My parents...

My parents, my church-friends and the various churches my father pastored throughout my childhood all prayed for my salvation. Then, one Sunday night, I succumbed to the pressure. I was 12 years old and my family was at the First Baptist Church of North Spartanburg (in Spartanburg, South Carolina). After a fiery sermon, which obviously moved a lot of people, my father came to me and said, Son, do you want to ask Jesus into your heart? Its about time you do so.

Tired of all the solicitations, tired of all the Scott, were praying for you, tired of always feeling like the one who didnt belong, I lied to my father and said, Yes POPS. That night, I repeated after my father and supposedly accepted Jesus into my heart. I was presented to the church as a new Christian, baptized and immediately became part of the Christian community; although, I was very empty inside. For the next 5 years, I put on the charade of a good preachers kid.

I attended Bible studies, went on summer mission trips and even had a couple saves (individuals becoming Christian) contributed to me. This was all under the veil of a big lie, that night when I was 12 years old, the night that I supposedly became a Christian myself, I never asked Jesus in my heart. True, I went through the motions, but it meant nothing to me. When I graduated high school and it was time to go off to college, I only thought of one thing: religious freedom.

I viewed the opportunity as the chance to move away from my parents and explore the religions of the world. I moved about 70 miles away from my parents to Rock Hill, SC, enrolled in Winthrop College and majored in religion. However, moving from one part of the Bible-belt to another part of the Bible-belt didnt help my search. Rock Hill was a smaller town than I grew up in and there were even more churches per capita.

Once again, the only religious diversity was in the form of what favor of Christianity you wanted for the week. I did manage to run across a couple freethinking religion professors that mentored me in exploring religion. If anything, they pointed me to many different sources to satisfy my quest. I rarely pushed the envelope of my comfort level and only ended up exploring different forms of Christianity.

During the two years I spent in little Rock Hill, SC, I attended Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Pentecostal and many non-affiliated/community churches.