Assignment 4 - Elizabeth Moore - Life in a Devout Christian Household

I was raised in a devout Christian household. I sat through long services and banal Sunday school lessons – albeit with no shortage of complaining – routinely and doodled to block out the incessant drone of impertinent sermons and prayers that made time stand still. The summer before 4^th grade I went to Aldersgate Camp and Retreat Center for the first time and had what youth ministers like to call a “mountaintop experience”, the proverbial peak of devotion to God. But as is always the case, I returned home to the same monotony and the church that I attended only out of necessity. These mountaintop experiences became a semi-annual occurrence as I entered youth group, but I was a wishy-washy Christian at best. I finally reached high school and a new host of challenges presented themselves – this is when I began to question my faith in earnest. As I learned about syncretism and world religions in AP World, questions I labeled as traitorous entered my mind: What makes Christians right over the billions of non-Christians? How can I profess to believe in something I can’t see? What if my perceived interactions with God are merely placebo? I pushed all my doubts to the outskirts of my mind and tried to evade them, of course to no avail. After weeks of agonizing solitude, I opened up during my High School Girls’ small group. In talking to my friends and councilors, I realized there just aren’t answers to some questions, but faith doesn’t require us to have all the answers. Everything in my life has pointed me towards a Christian lifestyle. Maybe that isn’t the case for others. But I’ve made a conscious decision to have faith in God and attempt to live my life according to the moral doctrines of Christianity. Church isn’t so banal anymore. I joined a class studying the Old Testament and I’m thoroughly enjoying discovering nuances of the language and historical allusions. Church has become one of my favorite parts of the week not in spite of my doubts but because of them. Because I get the chance to explore something challenging and figurative and undefined.