By vadarama ~ I ’m 29 and have been in recovery from evangelical fundamentalism for a few years now. I’m still trying to assemble an identity and a life apart from God. I was born in Philadelphia and grew up in a ministry family. My father served at churches and non-profits in different regions of the US with wife and two children in tow. We followed God’s lead, no matter how indecipherable the directions. Dad was the official recipient of the Holy Spirit’s messages, and Mom was dutiful but strong-headed. Uncertainty, pressure and tension followed us wherever we went. My little brother and I cycled between imaginative play and overt hostility, riding atmospheric waves of marital discord. Common features among our childhood homes were egg-shell floors and thin walls. God was the real head of our household. Authoritarian and perfectionist, he was never pleased. Heavenly Father’s nature kept my Earth Dad feeling just shy of the mark in every endeavor. Dad wore the frustration and ...

By Vadarama ~ F or decades I took the Bible’s creation account as historical fact. I knew the world’s first human was molded by the same hands that knit me together in my mother’s womb . 1 God’s own breath infused brand new dust to create a conscious body. Other species were spoken into spontaneous existence before having their naming ceremony casually outsourced, but Adam was fearfully and wonderfully made . 2 We humans were the big stars all along. Earth was a backdrop for our high-stakes drama- a prelude to eternal bliss or agony. Though God had worked on it to the point of exhaustion, He wanted us to be “in the world but not of it” 3 - divine beams of light trapped in fragile jars of clay . 4 We were doomed to our prisons of expiring flesh until our eventual homecoming in paradise. I expected that realm to be much more hospitable, since up there, no earth quakes, no cancer spreads and no heart splits in two. Mostly, I yearned for the boundless joy, unmediated worship an...