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From Fear to Faith

On a dark night, Kindled in love with yearnings–oh, happy chance!– I went forth without being observed, My house being now at rest.

Travis Milam

My journey began as many others have begun: in church. I grew up going to church, usually Sunday morning, evening and Wednesday evening. Summers were for Vacation Bible School. The Bible was the final say in matters of faith and to say that God had called you to do or be something was the end of an argument. It was clear, simple, and easy. All one had to do was follow the rules, make Jesus Lord of your life and believe the Bible.

I grew up in this culture. I was saved (converted) at the age of seven and baptized. I then knew I was set for life because that was everything that God required of me. Oh, I knew that He wanted me to tell others about Him so they could be saved and that I was to read my Bible and know scripture, but as long as I was saved, I really did not have to worry about other things.

I grew up in a Fundamental, Independent, Baptist church. This meant that aside from the Baptist title, we had no denominational framework. We chose our pastors and pretty much did as we pleased in the community as far as helping and reaching out to others. We had communion, or the Lord’s Supper, maybe once a quarter and only on Sunday Evenings. There was no liturgy as that was viewed as High Church and not what Christ had wanted for us. However, if things deviated from the bulletin on Sunday mornings, there were murmurings. Sunday evenings were generally a more casual version of Sunday morning. Wednesday evenings were Bible study and AWANA. Vacation Bible School was usually a guest speaker who came and gave us Bible stories and had us compete with others in sword drills and scripture memorization. Sunday School was learning about the Bible and how we could live as better Christians. There were, and still are, many good people in this church and by many accounts I have heard, we were fairly tame in theology and holding everyone to the “rules.” We did help people and there were many who lived the Christian life. However, there was always in the background a feeling that you were never quite good enough and that you had somehow always managed to make God unhappy or angry.

As I grew up and became a part of this church, I took on many traits that have followed me for many years. I learned what was right and wrong and learned good moral values. I learned many scriptures that have remained with me to this day. These, and many others, were positive things that I picked up growing up in this environment. There were however, other aspects that I learned that were not positive nor were they things that I am proud of today.

While I was taught that one was saved by grace and that salvation was eternal, I learned that one could see who was not really walking the walk of a good Christian. I also learned what it took to give the “correct“ answers and live the “correct” life. On the outside I exuded confidence and showed I truly lived the good Christian life. On the inside, I was consumed by guilt that I did not pray enough, that I did not read my Bible enough, that I did not love God enough. It was taught that a good Christian did all these things and did them without complaint, that they did them willingly and readily. But even as I was consumed by private guilt, I was also consumed by self righteous pride. I kept my hair short, listened to the “correct” music (anything with a pop or rock beat was suspect, more on that later), wore “church clothes” to services, carried my Bible to church, and did not allow bad language to come from my mouth. In short, I was the perfect youth group member. I did not give my parents a hard time, listened to my elders and never questioned unless my parents had questioned something. I was good and I knew it. I knew that God was proud of me and that He wanted others to be like me. But still, I knew something was not right within me.

The church in which I was raised was rather conservative. Being Fundamental Baptist assured that. We believed the Bible was the WORD OF GOD and to question anything in it was to question God. This was not acceptable. Being a liberal in politics, religion, or socially was seen as close to committing the unpardonable sin. We did not like sin and one had to repent and show that it was a true repentance before being accepted in any social circles. Revivals were, looking back, really week long guilt trips about how we did not do enough for God and how God was going to bring judgment on the world and the nation if things did not change. This environment was natural to me. It was where I felt comfortable. It was safe because I knew the routines and I knew the answers. I liked it because it was easy, certain, and safe. God was in His box that I helped to put Him in and that was just fine with me.

What broke my little bubble was going to a show choir competition at a college. This college was affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA and I had never heard of that. I believed all Baptists were like me. All the other denominations, especially Roman Catholics and other non-Protestants, were wrong, wrong, wrong and I had no problem with them going to hell. Well, I did, but they had to become like me or my church to really become Christian. In other words, I was the person to whom Paul was speaking in Galatians.

During this time I always had fear and guilt that I was not being a good Christian. My fear was that people would find out that I was not as good a person as thought, and that they would not respect me or think me good any longer. My guilt was that I always believed I was failing God and not doing His will. My teenage years were ones I spent in a perpetual Looking over my shoulder to make sure I was doing right and not doing something with which God would get angry. This explains why I was such a “good” person: it was not really because I wanted to be, it was because I believed that I had to be and I always tried to do what was expected of me.

My journey to the faith I have today began in college. I attended the school where I had encountered a different Baptist from me. It was here that I began a long and hard road to become who I am today.

