The Birth of a Heretic

My mother enjoyed telling the story of my getting banned from Sunday School when I was five years old.

One Sunday at church, Mom and Dad were met by a teacher who told them that I wasn't allowed in Sunday School because I was disruptive.

Mom asked how I was being disruptive.

The teacher replied that I was asking questions she couldn't answer.

My mother replied "What kind of teacher do you think you are if you can't answer a five-year old's questions?"

This didn't go over well. After a conference with the senior minister, my parents were told I had to sit with them in the main sanctuary.

Like many five-year olds, I understood Santa Claus didn't bring presents, the Tooth Fairy didn't leave money under pillows, storks did not deliver babies and parents either didn't know what they were talking about - or they lied about most things.

I had now learned that adults in positions of authority punished you when you pointed out they weren't making sense.

This lesson is reinforced in elementary school and high school. By the time we reach our twenties, we pretty much don't trust anyone.

When faced with the prospect of becoming adults, and realizing the received information we have been given is either inaccurate, distorted, or wrong, we have to decide what kind of an adult we will be.

Will we become an adult who is 'comfortably numb' in our ignorance or will we become 'truth seekers?'

I decided to become a 'truth seeker.' I had no idea that would lead to being branded a 'heretic.'

When I went to seminary, I was still in 'truth seeking' mode. Surely, seminary would be a place where Truth resided.

The first day in Systematic Theology the professor laid out the concept of an Omnipotent and Omniscient Higher Power. At that point, I remembered the question I had asked as a five-year old.

The professor asked if anyone had questions. Nobody did at first. Everybody seemed to be happy with the concepts. I raised my hand.

An affirmative nod from the professor gave me permission to speak.

"If the Divine is all powerful and all-knowing, and if everything is created by the Divine, and if everything created by the Divine is Good, it follows that the Divine created Evil and the Devil. Further, it requires us to understand Evil and the Devil to be Good, since it was created by the Divine and the Divine can only create that which is Good," I stated.

The professor shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She got up and erased everything she had written on the board. She silently wrote something on the board. The class gasped.

"If we are to follow Mr. Barker's reasoning, then either our concepts are wrong," she paused and pointed to what she wrote on the board, "or that is our reality."

She then erased what she had written on the board.

"As we are Christians, we can't talk discuss that possibility," she concluded.

At the end of the semester, the professor refused to grade the paper I turned in because it did not echo Orthodox Christian doctrines or use Orthodox Christian sources.

Again, the lesson learned in Sunday School was repeated. You will get punished if you do not accept the positions of authority figures.

Next: Mrs. McLaughlin's Big Dictionary, Let the Punishment Fit the Crime