After the smiling young women made their way back to their seats in the front row, the evangelist strode up to the podium to deliver a message that built on the fears provoked by this song. As the sermon crescendoed, he spoke dramatically, often in a quiet, haunting tone. You could hear a pin drop.
“If you don’t accept Christ, you are destined to go to hell. You’re in complete darkness. The hottest heat in the world is a black heat. Bumping into people you don’t know. Never seeing anybody. In constant pain and terror. But you don’t have to be left behind. You don’t have to go to hell if you die, because if tonight you accept Jesus to be your God, you can have eternal life. Come forward now as the pianist plays ‘I Surrender All.’ Don’t wait; you come now. Friend, don’t be left behind.”
The dramatic speakers weren’t the only ones who inspired dread and despair inside me. We were given a best-selling book called 666 by Salem Kirban, and inside were black-and-white photos depicting what it would be like in the last days. The photographs shared in the book were taken from the Holocaust to convey what this end-time scenario would look like.
I had nightmares about being left behind for years. I would wake up from one of those dreams, my heart elevated, my breathing shortened, and eyes wide open. Grateful that I was alive and there was still time left for me to make sure once again I was “saved.” Once I even came home to find nobody home and I instantly panicked, thinking I’d missed the Rapture. Eventually I found my brother, and at first I was relieved. But then I remembered who my brother was and assumed we’d both been left behind!
I laughed at my panic, but then my laughter quickly subsided because I wouldn’t want even my worst enemy to go through the period of time that would be called the Tribulation. We were told life and everything in the world would continue to get worse. Eventually the end of humanity would come and Jesus would rescue us by coming again. We were convinced that the only reason we were on this planet was to share Jesus with someone so they wouldn’t have to experience the end times or eternal hell. As a child, I was trained to go door to door in the new neighborhoods in Arizona to share the good news. Our youth group would either place paper tracts advertising the church on doors or canvas the neighborhood, knocking on doors and engaging the unsuspecting homeowners.
“Hi, my name is Dave and these are my friends. We’re from City Baptist Church. If you don’t mind, could we ask you a question?”
Most of the people were kind, just smiled and awkwardly took the tract or little pamphlet we handed to them. I imagine many of them threw the handouts into the trash can. But if they were interested and said we could ask them a question, we kept going with the script we’d memorized and delivered the stilted, robotic and awkward pitch:
“Sir, if you were to die tonight, do you know where you would go? Heaven [hand gesture points to the sky] or hell [hand points to the ground]?”
If they said heaven, we asked them how they knew. If they said some version of, “By believing in Jesus that he died and came to save us, and asking him to forgive us of all our sins and accepting his gift of eternal life,” then we were satisfied that they were indeed “saved.” If not, then we showed them what the answer was by way of diagrams and Bible verses.
Embarrassed, I still knocked on doors with these pink paper tracts, but we were trained to work through that reluctance. If these people died and went to hell, we were told, then one day they might ask us a haunting question:
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
As I look back on this, much of what we did was motivated by fear. For years, I got off planes feeling guilty for not speaking to the person sitting next to me about Jesus. This mind-set taught me to look at people as projects. It was robotic and felt unnatural. It felt cold, because there wasn’t the natural flow of respect, because it wasn’t about having compassion for others but essentially just preaching at people.
Later in my life I read in the Bible that “perfect love casts out fear.” The Jesus I read about seems to fiercely love everyone—especially those who don’t know him or would be considered the worst of sinners. Jesus seemed to love the outcasts, the misfits, the marginalized, and those considered outside the norm. In the Christian bubble I grew up in, we said Jesus loves people. But I don’t remember that feeling dominating me as much as fear and the urgency to get people “saved.” That was our common agenda whenever we met someone new.
Our training was that if you were not “saved,” you were still thinking like the world and living like the world (the “world” being defined as a culture not of God, one that was opposed to and even hostile to a Christian’s beliefs and value system). Which then meant that you were foolish in your thinking. Not to be trusted. A possible “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” People were souls to be won, fish to be caught, or wolves who would prey upon us if we didn’t watch out. People who weren’t Christians were not respected as much as those who were Christians. If you’d asked us, we would have said that all people were made in God’s image, but there was a world of a difference between the way we treated those who were Christians and those who were not. If someone wasn’t “saved,” you couldn’t trust their thinking, logic, worldviews, or presuppositions. There was a clear us-versus-them mind-set. Saved and unsaved. You’re either in or you’re out.
Our mission became clear. The reason we were left on the earth was to witness to others. Expect those liberals and worldly people to be against you. Hang in there—Jesus is coming soon even if most of the world is going to hell. And this was the good news.
CHAPTER FIVE Saved by a Short-Haired Jesus
When the bell went off at 8:29 a.m., my classmates and I stopped the small talk and messing around on the playground and hurried to get in line for opening assembly. Kids scrambled to get in place. It was the first bell of two; when the second campus bell rang, we were all expected to be in neat rows, much like you’d see at a military academy. We all lined up according to our grades outside on the asphalt parking lot. This was the protocol every morning before the start of our classes.
