Over the next four years, I did this. I served the Lord in a number of ministries at church: orchestra, visitation, the high school (and afterwards, college) mid-week Bible study, etc. I was a leader in an evangelistic club my last year of high school, and was involved in the other Christian groups. When I went to college, I went to both the Baptist Student Union meetings and the Campus Crusade for Christ meetings, until finally settling in just the BSU. Based on what others said of me, it would seem I was respected in my church groups. I’ve even had it suggested to me that I should become a pastor. As those four years went on, though, I found myself moving further and further from the accepted doctrines of my church. In fact, before I graduated college, I began to be criticized for various things I said and did.

One of the most seminal events involved an argument about eschatology. Now, at first, I had read the Left Behind series, and pretty much believed the “dispensational pre-millenialism” that my church taught (Rapture, 7 year Tribulation, and so on). However, one day, as I was reading a passage in the Gospels that my church believed taught this eschatology, I realized something about Christ’s words regarding the Tribulation: it sounded like we (the Church, as I understood it) would be there! It was clear as day! In a conversation with my Sunday School teacher, he pointed out other verses that said the same thing.

Not much later, when speaking with a friend, I had related my belief in this. He was surprised and incredulous. That weekend, at a class party, he brought this up, and ignited a debate between myself and many others in the class, with them trying to convince me that my view was wrong. The importance of this event was that every one of their arguments went thus: “I was speaking with such-and-such a pastor, and he said,” or “So-and-so says, in his commentary…”. When they did use Scripture, I found the passages to either say nothing either way or to support my view. Although I now look back on this event as the first seed that would ultimately bear fruit in the realization that Sola Scriptura is impossible, at the time, I simply came away from the argument disappointed. Weren’t we supposed to “just believe the Bible?” Then why was such an apparently important part of doctrine so dependent on “human interpretation?”

Many other things also occurred to move me progressively away from the teaching and practice of my church, including disillusionment with the way evangelism was practiced, the casualness which seemed an acceptable way to approach the spiritual life, and so on. However, time and space only allow me to touch on the most important points.

One of these points was my becoming a Calvinist. I had, when I first encountered this doctrine, rejected it outright; it was unworthy of the glory of God. However, one day—again, in the first year or two of my spiritual life—as I was reading Romans, I came across a passage (I forget which it was) that changed my mind. Based on this passage, I came to see the doctrine of predestination as, in fact, glorifying God! This change in attitude was later encouraged by a couple people I met at church who were convinced Calvinists, despite the fact that it seemed that Calvinism was one traditional Baptist principle that was fiercely rejected by our pastor (and, therefore, by most of the church).

Although I reject Calvinism now, I believe it was through Calvinism that I began to be introduced to the idea of Tradition. Up until this point, I had read very little in works by “dead people.” Most every spiritual book I had read was written by modern, Evangelical authors. I listened exclusively to Christian Contemporary Music.

It was in my beginning interest in studying theology, fueled often by discussions on Calvinism, that I began to look at Church History. I began listening to voices from the past: Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, and Matthew Henry, among others.

It was also during this time that I began reading A.W. Tozer, whose living mysticism was a needed balance to the often coldly-rational theology of Calvinism. It was through A.W. Tozer that I was first introduced to the idea of reading “Catholic authors” (which included the Church Fathers). Tozer drew from mystical writing of all sorts (within Christendom). He was widely read (though his reading of “Catholic” sources—which, I became very interested to learn, seemed to make up the greatest body of mystical writing in the West—did not seem to affect his commitment to “Full Gospel preaching”), and it was through him I was introduced to such authors as Brother Lawrence. In addition, his writings encouraged in me that which was looking for “something more,” something “fuller” than what I had seen.

