  Baptists...Those Dirty Dogs Ok, so maybe it's the baptists that I hate. After years of growing up under the legalistic dogma that did nothing for me but enhance a sense of shame, I'm realizing that maybe belief systems aren't absolutes, like I had been led to believe. Years of hiding my faults and elevating myself above others as a disguise is coming to an end. And I'm damn glad it is.
This screwed up behavior wasn't a conscious effort on my part. It was all that I had known. When things get messed up, you hide it. When you make a mistake, you hide it. When your family embarasses you, you hide it. You don't talk about it. Don't even acknowledge it. This is NOT healthy. Then you throw in the concept of religion and the stresses accompanying a world view that life demands perfection and so does Jesus. You have people who give you pre-fab answers to life's crappy events and stare at you like you're nuts for not tapping into "God's peace. " I spent almost my entire life struggling with depression. Whenever I would try to talk to people about it, I would get fucked up answers like "Whatever is worthy, noble, blah blah blah...think on those things", "You may be unhappy with the circumstances but if you ask God, He will give you joy even in the midst of it all" and "What would our passive Jesus do...turn the other cheek and move on considering it an honor to suffer for Christ.
" Ok, so then I pray my whole life and where is this peace....no where. I am angry and hostile on the inside but Jesus doesn't like angry people....so Jesus must not like me then. But what if I just hide the anger and suppress it...maybe He won't notice. Again, these aren't things that I consciously thought about but perspectives I had developed based on the attitudes of those around me.
I don't even want to start on the attitudes of the Baptists as a whole. My time at Seminary was by far some of the worst years of my life dealing with people. As a whole, the Seminary community cared more about proving a theological point to elevate themselves above others than they did about other people. It's so ironic because it should be the one place with the most caring people but it isn't. They sit around and gossip in the name of "prayer requests", they spread rumors and lies with no regard to the people they are hurting, they are dishonest with the things they struggle with leading them to a lifestyle of hidden sin stuck in a perpetual cycle, they get more upset over petty things like language and immodest clothing than they do about the reason they are even at Seminary....because people are GOING TO HELL.
My years spent there were one big lie. It was enveloped in deception. They twist God's word to make themselves look better. This is not what I see as the church when I read the Bible. Then there's my church that I grew up in...a power hungry pastor elevated above questioning and bent on intimidating those he comes in contact with. A church that says shit to you when you wear jeans to church because everyone knows that Jesus hates those disrespectful jeans. So we must all dress up and act like everything is wonderful so other people at church will think we are super Christians, all the while we are falling apart on the inside. Our families are eroding...dads are fucking younger women, kids are doing drugs, moms are popping pills...then we dress up in our Sunday best and act like everything is wonderful.
It's bullshit. I hate the deception and I hate the lies. I've done it for so long but I'm finished. No more. I'm not going to live my life to make other people view me a certain way. I'm going to be myself. If people like me, then they like me. If they don't, oh fuckin' well because I'm not going to bend over and kiss my ass for every person who won't accept responsibility for their own shit. I don't know how all of this will play out but I know that things are definitely changing and I kinda like it. I have the right to live a life of freedom and not hold myself under the burdens of this shitty world. So, that's what I'm going to do. 
