I've got the Golden Ticket!!!! (part one)

Note: you may fear that I am going to hell after you read this.

I am a Christian. As a Christian, I attempt follow the teachings of Christ with my mind, body, emotions, relationships and spirit. I believe that to live as Christ did is the best possible way to live. I believe that as a follower of Christ I am called to live my life as an agent of healing, love, renewal and resistance to oppression. As a follower of Christ I am responsible to resist persons (including forces within myself) and/or systems that oppress, dehumanize or add to the brokenness of our world. As a Christian I believe that just as we are called to cherish and uphold the unique humanity of all, we are also called to love, cherish and uphold the rest of creation through stewardship and gratitude by walking lightly on this earth and nature. As a follower of Christ, I believe that cycles of violence, hatred, addiction, revenge, and self-centeredness should end with every decision we make. And most importantly, I believe that to follow Christ is to be dedicated to giving flesh to His truths in THIS life, in THIS world, for THIS time, by living them, now.

Growing up in the version of Christianity that I was taught, being a Christian is less about walking in the footsteps of Christ, and more about being "saved" and getting others "saved." To be "saved", one must hear the gospel ("all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God", "For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believe in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life"), confess that they are sinners in need of a Savior, and "invite Christ to come into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior and accept the forgiveness of his blood shed sacrifice" by praying the sinner's prayer. (wow, it's been years since I have witnessed an altar call, but I hear the words in my head like they were spoken yesterday) Now, after you have said the prayer, you must trust that your name has been written by Christ's blood in the Lamb's Book of life (which is your free pass into Heaven). This whole process is also called being "born again" - hence the statement, "I'm a born-again Christian" (which is short hand for "I'm a real Christian", or as my mom would say, "really good and saved"). The term "born again" is a sum up for the theological notion that through our physical birth, we were born into original sin, and when we say the sinners prayers and believe that we are saved (by faith, not by the earning of salvation through good works), we are then baptized by Christ's blood (died to the sin of the flesh, and arose with Christ's defeat of death) and born anew.

That right there pretty much sums up what evangelical Christians believe, and what I was taught to be the take-home message about Jesus Christ. We are all broken and in need of saving from original sin, and unless we accept God's forgiveness (reconciliation) through Christ's death and resurrection (achieved by praying the sinner's prayer), we will be eternally separated (damned) from God's love for all eternity (Hell). Hence, Heaven's Gates & Hell's Flames, Toy maker's Dream, The Bride, altar calls, youth rallies, and so on.

Now, I do believe that there is something terribly broken about us humans that is in need of healing, and so I do not think there is anything innately wrong with or destructive with the "born-again" message, I do however know from personal experience, that this message often (that being generous) produces a culture and mentality that is utterly terrifying, sad and destructive in many key respects. Let me explain.

Disclaimer: I recognize that the following is based purely on my own observations and experiences and conversations, and that the reality about evangelical Christianity is much broader and more complex than what is represented by the evangelical community that I grew up in.

As a child, and especially in the years after our house fire, I struggled with depression and feelings of despair. Feelings of overwhelming fear, loneliness and self-loathing was especially prevalent. Amidst these internal struggles, two terrifying thoughts in particular stand out in my memory as having been dominant in my mind - I was constantly terrified of the rapture (had a packed, red suitcase until our fire), and the question: "what if I am not really saved?". The answer to both of these fears was of course, pray for God's assurance and peace.
As I grew, and especially when I went to college, I slowly began to understand why these thoughts were so terrifying to me, and more importantly, why I was so fixated on them in the first place. Both of these fearful thoughts, that literally kept me awake at night as a child and into my adulthood, were born of the evangelical obsession with knowing how and determining who is "in" (saved/born again) or "out"(the damned). As my mom always said, "really good and saved."

I remember asking my Sunday School teacher as a kid at Believer's Chapel in Cicero North Syracuse, "How can all the people from the Old Testament be in Heaven if they died before Jesus was born? They can't be in Heaven if they never accepted Jesus into their hearts." I was of course given an answer about the old covenant that Christ would eventually complete, and how the truth of God is written on our hearts so even people who have never heard the gospel can still go to Heaven, yada yada, yada. I distinctly remember not being satisfied with this answer because not only was it not theologically consistent with what I was taught about how salvation worked, but mostly because it was gray and wishy-washy, and I knew otherwise. You were either saved, or you weren't. Your name was either written in the Lamb's Book of Life or it wasn't. It was also very clear that this "truth written on their heart" business for people who had never heard the gospel (because God can't send people to Hell for ignorance of the free pass into Heaven - that would make him unjust), always had the tone of "we can only hope, for only God knows their hearts, but in all likelihood, they are probably going to Hell." I bring this memory up, because I recall that from a very, very early age, I knew that being a Christian was about being saved, and being saved was about getting into Heaven.