Recalibration? Huh?

I know, I know. It's not even a word. But somehow 'recalibration' seems to describe the journey I've been on for the last several years. Following Christ is journey and a process, and periodic checks of your ‘calibration’ are necessary to stay on track. Am I following the right Christ? Are the teachings I’m holding to making me more Christ-like or more judgmental, pious and arrogant? Three years ago the thought of questioning Evangelicalism and the culture war would have been enough for me to call for my own ex-communication. Significant events in my journey have since led me to the conclusion that I need to recalibrate, or re-align myself with the true Christ. I was following a caricature of Christ that I had bought wholesale. Call the process deconstruction, emerging, recalibration, whatever.

To elaborate a little more specifically on my recalibration, here is my faith-journey in a vary small nutshell:

I became a Christian at 15, after a friend had taken me to church with her for a year or so. The particular denomination we belonged to is very restrictive about forms of worship and the role that women can play within the congregation. As in, they are not allowed to speak at all. They also believe that baptism (full immersion, of course) is the absolute point of salvation. No one could answer my questions or objections I had on these subjects, so I left when I graduated high school. My friend and her family still consider my then-boyfriend (now husband) as the evil one who led me astray. [Note: Said husband says I need to make him look cooler here... I'll get to him more in-depth in later posts!]

I married my high-school sweetheart while we were in college, had some kiddos, and promptly descended straight into the Evangelical Ghetto. Dobson was My President and I was a good warrior in the culture war. We were attending a small Baptist church, where I started a moms ministry and my husband became a deacon. We were the All-American Family and a great advertisement for all that Christianity has to offer! **Insert toothy smile here** Eventually we left to join a megachurch that was more ‘frontline’ in the political side of the culture war and heavily involved in what we thought was ‘evangelism’. My husband and I both ended up on staff there, but left suddenly when it was obvious that the pastor didn’t live what he taught. He’s now being investigated by the IRS and state authorities for fraud.

We now occasionally attend the small, rural Bible church where we were married. We went there to ‘heal’ after the megachurch debacle. [We'll unpack this whole mess in subsequent posts] It’s not the healing place we thought it was going to be, and is in fact fraught with most of the same issues as the megachurch, only on a smaller, somewhat less devious scale. Funny how that works! It’s that realization that brought on recalibration. If the same problems are so prevalent everywhere, then something must be wrong with the model. Thus began the period of de-construction for me. This blog is an attempt at therapy, an outward working of the thoughts that now threaten to make my brain explode… Enjoy!