I grew up attending a private Christian school in which the curriculum was extraordinary and the preaching of religion was over the top. From third grade till I graduated the eighth grade, I came to class pledging allegiance to the American flag, the Christian flag, and the Bible. Each morning began with Bible study in which we were required to memorize random facts about the forty men of God in the Bible and various scriptures that would pertain to the week’s lecture. Then on Thursdays we would sit through a religious service where complete strangers would preach to us the importance of reverence and whatever God had put in their hearts to say. Which, ironically as I grew older more and more often pertained to abstaining from sex and drugs then anything else. So as any cult can testify, the more a listener is forced to listen to the same sermon, the more that person will absorb, and as being a child I was an easy target to prey on.
Soon, as the years progressed, I started to believe in the hypnosis. I started to believe that there was one God, that he had a son, born to the Virgin Mary, who died and was resurrected and then rose into Heaven, where he now sits at the right hand of the Father, and who will return to Earth to take his followers with Him. I believed that cohabitation and sex before marriage was a sin, and swearing was out of the question. I believed that drugs were for the unholy, and that sinners went to hell regardless of whether or not they meant to be bad people. I even began to question whether listening to certain music was a sin, like in the movie, “Footloose,” with Kevin Bacon. I was preached at so frequently that I even began thinking that if I did not attend church services three times a week that I was sinning.
So for the six years that I attended that Christian school, I was under the impression that everything was bad except those attending the school or church…and then I graduated. I was released to attend public high school where I was expecting to be cornered by drug dealers when I walked onto the campus and where young pregnant teens made out with their baby’s daddy in the hallways. Boy, was it a shock to see that none of that actually happened. Soon, I began to understand that pretty much all that malarkey that was crammed down my neck for the past six years was just a bunch of B.S. Don’t get me wrong, though, I still believe in a higher power, I just don’t think that everyone who sins will go to hell or that music, cohabitation, or protected sex before marriage qualifies as a ticket to hell.
As a student at that private school, we weren’t taught to think out of the box of religion, we weren’t given the freedom to question what was being taught, or even the opportunity to find things out for ourselves. We were given instruction, discipline, and “their” way of life. To them, there was only “their” way or no way. I am just glad that they did not extend their curriculum into high school or I might not have been able to escape the spell they put me under. And thank God for that. (No sarcasm implied)
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