by Amanda I was "saved" when I was seven years old. My mother was always a very religious woman, and like most people who are converted, she was going through a bad time in her life. She grabbed fundamentalist Christianity with both hands and held on for dear life. I spent the first 5 years of my life "on fire for God," as they say in the church. But as I grew into an adolescent girl, I began to resent the way the church had mapped out my future as a woman- don't worry about education, darling, you've got cookies to bake. I wistfully looked out the window at the boys youth group, wrestling, playing basketball, etc., while I was stuck inside, being taught how to deny my feelings and wants. When I was 12, it was discovered that the very married Pastor of our church had sexually abused at least 5 women over a period of years. With all the women, it had taken place during counseling, when each one of the women was in a devastating po

By Cynthia After having to really explain my beliefs for the first time, I was shocked to find myself thinking, I believe THAT? My grandmother had been a fundamentalist since a conversion experience in her early twenties (before which she claimed to have drunk and "cussed like a sailor"-which I could never quite bring myself to believe). She always claimed that she "loved children," while being completely heartless and unloving with me; but I think she would have been a cruel person with or without her religious beliefs. Somehow, my mother had grown up to be a loving, kind, compassionate and open-minded individual in spite of her own mother's influence. My father was never a Christian, but he saw no reason to make an issue of his lack of belief, even though my grandmother felt the need to try to evangelize him-and absolutely every stranger she met-at every possible opportunity. Fortunately for me, he got a job in Southeast Asia and my family lived in