My Journey in and out of religion

[Cootie Brown]

I originally posted parts of this in a thread in the Old Paths Reconsidered section. Ivy and Agricola suggested I repost it here in this section too. I have done some minor editing of my original posts.


I was not raised in a religious home. My father was an atheists and my mother was, at best, agnostic. Therefore, religion wasn’t part of my life when I was growing up.

I met the person that would become my wife in 1965. I was stationed at Naval Air Station Memphis at the time. I was undergoing training to be a jet engine mechanic when we first met. I met my future bride at the USO in Memphis. Girls came there to dance with sailors and soldiers. Dating was forbidden. The Vietnam war was heating up about that time.

I saw this really pretty girl and asked her to dance. Later, I asked her out on a date, but she said that was forbidden, but after a little coaxing she accepted anyway. We began seeing each other regularly after that first date, but didn’t return to the USO.

I knew I’d be shipped out in just a few months and I was pretty sure if I didn’t ask her to marry me I’d likely never see her again. So, I asked her to marry me and she said yes. She’d been raised Southern Baptist. Her father was a Deacon in one of the largest Baptist Churches in the country but I, of course, wasn't religious.

Fast forward, the odds of what happened after that are so slim it could easily be classified as impossible. The country was at war and everyone in my class at the Air Station was getting order to ships heading to Vietnam. By some bizarre twist of fate I got orders to Naval Air Station Cecil Field, that is located Just outside Jacksonville FL, for the rest of my enlistment.

My, wife joined me a couple of months after I reported for duty in Florida. I’d already started attending church with her back in Memphis, and that continued now that we were in Florida. In a short time I was baptized into Christ. That honestly didn’t mean much of anything to me at the time. I did it to please my bride. But with continued exposure to church I slowly began to come around. In time I quit cussing like sailors do and made efforts to change my life.

Skipping forward about ten years, I was out of the Navy and working for a company in Greenville SC. We had returned to Memphis when I was discharged from the Navy. The company I went to work for transferred us to Atlanta, then Fayetteville NC, and then to Greenville SC.

Another shorter version of a much longer story. The company I was working for went out of business, so we relocated back to Memphis in 1977. My wife’s mother had a stroke that disabled her so we bought a home large enough for them to live with us. We had two children by then.

My wife's new boss was a member of the c of C. My new boss was a recent convert to the c of C. We were being recruited, by both men, to have a bible study with their preacher. Hard to tell your new boss that you aren’t interested in having a bible study with his preacher. Both men were challenging our Baptist beliefs and pointing out that there is no such thing as a Baptist Church in the bible. We finally agreed to have a study with her boss’s preacher. He was part of the NI group but that didn't mean anything to us at that time.

Gary Collie was the preachers name and when it came to the Bible he was the most knowledgeable person I'd ever met then or since. He literally had the entire bible memorized from cover to cover. He came to our home at five o'clock in the afternoon and didn't leave until 1 AM. He convinced us we weren't real Christians and that we weren't saved.

I didn't catch on to him wanting to baptize us right there and then at 1 AM in the morning but my wife did. Who baptizes anyone at 1 AM? Well, I found out who does that. At 8 AM the next morning we were being baptized at the church of Christ where he preached.

The first service we ever attended at a c of C was on a Wednesday evening, and they just so happen to be withdrawing fellowship from a list of erring members that night. To say my wife and I were shocked would be an understatement. We both began to wonder what we’d gotten ourselves into.

Three months later we left the c of C. We simply couldn't take their legalism. We were in limbo for a few more months. We'd been convinced the Baptists weren't real Christians and apparently no other group was either. We eventually tried another c of C, that wasn't NI and the Sunday School teacher was the first person we'd met in the c of C that seemed happy to be a Christian.

Compared to the Baptist this congregation was legalistic too, but not over the top crazy. We were members there for the next 12 years. We left only because the elders fired the preacher every 2 years for six straight years. We went to another congregation and stayed there for 14 years. It was an interracial congregation in a mostly African American neighborhood. An unusual situation in Memphis TN for sure. But it worked well for many years before the neighborhood became so dangerous that it all but destroyed that congregation. It has about 25-50 members now.

Our Elders, deacons, and teachers were all a mixture of Caucasians and African Americans. Our "senior" Elder was an African American and maybe the smartest man I've ever known. We had about 600 members at that time.

It was there that I became an elder. I was shocked at our first elders meeting. It was mostly a gossip session about various members. If people want to know what Elders are really like then video tape an Elders meeting. The Elders treated the preacher, a white man in his 40's, with a PHD, like he was child. They demanded he fill out a time sheet and account for his time every day M-F. I voiced my protest that such oversight simply wasn't needed, but was ignored. I was told that you have to keep your eye on the preacher because they goof off during the week but expect to be paid for full time work. How's that for trust brotherly love?

Red flags began popping up long before I became an Elder, in fact before we left our former congregation, but I either ignored them or rationalized them away. I taught Bible classes in both the Baptist and Church of Christ. Teachers are supposed to follow the “Lesson Guide”, to prevent false teaching, I guess.

When I developed enough seniority I began developing my own lessons, and that required studying and researching the Bible from a more academic perspective. I’d noticed the numerous inconsistencies & contradictions in the Bible before but ignored them, or at least tried to.

Once I began seriously studying & researching the Bible those once seemingly inconspicuous & irrelevant inconsistencies & contradictions became problematic because I realized they shouldn’t be in an inerrant Bible. The deeper my study of scripture went the more problematic the problems with it became.

Apologetic explanations stopped working. These problems became real issues that had to be resolved. Ephesians 2:8-10 became a huge stumbling block for me because, if true, it pretty much invalidated c of C theology and teaching. I began thinking the Baptist might not be as unscriptural as I'd been taught to believe by the c of C.

My teaching became focused on grace and that didn’t go over well with some that were in leadership, but my classes often had the largest attendance in the congregation. That convinced me those folks were starving for grace and relief from all the legalism, just as I was.

I began reading authors that were not associated with the c of C. (a mortal c of C sin) Dr. Marcus Borg was the first. I read most of his books and my perspective, along with my beliefs, changed. I soon realized and accepted that the Bible had pure human origins. There was/is nothing sacred, much less inerrant, about it. It simply reflects the beliefs and customs of the cultures that wrote it.

My faith seemed to melt away when I accepted that the Bible is not the inerrant, verbally inspired, words of God that I’d been taught to believe that it is. Even so, my brainwashing ran deep and it still took me a few more years before I mustered up the courage to say, “I’m done and I’m out of here.”
It took even longer before I really believed I wasn’t going to Hell, because no such place exist, and neither does Heaven. I wasn’t truly free until I fully accepted that. Now I am free from religion and all of its mind control techniques, dogma, and fear of a nonexistent Gods punishment.

Unfortunately my wife’s indoctrination was apparently deeper than mine, so she wasn’t ready to leave the c of C. It took time but we managed to work that out. She is very anti c of C now, but she is still a Christian (Methodist), even though I am not, but we’ve managed to work that out.

Sorry for the length, but covering 53+ years is hard to do in one paragraph.

[Cootie Brown]

If you took the time to read all of that,....then bless your heart, but I think you've got way too much time on your hands and you need a hobby.

[agricola]

You could write a book, Cootie! And I'd probably read it too.

[Ivy]

You could write a book, Cootie! And I'd probably read it too.

I agree, and I would read it!! Great job, Cootie.