I was at a new school. My parents became more comfortable with our church, and they’d made the decision to send Doug and me to the newly formed Christian school called City Academy, which was conveniently located five minutes from our house. This was my opportunity for a fresh start. This school had been started by City Church, so to the delight of my uncle Lloyd, we were now immersed into God things almost 24/7. Doug and I were at church and the school almost every day of the week. We spent more time at church than at Uncle Lloyd’s house. There was chapel or church services every day. Bible classes, too.
Chong didn’t have to attend our private school because they didn’t have high school classes available yet. So she stayed at the public school in Mesa, Arizona. But Doug and I were excited because attending private school felt like we were moving on up in the world. It was like we had even achieved a new economic status. Only the rich kids went to private schools. We felt like our parents were making bank.
In actuality, the school leaders were less concerned with providing an elite customized education and more concerned with making sure we children weren’t indoctrinated with “worldly” thinking. The focus for the school was biblical teaching to counter the public school’s “heresies.” When school started, they didn’t have teachers for some of the grades. They had room monitors who gave us booklets to read and administered tests. It was a form of do-it-yourself education—they called it self-learning.
City Academy had a smaller student body than the public school, so each student could get customized care, even if the teachers weren’t credentialed. The “teachers” were diligent to make sure we were law-abiding citizens. The environment felt safer because there were strict rules. But it could feel oppressive if you were used to more fun environments. Rules existed about everything—clothing, profanity, hairstyles, music, movies, and respect for authority. Boys had to make sure their hair was cut off by their ears and tapered in the back. This was an annoying rule because long hair was more in vogue. As we were becoming teenagers, our looks and fashion mattered. One day I asked a school leader about this rule. I was perturbed about it, but trying hard not to sound disrespectful.
“Why do we have to get such short haircuts?”
Even before he answered, the leader’s annoyed expression telegraphed exactly how he felt.
“Isn’t it obvious? It’s because Jesus had short hair. Long hair is a sign of rebellion. Also, read this pamphlet about how historically it’s been noted he had short hair.”
Jesus had short hair?
I had assumed Jesus had long hair. All the pictures I’d seen depicted Him with long flowing dark hair. He was white and even had blue eyes. I didn’t challenge the teacher at the time; I wasn’t able to muster up the courage. Besides, we were taught to simply respect authority. Don’t argue. They made sure to tell us that the Bible says rebellion is worse than witchcraft.
I later understood that the long hair rule was really about their belief that the culture’s embrace of long hair was an expression of rebellion. At the time, the US government was making multiple blunders, especially as it related to the Vietnam War. A rising number of young people were tired of seeing their friends and classmates sent into combat for what they felt to be a needless war, and they grew their hair long in protest or simply because it looked good long. Our teachers told us the Christian response:
“We’re not to have this type of spirit of rebellion against our government. The Bible says we are supposed to render the things that are Ceasar’s to Caesar. Unless, of course, it conflicts with the Bible” (meaning their interpretation of the Bible).
While the boys had to consider hair length, the girls had to ponder skirt lengths, since miniskirts were in style. The girls had to wear long dresses reminiscent of television Westerns or skirts that didn’t go above the knees. Pants weren’t allowed, either, because you couldn’t look like the boys. Pants were to be worn only by boys and men, even during the physical education classes. The only trousers the girls could wear during this period were hybrid pant skirts called culottes. Unfortunately for the girls at our school, the required culottes were an ugly shade of green. It was odd that they couldn’t wear shorts. Again, that would be considered “worldly” for showing too much skin.
Each day at City Academy started the same. At the morning assembly, our principal greeted us in his crisp white shirt, dark tie, and dark suit coat and quoted a Bible verse. Two students would then be selected to hold the Christian flag and a large black Bible. We placed our hands over our hearts and recited three pledges first to the American flag and then to the Christian flag. The latter was mostly white with a blue square like the American flag, but instead of stars, a red cross was placed in the middle of the blue square.
After the pledge to the American flag, we still had our hands over our hearts.
“I pledge allegiance to the Christian Flag and to the Savior for whose Kingdom it stands. One Savior, crucified, risen, and coming again with life and liberty to all who believe.”
Then the students all stared at the individual who held the bible, and we continue on:
“I pledge allegiance to the Bible, God’s Holy Word, I will make it a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path and will hide its words in my heart that I might not sin against God.”
Throughout the day, the Bible was taught and spoken about. If we memorized verses, we were rewarded with stickers and prizes. And of course, admiration from parents and leaders. Insignias were placed on our gray uniforms for memorizing verses and chapters of the Bible. I came to discover that the evangelical world often used warlike imagery and nomenclature. We sang songs with lyrics like:
Onward Christian Soldiers
marching into war
with the cross of Jesus
Going on before.
Later, at my Christian college, the ministerial class at our large assembly would sing:
