God only knows

Last week, a video started circulating on the Internet featuring an adorable little tyke singing for what is, reportedly, an Indiana-area church congregation.

The song? A tuneless number featuring the lyrics “Ain’t no homos going to make it to heaven.” Sweet, huh?

For his efforts, the kid—maybe 2 years old, 3 tops—received a standing ovation, cheers, and even laughs from the audience and pastor alike.

Certainly, the kid in the video learned the song from an adult in his life—a parent, a teacher, a church member. Certainly he has no concept of the words he’s singing, no veritable grasp on the hateful nature of his message.

In addition to leaving a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, the video also reminded me of my own childhood growing up in various church settings—a period that undoubtedly, influenced my current perspectives on religion, spirituality and tolerance.

Parochial schools and summers spent at vacation Bible school. A religion-heavy overnight camp and every Sunday, wiling away time in the pews of a Southern Baptist church.

I remember plenty from those years—teachings from the Bible, varying philosophies on our purpose, parables about love and redemption and stories about sinning.

Oh, yes, the sinning.

I sinned with the worst of them long before I even hit adolescence.

Or so said so many of my peers—kids who were, no doubt, repeating words and ideas fed to them by adults. Words and ideas that, I’m almost certain, they had little grasp on at the time.

A sampling of the sins my childhood self committed—at least as told to me by classmates and peers:

Wearing shorts.

Wearing skirts above the knees.

Talking to boys in an “inappropriate manner”—i.e., at all.

Wearing my hair short.

Really, the biggest sin committed when my mother had the stylist shape my hair into some unholy take on a shaggy pixie cut was just how unflattering the style was on me, but according to my best friend, the mere fact that my locks no longer skimmed my shoulders meant I was doomed to hell.

“A woman’s hair is her crowning glory,” she informed me solemnly during recess, flipping her long mane of thick black hair with pride as we sat, lazily, in a swing set. “You have to pray to God for forgiveness—and grow it back really fast.”

In retrospect, her conviction seems quaint and funny. But sad, too. At the time I remember feeling equal parts anger—at her, at my mother, at God—confusion and doubt.

Hell? Really? For cutting my hair?

My mother eventually reassured me that God still loved me, short hair and all. She told me, too, that the Bible was merely an ancient textbook written by men. It was not, she said, the literal last word on how we should live our lives. Rather, it provided a roadmap; but sometimes, she added, you had to figure out things on your own.

Years later her words still influence me. Spirituality shouldn’t be about hurling accusations and leavening judgments. It should be about love and acceptance and helping others.

But while there are millions of religious people who are loving and kind and charitable, too often, so-called believers don’t subscribe to that ethos—a fact all too clear when you watch a video of a child, barely out of the toddler stage, repeat the hateful beliefs of the very people who should be teaching him how to be a good, responsible and loving person.