In the Shadow of Fundamentalism

Chapter 1 ,Part 1

Children of a Greater God.

This story begins in a small suburban region in upstate New York, far from the bustle and chaos of the urban sprawl of New York City. This green valley, known as the Twin Tiers, consisted of several sleepy towns linked along the arterial passage of a single noteworthy highway, and economically fueled by a handful of thriving factories and industrial centers.

The most powerful of these industrial leaders is a company known as Corning Glass – famous throughout the world for their production of fiber optic materials and glassware. Corning Glass grew so rapidly in the 1980’s that the surrounding neighborhoods were quickly filled with executives and low level managers living the suburban dream.

Upstate New York is a grey and dreary place for almost eight months of the year. The hills and mountains shade the Chemung valley from the warm embrace of the sun, and keep the inhabitants of the valley from more than a few hours of light and heat in the winter. In the late summer these same hills become the canvas ofa huge pointillist painting comprised of seemingly limitless dots of gold, amber, and scarlet.

Natural beauty aside, there is little the Twin Tiers has to offer its inhabitants aside from cold and isolation through most of the year. While gazing towards the heavens brought little warmth and hope from the sun, most of this valley’s people look upward searching for solace in a more ephemeral embrace. Religion thrives in upstate New York. Birthplace and home to the Mormons, the shakers, the seventh day Adventists, and numerous other offshoots of baseline Christianity, upstate New York is a virtual haven for those who believe or wish to believe.
Our parents believed.

In the 1970’s, the refugees of America’s psychedelic age began to raise families and build stable homes. They “sold out,” abandoning bohemian idealism and questing for a means to offer their children some shred of normalcy and the opportunity to integrate with capitalist society as a whole. Many of them became as fanatical about rigid religious belief as they had once been about cultural revolution and protest. They clung to the teachings of their churches, and behaved as if they had never challenged society or questioned the paradigms and taboos of their own parents and families.

My parents were involved in one particular splinter of the Protestant tree, known commonly as the “Evangelical Charismatic” sect of Christianity. Spike succinctly defines Charismatic Christianity as: “A belief that an individual can have direct contact with the Christian divinity and that the proof of this contact are the ‘gifts’ or ‘charis’ of the Holy Spirit: glossolalia (speaking in tongues), healing, visions, prophecy, and other miracles of supposed supernatural origin.” [is this your definition or are you quoting?] The churches they attended from the moment of their denouncement of the Hippie lifestyle were all halls of worship that included these activities. Members of the churches commonly gave prophesy, acting as the mortal vessels through which His will and voice could be heard.

When the quest for employment and fiscal stability moved my family from the culturally diverse immigrant town my father was born in to the sleepy foothills of Elmira New York, their quest for a new Charismatic Church began. Friends of my parents who had made a similar move recommended a small young church presided over by a thunderous and intelligent African-American minister. His congregation was renting a space from another church for their Sunday meetings, and their services were full of young families and squealing children. This church called itself the “Christian Hope Center.”

“Hope for what?” you might ask.
Hope for their children, their future, and hope in the shining idealism of their new-found faith.

In 1987 a group of parents from this church, concerned with the bend of modern society and the affects this was having on their children, held a formal meeting to discuss the concept of creating a small learning environment in which their precious progeny could learn, an environment free of drugs, foul language, sexuality, and petty crime. I remember sitting with my parents while Pastor Harry and a tall thin youthful blonde man (introduced proudly as a Christian with a degree in education who was qualified to mold our young minds) explained their vision for a place called Hope Christian Academy. This was a school taught by an elite and select band of Christians from our church and attended by their own children. This was an envelope, a bubble free of outside influences and distractions where the Christian youth could pursue academic study free from carnal distractions. This was the dream of our religious parents made tangible.

posted by NY Monk @ 7:53 PM