My time as a full-blown Calvinist was somewhat short-lived, but it served it’s purpose. It opened me up to reading Christian authors outside of my own tradition. Ultimately, it was through a Reformed website that I came across the first work by a Church Father that I ever read: St. Athanasius’ On the Incarnation. Reading this book online was, perhaps, the turning point in my journey. Though it did not cause me to throw out all my Reformed books and start bowing to icons, it was about this point in my life that the progression that had, up to now, taken almost 4 years, began to speed up. By the end of my senior year of college, I began hearing that people were criticizing me for such things as “quoting men more than Scripture,” and a few months after graduation, I visited an Orthodox Church for the first time. It would be a year after that first visit that I would return, but before we jump too far ahead, there were a few more things I had to learn to be able to even consider accepting the Church.

As it happened, the week before my mother finally confronted me about taking drugs, I was sitting on a bus coming back from a band trip to Disney World, and decided, I still don’t know why, that I didn’t want to be like I was anymore. This allowed me to be honest with my mom when she asked me if I was doing drugs, but also allowed me to say that I had already decided to quit.

I began to be more attentive in church, and even started going to a Wednesday night prayer meeting. Slowly, through this, and through the death of a friend of mine while we were swimming (which caused me to realize I had never spoken to him about Christ and didn’t know where he was), God was drawing me back to Himself. However, I still had some sinful habits that, despite my best efforts, I couldn’t let go of.

I knelt in prayer one evening, and was asking God’s help to overcome these sins. I can’t explain exactly what happened, but in my mind I “heard” the words, “I don’t just want your sins; I want all of you.” This was something that, though I knew it was right, I couldn’t do: give all of myself to the Lord. This meant more than just giving up my sins; this meant giving up everything. I prayed for God to help me do this, to make me willing. Finally, one evening, at a mid-week high school service at church, the speaker gave an invitation, and, after some struggle, I responded. As I stood in front of the room (”rededicating my life,” as they called it), I remember feeling freer than I ever had before. In that moment, my life changed drastically. As one of my friends later said it, “You started changing some last summer, but then sometime in the fall, you just went off the deep end.”

Some months, later, however, came my first departure from proper Evangelical Baptist doctrine.

It began with me doubting my salvation. Lacking any sort of real spiritual guide (in the Orthodox Church, a “spiritual father”), I had come to put much faith in the emotion I felt during prayer. One day, for whatever reason, this emotion ceased. My prayer seemed dead. What I understood to be a relationship with God didn’t seem to be there. As a result, I began to doubt my salvation.

Part of this had to do with my belief that the evening I “rededicated my life” was, in actuality, the evening that I had “been saved” (I had even been re-baptized based on this belief). This was based on reading Christ’s saying that those who do not leave all behind are not worthy of Him. However, my understanding, from everything I had heard growing up Baptist, was that you had to “pray the prayer.” I had not prayed that prayer! And so I began to struggle with fears that I might go to Hell. Statements often made in altar calls in my church keep flooding my mind. One such statement was, “Are you 100% sure that, if you died tonight, you would be saved? You say you’re 99% sure, but is that 1% a chance you’d risk eternity on?” I recall one evening that I stayed up as late as I could praying, afraid to go to bed, lest I die that night and go to Hell.

I was also tormented by the statement I had heard at church, “Satan would never make you doubt your salvation, because that would only draw you closer to God.” So, then, that meant I must not be saved? “But how,” I thought, “can I get any more saved?” Remember, I was basing my “assurance of salvation” on emotion. When I finally talked to my mom about this, her response was that Satan was causing me to doubt my salvation to paralyze me so I couldn’t serve the Lord (looking back, I believe she was right). But how could I be sure?

Finally, I came to a breaking point; something had to give. There was only one solution that made any sense. However, this solution flew in the face of everything I had heard about the “assurance of salvation.” Regardless, I decided to stop worrying about it. I would simply serve the Lord as best I could, and trust Him that, if I wasn’t “saved,” He would bring me to that point of salvation in due time.

Because this decision was contrary to the 100% assurance that is taught in Evangelical circles, I did often have periods of time that I revisited this question, and struggled with it. It wasn’t until some years later, when I began reading “dead people” that I found, in both a sermon by Charles Spurgeon and The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, a similar attitude toward “assurance of salvation.”

