The Doubting Preacher's Daughter

 My parents were devout, conservative Christians of the old school:  the school that proclaimed that the Bible was inerrant, that the miracles were real, that the whole point of Christianity was the horrifying but salvific sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross of Calvary, and that heaven and hell were real after-life destinations IF you didn't believe everything literally that the Bible and most Christian pastors preached.

Problem was, I had a hard time taking those literalities seriously.  They were/are beautiful (or horrifying) stories but they were also hard to prove factually.  And I needed verification, so in my college courses at Linfield I explored Christianity as best I could in a Baptist college, taking "Life of Jesus" and "Basic Christian Thought" courses, in an effort to find out what academics might reveal behind the scenes, with world views larger than that of conservative Christian pastors.  And maybe some more complete understanding of the science which did not support the miracle stories.

I was canny enough not to discuss my doubts with my parents, who I figured would not appreciate my questions.  But I needed to know!  

Playing along with the traditional beliefs of Baptist theology as I got more familiar with it, I found that I could assume that the stories of miracles and other magical acts had some literal truth to them but were stories told over the centuries to explain what couldn't be understood in any other way.  The stories were "true" but also mystical.

After college, I wanted to do something to live out my deep understanding of Christianity and chose to serve in two different job scenarios.  My first job was to work as a welfare caseworker in two counties in Washington state.  For about 18 months, I plied my trade in the back country of Klickitat and Skamania counties, serving Old Age recipients and Indigent Families.  I had never had such an opportunity to be with people who relied on State assistance to survive.  It was a new world to me.

But living at home with my parents was hard, as my changing theology and awareness of what people really needed, apart from salvation, which was to survive.  My family had never been well off--preachers' salaries were pretty scanty---but the folks I met had almost nothing and lots of medical bills and children.

A chance came along to become a program worker in a Baptist Christian Center in Denver and I jumped at it.  My job was to work with preschoolers, preteens, and older teens after school, but I also met their parents---and they were all different colors and cultures.  My eyes opened wider and wider and I let myself be more deeply immersed in the social justice challenges of racism and poverty.

In Denver I met the man who would become my husband.  He was a catalyst for my discovering that there were religious groups which did not require one to believe in certain miracles but, instead, to focus on the values by which we live our lives.  He introduced me to Unitarian Universalism in 1965, almost 60 years ago.

And we'll stop there for now.