Living Outside of the Church

I saw a very handsome brotha on Twitter by the name of “Pastor Smoke” and made the comment that he was handsome and I wished men were as handsome as him when I was doing “the church thing.” He asked me why I no longer did the church thing. I’m writing this blog for myself, for him, and others.

I grew up the daughter of a music minister and granddaughter of a Baptist Pastor and Healer. Until I was of age, going to church on Sundays was mandatory. I grew up hearing about my grandfathers gift of healing, how he would pray for people and they would be healed. I grew up seeing the positive aspects of this man, my grandfather. It wasn’t until my teen years, until he passed away, that the truth came out about this man. Yes he was a Pastor and a healer, but he was also an adulterer and had an ugly side. On my grandmothers deathbed, he informed her that he was leaving her for her best friend. My grandmother died shortly after of heart troubles, but my mother and I both know she died of a broken heart. When my mother last saw my grandmother, I was told, my grandmother handed my mother all of her rings and jewelry, telling my mother that she was tired. I think, now, I know what she means.

I think my grandmother was tired of living the lie, of sacrificing her life for a man and his vision, for playing the role of the First Lady and getting nothing but heartache in the end. Who knows if being the First Lady, being a preachers wife was what SHE wanted to do? And if she didn’t–but stayed married and supported him through it anyway–imagine the reality check and her disappointment when, in her late 60′s at this time, the man she’d given it all up for was going to discard her in the end. It was their marriage that helped me realize that I did not want to marry a man of the cloth, at least in part. I simply could not view the coveted “Preacher’s Wife” position with rose-colored glasses, having seen the inside edition of the life of Preacher’s Wives. I later attended a Christian University and heard so many girls wish they were preachers wives or desire to be married to a minister. I would often shake my head internally. “You have no clue what you’re asking for and what it all entails” were my thoughts.

My parents’ rocky marriage also did not help. My father was called to be a minister early in his youth but blamed my mother for not answering the call. He’s been bitter with her ever since. I grew up, as a child, knowing that while my father said he loved my mother, that his love for her was twisted. My father never loved my mother passionately or sacrificially. His lack of love toward her was so clear to me that at the age of 9, I’d told my mother that she should divorce him. “He doesn’t love you, mom” I would say. When the topic of “submission” would come up, my father would be quick to quote scripture, telling my mother that she was not being a submissive wife and that all good and submissive wives “obey.” I remember thinking “I wasn’t aware that mom was a dog.” My father wasn’t the only one who felt that good wives should “submit” or “obey.” According to this crowd, the husband is the decision maker. The wife can give her opinion, but only in private. In the end, the husband is the head of the house and whatever he says is law. I would often go to church and hear preachers–most of them male–discuss the topic of submission in regards to marriage, and would leave in total disgust. Very rarely did I hear a sermon that held the men accountable in their marriages, to sacrifice their lives as Christ gave His own life for the Church, one verse above the “wives submit to your husbands” verse. More often than not, these same preachers would skip over that verse. Very rarely did I hear these preachers discuss women as their equals.  It was more important for them to drill into their congregations heads that the wife’s only job in the marriage is to “submit to her husband.” Hearing these sermons made it difficult for me to desire a Christian man.

The subject of submission extended beyond marriage. I later left my grandfathers church and found another church to attend in the city. It was hip and the pastor made it his job to make the Bible something that all people of all ages could understand. The same theme or topic of submission came up YET AGAIN. Around this time, so-called prophets like Juanita Bynum and others were on this “submission” kick. If one is truly submissive to the pastor, then one does not speak against him or anything he does, even if that pastor is in error. I could not agree LESS. So if someone in the congregation sins, it’s OK to call them out, bring them before the church board and hold them accountable; but if the pastor is in sin, no one can hold him accountable because “that is not submission”? Something was wrong with that to me. I’ll admit that when it comes to church, I hold to a more Egalitarian style of interpretation. Everyone is on the same level in the eyes of God, just with different duties. No one is above being held accountable. Years later, this same pastor was exposed for having several sexual relationships with the women in his church. I knew this was true because a close personal married friend had gotten involved in an emotional affair with this man; yet because of the false teachings about submission, no one held this man accountable for his actions.

Submission and I had issues.

My awakening to the reality of God happened at an early age. I remember being 8 or 9 and realizing a few things. I went outside one day, randomly, stood on my porch, looked at the sky and started speaking. I knew I was talking or thinking to God. “I am not at home here.” This was twofold. One, I knew that my home was not the United States of America. At the age of 8 years old, I felt that the Pledge of Allegiance was a lie. I did not feel comfortable pledging allegiance to a thing, nor did I like the idea of pledging allegiance to a country that killed and raped Native Americans and African slaves in order to build a country based on racial supremacy and greed. I knew there wasn’t liberty or justice for all, even at the age of 8. America wasn’t my home. Two, I knew that this earth was not my home. I looked out into the sky and knew there was another realm and that God was real. I started reading the Bible, but felt a connection to the Old Testament as opposed to the New Testament. In my opinion, Jesus talked too damn much. I was baptized because I loved water and wanted to know what it felt like, but I knew what it meant. When I attended church, I felt so caged. I often felt that God and I were forced into a box together.  I knew that God was beyond church, beyond our human comprehension of Him/Her, beyond and bigger than our traditions.

