Sat Sri Akal rbamrah!
Oh honey, I feel your pain. Was this Southern Baptist, by any chance?
One of my favorite jokes growing up in the South was "You know why Southern Baptists never make love standing up?"
"Somebody might see in the window and think they were dancing..."
(For those here who don't get the joke, the SB's have historically been very strongly opposed to dancing -- see the movie _Footloose_ with Kevin Bacon in it for details on the "why" of that nonsense...)
Hello, Siri Kamala ji!
Actually not Southern Baptist, but I swear they are as conservative. My grandmother sat me down at age 12 and told me what horrors would face me if I didn't choose Christ, in excruciating detail. Demons would come, plant a '666' on my forehead, torture and burn me for all eternity. I went to bed that night and had the worst nightmare I've ever had in my life (still true today). What a nice way to bring a child to Christianity, huh?
Isn't that horrible? I had a Fundamentalist Christian friend in college who told me once, with a completely straight face, that God plants the knowledge of Christ in everyone's heart, and that if they are truly good people, they will somehow magically find their way to Christianity, even in the remotest regions of the Amazon rainforest... And I just remember thinking what a lie that was, and how sad that she believed it. (For the record, she does NOT believe it any longer, thank goodness, and is no longer a Fundamentalist Christian...)
I think that's the hardest pill for me to swallow, and it was the hardest for any person to talk to me of. I remember being 14 and thinking, "how can God punish children to hell for not knowing about Him? What sort of God is this?" I don't know, just so many things turned me off from Christianity. I would pray every night for God to show me what the truth is, which religion was the 'right one' (I hate Christianity for planting that seed in my head, 'one right religion') and being left unanswered. I was so concerned for so long about it that I finally just decided one day to turn my back away from it altogether. When I did that I noticed many good things happening in my life. I found my husband and all the seemingly impossible became possible. I credit our success to God and since becoming Sikh my life has been filled with so much happiness.
Well, yes... much more true of the Old Testament God of Wrath than of the New Testament God of Grace, but it seems the more conservative Christians cling to the Old Testament God like a life raft in a stormy sea. My brother is this kind of Christian (which always puzzles me because we were raised in a liberal Episcopal church that preached only about God's grace and love and forgiveness and patience with us as God's beloved children -- why give that God up for the bitter, vengeful, angry God? I'll never understand it...)
My thoughts exactly. Whenever someone speaks of the Christian God or wants to bring up a point of talk they reference the Old Testament. I believe (not sure) that many rules/laws/statements in the OT were 'cleansed' by Jesus in the NT, making them unneccessary to follow, however people still do. What I've come to find is that Christians pick and choose what they decide to follow and what they don't.
Indeed! To me this is only logical. Here is how I see it:
- God is the ultimate Parent.
- We are God's children.
- God is perfect.
- We are imperfect.
- While God wants us to always grow and improve, God does not expect us to be perfect. It's simply not possible.
- We were created with and because of Love.
- That Love is given out of grace from the first breath we take, not because we have earned it or "deserve" it.
- We are urged to live with kindness and to seek wisdom in the Guru's words, not because we fear Hell if we do not, but because it brings us closer to God.
Just as we do not disown our children when they make a mistake or violate the rules we have set for them, God does not reject or disown us when we make a mistake or violate God's laws. God loves us unconditionally just as we love our own children unconditionally.
If we can give that to our children despite our many human flaws and failings, how much MORE generous, kind, patient, and forgiving must God be?
This is exactly how I always wanted to see God. These simple but pure, beautiful things that Christians just don't preach. I don't want to be seen as a person who is 'dirty' and must spend my life loving God in hopes he'll love me back and find favor in me enough to not dispatch me to hell. But seen as a person for all of the reasons you've cited.
Though I was raised an Episcopalian (Protestant Christian), I went to Catholic school and had to learn all the same things the Catholic kids had to learn. Your description of your experience reminds me a lot of what I saw with them. My own church experience as a child was happy and light of heart. Jesus was my savior but he was also my friend -- that kind of thing.
But... yeah, your experience resonates with what I've seen happen to many other conservative Christians. I don't think I know a single person who was raised in a hard-core Evangelical or Fundamentalist Christian household who recalls their childhood and their experience of God as being a happy one.
That is one of the things I so love about the Guru Granth Sahib ~ it is just one big wall-to-wall anthem to God's grace and love and the joy of being part of God and having God in each of us.
I find myself agreeing with you on every point. Our relationship with God should be a loving, happy, peaceful one. Instead, as Christian I am told that I must compete for God's love by washing my sins and asking for forgiveness. Living in fear that I will displease Him and perish in flame. That is no way to live.
Yep. I barely know you, sister-friend, but I like you already, and as we say here in the States, I feel ya!
Hope we see each other around here more often. :-D
It's been so good to meet you! I do hope we have many talks in the future! As a student still learning her way I would love to come to you for more discussion and comradery, if you will
I grew up in a family where we spoke three languages, English, French and Punjabi. (Quebec, you know) Then I had a major stroke which affected my language. The English was mostly OK, the French is slowly returning and the Punjabi is gone. Completely. Only someone who has experienced it can know how hard Sikhi is to understand without the vocabulary.
