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LIVING IN THE ‘BIBLE BELT’ -
AND BELIEVING IN GOOD
The picture shows Botkyrka kyrka, our parish church in Sweden where Brita’s parents are both buried. If you were looking at the church from the left side of the picture, you would see the numbers 1129 above the entrance. That is the year when the first portion of the church was built. Let’s keep that year in mind as we proceed through this web page.
When we came to this country in the early seventies, one of the things that was very different, was the influence of churches. Sweden had a state church - Lutheran - which everybody automatically belonged to, unless they took the action of leaving the church.
The only people who actually did that, were the relatively few who belonged to any of the ‘free churches’. As a result, the Lutheran church had a huge membership - but very few people attended church services except the early morning Christmas service and a few others. Most people just didn’t care.
We spent our first 23 U.S. years in Raleigh, North Carolina. Raleigh is a pretty big city, and though there were occasional efforts from some people to make us join their churches, we never really got close to any of them. Our perception of the churches was that they mainly served as social clubs. We were very active tennis players, and met all the people we wanted, through our membership at Raleigh Racquet Club.
We did see some of the religious activities on TV, and shook our heads. Back in those days, I played tennis once a week with a state legislator from Charlotte. Raleigh is the capital of North Carolina, and when the legislators were in session, we had a regular doubles game, including Ben from Charlotte.
So, one day, I asked Ben, “have you ever met Jim Baker (famous televangelist from Charlotte)?” Without a second’s hesitation, Ben replied, “yes - and I think he is in it for the money.” This was several years before the ‘Praise The Lord’ scandal broke. Ben was obviously right.
Many things are different down here at the North Carolina coast, where we have lived since 1994. Someone told us that coming down here is “like taking a step back in time”. Very true, and for the most part, we really love living here, and we have never ever been so close to nature; it is a very good life. The religious life is probably also a little more like older times.
Every week, the local newspaper publishes a list of all the churches in its area. In a 20 -mile stretch of hwy 24 and some places north and south of it, there are over 30 churches listed, representing at least ten different denominations. For someone who is not close to that activity, it may be logical to ask why so many different denominations. I assume they all believe in the same God?
We are not church people, but we respect people who are sincere about their faith. We also have a strong belief in GOOD (that’s two o’s, folks). We believe that people should be nice and friendly, and try to help each other when they can.
With so many different flavors of religion around us, it is not surprising to find a fair amount of aggressively self-righteous hypocrites. It seems that for some people, going to church regularly, gives them a license to meanness with a holier-than-thou attitude.
During the last few years, it seems that the aggressiveness among some of the church folks has increased at an alarming rate. One disturbing incident was the story from Waynesville, NC where people were told to leave a church unless they voted for a certain political figure. I suspect that the story that made the news was only the tip of the iceberg.
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