A testimony of sorts

[Lance]

Lutherans aren't as given to testimonializing as some other denominations, but here's my attempt (sprinkled with smileys for your reading pleasure):

I was born and raised in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. I was baptized as a baby & I went thru confirmation classes at 12-13 years of age. After high school I went to Concordia University in Portland, a Lutheran school. I got my B.A. in Christian education and I became a Family Life Minister. I worked with young people and their families & I led our contemporary worship service, writing many of the praise & worship songs we used. I did this for 6 years.

Then, 1 day, while I was teaching a confirmation class, I realized that I disagreed with some of the things my church was teaching & that I was required to teach to these children. Mostly they were issues not central to the church's doctrine. For example, my church was teaching that the death penalty was okay with God, & I don't believe that. Another was the concept of just war, which I have trouble with. I'm sure some of you might want to take me up on those issues & maybe we can do that at another time, but my point is that I began questioning what I was doing there. I felt I was in a moral dilemma.

Add to this the fact that 9-11 had just taken place & some people were pointing their fingers at all middle-easterners, as well as a couple high profile hate crimes against homosexuals being highlighted in the media, & you could say I was seeing an ugly side to a lot of Christians. Also, my job at the church required me to work a minimum of 50 hours a week, usually more like 60, & sometimes up to 90 or more with retreats & I felt like there was some irony in the fact that the Family Life Minister had no time for his own family.

I quit.

I went back to school & got my MA in teaching & began teaching high school art. I also began exploring other spiritual paths. I tried Buddhism for quite a while & I think that there's a lot to recommend it. There's a lot of wisdom in eastern philosophy. But when it comes right down to it, to couch it in Christian terms, the Buddhists have the law, but they don't have the Gospel. I began to feel pretty jaded & hopeless & I soon began pursuing atheism which, of course, has neither the law nor the Gospel.

Then an old friend of mine asked me if I'd help him start up a new praise team at his church. I did, but mainly because I felt like playing music. Then I started writing praise songs again, although I was telling myself that I could write them without necessarily believing them. I guess I don't really know exactly when or how it happened, but I found my faith again.

This is really just a rough outline of a life journey that has taken many scenic routes & cul-de-sacs. I admit that the atheists & humanists & rationalists are right when they point out that Christianity doesn't always fit with our empirical knowledge of the universe. But we don't know even the minutest fraction of what we think we know. For example, we think we know how gravity works, but we don't really know what it is.

& my experience tells me that Christianity is true. I'd much rather trust my experience than an equation on a paper or some philosophical quandry that only exists in the minds of those contemplating it.

[Smitty]

Thanks for sharing, Lance. My own journey looks nothing like yours, but has some odd and interesting similarities...cool, huh? To me its just an affirmation that though we all take different paths on our journey, we all end up at the same place...the foot of the cross.

Smitty