Christian radio

[chachazoom]

I was at a job Friday and a Christian radio station was playing turning up the heat for a fund raiser for the station. I've been paying attention to religion and the role it plays alot lately, thinking about how it affects me, others, the past....all that. Well this woman caller phoned in praising the station and in particular how wonderful it is because she has young children that listened all the time and there was no need to censor anything and went on about how it nourished them. And right after they played a song and the chorus caught my attention...it said "this song is to remind you that they don't serve breakfast in hell" I thought I heard wrong but nope, that's what it said. And I wondered how anyone can think that message is good for young kids? Anyways the irony made me laff but also feel a little sad. it triggered memories of my own childhood and emotions I used to experience in Sunday school (I only went a handful of times, dragged there by a neighbour attempting to save us kids) and all I can remember was feeling put off with the smell and a little scared while colouring pictures of Jona getting swallowed by a whale and a cartoon kind of booklet of the devil and hell. Anyways, I always wondered if i should have brought my kids to a church but the more I'm thinking about it, the more appreciative I am that i didn't.

 

[theos]

.... Well this woman caller phoned in praising the station and in particular how wonderful it is because she has young children that listened all the time and there was no need to censor anything and went on about how it nourished them. And right after they played a song and the chorus caught my attention...it said "this song is to remind you that they don't serve breakfast in hell" I thought I heard wrong but nope, that's what it said. And I wondered how anyone can think that message is good for young kids?

That reminds me of an experience I had. I'd stopped going to church long ago. I was raised Baptist and had a very traumatic experience "accepting Jesus Christ as my personal savior" at the age of 9. My grandfather, the preacher, had reached the end of the sermon and was starting the "alter call" and my cousins were elbowing me trying to get me to go up to the front of the church and get "saved". They basically told me that I would burn in hell if I didn't get didn't do it. (Some choice, huh?) So I got suckered into going up there all the while blubbering and crying with snot running out of my nose, seemingly having a panic attack in front of everyone. Though I attended church off and on -- at the behest of my mother, of course -- I never really took a shine to religion...at least not in any way that would stick. In my adult years I turned to it a couple of times but only out of fear or feelings of lack of control over certain aspects of my life. I came to realize that no one could "save" me but me and I stayed away.
While visiting my aunt a year and a half or so ago, I went to church with her. The chorus of one of the songs talked about doing battle for the Lord and the streets flowing with blood. I found it so offensive I had to step out into the lobby.
Kids need to be protected from that kind of melarchy. If I had children of my own there's no way I would send them to church. It would be like poisoning them.

 

[chachazoom]

Your experience of getting saved sounds like hell roasting. Poisoning is the right word. Even though I didn't attend, it's interesting to begin watching mechanical reactions that have come from religious influencing. How much I've absorbed anyways. On a humourous note, the Sunday school bus driver was in cahoots with the neighbour and would, for weeks after, continue to drive up our street and stop in front of our house and bang on the door for pick up. We all ran and hid in terror at the first sound of the bus.

 

[theos]

That is funny....kids fleeing in terror from a church bus of all things!!!

Funny but fitting. Be afraid. Be very afraid.