I was a pretty good kid. You cannot see yourself fairly in the moment (that perception may not get better looking back, either!), but at the very least I didn’t give my parents too much trouble. I made decent grades, chose pretty good friends, never spent time in the principal’s office. I didn’t drink or smoke (or go with girls what do!).
Though the younger version of myself probably looked a little too uptight most of the time. I hate to say it, but I was probably a little too self-righteous for my own good. (For anybody’s good!?)
But I was just trying to walk the straight and narrow. I thought it was how you were supposed to act. I did not mean to be smug, I just thought there were rules, and too many folks not living by them!
From the first grade, I had wanted to be a preacher, like my father. Unfortunately, something about the way I was raised, the religion I was taught, the Bible I read (and the way I interpreted all of that) probably contributed to a little whiff of holier-than-thou. In the naïveté of those innocent years, however, it all made sense. The rules. The Bible. The lifestyle. It was all cut and dried, right and wrong, black and white. It was a comfortable, conservative (confining) way to view the world.
And it worked well for me. Until it did not. Which is the way it usually happens.
Thirty-five years later an Episcopal priest, a friend from our local ecumenical clergy group said, “You’re not what most of our folks think about when they hear the word ‘Baptist,’ Russ. Come talk to us about how you got where you are from where you started.”
I didn’t set out to be liberal (much less “a liberal!”). I have never reveled in rebelling, never been comfortable with rabble-rousing – but to paraphrase the words from an old Oldsmobile commercial, “This is not my father’s Baptist Church!” So, how did I get where I am from where I started? I sat down to try to figure out how to tell the Episcopalians who I am, how this happened, and nine experiences immediately appeared on the computer in front of me. This is my story (and I’m sticking with it!).
This journey began with the faith I was taught in childhood. My parents were the best teachers. They are probably why I still believe, why this long and winding road that led me so far away is still the place I call home. But it began to get interesting when I went off to get an education. It’s what education will do for you.
A Tennessee farmer and preacher and social activist named Will Campbell was speaking my freshman year at Furman. Spring semester philosophy class was shaking my faith, rocking my whole world in the process, and Campbell named it: “Once you get educated, nothing is ever easy again.”
It has not been. I am so glad.
Once I realized I had opened Pandora’s box, cracked my little conservative worldview wide open, the trouble just started pouring in. It has been deepening my faith and my conviction and my compassion ever since.
The nine experiences I outlined for a room of wide-eyed Episcopalians cover the waterfront: how to read the Bible, heaven and hell and what’s really important about faith, the joy (and difficulty) of faith, the “lines” we draw in ethics and religion, the omnipotence (?) of God, the devotion of disciplined thinking, myth and truth in Christianity, atonement theology… Every part of my childlike (childish?) faith has been challenged – but unlike too many others these challenges have led me into a deeper understanding of God and the world and myself, not out of church, or to the abandonment of faith altogether.
I did not set out to be where I am today. (Who among us does?) I have just tried to be faithful along the way, following where life has led, accepting the challenges, celebrating the joys.
This journey I started chronicling about 15 years ago has just published by Good Faith Media: Finding a New Way Home: the unlikely path of a reluctant Baptist renegade. Copies are available through Good Faith Media or at Amazon, and I’m anxious to share it, especially with “recovering Southern Baptists,” those people who have left the Church because of the Church, any who believe their questions or doubts, the challenges of this world are too big for God.
We’ve made God too small, faith too brittle, religion too divisive. If you have questions you’ve never been able to ask, doubts you’ve been afraid to admit, concerns about what religion has become – before you walk away, I’d love to encourage you to read. (And then write your own book. It’s the real stories of real people we need to hear.)
I did not start out to be a renegade. I did start out in faith. I’m glad it is still my home.
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You can find Russ Dean’s book, “Finding a New Way Home” at Good Faith Media here.
Photo by Elijah M. Henderson