I think it was because of this experience that I was never able to fully embrace the Evangelical Gospel: that you need only pray a prayer—sincerely and with faith—and you can be 100% sure that you will go to Heaven. As I have said since, “I was more sure of my salvation before I was saved than I have been since.”

But this was only the beginning of my departure from Evangelicalism.

Online, I go by the handle ‘coderforchrist.’ This gives a small amount of info about me: I am a computer geek, programmer, and a Christian. I’m the youngest of the four here, being (as of this writing) in my mid 20’s, and graduated from college a few years ago with a B.S. in Computer Science. Despite my youth relative to the other authors here, I am the only one of us four who has, currently, completed Catechism and been received into the Church (I was received into the Orthodox Church by Holy Chrismation on May 20, 2007). Having been Orthodox for only less than a year, I often feel like an infant learning to walk. Orthodoxy is not something you do on Sundays; it demands your entire life (as it should). Likewise, our Tradition does not merely govern how we worship in Church (or even merely how we pray at home); it is a way of life. There is so much to learn, but, at the same time, there is also so much help. Why this is appealing to me is something I hope to explore as we continue this blog.

And so to the currently proposed structure of my story: I intend to start my story with my “conversion experience” in a Southern Baptist church in high school and my first experiences in the SBC and how my theology began moving drastically away from Baptist teaching in my next post; afterwards, I will recount my departure from the SBC and “wandering in the wilderness;” finally, I will discuss my “coming home” to the Orthodox Church, going through catechism, and up to the present day. The reason for going so far back is that, based on some reactions from those who have known me, my conversion to Orthodoxy seems rather sudden: one day, I was a good, Southern Baptist, and a few months later I’m being received into the Orthodox Church. The truth, however, is that I started on the path that led me to Orthodoxy almost from the beginning. In hindsight, I can look back on all the various detours I took and see God’s Hand guiding me gently into the Church over a number of years.

As my next post will begin with my “conversion experience,” I will finish this introduction with the story leading up to that point:

The oldest of three, I was born in North Carolina, and moved to Georgia when I was very young. My mother raised us going to the Southern Baptist church (we went to a couple churches before settling in First Baptist, where I was mostly raised); for many years, my father did not attend church regularly, though he is now as faithful in attendance as my mom. I made a profession of faith and was baptized when I was 11 years old. However, as I began middle school (grades 7-8), I began to move away from the church. I still attended, and even went to Sunday School, but that was mostly because I had to. In high school, one girl I dated came to our church with her family, and we would often skip Sunday School and, instead, go sit in a stairwell and talk.

Of course, instead of being formed by the church, I was largely formed by my friends. I joined in with the “freaks” and “goths,” and also hung out with the “skaters,” “punks,” etc. I developed an interest in vampires, serial killers, demons, and other evil things. In my junior year, I hit my darkest point, and began taking various drugs. My junior year was also when I first joined marching band, and had, the summer before, a bad break-up with a girlfriend. Even a couple of my friends began to express some concern for me at that time.

Oddly, despite the darkness I had immersed myself into, I still confessed myself as a “Christian” (though often with caveat, “I’m just not very good at it”). I even still wore a cross necklace my mother had given me. When my Literature teacher asked for a volunteer to read Jonathan Edwards’ sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” I volunteered, because, in my mind, I went to a “fire-and-brimstone” church, so it just made sense for me to read such a sermon (the day I was to read it, I—rather unintentionally, actually—happened to wear a black t-shirt with the face of Darth Maul on the front). Eventually, I decided that I didn’t really want to be a good Christian because “Christians can’t have fun.” Then again, I didn’t worry about my eternal salvation because I believed in God and Jesus and believed I was “saved.” Therefore, it didn’t matter what I did, because I would still go to Heaven.

As the Scriptures say, though, “Where sin abounds, grace doth even more abound.” My family and some friends had begun praying for me, and Light began to break through.