My Story - Part 1

In high school, I was not voted “Most Likely to Become a Jesus Follower.” In fact, I was a pretty unlikely candidate. Religion played almost no part in my extended family’s life. The closest we got was when we started attending a Unitarian fellowship – pretty much a fringe group. Instead of worship services, we participated in philosophical discussions and comparative religion exploration.

Although I learned a lot through this group, it was a net negative. I was always “the smart kid” who flaunted my intelligence, a tactic that did not endear me to me peers. And the Unitarian experience adding to my sense of superiority over my classmates who I felt were “trapped” by more conventional religious ideas. I thought anyone who really believed the Bible had to be academically deficient, and no one I respected intellectually took the Bible seriously.

I achieved my goal of graduating first in my high school class and entering the prestigious Syracuse University Honors Program. But I knew deep down that something was wrong. Unfortunately, my family was filled with dysfunctional and emotionally abusive people. Both my grandfather and my brother committed suicide. Beyond being a total non-conformist who distrusted virtually every societal convention, my dad also had a sadistic streak. One of his nicknames for me was “Idiot Child.” I can’t even put the other one in print. He abandoned our family financially and emotionally and almost never gave my brother and me presents, even for Christmas and birthdays.

This emotional abuse contributed to a deep-seated sense of inferiority. Despite being somewhat of a BMOC with numerous acquaintances in my many groups and activities, I had few real friends and spent most Saturday nights alone.

However, I experienced a refreshing breakthrough the summer after my college freshman year. As a counselor at a 4-H summer camp on the eastern end of Long Island, I felt, for the first time, embraced by a wonderful group of sharp, committed people. I was taken by their love of the natural sciences and immediately embraced nature as an ultimate value – perhaps the ultimate value – in life.

Because I had a college-related trip, I left midway through the summer. My last night there, I was unexpectedly inducted into a special honor society for outstanding counselors. Two things made this especially meaningful. First, I was totally unaware that this group even existed, so wasn’t “auditioning” for a spot. And, second, for one of the first times, I was being affirmed by my peers.

Then, the next morning, my fellow-counselors surprised me again by giving me a small gift for my trip. This unexpected gesture was especially significant since it was totally optional and stood in stark contrast to my dad’s lack of gift-giving.

For years afterwards, I thought that if I could relive any 24-hour period of my life it would be that evening and next morning when my friends embraced me for who I was, not necessarily for my accomplishments.

Recently, I came across a letter I wrote to my brother just a few months later. Here’s an excerpt:

You talk of having found Christ. Well I think I’ve found God through Nature. I can’t believe that I was able to stumble through 19 years without even beginning to appreciate Nature. Of course, my job this summer had a great deal to do with my new attitude.

Notice that I capitalized the word “Nature” as if nature is somehow divine. And in my mind, it was.

This letter was dated October 15, 1970 – just 26 days before my momentous experience of November 10, 1970. Tune in next time to find out just what happened to change my life.

When Christianity Wasn't Considered a Religion

In his terrific book The Prodigal God, Tim Keller explains that, surprisingly, in its earliest days, Christianity wasn’t considered a religion. Religions typically have three defining traits:  sacrifices to appease the gods, temples where these sacrifices are carried out, and priests to offer the sacrifices and serve as intermediaries between the deities and the people. Ironically, since the early Christians in the Roman empire didn’t follow “expected” religious behavior, they were labeled atheists.

Christians’ revolutionary teaching was that sacrifices to the gods are no longer necessary because Jesus himself was the ultimate sacrifice. And neither temples nor priests are needed if you don’t have sacrifices. This ran counter to every concept of religion known in the ancient world. All other Middle Eastern religion had many gods who controlled every single aspect of life:  the weather, fertility, war, pestilence, etc. When bad things happened, it was because the gods were angry and had to be placated.

My wife and I recently had the chance to observe one New World, non-Christian, polytheistic religion. In August, we enjoyed an awesome trip to Peru where we hiked the four-day Inca Trail to the ancient Inca city of Machu Pichu. Like other ancient cultures, the Incas believed in many gods to whom they regularly offered sacrifices. One of their principal deities was Pachamama, or Mother Earth.

After hiking the Inca Trail, we visited the charming Southern Peruvian city of Arequipa, which houses a museum containing the frozen mummy of a 12-year-old girl – dubbed “The Ice Maiden” – who had been sacrificed to the Inca’s gods in the 1450s. The museum provides many sobering details about the Inca’s belief system and rituals surrounding human sacrifice.

Although few, if any, cultures today still practice human sacrifice, many polytheistic concepts linger on. During our Peru excursion, we had the chance to discuss Jesus and our faith with our outstanding and friendly guides. It was a bit surprising to see how influential Pachamama remains today, even among some who identify as Christians. More than once, before our guides started drinking a beverage, if we were outdoors they would pour a few drops on the ground as an “offering” to – or at least an acknowledgment of – Pachamama.

This practice, even among professing Christians, should alert us to how easy it is to mix our faith with superstitious or polytheistic ideas and revert to thinking we have to appease God. Jesus was our sacrifice for sin, once and for all (Hebrew 9:12). He loves us enough to have laid down his life for us (John 5:13), and God works everything – even seeming calamities – together for our good (Romans 8:28). We don’t have to do anything to earn his favor. If we truly grasp this, we should want to live in a way that honors God, not feel like we have to do things to satisfy this wrath.

Here’s a question:  Am I living like the first Roman Christians did, basking in the knowledge that, because of Jesus, I don’t need sacrifices, temples or priests, or am I doing anything today that smacks of returning to a pagan belief that I have to earn God’s favor?