Now that I am grown, I think in retrospect that some of the things I was taught as a child were barbaric. Hell is one of them, but it deserves a post of its own. My thoughts today wandered toward apocalyptic literature found in Revelation.

When I was little, I was told that there was going to be a huge war between everyone–all of Satan’s people and demons versus all of God’s people and angels. We were all going to fight in a battle and it would be glorious. I can remember thinking, “But I don’t want to fight in a battle. I don’t want to go to war. I don’t want to die.” After all, somebody was going to have to die. It didn’t make sense to me at the time. If it was a spiritual battle, how would people die? If your soul was slain, did that mean it was dead and could not go to heaven? If not, then couldn’t a slain soul just pop back up again and resume fighting, and then how would the war end? If it was a physical battle, then how were the angels and demons going to be involved? If God was all powerful, why didn’t he crush Satan without the battle? Now, I wonder, why in the world didn’t I ask these questions? I also now think that even though I don’t believe all of this anymore, if it came down to fighting for God or Satan, I most certainly wouldn’t choose Satan. Not believing something does not make you evil or Satan’s tool. I know many people do believe that it does, but I don’t anymore. I wish I had thought those things then–I probably would have given up religion long before I did! But I didn’t, and I believed that I was simply too young to understand the mechanics, so I simply feared and dreaded this happening instead. I didn’t understand (and still don’t!) why my mother seemed so enthusiastic about this. Wars aren’t glorious.

The rapture was another thing. When you teach a kid about the rapture, it’s like telling them that they could die at any moment. I didn’t understand why my parents were so enthusiastic about this concept, either. They, like many, are (or at least were) convinced that the rapture would happen in their lifetime. Why be so happy about it?, I always wondered. After all, you get an eternity in heaven, but only a short time on Earth. I thought that heaven sounded pretty boring myself, but my mother insisted that we would never be bored, and it would be wonderful. And she couldn’t wait to die so she could go.

The last concept I was thinking about tonight was martyrdom. My parents told us that they would be willing to die for Jesus if it came down to it. They believed that persecution of their beliefs by death was right around the corner.  My brothers and I were taught that if the choice came to live or die for Jesus, the true Christians would choose to die. Jesus suffered for us, the logic went, so we should be willing to suffer for him. (I think this is one of the (many) reasons so many pastors and their wives continue in a miserable profession.) And in the end, if we denied Christ, he in turn would deny us to the father, even if we were tortured into saying we didn’t believe in him. Yes, torture. This is quite scary to a 10-year old! I remember psyching myself out for the next several years, trying to get myself to the point where I would be willing to be tortured for Jesus (after all, my parents were convinced it would happen within the next 25-50 years or so). I was terrified I would say “no” out of agony and be sent to the flaming pits of hell for all eternity. (And I must say that is not too forgiving or merciful of Jesus!) Not to mention having to hide and starving because the Mark of the Beast was going to prevent us from buying anything. . .

I think I didn’t speak up because I was scared that my questions would mean that I was not a “true” Christian. I was terrified of hell and wanted to avoid it at all costs.

My parents were extremely strict on what we watched, and they would not let us watch anything over PG. Some of the G and PG movies were out, too. However, Apocalyptic movies were on the okay list, so we watched a literal version of Revelation unfold on the screen. The concepts of hell and Armageddon were so much scarier than anything I have ever watched on television since. Even scarier since I was taught and therfore earnestly believed that they were true. The book of Revelation is incredibly scary and should not be taught to children. Doing so, I believe, is emotionally abusive, even if unintentionally so, as it most certainly was in my case.

Tags: apocalypse, Armageddon, atheist, Christianity, end times, rapture, religion, Revelation

This entry was posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 at 6:20 am and is filed under Bible and Theology, My Story, fundamentalism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.