A History of Hypocrisy: Part One

Many of the things I choose to write about I am guilty of. One of the reasons I share my experiences is in hope that they can help someone else. Maybe if I keep putting myself out there and being vulnerable it will help another person let go of their shame and do the same. One of the things that I continue to struggle with is anger.

We all get angry and often feel justified in that anger. The truth is anger, no matter how justified it is, really does cause more harm than good in many cases. There are many times it is our personal experiences and bias that makes us angry. I have come a long way in being able to control my anger once I recognize it is there. I am human, though, and sometimes do not see it as clearly as others.

In our anger we seldom think rationally and logically at all. The following information is being presented, and will lead up to the anger I’ve displayed at religion for some time now. I am still angry about it, but I’ve realized that the anger is hindering my goals, and alienating those I love. Writing is therapeutic for me, so here’s to some hope and healing.

I am long-winded and in today’s technological, fast-paced world no one wants to read long blogs and walls of text. If you are one of those people I apologize, but I am sure you can find shorter blogs than mine to read if you’re not interested. I must be who I am.

In the end, even if these blogs never help another person they are helping me sort things out for myself, and that has to be enough. My experiences with god and religion over the years is what shaped and led to my fundamentalism. It played a large part of that experience. If I am to ever let it go completely I must understand its role in my journey.

Growing up I believed in the Christian god. I never took religion seriously then, never read the bible, never went to church regularly, etc. Mom had sent us off occasionally on the church bus to Mount Hope Church; the church with all the flags. I remember singing cool songs about Jesus and the devil’s hair cut. I remember doing plays and putting on shows. It was all just fun and games then.

We did crafts and other things children enjoy, but I don’t remember ever hearing any in depth conversation or teachings on Christ, the gospel, or being told I was an awful sinner. It was all god loves you, now paint red for the color of the blood that he shed, brown for the crown of thorns upon his head, etc.

Looking back now it was where the shame was first planted. It was there we were told yellow was the color of the Christians who were afraid to tell, and how we should never be a Christian afraid to tell. Yellow is the color of cowards. I never understood what the crown of thorns was back then, or what I was supposed to tell others. It was light indoctrination that I wouldn’t understand for years to come.

I did pray every single night. My mother and step father were not particularly religious, but when I met my biological father I was excited that he was; at first. I was about 15 or so when I met him, and one day decided to ask him some questions about god. Since him and his wife at the time seemed to know so much I was thrilled to learn more.

One day he asked me how I prayed. I told him that I would thank god for the good things in my life first, then ask for help with the bad. I explained that at the end of every prayer I listed people I loved specifically and asked god to watch over them, and before the amen I would offer praise and admiration to god. My dad laughed at me. I don’t think I will ever forget how shameful I felt in the moments that followed.

He said that isn’t how prayer works. Through his laughter and mocking me he explained that I was to praise god first before anything else. It was the first time I was explained “the truth” of the gospels. He told me that I was born undeserving. That I was a sinner who deserved to burn in hell, but if I would put god first, praise him above all else, and share him with others I could be saved from that eternal torture. And then he went to another room to smoke a joint.

I left that encounter with my dad knowing a few things. I was a horrible person who didn’t deserve to be alive, and should grovel at the feet of god for forgiveness. What was I guilty of? Being born into a world I never would have asked to live in. I knew for the first time what Jesus had done, and why it was important.

I swallowed it all because the only love I knew my entire life was that way. I was pushed away, shunned, ridiculed, and often felt undeserving. My parents are great parents now and I am grateful for our relationship, but that wasn’t always the case. My parents have their own past and unfinished business that forced them to repeat cycles they regret.

Knowing that as an adult has enabled me to forgive and know without doubt my parents always loved me. As a child, though, love was sorely lacking from my life. So this explanation of god, of how undeserving I was of love, even with the shame with which it came, was acceptable to me. Love was always associated with abuse and shame for me.

Looking back I couldn’t see what a hypocrite my dad was. My real anger is the hypocrisy that moderate Christians love so much. He walked away from my mother and left her to raise me alone. For fifteen years he didn’t give a shit where or who I was. Had my older sister not threatened him with taking him on a talk show he never would have found me.

When he came back into my life he cheated on his wife with my mother, who had to cheat on my step dad to make that happen. Adultery is a sin, but you won’t hear him confess it. He has no problem telling you what a sinner you are as he laughs and mocks your good intentions, though.

After all of that he felt superior and arrogant in his belief, and rather than explain to his child, who he had already hurt for years, kindly where he was coming from he chose to mock me and make me feel awful about who I was. For the first time I realized why I never thought I deserved love. According to god I didn’t deserve it, and who I am to argue with god? I was confused.

