Another warning - this second post is fairly negative on Christians and Christianity. If you're going to be offended by that, don't read it!
I continued as part of the church and got more and more involved – as a youth group leader, playing guitar and leading worship in church, and by age 18 I was on the ‘Vestry’ – the group of people running the church. I had the strange position of being baptised as an adult – meaning I could choose my own godparents – in fact my godfather was my best mate at the time and only a year older than me. I was best man at the wedding of two very dear friends. In essence, I was the model of a young Christian lad, though my ‘secret’ gay life was still there and still being fought against.
Things started to crumble a bit though – at 20 I failed most of my exams at university and decided to take a year out to weigh up the options. Signing up for training as a priest was one option at that point. I spent the year as a full time volunteer for the Church of Ireland Youth Council, taking bookings and doing admin for the (very large) ‘Summer Madness’ festival. Eventually I decided to train as a teacher, and as I could only get 2 more years of grant funding, I needed a 2 year course. These didn’t exist in Northern Ireland, so I signed up for uni in Lancaster.
I moved to Lancaster, and wrote to everyone – dozens of letters – giving them my address and phone number, and letting them know how I was getting on. I got 2 letters back. I wrote another batch of letters. No calls, no letters came. I couldn’t believe that these people – Christian people – couldn’t make time to get in touch, particularly those I thought I was very close to. I felt let down and abandoned. And now I was in a new country, with no friends. I joined a church, but I couldn’t seem to connect with people there.
Eventually I just gave up. People in England were much less bothered about religion, and I followed suit. And being gay was suddenly a whole lot easier since it no longer conflicted with my beliefs. I’ve since come across some of these Christian former-friends on the likes of Facebook, but after a couple of polite messages, it was clear that they weren’t really that interested any more. Maybe because I’m gay, maybe they just don’t like the person I am now! In fact this blog post was inspired by finding my godfather on Facebook and not knowing whether or not to send a message!
More recently I had a guy I spoke to occasionally on some bear chat sites and on Facebook. I was pretty neutral towards him, he was OK – a bit over-familiar in person, but harmless and OK to be around. Like many people in the world (I’m looking at you, Americans!), he liked to think he was Irish. I don’t know whether he was or wasn’t born in Ireland, but he’d certainly spent the vast majority of his life in England. But then he started putting strange little comments on Facebook, about catholics and protestants, and bigoted views. It stuck out to me, because English people generally don’t make distinctions along denominational grounds. I decided the best thing to do was quietly delete him as a friend, since I didn’t want to see these things. But he spotted it and started up a whole row with me, making some pretty nasty comments (which I just ignored till he stopped!). But it reminded me just why I’m no longer a fan of religion in general – it just divides people!
Do I believe in God now? Don’t know. But Christians have a lot more work to do if they want to convince non-believers!
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Christianity - Part 1
Quick warning at the beginning of this 2-part blog entry – I’m going to talk about my views on Christians and Christianity, which will bore many, interest a few and possibly alienate or offend a few more. Think about which category you might fall into and then decide whether to read any further!
As a child, I always attended Sunday School etc, but it wasn’t until I was reaching the end of first year at secondary school that Christianity made any impact on my life. There were two reasons for this. One was that I’d got into trouble at school and with the police for nicking coins out of a school bus driver’s pockets. That really made me think about whether that’s how I wanted my life to go. But it was another incident that made me really think about religion for the first time.
I used to live about 2 miles from the shores of Belfast Lough, and would regularly take myself off for a walk to a park on the shore. As far as I am concerned, the best ice cream shop in the world was (and I think, still is) there – Maud’s Ice Cream. The quickest way to get there was a walk through a wood and past a predominantly catholic area. I never thought anything of this. One day on my way back a number of older teenagers spotted me walking through the wood and decided to beat me up because I was ‘walking in their territory’. I was attacked because (they assumed – they never asked!) I wasn’t a catholic. It wasn’t a major attack – I just curled up in a ball until they went away, so avoided any injury above a bruise – but it did make me question why religion mattered.
For the rest of my teenage years, my whole social life was based around Christianity, both at school where I was involved with the Christian Union, and my home life, where everything I did was connected to church. I had plenty of friends and seemed popular, which are great things for a teenager to feel. I was struggling with my Christian beliefs and my being gay, though. I knew I was gay very early in my life – probably from about 8 or 9 years old. I used to pray that God would just make me straight like everyone else – even had a couple of girlfriends.
At 16, I got a part time job in Woolworths, which basically involved folding down cardboard boxes and brushing the stockroom floor – very boring, but gave me some pocket money. About a year after I started, I was talking there with another couple of lads, Eddie and Anthony, and somehow the topic turned to religion. I can’t remember the exact conversation, but somehow I ended up saying something like ‘at least he’s protestant’. This was a bad time to find out that Eddie was catholic. I stumbled an apology out and went to hide in the toilet – I have never been so ashamed in all my life. I suddenly realised that growing up in Northern Ireland had made me just as bigoted as everyone else around me – and I hated that idea.
It did make me resolve to never make that kind of judgment on a group of people again.
As a child, I always attended Sunday School etc, but it wasn’t until I was reaching the end of first year at secondary school that Christianity made any impact on my life. There were two reasons for this. One was that I’d got into trouble at school and with the police for nicking coins out of a school bus driver’s pockets. That really made me think about whether that’s how I wanted my life to go. But it was another incident that made me really think about religion for the first time.
I used to live about 2 miles from the shores of Belfast Lough, and would regularly take myself off for a walk to a park on the shore. As far as I am concerned, the best ice cream shop in the world was (and I think, still is) there – Maud’s Ice Cream. The quickest way to get there was a walk through a wood and past a predominantly catholic area. I never thought anything of this. One day on my way back a number of older teenagers spotted me walking through the wood and decided to beat me up because I was ‘walking in their territory’. I was attacked because (they assumed – they never asked!) I wasn’t a catholic. It wasn’t a major attack – I just curled up in a ball until they went away, so avoided any injury above a bruise – but it did make me question why religion mattered.
For the rest of my teenage years, my whole social life was based around Christianity, both at school where I was involved with the Christian Union, and my home life, where everything I did was connected to church. I had plenty of friends and seemed popular, which are great things for a teenager to feel. I was struggling with my Christian beliefs and my being gay, though. I knew I was gay very early in my life – probably from about 8 or 9 years old. I used to pray that God would just make me straight like everyone else – even had a couple of girlfriends.
At 16, I got a part time job in Woolworths, which basically involved folding down cardboard boxes and brushing the stockroom floor – very boring, but gave me some pocket money. About a year after I started, I was talking there with another couple of lads, Eddie and Anthony, and somehow the topic turned to religion. I can’t remember the exact conversation, but somehow I ended up saying something like ‘at least he’s protestant’. This was a bad time to find out that Eddie was catholic. I stumbled an apology out and went to hide in the toilet – I have never been so ashamed in all my life. I suddenly realised that growing up in Northern Ireland had made me just as bigoted as everyone else around me – and I hated that idea.
It did make me resolve to never make that kind of judgment on a group of people again.
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