Early Lessons About the World

Hi, my name is Julia. Welcome! I am thrilled that you are here!

Born in 1989 in rural Western Massachusetts, my childhood and adolescence were intrinsically tied to conservative Christianity. The primary structures in my life consisted of my church (independent Baptist in denomination), Christian camp, and private Christian school named after the theologian Jonathan Edwards—yes, THE Jonathan Edwards who famously described humanity as sinners in the hands of an angry God.

I call the fundamentalist and conservative Christianity community of my origin The Cult. I am both joking and totally serious. In later blog posts, I will explore the links between cult communities and Christian communities—depending on your brand of Christianity, you may notice some freakish similarities.

I was a “born-again” Christian for as long as I can remember. I was also anxious for as long as I can remember. I don’t think the connection is a coincidence. 

I learned that I was a sinner, who had “fallen short of the glory of God”, according to the Westminster catechism that I so diligently memorized starting in 3rd grade.

I learned that I was tainted by “Original Sin” from the moment of conception—my whole self was flawed by the “desires of the flesh”, sex being chief among them. 

I learned that humanity, on its own, is doomed to fail. Christians (evangelical Christians, mind you) possess the secret to Eternal Life, which is the death and resurrection of Jesus. By accepting Jesus as your Savior, you win a ticket out of this terrible world and into the realms of glory with streets paved of gold, according a specific interpretation of the biblical text of Revelation. 

In order to avoid the Hell that awaited me without Christian salvation, I asked Jesus into my heart via the “Sinner’s Prayer”, which goes something along the lines of this: “Dear Jesus, thank you for dying for my sins. I am inherently evil and need a Savior to rescue me from my transgressions. Please forgive me and come into my heart [editor’s note: I don’t know what the hell that means], so that I can live forever with you in Heaven.” 

As a child, I displayed some obsessive-compulsive tendencies associated with anxiety. Some of my obsessive thoughts revolved around my fear of going to Hell, and my compulsive behaviors were asking Jesus into my heart on repeat—just in case I said it wrong, just in case I wasn’t sincere enough, just in case…

After asking Jesus into your heart, the primary goal of living was to save souls from Hell. So, the persistent anxiety about the state of my own soul was further exacerbated by the burden to tell all my “non-believing” friends about Jesus, so that they too could escape Hell. (This is called “witnessing” to those who did not grow up in The Cult.) Now, due to the insularity of my community, I did not have many friends who were non-Christian (notice the othering language), but I had neighbors and acquaintances. Plus, did the cashier at the grocery store know the Good News of the Gospel? Probably not. What about the stranger that you just passed on the street? Probably not. You can understand how this would spark anxiety—there were always more people who didn’t know about Jesus. 

Alongside the never-ending duty to evangelize, I also learned that Jesus loved me, even when I did bad things. 

I learned compassion and kindness. 

I learned that my life had purpose and value. 

I learned hospitality.

I learned forgiveness. 

The problem is that all these beautiful messages of love and acceptance were mixed up with values of exclusion and legalism. Jesus might love me in all my imperfection, but the love of my community certainly had its limits. 

I learned to love the sinner and hate the sin. Embrace, yet simultaneously marginalize. Welcome yet segregate. 

This made sense until I made gay friends and recognized their humanity as equal to mine.

This made sense until I had my first real conversations about race (at age 17). 

This made sense until I saw the way my institutionalized Christianity silenced the voices of women.

This made sense until my world got bigger than the walls of my church and hallways of my school.

This made sense until it stopped making sense.

This made sense until I felt, tasted, and saw something different—something far more expansive and beautiful than I previously imagined.

Once you feel, you can’t unfeel. Once you taste, you can’t untaste.

Once you see, you can’t unsee.

These early lessons about the world made sense until my world evolved. 

I spent a long time in The Cult before my world started evolving. Christianity was my world, and I was deeply committed to this world. This world gave me structure, community, and a vision for my life. Jesus loved me, and the goal of my life was to share that love across the globe. 

Spoiler alert: Jesus still loves me, and my mission for my life hasn’t changed all that much. It just looks a hell of a lot different than I expected.