The Christ I knew as a child is not the Christ I know now. I did not have the fortune of learning of Jesus of Nazareth; instead, I studied about Jesus Christ the Savior. Jesus Christ the Savior who would be killed because of MY sin filled soul!  I would have much rather been introduced to Jesus of Nazareth first. I could have related to the human aspect of Jesus in order to understand the Christ aspect. There is a rich history of Christ (Christology), Christianity, and the Christ Consciousness, that was purposefully omitted when I was introduced to Christ. That omission allowed me to form a misconception of the “Truth of Christ the Savior”.

I had a heap of distress in my academic development. I am a first generation immigrant from Guadalajara and I attended a private Christian school in rural Eastern Oregon in the early 1980’s. I am sure E. Oregon has progressed much since the 70’s and 80’s, but back then it was ultra conservative, it was redder then Red and as far-Right as right could be. I was ADD in an era when ADD was not “a thing” and programs like ESL, were not available. Due to the lack of developmental tools, I did not learn the crucial skill of academic discipline, I did not learn how to study, instead I learned to mimic. I am a bright individual and can learn just about anything if I put my mind to it. As a child, I put my mind to mimicking enough answers to pass to the next grade with my friends. I retained very little book material; I mainly learn from trial and error or worse through ridicule, which is how I stop saying jellow, when I meant yellow. It may not seem this way, but I am truly grateful and understand the blessing of receiving an American education. For example, I am told that unless I am angry, my Spanish accent is unnoticeable, which means I must enunciate yellow correctly. 🙂 However, my Christian-American education came at a great price, it taxed my soul heavily. It allowed me to create the false belief that learning was hard, painful, and pointless, since all I was doing was mimicking others.

Due to the combination of purposeful omission and my challenged academic development, I was not surprised to find out that, what I perceived to be the Truth of Christ the Savior and everything about conception, birth, sin, life, salvation, death and the afterlife was erroneous. I absorbed the knowledge of those things in a time when I did not have correct answers to my on going questions of spirituality, life and how to relate to others. There is a part of me that wonders, if the Truth of Christ the Savior is indisputable, why Christology was not part of my curriculum. I am sure I would have struggled with Christology as much as I did with, say, the history of the Americas, but at least I would have known that there was such a thing. I spend time now and again, just randomly picking any point or topic in Christology and learning a whole new lifetime of Christianity that I had not known before.  If you were raised, or are a Christian in the Americas, you should give it a whirl or more accurately give it a “Google”, your jaw will drop, maybe in a good way, or maybe in a bad, only you can decide that part.

I cannot remember the title or the full content of the TV movie I watched many years ago, but it had to do with either the Papal or the Spanish Inquisition. What I do remember is men on horses, swinging their swords down at the people fleeing from them, and blood splashing everywhere, as the horsemen yelled “I kill you in the name of Jesus Christ”. I was horrified that someone, somewhere at some point in time had “KILLED in the name of Jesus”. Jesus taught LOVE.  I thought, you cannot kill in the name of the Son of God, the bringer of Truth, the giver of Love, and the way to Salvation. This HAS to be wrong, I thought. No, it was correct, I would have known this had I learned the history of Christianity, not just the dogmatic view of one group of Christians. I was ill prepared for the truth of the “Truth of Christ the Savior”.

I am unlearning all the erroneous truths, and things I thought I “had” to believe.   Yes, I thought I HAD to believe, or something was wrong with me. It felt something like this… “Everyone else believes this is the Truth of Christ the Savior. Only the cool kids believe the truth, don’t you want to be cool?” I caved in; I DID want to be cool and then I became a faith pusher too! I know you are laughing, and until I met my ex-husband (and ex-sis-in-law), I would have probably laughed too. Then I heard their stories of being on the receiving end of a guilt trip about NOT believing the “Truth of Christ the Savior”.   When they (and others) share their stories, my heart hurts because I was once a Holy Roller faith pushing bully, I guilt-tripped people for NOT believing the Truth of Christ the Savior. If I was in an over dramatic mood, I might even say that my words filled with judgment and guilt “killed in the name of Jesus Christ” and my heart hurts when I think of the people on the other side of those stories of my life. I know some of you are still in my life, and I am sorry for putting you through the Laura Inquisition and for trying to “kill you in the name if Jesus Christ”.  I hope my false beliefs; perceptions and ideas will NOT deter you from finding your spiritual truth, be it through Jesus Christ, or a different path.

I really should have titled this 80’s Flashback, because I leave you with this… “Don’t be a loser, don’t do drugs guilt!”

~Laura

Church of the Poison Mind is a song by British Pop/New Wave group Culture Club and was released on their 1983 Colour by Numbers LP.  Yes, I was a devout fan of the ever so flamboyant Boy George and the Culture Club, much to the shock of the unCultured community I grew up in. [Oh stop rolling your eyes, you know it was funny!]