I was a very religious Baptist when I was young. These days I’m “spiritual but not religious” and I’m much happier. The type of Christianity I learned was really bad for my mental health. I don’t think it’s been especially great for society either.

However, I have to give some of my former co-religionists their due. It WAS a culture, and culture is important. It becomes part of your identity. I can say from personal experience that leaving a culture is not easy.

The little church I went to last was like an extended family and an interesting cast of characters:

• The bossy and very proper lady who prayed in Old English.
• The old farmer with the W.C. Fields nose who could outwork any 20-year-old.
• The educated eccentric who heckled the preacher and got away with it.
• The demure teenage girl I crushed on but was too shy to ask out.
• The sweet old lady who would make you a pie if you helped her sing her late husband’s favorite hymn.
• The lady who listed all her ailments if you accidentally said “How are you?” (Doh!).
• The former preacher who you prayed wouldn’t do the closing prayer because he would try to pray a sermon… (Dear God please no, there’s a roast in the oven!)
• The man who got killed by two hitchhikers who took his shotgun away from him during a robbery and he was too tender-hearted to use it on them. And his widow went to see them in jail and forgave them!
• And of course, the gossipy hardshell types, though they tended to go to their spite church whenever they got mad at the preacher. (They gave the rest of us something to gossip about.)

I might have changed drastically from the boy I was, but you can’t run away from memories like that.