Just beneath my skin is a religious zealot, full of fierce denunciation, austerity and ecstasy. Twenty years ago, I tried to kill him with intellectual ambition and respectable religion–and then finally with atheism. The attempt failed and, over the past few years, he and I have begun talking again. But that’s a story for another time. Today’s story is about the birth and early years of my inner zealot. As I said in my last post, my teen years at Hilltop were busy.
After we left Springville church, we started attending Peerless Trinity Pentecostal Church. A digression: you’ll notice both of the churches so far include a reference to the Trinity in their name. The reason for this is to distinguish ourselves from the “Oneness” or “Apostolic” Pentecostals. I think we were close to the same numerically in our local area, but on any larger scale the Oneness Pentecostals outnumbered us significantly. Oneness Pentecostals are so named because they deny the Trinity.
My earliest religious memories took place at Trinity Pentecost Mission. (Yes, Pentecost. Like Episcopal and Episcopalian, the folks weren’t always sure whether they were Pentecost or Pentecostal.) My grandpa helped build the church when the congregation outgrew its old building around 1970. My grandpa was also Sunday School superintendent at that church for thirty years. I have the bell he used to ring to round up the children. Springville church (as it was more commonly known) was truly a country church.
I need to clarify some terminology. I mentioned in the first post in this series that the Holiness churches were “fundamentalist.” Now, I know many people use that as a term of abuse for basically any conservative religious organization that they don’t like but I do have a specific meaning for it. I believe I got this from James Ault’s book Spirit and Flesh: Life in a Fundamentalist Baptist Church, which I read shortly after leaving the Holiness churches.
My wife and I left the Holiness churches at the beginning of 2004 and joined the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS). I was already a heavy reader of theology at that time (both books and blogs), which is partly why we left Holiness. Once I no longer had to hide my growing and serious disagreements with the churches of my childhood, I started my own blog. My first post was an explanation of why I left Holiness.