When I met my dad I was dating a guy named Joe. He was a satanic worshipper. In his room in the basement he had a table with satanic stuff all over it. The satanic bible, a statue of the virgin Mary painted black with the word whore written in red on the bottom of it, and other such things. He would get angry if anyone ever touched it, but I could touch it when he bent me over it to have his way with me.

I remember dad’s wife, Becky, telling me the next time Joe was mean to me I needed to rebuke him in the name of Jesus. She explained to me that there was power in the name of Jesus like none other. It felt so silly but she assured me it would work. In fact, she said that rebuking in the name of Jesus could not fail.

So we were sitting on his couch one afternoon and Joe was being his usual dick self. Out of nowhere I remembered what Becky said, and I rebuked a satanic worshipper in the name of Jesus. I did so with full confidence in the name of Jesus and was positive it would work. That the demons inside of him would magically float off and he’d be forever changed in that moment.

Let me tell you it was not Jesus with the power in that exchange. Joe laughed so long and hard at me. He asked where I had learned such a thing, and when I told him Becky, he wanted to know why I would listen to a woman who claims to serve god and grows pot in her backyard. He used the same arguments for his Satanism that many atheists use to deny gods altogether. So once again, I am ashamed and mocked.

I left home young and pretty much stayed with Joe and his mother. It was an awkward place to live. While he was worshipping satan his mother thought she was married to Christ; literally. She was a chain smoking, fear filled, Christian. I can remember coming back to the house one day with Joe to see her reading his satanic bible, and he went ballistic. I was afraid he would hurt her, but he never did. We wondered why she would read that book if she was “married to Christ”, and she said she was curious as to what satan’s side of the whole deal was. We left it at that.

The experiences I’ve had with religious people has been interesting; to say the least. None more interesting than my own religious experiences that came later. Looking back I can see that the more serious someone I knew tried to take god and religion the more crazy they seemed to me and the rest of the world. Yet I kept believing. I never once questioned if god was real, if I was serving the right god, or if the bible was a good book. Whenever I saw something conflict with the love of god I just ignored it, or put them people off as fundamental and crazy. Eventually I became one of them. That took a long time because I was frantically searching for the answers in others who believed, and only when none of them could provide any real answers did I take matters into my own hands.

After I had my son at age 18 his dad and I were trying to make our relationship work. We moved in with his dad, Pete, and his wife, Sheryl. They were Christians and since Chris and I were not married we had to sleep in separate rooms. Part of the deal for allowing us to stay with them was that we go to church twice a week, and do bible study every night.

I confess I didn’t pay much attention to Pete reading the bible at night. I was preoccupied with other things, bored to tears, tending to my son, or drifting off in thoughts. We attended a Baptist church. It was the strictest church I’d ever been to. I hate wearing dresses and skirts, so I would wear nice slacks with sweaters or blouses. I was told by the pastor that he would prefer to see me in dresses, and that pants were against god and the bible. So Pete took me shopping and I bought some dresses. Shortly thereafter I went to the altar, accepted Christ, and was baptized into the church.

Since Chris had cheated on me so often in the past they decided we should take counseling with the pastor to heal before we got married. The first couple sessions went well I guess. From what I know about psychology today the advice he offered never works in the real world, though.

We were never told that I wasn’t to be alone with the pastor. So during one of our sessions when the pastor asked Chris to leave we thought nothing of it. Who doesn’t trust their pastor? Well, the pastor began by asking me very personal questions. He wanted to know how many men I had slept with, the details of those encounters, and eventually reached over and caressed my thigh. My pastor was making sexual advances at me, while his wife was in another room of the church. My faith was fumbling all over the place.

When I told Pete he didn’t believe me. He said I was either making it up or misunderstanding. I refused to go back to the church and he made me leave his home. It took ten years for him to apologize. I may have been the first to come forward, but over the years fourteen other women followed my lead. The pastor was fired and replaced.

Since then, I’ve learned that Peter was an awful father to Chris. Him and Chris’ mother were both alcoholics, and would lock their children in rooms for hours at a time. Chris suffered severe abuse from both parents, and learning not to take the cheating, and his walking away from our children personal has helped me grow tremendously.

Pete is still an alcoholic today. Sheryl and I had grown close, and despite that he kicked me out of their home, she still called me from time-to-time. One day she called me hysterical and told me she left him. That even though it was a sin she could no longer take his abuse. I had no idea for as long as I lived there that he physically or emotionally abused her. I was horrified at his hypocrisy and the lengths he went to in order to hide it. I am sad that she eventually went back to suffer at his hand.

My entire life was riddled with such hypocrisy; especially in those who preached the loudest. I never saw it as clear as I do today. My experience with the Baptist pastor made me stray from religion for a very long time. I still believed in god, but could not make myself go to any church. I had such a hard time trusting anyone as it was. How could I ever trust another pastor to speak the truth?

To be continued….