I Didn't Get Baptized {it happened on a sunday} Day 6

The summer before sixth grade, my family moved.  A new state meant a new school, a new church, and a new loneliness that I wasn't really equipped to handle.  We landed at a Nazarene church again, and I was instructed on the catechism as part of my Sunday School class.  Quick vocabulary lesson:  catechism is derived from the Greek "to teach orally" and consists of a question-answer format to teach children or adult converts religious doctrine.  Spending a year of Sunday mornings learning catechism was almost worse than the year of Sunday mornings I spent listening to my teacher cry/read excerpts from Chicken Soup for the Soul.  Almost.

The grand finale of catechism, possibly the entire point to teaching it, was for each 6th grade student to get baptized.  Baptism is the religious practice of using water as a metaphor for the cleansing of one's soul through profession of faith in Jesus.  Some churches sprinkle, some do a full-body dunk.  The hard core people take you out to a river or lake in 40 degree temperatures and see just how committed you are to this way of life.  Most churches have designated "Baptism Sundays" so the baptismal font doesn't have to get filled each week and the pastor doesn't have to worry about ruining his three-piece suit in his efforts to save souls.  And honestly, it felt like the biggest selling point to why we should all get baptized at the end of 6th grade was convenience.  The water's ready, the pastor is wearing swim trunks under his white robe, just get it over with.  Which has never been a good enough reason for me to do anything.  

I also have some issues with authority.  I'd like to say it's just my feisty, independent nature, but in this case, I know it had a specific origin.  My parents left our previous church, the last one we attended in Texas, six weeks before we moved.  Things had gotten so bad, spiritual and legal corruption was going down, that they walked out the doors knowing they would be gone soon anyway.  They couldn't stay any longer, knowing what they now knew.  This unsettling knowledge had been revealed over the course of meetings and conversations that my parents were part of, because they were part of the church leadership.  My dad was on a board, maybe deacons or elders or something.  My mom was a Sunday School teacher and part of the choir.

They left the church damaged and disillusioned, vowing to never again be in such a position.  And the solution was simple.  They didn't have to abandon church, they just had to avoid church membership.  It's been over 20 years, and my parents haven't "belonged" to another church since.  They have passed up nominations to serve in leadership roles and abdicated the right to vote on important church decisions (like selecting a new pastor or changing a rule).  As a child, I was very skilled at listening without making noise, and I think I overheard many things I wasn't meant to.  My sister and I would occasionally have intel briefings, filling each other in on parts of conversations we'd listened to and piecing together what was going on in the grown up stratosphere.  I don't know if I was supposed to hear these things about our former pastor and the decision my parents had made.  Maybe they wanted us to know, maybe they were unaware that we knew.  Either way, their choice affected my own choices.  I would avoid the pain they'd experienced altogether.  I would never become a member at a church, and if it meant I could skip reciting catechism and getting baptized because everyone else was doing it, then so much the better.

Baptism Sunday came, and my entire class got dunked one after another while I sat in a pew near the back with my parents.  I felt no regret that day for the choice I'd made, and I still feel that I did what was right for me.  I would encourage parents and mentors and Sunday School teachers to give children choices as they are growing up, especially when it comes to something as deeply personal as baptism, and honor the decision once it is made.  It would have felt like a betrayal to be forced to partake in a sacrament I wasn't ready for and didn't see the need for in my life.  As I entered my teenage years, church culture and practices were already becoming challenging and confusing and had I not been allowed to sit out that Sunday and the others that followed, I would have been out the door that much sooner.  It wasn't the right time for me.  If baptism is an outward sign of an inward reality, then my choice to skip it also reflected a growing inner reality that I was going to have to face sooner or later.