed it with me in his office. I love it when people with
differing beliefs can discuss their differences in a calm and rational way.
Nothing can be learned by shutting others out and not allowing them to speak.
