Reflections 3

... Imagine joining that to a religious environment that I at least experienced as one that expected moral perfection with a God who would judge those who did not measure up. I don't know that any of the preachers I grew up with would necessarily characterize their preaching in this way, but these were probably the points that stuck out to me as a child.

There was an emphasis on having certain religious experiences.  The first was when you were "saved."  You needed to be able to pinpoint a moment when you were sure God had saved you.  The second was when you were "sanctified."  You needed to be able to pinpoint a moment when God filled you with the Spirit like the disciples on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2.

The preachers of my childhood preached these events in dramatic terms.  When I did not have dramatic emotional events to point to, I became uncertain of my "salvation," of my eternal destiny.  Eventually I would have some moments when peace followed prayer and angst.  I could point to them as these experiences as my moments.

But there was also an emphasis on the need for faithfulness.  I was raised with the sense that even one sin returned you to a course toward hell.  Whatever experiences I might have had in the past, they were completely contingent on avoiding future sins at all costs.  Repentance needed to be immediate, in case something happened, and I would go to hell.

As a child, I was not afraid of sudden death, but I was afraid that Jesus would suddenly return to earth.  In the late 1970's end times speculation had returned with a fervor because of books like Hal Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth.  A trilogy of films came out and we saw them as a church.  A Thief in the Night pictured a wife waking up to find that her husband had disappeared in the rapture, and she had been left alone to go through a 7 year tribulation with unimaginable suffering for those who had missed the rapture but turned to Christ during that time when the Antichrist would rule on earth.

So from that moment as a 10 year old when I woke up from that nap, my "conscience" awoke, and I experienced great fears off and on for the next ten years or so...