As a child, I questioned much of what the church taught. If God said for us to come to the alter or to Him/Her “as we are” then why am I forced to dress up? Why must I wear a dress or a skirt? Why do Christians say that drinking alcohol is sinful when Jesus turned water into wine? How could Christians say such things when the Jews, the very people who gave the Christian religion its foundation, drink wine themselves? In the Old Testament, the Jews were often told to make a sacrifice or offering with their “strong wine or drink” (Numbers 28:1-8; Deuteronomy 14:22-26) in honor of God. Where is my tithe going? Is tithing for New Testament Christians?

I later attended a Christian University, which will remain nameless for now, and saw a whole different side of the Church. The school which I attended was and is considered a Charismatic Christian University but allowed all denominations to attend. There were many big named preachers’ kids who attended the University, but lets get to the scandal. There was supposed to be a fund raising telethon for students who wanted to attend the University but couldn’t afford to stay. The monies collected were to be used as grant or scholarship money for those who could not continue to attend the University on their own dime. As a student who needed a few thousand to stay in school, I never saw this grant money. Years later it came out that these same monies were used to pay for private trips, vacations, and shopping sprees for the President and his family, namely his daughter and her friends. Having worked for the Housing department and knowing a few people, I also found out that those who were in the Presidents’ daughters’ inner circle–most of them rich and able to afford their education–were given grants and scholarships. Other less fortunate students prayed and fought for grants and scholarships at this University.

Class-ism and status in the Church was also something I encountered, this hierarchy and special treatment of the VIP’s, the racism, the prosperity gospel. There were so many things going on at this University and in the Church that was completely unlike Jesus. Many people idolized the President, his wife, and other preachers as if their words and actions were those of the Savior. Favoritism was an everyday occurrence, and justified by the President’s wife. For example, it was against school code to park a car on the walkway, but the President’s wife always parked her car there. Students complained about it, and via her daughter, the complaints reached her. She addressed the issue during a chapel service, saying that she paid for the walkway, therefore she could do whatever she wanted. The rules clearly did not apply to her.

The ladies had to wear skirts during the hot months and were only allowed to wear pants during the cold months. There was a curfew. Young marriage was pushed upon the students as a solution to having premarital sex. The men feared me because I refused to tone down my sensual/sexual self in a way that would make them comfortable. This is not to say that I would run up to men and sexually harass them. Some were just uneasy being in my presence, as it made their own issues with lust manifest. During my time at the University I was completely celibate, never even kissing a young man while I was there. Sexuality or sensuality is shunned in the church, although the church pretends to love and revere it. Unfortunately, I was both sexual and sensual. Very few men were brave enough to talk to me and carry on a friendship, others would avoid me altogether, judging me for a seductress. So many men at the University were closet homosexuals, many of them throwing themselves into church in order to hide what they really were. Many of the students attending the University were living in the closet in some way: closet alcoholics, lesbians or gay, atheists. All shunned in the Christian world. I rarely encountered someone of the opposite sex who was more man than myself at the University level or in the Church (and I am feminine as hell).

I attended a church that shall also remain nameless that made me hate going to church altogether. I attended this church because I truly did feel God there. The people were nice enough, and the gifts were in operation. I grew a lot spiritually there. Because of my curvy figure and the stylish way I dressed, I was soon labeled the Seductress of the church. I was sexy, pretty, feminine, confident, chose to fly solo most of the time. I missed church for a week or two and got a call from a member who felt it necessary to tell me that the sermon was about how God was going to start judging those who were secretly in sin. I knew exactly what she was insinuating: clearly I must be in sin because I am sensual, sexual, and I’ve missed church for a week or two. I gladly told this young woman that the last time I’d been sexually active had been 3 years prior to coming to their church and that while I was glad for her sharing the message with me, that it did not pertain to me, and hung up. When I returned to church the next Sunday, the sermon was on obedience. Those who were obedient to the will of God attended church regularly. When the pastor and I had our one on one, he decided to tell me that I had a beautiful face but that my body had to match and that there were many men in the church who were looking for a wife. I knew he meant that he wanted me to lose weight so that he could marry me off to a man in his church. I wanted nothing to do with it. The men in that church were so spiritually minded that they were no earthly good. A couple at this same church got married and on their wedding day hugged instead of kissing each other. Their logic was that they wanted to be holy and respect & revere their pastor. It was almost as if kissing was wrong for them to do until the wedding night. I was officially turned off from dating anyone from that church or the Church, period.

I left that church and University the following semester, leaving the University for financial reasons. I’d done everything in my power in order to continue attending the University but I wasn’t able to find the extra money to stay, with the funds being used for the Presidents’ daughters trips and the family vacations and all. I was glad to wash my hands of the place. I learned much about God and Church, two separate entities in my opinion. God was not in ANY of the things I experienced those 3 years.

I realized that if I wanted a man who wasn’t afraid of me and my sex drive, that I would have to seek a man outside of the church, especially since the ones in the church would avoid being in my presence for fear of wanting to hump me. It is my opinion–and the opinion of many other women I’ve discussed this topic with–that the Church somehow feminizes men. In all of my growing up years, I rarely met a balanced Christian alpha male. Either the men were weak and docile or, like my father, the men overcompensated by making women second class citizens. I realized that if I wanted to be with a man who would treat me as his equal and not as his submissive, that I would have to look outside the Church and possibly outside of this country. I did not want a man tainted by the false teachings of the prosperity gospel, the condemnation of drinking alcohol, a man afraid of my sexual self; nor did I want a man who had a love/hate relationship with sex due to the Church’s praise and condemnation of sex. I did not want a man confused by the Church and its false standards and doctrines, some of them based more on the traditions of man than scripture.

The hour is late, but there will be a part two.