The Bible and Dinosaurs

Inspired by Bombadee’s post today:

I went to a family graduation gathering a week ago when I saw them approach my picnic table; Pastor Robert and Theresa, of the Tiny Town Methodist church my family and I regularly attended until about two years ago. Robert and Theresa are from India (surprising me still to this day, how embraced they have been in the Tiny Town that once held rally’s for the KKK.) Much of my family; aunts, uncles, and cousins, still attend said church. Many of them still complain each week about “having” to go. Those of you who know me, know I don’t “have” to do anything. I talked with them, politely smiling with non-commitment nods through “We miss you” and “We’d love to have you come back”.

It was at this church my girls and I were baptized (I was 28), with water from the Jordan River. I sang in the choir, Aunt Teenie Weenie and I even performed a duet at the Christmas service. This is the church where my girls ran to the front each week for the horrible old woman leading “Children’s Time”, who quite obviously did not enjoy children. I would sit and listen each week, often reading through the Bible when what I was hearing didn’t demand my attention. It was during one of those long-winded sermons when I finally read Leviticus, or what I prefer to call the Bible’s equivalent to stereo instructions.

When SugarLips was about six months old, we stopped going. This has been my history with church, or religion in general, my entire life. I attempt, I question, I struggle, I disagree, I discontinue. Now I could create one hell of a post on my issues with Christianity in general, but why did we stop going to this particular church? Several reasons come to mind:

Money, money, money. I sat through weekly lectures by two elderly men who brought a posterboard to the front of the congregation with one of those thermometer looking budget graphs that fills up red, hoping to burst by the end of the fiscal year. We gave what we could, sometimes what we couldn’t. There was, of course, never enough money. Would there ever be? How much should one pay? Tithing was not a term this church chose, but they would give those little envelopes with you name and the date of every Sunday for the year pre-printed on them on the first service of a new year like clock work.

Census. This church is a good size, modern building with several classrooms, a large sanctuary that was never more than a third full (if that), an entire lower level with more classrooms and a large fellowship hall with kitchen…you know a typical church. We would listen to ideas of how to increase the census, increase the number of young families with children (mine was one of maybe six or seven in the entire congregation). Now when I say my parents live in a Tiny Town, I mean it. I believe the city plaque at the edge of town boasts about 2500 people. My church was one of four, YES FOUR, Methodist churches in the Tiny Town. Not churches in total, but Methodist churches all struggling with how to increase census, therefore increase what else…money. You should have seen the looks on the faces when I asked, “Why don’t the four struggling, three-quarter empty Methodist churches combine into one large, bountiful one?” If they could have, I think the elders would have burned me at the stake.

The Board. This is the all-powerful group of people who controlled not only the major decisions for the church, but the ever-popular money. The President of the Board NEVER came to church for services, only The Board meetings. He would make strange financial decisions, hire “buddies” for contract jobs, but not break bread with the people’s whose money he was spending.

This is the one that finally broke my ties:

While sitting at a table with my girls having a talk about baptism and what it means, Pastor Robert asks “Do you have any questions?” My daughter Abigail asks, “If the Bible starts at the creation of Earth, why aren’t there any dinosaurs in it?”

His response angers and disappoints me to this day.

“Well…I’m not so sure there were dinosaurs.”