Vampire

I remember, about a year after I had converted to Christianity, giving a talk at my college’s Christian worship night. I was so nervous. I took Xanax in the bathroom then went on the stage to tell all the college kids about how I met God – something I didn’t quite understand myself, but had nevertheless left me utterly changed. To my credit, I did my best with the information I had at the time. I told my story of God pulling me in. I did a considerable amount of self-shaming on the Sentel BC timeline before reaching the part where I shared the gospel – which still doesn’t make sense to me sometimes – The whole Jesus having to die to fulfill old testament prophecy and in doing so cleansing us from sin. That testimony of faith I gave was as honest as I knew how to be at the time.

None of my roommates came that night. Which made me sad then, but in hindsight makes sense considering I resembled a newborn vampire from Twilight – hunting down converts to suck the life out of, put in my trunk, then drive to Sunday morning service to meet Jesus (Even though church is not at all the place where I had my spiritual awakening, quite the opposite). All of them had heard my hyper-zealous testimony and preaching a million times over. Every conversation had basically become an agenda in bringing people to my god -not befriending, loving, living, enjoying life with other fellow children of God.

The evangelical church machine draws people in a similar fashion of how political revolutions gain supporters. They take advantage of young people’s desire for purpose – their desperate craving to be passionate about anything, then they teach them their lingo. I learned Christianese jargon terms like “gospel centered” “saved” “life group.” Then they establish the “us vs them” “saved vs unsaved” line in the sand. My church and I are now against the powers of darkness living in the unsaved. Next comes baptism where they have you film 45 second video explaining the church’s theological views of who God is and how Jesus’s death and resurrection has saved you from your despicable, scum-of-the-earth existence (with dramatic piano music in the background and church logo). And voila – you’re ready to be sent out to find more vulnerable people to bring into the cult. You are now a value-added good ready for the commercial market. You have wrapped up all the junk of your past life in pretty wrapping paper, and put it under the dead Christmas tree of a past life – never to be opened. You are brand new! New language! New gender roles! New purpose! New family!

It’s seductive. An eternal mission for God sounds so much better than simply getting through college with a 401k job. The particular Southern Baptist church I found after I became a Christian was especially this way. This church, despite its good intentions, made me feel like complete shit. Which is exactly how I wanted to feel. I had an unhealthy amount of self-loathing. Every Sunday the preacher told some kind of sermon that hit on how bad humans are and how good God is. It was a perfect place for a newly blooming Christian masochist. Finally someone to tell me I sucked every week! The gospel became less about Jesus loving people so much that he wanted to show them how to live and redeem them, but about how irredeemably sinful I was. I was told I was saved, yet felt constantly insecure. I started to feel more and more like an outcast; suppressing my personality to feel apart of my “church family.” I felt like a phony -pushing this story of how God made me whole, when I was actually feeling fractured — deeply depressed and anxious. Church was yet again, a performance in suppressing my doubts and depression to avoid public ridicule. I did not feel comfortable to come to my pastor with my problems only to be told college students are egotistical snowflakes that use college as an excuse to be 17 for 4 more years. I kept my doubt and questions, as well as my sense of humor, to be perceived as mature.

That summer, I took an internship in Wyoming working at a law firm and never went to church once. That’s when I really started to seek God for myself and not through a group of people all too eager to tell me what God is like and give me a label. I was in search of the God I met alone in my room, the presence that overwhelmed me with peace and joy. I spent times just being still in meditation – reading the Bible – exploring the more charismatic, mystical realms of Christian faith that was frowned on in my church community. God revealed himself to me much like the first night I believed, in a rush of forgiveness, love, and peace. I began to trust in my own experience of God, rather than a legalistic male pastor’s or church culture.

I had begun to accept the things I didn’t understand without explaining everything away with jargon. I was getting comfortable with the many questions lying about my brain. Faith and “I don’t know” could coexist. I was on the quest for an authentic faith – not a defensive one that evades questions with lackluster answers. I had also, for the most part, stopped feeding my self-loathing with scathing sermons and begun the arduous journey of self- acceptance. Most importantly, I doubted. I doubted everything I had been told about God and even my own conversion experience. Doubt was truly the thing that led me to the authentic Christ. I found out when you have something real, no one doubting or criticizing it, even if that person is yourself, will change what you know to be true. The more I studied scripture, the more I found Jesus to be an incredibly gentle, intellectual, even cool, outcast – and not just some perfect corpse on a cross. Jesus does not pressure people to join him, nor pressure them to go to his church. He seemed to me a person others genuinely wanted to be around because they felt inspired and loved in his presence. Jesus brought restoration and reconciliation. God wanted me to be reconciled with my past, not to hate it. God wanted me to be at peace, and actually enjoy my life here on this planet. That’s how you attract people to God, by enjoying him. Not pushing a church, doctrine, or certain formula of conversion, but by simply living each moment conscious of God’s presence.