From unsaved to saved to unsaved again
I hope my mother-in-law doesn’t read this.
Tina is a very devout believer. A now retired but once long-time restaurant owner as many Chinese immigrants are, she spends most of her time going to church and socializing with her fellow Christian friends. Diagnosed with Stage III ovarian cancer in 2012, she’s battled two recurrences and undergone multiple Chemotheraphy and radiation treatments. It’s an amazing feat and a testament to her strength that she’s alive and well today. I’m sure she believes that God did all that for her.
My wife Emily tells me that when she first told her mom that I was Korean, her heart skipped a beat in disappointment that I wasn’t Chinese. I never took that as a racist thing (it could be interpreted that way for those that don’t understand the inter-Asian dynamics in America; if that’s you, I wrote about it here) but a common sentiment that I understand as my mom’s heart skipped an equal beat of disappointment in her revelation that my then-girlfriend wasn’t Korean. But Emily calmed her mom down by telling her that I was a Christian, which apparently delighted her.
What she really meant was that my full name is Christian, which it is, but that subtle play on words really helped me win her over even before we met. Thanks, honey.
The only times that I will ever go to church for Sunday service is if it’s Easter and I’m in Phoenix, Arizona where my mother-in-law lives. It makes her happy to see her daughter and son-in-law join her for service even though she must know that the preacher’s words come out like Charlie Brown’s teacher to our unlistening ears. It’s a bullet that I bite out of love for Tina — she’s always been kind to me, even though I suspect that she will occasionally gossip some unflattering thoughts about me to the other family members from time to time. But that’s no big deal — Asians just can’t help themselves.
During my childhood years, my mom would take my brother and I to church every Sunday. My dad never went. He couldn’t be bothered from watching his 49ers play and even though I never asked I could tell that he viewed church as a complete waste of time. I should have heeded the unspoken warning. But my mom was friends with a head pastor’s wife, a lady who used to give my brother piano lessons, so we had to go.
I don’t remember a single word or message from the hundreds of sermons I must have “listened” to as a child. Church to me was eating vegetables or cleaning my room, something that had to be done. I didn’t even bother to make friends with the other kids, though I do remember having a crush on a girl named Annie whom I displayed my affection for in the form of throwing a rock at her and making her cry — I was a very confused child. I was mostly just, there.
Then, when I entered the 7th grade, I stopped going to church altogether. For some reason, my mom stopped making me go. It must have been that we moved to another city and the church was farther away so she herself was less inclined to attend regularly. And it was great. I had my Sundays back. Back to riding my bike outside, watching the NBA on NBC, or playing basketball on my neighbor’s hoop. Normal kid shit. This went on for another 3 years.
Then, during my sophomore year in high school, a friend invited me to some after-school event. I don’t remember why I agreed to go but I went, and once the event started I felt an oh no feeling waft over me. It was a Christian club service. I looked around as a praise band played some music and it felt like everyone knew the songs they were playing except for me. After the band was done, a man named Sam got up and started speaking. He was confident, charismatic, and bold. I actually found myself listening to what he was saying. He had a knack for tapping into the emotions of impressionable youth, something in retrospect that’s not too difficult to do, and he sure tapped into my teenage angst that night. I remember feeling emotional and teary-eyed. Every other student in the hall was crying — it was like babies seeing another baby start to cry, and they start crying. I suppose I “accepted Jesus” into my life that night, judging by my tear count.
I started going to friend’s church on Sundays. This was a pentecostal Christian church, where people raised their hands and outwardly expressed their faith during service. It was odd at first, but then it became normal the more I went. I actually made friends this time, some of whom are still close friends today. I got involved, joined the praise band and started learning these Christian songs that always seemed to mimic the style of U2, Coldplay, and Radiohead. I guess God likes rock music from the UK.
This went on for several years, into college, and a little bit past. But here’s the thing — a lot of Christianity is about self-restraint, not indulging in acts that are deemed sinful. Try convincing a bunch of hormone-enraged twenty-year-olds not to drink, do drugs, and fuck. You’ll go back to sounding like Charlie Brown’s teacher real fast. My Christian friends partied just as hard as everyone else, the only difference being the discretion by which they partied and that no matter what, they were showing up for Sunday service. I followed suit.
The other thing about entering adulthood was that I started formulating my own opinions and ideologies about life, got a little more woke, and preferred not to be spoon-fed dogma. The walls of my college dorm room had guys like Bob Marley, Johnny Cash, and Jimi Hendrix plastered on them, each with a cigarette or joint in hand or mouth, not your wholesome Christian bunch. I no longer wanted to be told what to believe, but to experience, interpret, and opine on my own accord.
Then came some questions. Why are you pushing me so much to give 10% of my salary to the church? Wasn’t the Bible written by regular dudes? How come homosexuality is such a sin? What’s so wrong about premarital sex?
That last one really bit me in the ass.
Let’s call her Lucy. She and I started dating. Lucy came from a very religious family. Her father was a pastor and he held his own Sunday service at home for his wife and children. As a family, they would go on overseas trips during the summers to spread the glorious gospel through charitable service. They were quite a nice family, though her mom never liked me. I don’t blame her for being weary of me — I was a novice at life, just another early twenties guy with a boring office job, lacking passion and direction.
I really fell for Lucy, hard. She was outgoing, fun, vibrant, with a million dollar smile that could really light up a room. And for some reason that can’t be explained other than the stars aligning at the right place and time, she was into me. We were both young adults and we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. I am not a PDA guy at all, but with Lucy it was always a disgusting amount of visible affection. It was the type of relationship where we couldn’t go five minutes without a hardcore make out session. The hormones mixed with a repressed sexual energy of our church-going existence manifested itself in that way.
And then, one summer day, after coming back from one of her family overseas trips — one that her father asked me if I wanted to come with but I said no thanks — Lucy dumped me. She hit me with the God excuse, claiming that she wanted to focus on her faith. I guess the sex was weighing her conscience down. I was shocked and devastated. We spoke again once more the following day as I gave my Hail Mary pitch to stay together, but it was over. We never spoke again.
I continued to go to church for another year after the break up. But slowly and gradually, like fresh paint on a house wearing down over time, I grew disenchanted with it all. It started with skipping an occasional Sunday, either because of a severe hangover or a desire to sleep in, and grew to two weeks of missing, then a month straight, several months, until I just stopped altogether. I realized that I was getting nothing out of being a Christian but gaining so much by not being anything. I can live guilt-free, unjudged by a community that supposedly doesn’t judge, one that started feeling toxic to me. It was all about keeping up with the Joneses, one giant dick measuring contest over who was the most successful, most liked, most virtuous. This might be an unfair characterization but this was all I saw in the end. Cut me a fucking break. I wanted out, and I did.
I fully get and understand why Christianity is such a delectable and juicy target for satire and mockery. Hell, I still give some of my church-going friends some jabs here and there about it. But I try not to go overboard with it in Ricky Gervais fashion. Everyone has their own journey. Life is often but a series of self-realizations, and I don’t want to be the judge over anyone else. I was once in those people’s shoes so I can relate to what they’re going through. It’s just that guys like Mike Pence, Joel Osteen, and Kanye give us so much fuel… how do you expect us to resist???
