bleargh

[kellinator]

I have a sinking feeling that dropping by the library on Sunday just to check email and read LJ is LAME.

Oh well.

After weeks of attempting it and failing, I actually made it to church this morning -- Clairmont Presbyterian. I liked it, but I'm not sure yet if I'll join. No need to rush, and I'd like to find one with a good amount of people my age. (Probably not too likely, come to think of it.) It was a nice change from the Southern Baptists to see women assisting with Communion.

Off to wreak some mayhem. On second thought, maybe just to watch The Godfather Part II with Tim.

Comments

[candy-angel.livejournal.com]

is there a college with a church nearby? when I lived with my parents there was a college nearby with a church closer than the one my parents went to, and I would go to mass there because it was all college kids

[technomom]

Obviously a PCUS church rather than a PCA one :-) Good luck in finding a community that fits!

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

What's the difference? I guess one's more conservative?

[technomom]

Very much so. I spent five years working (in a business capacity!) for the foreign missions board of the PCA here in Atlanta. They split off from the PCUS in the early 70s over ordination of women and the absolutele inerrance of the Bible. Many of the people I met there make your average Southern Baptist look like some "pinko Commie queer" by comparison.

[queenbookwench.livejournal.com]

I am an escapee from the PCA as well!! Glad to find someone who understands what thats all about. Many of my friends now didn't grow up in the evangelical Christian subculture, and when I talk about its like I'm speaking a foreign language or describing a foreign country? The thing I couldn't deal with the most is the attitude toward women in _any_ kind of ministry.
Also, a lot of the hardcore Calvinist dogma. The Christian faith is still deeply important to me, but I do not consider myself either "evangelical" or particularly conservative any more.

[technomom]

Yep. I was raised deep water Southern Baptist. I have often wondered if I would still be a Christian if I had been reared in a denomination that respected women and gave them a place in the ministry. The people in the PCA - well, I completely left Christianity while working there. My daughter is growing up in a Unitarian Universalist congregation where Christianity and other faiths are respected, and where men and women are equals.

[queenbookwench.livejournal.com]

I still am involved in a church community, but it has been a long journey of faith for me, with a lot of questioning. And it has been a struggle to find people (and communities) who affirm my in-processness, and don't demand that I have all the "right answers." There were good things about my evangelical background, and I try to acknowledge those as well as the not-so-good things. My Christian encouragment now comes from people like Madeleine L'Engle, Kathleen Norris, Anne Lamott...people who take a wider view. Your story of leaving Christianity while working for MTW sounds like it would be an interesting one!

[technomom]

I still love Madeleine L'Engle, and find C.S. Lewis very thought provoking. I'm not familiar with the other authors you mentioned, but might look them up :-)

I think the anti-intellectualism of my parents' churches was another thing that simply didn't work for me. I want more than that for our children - a community which affirms each individual's search for the right path, and helps us to remember that we can work together for common goals and that we hold many values in common even when the details are different.

[queenbookwench.livejournal.com]

The PCA at least has a sense of the importance of intellect in Christianity, although I think they define it too narrowly, i.e. trying to create a big universal intellectual framework for _everything_, when really neither the Bible nor Christianity fits into that really. I did get from Calvinism the idea that secular and spiritual aren't separate and compartmentalized-rather one's faith should permeate the whole of life. I know what you mean about the whole woman thing though--when I was a sophomore in college, I took a wonderful class called "culture, myth, and education" taught by a female professor, a former southern baptist turned buddhist/unitarian. Each of us in the class had our own personal topic we were exploring...mine ended up being "women's spirituality" and I ended up reading "The Dance of the Dissident Daughter" by Sue Monk Kidd, and "The Church and the Second Sex" by Mary Daly, and for the first time I felt really furious, and seriously considered whether I would be better off apart from Christianity...clearly, I ultimately decided otherwise, but still, it was an illuminating experience for me.

Nah, not Lame...

[spiritchaser1.livejournal.com]

Going to the library to check LJ isn't lame.
Going to the library 5 times a day, everyday, is Lame.
Going to the library, telling the librarian that you need to use a computer, but don't know how to use one is bad. After she tells you they don't give computer lessons, if you lie and say that you don't need computer lessons, you just need "a little help", THAT is Lame.

Sorry, little rant. But, you are safe.