Oh how cheeky and presumptuous! The preacher handed me and several other teenage males a copy of Every Man’ s Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory At a Time, written by Stephen Arterburn, whose antediluvian thoughts and atavistic impulses set him apart – in a negative way – from the rest of humankind. The book, if you are curious, is basically about masturbation and its supposed harmfulness.
Some of the teenage males, who were also handed Arterburn’ s book, were dying to know my thoughts on it. They invited me to attend their book club to discuss it. That next Sunday we met, and I pointed out to each of them the book’ s myriad flaws, and made known the book’ s demeaning overtone; I read the book in its entirety beforehand, though I was told only to read through Chapter 3. However vacuous a book may be, I have neither the patience nor time nor fortitude to foot-slog through one. Inevitably, those under-sexed hypocrites slammed me for decimating their precious book – i. e. their pornography. Gag!
I left that church, never to return. I do not know where my brain was, I was not thinking, but I decided to make the Southern Baptist church in town my new home; and it was my home until I had enough of its vapidity. I only lasted a year. In time, I stopped going to church altogether. My ears were overwrought by the incessant Christian platitudes:“ You were born a sinner.”“ You are a sinner.”“ You must seek forgiveness for being a sinner.”“ You are nothing without God, but you are everything with God.” Nothing new, nothing stimulating, came of my church experience – just an ongoing drone that served no other purpose than to deafen my ears. I came to the realization that having a mind opened by wonder is much more beautiful and exciting than a mind closed by belief.
My Brother, Without Whom I am Forlorn, Died
Not a year after I left the Southern Baptist church, my only brother died in a single-vehicle accident( unrelated to alcohol). People from the Wesleyan church and the Southern Baptist church brought my parents and me food, sympathy cards and hugs the day after my brother’ s death. Two weeks later, it started- some of the same people, who wore the face of kindness and affability the day they brought food, sympathy cards and hugs to my parents and me, began to say( to my face),“ Your brother died because he was a sinner.”“ God needed your brother more than you did.”“ Do you think your brother went to heaven?”“ Your brother could have gone to hell; he wasn’ t an avid churchgoer.”
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