Lina from Uncool is hosting the Carnival of Feminists again. I enjoyed the last go around with her at the reins so am participating again.

President Bush says his drinking during his 30’s was a “youthful indiscretion”. As a grown Pagan woman my youthful indiscretions occurred during childhood when I experimented with Christianity.

My parents raised me to figure out religion on my own. It is one of the best things they ever did for me. Not liking the Christian teachings, I happily skipped church growing up. But I lived in a small town. Practically everyone I knew was some form of Christian and went to church. Repeatedly I heard the Good News about the Lord and Savior from friends and even in my public school. Afterschool activities often started with a prayer circle. I was known as the “atheist kid”. The kid whose heathen parents didn’t even take me tell me about God. Elementary school wasn’t too bad but for some reason when I entered junior high the teasing increased. It may sound odd that I was made fun of for not being Christian but that is one of the charms of living in a closed minded community.

Maybe it was the peer pressure or maybe I felt like experimenting but one summer I decided to go to church. I announced it to my parents. They were supportive but I remember the sideways glance my Mom and Dad shared when I delivered the news. My friends were overwhelmingly supportive. In my town a big deal was made by the churches to bring in more souls to the flock and to deliver the Good News to the non-believers.

In a way it was fun. I got to play religious tourist. For weeks I would stay the night at a friend’s house on Saturday and go to church with her family that Sunday morning. I tried several branches of Christianity-Baptist, Protestant, Presbyterian, Catholic, Pentecostal and Lutheran. The experiment didn’t last long. Feeling like an outsider in every congregation I soon gave up the idea, preferring to climb a tree. Even back then I saw more God in a tree than I did in a building. One episode stands out in my mind.

In seventh grade I had a friend Jamie whose family belonged to a conservative Christian church. Per my routine I spent Saturday night with her and accompanied her family to church services the following morning. Jamie and I rode in the back seat of the family car while her parents drove me home. Her father asked what I thought of their church. I mumbled something non-committal. (In reality I didn’t like it but knew it was rude to say so. Though my mother didn’t press religion on me she was a stickler for manners.) He commented about my parents not taking me to church and asked if they were atheists. I said something about them not liking organized religion. He asked me what I believed. There was a tone in his voice that made me nervous. I decided to only share a little and said I believed in reincarnation.

Silence enveloped the car. It was as if I had screamed a curse word.

Jamie’s father then launched into a lecture. Reincarnation was a lie. If reincarnation was real then humans could be born again as grasshoppers and that was ridiculous. (I remember thinking that life as a grasshopper might not be so bad. You could hop through the grass.) Reincarnation was a delusion created by the Devil to trick people. If I believed in reincarnation then I would go to Hell when I died. On and on he went until he pulled into my driveway.

Grabbing my bags I refused to look at any of them because I was embarrassed that he had made me cry. Though we remained friends Jamie later told me she wasn’t allowed to invite me over for a sleepover again.

Looking back I think some of my feminism was born during that car ride. I was so angry. I knew it was wrong for him to yell at me. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong-I had just answered a question. But it was more than that. It was this adult man telling the little girl me that I was wrong to believe in something. It was so important to him that I believe what he told me to believe. But I was just a scared little girl and instead of yelling back I ran to my room to hide until I calmed down. I never told my parents what happened. Her church was the last one I experimented with.

As an adult I’m vocal about freedom of religion. But is it a feminist issue? Absolutely. How would the world be different if everyone were raised to choose their own beliefs rather than being told to worship a particular faith?

Would there be so many laws controlling women’s bodies? Would there be so much sexual guilt? Would there be so much sexual violence? Would sex work be seen as legitimate work? Hell, would the Madonna/Whore complex even exist anymore? Having true freedom of religion could change the world.

Posted by Vixen in Musings