I was born and raised in the conservative/anti- churches of Christ. My parents "converted" to the coC from Baptist upbringings in early adulthood—my Dad was at the university in Gainesville, FL, and was involved in the "Crossroads movement." He's always said he was attracted to the coC bc of its desire for simple Christianity, and was never really comfortable with overt emotionalism or symbolism. It's a personality thing. He is still a member of the coC at large, but he is also a thinker, and has accepted the small box tradition even though, intellectually, he has grown beyond it. It is familiar and he is a creature of habit, and I love and respect him regardless.
When I was in college, he began reading Cecil Hook and Carl Ketcherside. He always loved to have deep conversations. In looking back, I can see quite a lot of frustration and cynicism, and I read these books too and felt the same feelings.
I studied classical languages and culture in college. I went to grad school and was steeped in research as I learned about ancient texts and the process of recovery and translation. I was fascinated by history and always curious about the Christians of other eras...and annoyed that I never heard much about them in the coC. The only Christians I ever learned about were the very earliest ones, and then WE FAITHFUL FEW WHO HAD RESTORED THE FAITH in the modern era. I heard some things about Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone—not a lot, mind you...I had to do my own digging. But the glaring omission of most of Christian history—some 1600 years or so—, as if the true Christians simply went underground for all that time and then reemerged in Kentucky in the 1840's, THAT historical neglect struck me as ignorant at best, self-preserving at worst. It was hard to tell which it was, but I knew that I could not accept it as academically sound.
So, for the sake of intellectual honesty, I acknowledged that I held views heretical to my religious tradition. So I did the reasonable thing: I stuffed 'em deep down, for the sake of maintaining relationships.
For years and years and years, I stuffed. I'd have occasional bouts of frustration, in which, as the years went on, my husband joined me. He also was born and bred coC—descended from coC "royalty" in fact—but he was also becoming more alive to truth and frustrated by unthinking perpetuation of party lines.
The trials of parenthood, the realization of our professional goals, and continual growth as persons over the years finally got us to a point where we realized: the coC is not who we are! It was almost like a lightbulb moment, an awakening, a dawning realization that WE ARE NOT THIS MOLD that we have been trying to fit into all these years. The thought of raising our children in a culture that taught them to swallow so many ridiculous doctrines, not to question the status quo, not to think; looking around at the other families and their conformist, behaviorist child-rearing and realizing "these kids will not accept my kids" and "I don't really like these people anyway...why do I keep trying to fit in with them?"...all this and our embrace of the mystery of the Holy Spirit (oh my goodness, yes, there are things that we cannot explain and so instead of ignoring it or explaining it away, why not open ourselves up to possibility?) led us to leave the church of Christ in April 2018.
It was scary. It was so hard. We had many conversations with individuals and a couple of meetings with the elders. We were warned and exhorted to remain, but our decision was respected as autonomous believers who have the right to do what we believe is best for our family. We didn't try to explain ALL our reasons, bc you know...unless someone has traveled with you, they are not able to understand why you would make this decision, severing yourself from the body. We were general, we held our ground despite the fear-based reasoning we were met with, and then, we left.
It has been a year of grieving loss and then, healing. We have landed at an independent, three-stream Anglican church and we love it.
We have no desire to ever return to the coC.
As for the trigger I mentioned at the beginning: I received a notice about my upcoming college reunion. It was a coC college that I attended.
All of a sudden, I feel very anxious about going bc it was our coC origins that brought us together to that school.
So that's why I am here. I still don't know how to handle these loose ends. Thank you for listening...I am glad to have found this place.
And we've got a lot of 'em here too in central FL. I must be standing on holy ground.
Nice to meet you!