Saved

In my Evangelical Christian K-8 school, people said things like "born again" a lot. We were supposed to be born again. Once we accepted Jesus, accepted the Bible as a flawless history textbook that needed no interpreting, we would be "born again" and "saved." The idea was tied closely with baptism: when we were baptised, we were supposed to be "born again." Until then though, we were sinners going to hell. If you didn't "have Jesus," you were going to hell, and the only way to "have Jesus" was to be born again.

I was never baptised as a kid. My parents couldn't agree on anything, let alone where and when to get me baptised. If anyone was going to hell because I wasn't baptised, I figured it should be them, not me. I wanted to get baptised, but they just couldn't stop fighting long enough to let me. I liked Jesus, and I was all for having some Jesus in my life, but I wasn't "born again." I never felt like I died and was miraculously resurrected. As the years wore on, I just felt dead.

Little more than a year ago, I went to my first church service in years. It was a strange thing to do. Christianity had choked and strangled me; to walk into a church, any church, felt akin to committing psychological suicide. I don't really know why I went. I said I wanted to get baptised, but it felt more like an inescapable need to reconcile and get over my strong anti-Christian prejudices. I wanted to stop feeling like clawing my eyes out any time someone mentioned anything close to Christianity or even religion in general.

I went to church with tough skin and strong defenses. Months wore on. The next time I actually even went to a Sunday morning service was November. I felt every instinct telling me to run away, to go anywhere but church, every time I dared go to anything related to church, worse yet an actual service. It was a scary place to go because church had a way of reaching in past all of those defenses and ripping out my heart. I hated it for months.

In February, I finally fell apart. My façade of endless strength crumbled away, and I found myself completely defenseless. I felt, more than ever before, like I was dying, like my lungs had turned to fire, like my very soul was being ripped apart. Everything I had run from in my life, everything I had buried deep beneath what I thought were impenetrable defenses, was at once freed to suffocate me, to maim and torture me, to kill me.

I don't think the people who told me I needed to "accept Jesus" would consider this being "saved" or "born again," but that's exactly what it feels like. I died long before I walked into church last summer. I died when the teachings of my school first taught me that I was hopeless with God and then taught me that God didn't want anything to do with me. I was unbaptised, too stupid, too lazy, un-Christian, sinful, not girly enough, not man enough, gay, not a Bush supporter, different. I died hopeless. Jesus wouldn't save me.

Jesus didn't save me. Church didn't save me. Being strong didn't save me. Life was not found in any magic solution or fairy tale. Life was found in the face of death, in the face of my own fears and insecurities which sought to destroy me. Life was found when my new community gave me the courage to foolishly face death armed only with hope. Life was found in my own resurrection, my own liberation from fear and death. Jesus didn't save me: he never swooped down out of the sky, never gave me a shield to defend myself, a sword to fight back, nor even the hope that help really would come. It was what Jesus represents that saved me: faith, hope, courage, compassion, freedom, justice, and love. It was the Jesus within the people who surrounded me as I crumbled, the grace and mercy they showed me even at my ugliest, that saved me.

So thank you.