Categories: uncategorized
Date: 18 February 2007 09:39:18
25 years ago I was still a child, but I had already started making consumer decisions about churches. I moved from the quite middle of the road CofE I had been attending with an elderly neighbour to a local Baptist Church. The reasons: (i) they had better youth work, (ii) they gave you the chance to go on holiday and (iii) one of my friends went there. And so it was for the first few years, a faith may have been developing and I may have been absorbing a certain way of thinking, but as far as I was concerned I was there for what I could get out of it (namely the youth activities).
My parents, well my parents appreciated that I had made the decision on the basis of a cost benefit analysis and I'm guessing at that point they were still thinking I'd grow out of this religion thing. Whatever, my views would be respected but thoroughly questioned and I would be in no doubt that whilst they'd support me in whatever I wanted to do that what I wanted to do wasn't neccessarily what they wanted me to be doing. I think their view was summed up when I broke the news I wanted to be baptised and was told "well it's safer than heroin".
That is not to say though that the teaching I was getting from the two places was totally conflicting. Whilst the church was telling me about loving my neighbour my father was quite happy to encourage my interest in CND and the peace movement, and taking me off to Molesworth to protest against the US storing nuclear weapons in the UK.