I came to Calvin at the age of 24 with a fist full of petals, and left him in my 40s with an empty tulip stem. If you've studied Calvinism, you know the TULIP acronym. If you haven't, don't sweat it. My point is, I didn't just come to god; I came to Calvinism specifically.
Initially, the reasons this theology felt horribly right was that it teaches: 1) You are born full of sin. I'd always been writhing around in guilt and regrets, so this part came easy; and 2) It teaches you can be rescued from all that filth. If you receive the goodness, you are accepted. I've always been a glutton for acceptance, gold stars and for someone to just take a rubber stamp to my forehead that says, "YOU'RE OKAY." So, once through those two gates, I was off and running.
I learned the term "Sola Scriptura." (Yes, there was Latin. I was in word-nerd heaven). It means Scripture Alone. Believe ALL of the bible and ONLY the bible. It's the only text you need, and don't go sticking any weird funny extra books in the back like those Catholics. We learned the worst thing you can do is pick and choose parts of the bible to believe. This is dangerous, sinful, and self-indulgent - a way to let people off the hook for rules they don't want to follow. "Sola" means all or nothing.
We learned that if a part of the bible sounds awful, outdated, or wrong, it's because you don't understand it correctly. Study harder, pray for understanding, and learn the context. And if that doesn't work, it's because there are parts we cannot understand with our earthly-bound minds and limitations. Someday in heaven, you'll understand.
For many years, I woke early to study the bible. I had Greek words on flash cards and concordances at the ready. And honestly, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed searching for information to deepen my understanding of the bible and that specific worldview.
I was hardcore. Just how hardcore I was would be funny, if it weren't such a serious subject. For example, I broke up with a boy who was in seminary who implied Adam and Eve might not be a literal historical story. He is an Episcopal priest now.
The first time I met the man who'd later become my father-in-law, I debated with him saying that salvation alone wasn't enough. HOW you came to salvation was crucial. If you believed you got saved through free will vs predestination, you might be saved, but you were in danger. If you dared think you had one iota to do with your own coming TO god, you might think you had one iota of power in your walk WITH god going forward. [Cue John Calvin's slow clap in the distance].
On a lighter note, once while driving and listening to Dave Matthews' "Crush," I flung the CD out the window because I was just feeling too ungodly about how sexy I thought he was. It was the 90s, so I'd managed to join just in time for the Purity Movement. I know. And it only gets worse.
I looked down on the parents, adults and church that raised me before my 20s, and questioned their salvation because it was not Calvinist enough by my new standards. The adults that took a younger Pam on mission trips to build houses for the poor became (in my mind) less-than and possibly even "unsaved" because their theology and bible interpretation was too "liberal." I compared them to my new pastors and elders who seemed to spend time with their heads stuck in Greek and Hebrew texts. The new ones gave us old books like Brother Lawrence's "Practicing the Presence of God" about a monk loving god through serving by simple tasks like peeling potatoes. Oddly, I'm pretty sure the old church and my parents had peeled more metaphorical potatoes than the new one.
In the new church, we liked to discuss Thomas Merton over craft beers feeling superior that we didn't follow the over-simplified rules of the Baptist teetotalers. We knew all the "right" heady theologians to study. I considered us the graduate school of Christianity. No one else was saying that, by the way. That was my own arrogance, but it certainly feels like an elite and entitled club when I describe it.
Yet, under all of the study, a foundation of anxiety was being laid.
A deep mistrust of self grew within me. A large part of the theology is that your "flesh" and heart are deceitful, so you assume most of your thoughts or desires are tainted by sin. After all, you came to god full of sin. Yes, you get to go to heaven, but your sinful nature is still vying for control. Therefore, don't trust your inner voice or gut. This led to a constant feeling of uncertainty. But since doubting your own instincts is encouraged, in a strange way, the more uneasy I felt, the more I thought I was growing spiritually.
As for the mystery of Sola Scriptura, and supporting the infallibility of the bible, I was in a closed loop of reasoning with no room for disagreement. Studying is encouraged, but not really outside of the doctrine itself. I dove deep, but not wide. I dove down, but not outside the pond - the pond being the loop that states the bible is unequivocally accurate, the premise over riding all my study.
Today, it is my opinion that picking and choosing parts of the bible is necessary IF you're going to read it at all. I don't think you have to read it to have a relationship with god or any other kind of spiritual life. But IF you're going to read the bible, I think you should give yourself permission to drop that "sola."
I'm a bit jealous of the people who are able to be in a church while overlooking parts they might not agree with exactly. I don't think that's bad. But I haven't been in a conservative church where you could question the core beliefs and still really be "n the fold." I know there are liberal churches where you can, but I'm a bit gun shy on church generally these days. In addition, my personality just isn't cut out for being "the questioner" in a group. I've got friends who can handle it. I am still learning to exercise my muscles of choice and questioning after years of allowing them to atrophy. Possibly, I never developed them in the first place.
Some might say I never truly understood grace, or that I don't understand the bible or doctrine correctly. I disagree. I loved them both whole-heartedly. They don't know how I handed over everything to pursue god and that theology. I was willing to suspend all prior belief and control over my life.
And yet, I have some grace for that young Pam. Like everyone else in the world, even the Brother Lawrence readers, she was just trying to survive life. And I still have a soft spot in my heart for that little monk Lawrence. The problem is that I saw a neat, tidy "right" answer to life in that theology and jumped in. Neat, tidy answers are comforting, especially for certain personality types. I think lots of us have student-type, over-thinking personalities, mixed with a need for clear answers. The unknowns in life are uncomfortable, and that discomfort is harder for some of us. Maybe others of us don't think we possess a lot of good to begin with, so hearing about Martin Luther singing "From the Depths of Woe" hits a nerve that feels good to have hit. I can really lean into some woe, y'all.
Everyone needs a coping mechanism for life. Even our bodies instinctively find ways to adapt and survive, and we wouldn't criticize our bodies for that, would we? For me, during those decades, as I spent more time in my head studying and not trusting my own body or mind, I began a dissociation of sorts. I was so good at seeing the world in two different planes: The earthly and the spiritual. I was so good, that I tipped right over into the spiritual and missed some important things in the earthly. It's easier to ignore some injustices in the world if you believe this life is just a prequel to eternity.
Maybe I shouldn't spend too much time analyzing the past. I don't want "anti-anything" to become my new modus operandi. How would that be better than what I described above? However, I'd say it's worth spending a morning pondering over coffee, in hopes that I don't slip back into some version of it.
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| I spent so much time in my head, that I almost forgot I had a body at all |