My first class was Survey Into Biblical Literature. I discovered very quickly that I had no problem with the class as I knew most of it from Sunday School. But there were some “issues.” The professor had us purchase a modern English translation for class. I was a King James man. I had no problem with other versions, but I did not want to use them. There were also the new ideas and theories that were taught that I had never heard before. One was the JEPD theory. I had never heard that the Bible might be edited before. To me this was pure heresy. The Bible was inspired and God was the one who gave the inspiration, therefore there were no errors as well as no editing. But then something happened. I began to read, really read, the Bible and discovered that things were not so cut and dried as I had thought. There were parts that could only be explained by editing. I discovered I had never really read the Bible, just did a hit and miss reading, picking up stories here and there and learning what I thought was important. This one class would have an effect upon me that I really would not understand until later in my journey.

Along this journey, I met Dr. Bill Fowler who was the Chaplain of the college as well as my professor for Biblical Lit. He was funny, intelligent, caring and above all a servant of God. He showed me that I could be a good Christian and not follow all the rules I had imposed upon myself or that I believed my church had imposed. Slowly, under his and others influence, the shackles of fear began to loosen. In fact, it was Dr. Fowler who began a campaign to get me into the ministry. Needless to say, things were changing for me.

I began to realize that there were good Christians in all denominations. I slowly realized that most of my ideas of what God expected of me were not His ideas but rather mine that I had made or picked up through my years growing up in my church. And this was just my freshman year. By the end of that year I had been asked to become the Student Assistant Chaplain to Dr. Fowler, had become a very active member of Baptist Campus Ministries, and had become a Christian Studies minor. My next three years would be huge in my development of who I am now.

During my next three years of college, I grew as a Christian. I discovered that God wanted me to care for the poor and for the downtrodden, not tell them to get a job. I also discovered that my one time a year of “doing good” was not what was wanted. God wanted me to do that all the time and not just because I would look good doing so. This was still a downfall for me. I was still self righteous and considered myself above others. I would still try to make others come to my point of view and force them to see that I was correct and they were wrong, when in reality, what mattered was that we were servants of God and the little differences that we had were, in the long run, nothing.

College was also the place where I began an intellectual breaking of shackles in my faith. For most of my life I took what had been taught at church as gospel and that what was taught was what all Christians believed or should believe. In college, along with the JEPD theory, I learned that church history was not nice and tidy, that theology was anything but uniform and that what I had imagined as coming straight from God through the ages, especially in music, was actually a building upon foundations that had been laid centuries before. This was the time when I learned the Apostle’s Creed, when I discovered that Protestants celebrate Lent and Advent, and when it was gently pointed out that Christian Music, aside from Southern Gospel, does not have to come from a hymnal. I also discovered that holiness does not depend upon the list I have made of what is holy.

My journey took a huge leap forward when I went to seminary right after college. I was suddenly thrown into an environment that challenged my beliefs more than I had ever experienced. I discovered that what my church taught regarding eschatology (a new word for me) was known as dispensationalism (another new word for me). I learned this in one of my classes where a professor took it step by step and carefully examined the teachings. I was then convinced that I was no longer a dispensationalist as what the professor said regarding the shortcomings of the beliefs made absolutely perfect sense and was more in line with historic Christianity. I would sit in impromptu discussions in the hallway kitchen or another schoolmate’s room and wrestle with the lessons I was learning and with how I had been taught. Most importantly, I began to read the Bible more thoroughly and examine closely where I was and where I had been. It struck me that I had not heard many sermons from the Minor Prophets because they did not teach about Jesus or point to his coming except in a few passages. Rather they taught compassion, justice and doing what God required. This was something that was not really taught at my church. I was discovering that God wanted me and not what I could do for him. I was discovering, in short, that path of being a disciple.

By the time I attended seminary, which I entered in 1995, I had left the church in which I had been raised. Not because of the people nor because they did not teach salvation by grace. I left because they taught that it was their version of grace. That one could only be holy if he followed a certain set of rules. That if one believed evolution was true, that if one believed that the Bible might not be quite as straightforward as was taught, that if a person had doubts, that if a person did not feel an invitation was quite honest in leading to faith in Christ, then that person was suspect in his salvation. I left because I had found a faith that had me cling to God and His grace and holiness only. Did I still struggle? Of course, I did. To this day I struggle with what God wants and what He requires of me. But I know I am His and I am that by His grace.

I am now a member of the United Methodist Church. I still have days and moments where I feel intense guilt because I believe that God is not approving of what I am doing. It is then that I realize I sometimes still have a list of how to be holy that I follow. When this occurs, I remember that it is God’s grace I must lean upon and His mercy. My journey from fear to faith has been a rocky one as most are. But I never lost sight of who was the ultimate guide. My faith today is stronger because of what I went through with my struggle with fear. My wish/mission today is to bring others to a greater understanding of grace that they may not have to move from fear to faith as I have done.