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Edited on Sat Sep-04-10 01:56 AM by Hugabear
You walk into the church. Perhaps you're there because a friend invited you, or perhaps you're there because someone in your family asked if you would come with them. Being an open minded person, you figured you'd at least see what it was all about. After all, you've been to a Catholic church once or twice, and another time you went to a Methodist church. You walk in, take your seat in one of the pews, off to the side, about halfway down towards the front. Not too close, but not too far back either. The music starts playing. It's an upbeat tempo, as you find yourself tapping your foot along with the beat. Eventually, the pastor begins his sermon. Even though you don't really consider yourself very religious, you still listen along. The preacher's voice rises and lowers in a very specific method, carefully chosen to keep the congregation hanging on every word. The message itself is full of graphic descriptions about Hell, the Lake of Fire, everlasting torment, demons ripping flesh, worms eating at you for eternity. Of course, the only way to escape such eternal damnation is for you to "get saved". The sermon goes on and on and on, the message being drilled into your head. Eventually you start to feel pangs of guilt, questioning your own self. Towards the end of the sermon, the music starts to softly play. The pianist softly sings "Give your heart to Jesus", while the preacher opens up the altar to anyone who wants to come up and receive Jesus. By this time, you're feeling rather confused, feelings of guilt and anguish running through your head. Your friend asks if you would like to go up front and pray with him, and you numbly follow his lead. You slowly stumble towards the front, approach the altar, kneel down, and just sit there with your head resting on your hands. Before long, you feel someone's hand on your head, and hear someone's voice that you vaguely recognize. You open one of your eyes, and realize that it's none other than the preacher. Within minutes, you're surrounded by at least half a dozen other men, some of them joining their hands on your head, all of them loudly beseeching God to save you. You feel the preacher's spittle on your face as his praying intensifies. Before long, he starts babbling in some tongue that you've never heard before, no language that you can identify. Some of the other men surrounding you also begin speaking in tongues, and one of them starts jerking around, convulsing, "dancing in the spirit" as they call it. At this point, you're absolutely terrified, have no clue how to react. You find yourself beginning to speak some gibberish as well, if only to get them to leave you alone. The preacher hears this, and begins to pray even harder, yelling "Hallelujah" over and over. By this time, you're committed, your endorphins are beginning to kick in, you feel an odd sense of euphoria come over you, and the gibberish continues to flow out of your mouth. At this point, the preacher leads you by the hand to the baptismal area, changes you into a gown, and plunges you into the water. The entire congregation erupts at this point, happy to see another sinner become saved.
Eventually, you go home, not sure what the hell just happened. The euphoria that you felt earlier is now gone, only to be replaced by confusion. You don't quite feel changed. You're still the same person. But wait a second, you're supposed to be a new person now, right? After all, you're "saved". You have to be, since you spoke in tongues! Sure, you started doing it at first just to get them off your ass. But once you started, you found it hard to stop. So was it real? But if it was, then why don't you feel different? Why do you still feel like visiting your favorite nudie site on the internet? Surely, if you were saved, you wouldn't still be feeling lust, would you? After all, lust is a sin, and God just saved you from that! And on the way home, you were listening to your favorite rock CD, which the preacher said was a sin as well. If you're saved, then why do you still find yourself acting the same way?
Now imagine that you're gay, and dealing with these conflicting emotions. I have to wonder if this is what my cousin went through before attempting suicide. Having grown up in a fundie household, I can tell you that the description that I laid out is 100% for real.
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