9  Religious School

The Neillsville public schools had for a generation been consolidated into a single building at the top of a hill on the eastern edge of town. I entered kindergarten on one side of that building and graduated high school on the other side. In between was a middle school that, in the mid 1970s needed major construction, a years-long project that required all sixth graders to bus daily to an old one-room schoolhouse outside of town, the only place large enough to hold the classes. My brother attended there for his sixth grade, and I would have gone there too, but about that time a new school opened in town: the pastor of the Bible Baptist Church began accepting students for a religious-oriented school for kids from kindergarten to high school somehow it was decided that I would attend too, for a year. Jimbo’s parents decided to send him as well, so the two of us joined about 20 or 30 kids each day in the pastor’s house, where small divided desks had been set up for our school.

The curriculum was from a national organization called Accelerated Christian Education that produced a series of go-at-your-own-pace workbooks on all subjects relevant to a primary school education. The process was simple: you take a short test to determine your initial classroom level, and you work your way through various assignments and quizzes in a workbook until you could prove through passing another test that you know the material. For me, it was a natural and easy way to learn and I breezed through much more than one year’s worth of material in the time I was there.

The curriculum’s initials, ACE, also stood for a series of “privileges” you could earn weekly for various academic-related tasks. The “A” privilege was easiest to achieve, and it allowed you to have regular recesses in exchange for completing a certain amount of work on time each week. “C” gave you additional recess time and it was flexible: you didn’t have to take your breaks with everyone else. In return, you were expected to do all the work required for “A”, plus extra, and there were some other tasks, like completing a book report. But I worked hard to achieve the hardest, “E” privilege, which gave unlimited recess time. You earn it with all the “C” requirements plus a class presentation and some Bible memorization. Although I started the year striving for “C” privileges, matching Jimbo, I soon realized that “E” wasn’t that much harder, and soon I was achieving “E” every week, greatly increasing my free time.

Attending the school allowed me to became good friends with many of the students, most of whom were hard-core Bible Baptists. One peculiar characteristic of religion is that often the biggest animosities are reserved for those who are more similar in doctrine than those who disbelieve altogether. So it is that Southern Baptists disagree more vehemently with Bible Baptists – often to the point of veering into personal attacks – than they do with, say, Catholics, Mormons, or even atheists. To a Bible Baptist, an atheist can be excused perhaps for simply misunderstanding the message of Christianity; but a Southern Baptist has no excuse. When the two denominations disagree – as they often do – about the meaning of a single word in a Bible verse, neither side is guilty of a misunderstanding. The only way such a disagreement could happen is through willful, perhaps even malevolent blindness.

To fundamentalist Christians, there is no greater apostasy than to break with the True Faith on the matters of theological urgency that separated our churches, and the year I spent with the Baptists was for me marked with great memories of theological debates, both with other students and with the pastor.

David Webster fit all the stereotypes of a thundering Christian fundamentalist: crew cut hair, always dressed in white shirt and tie, deeply and sincerely committed to his faith. I found him stern, but fair, and nobody could ever accuse him of hypocrisy: I know he sincerely believed in everything he taught, and he lived his life according to the principles he expected from us.

A fierce anti-communist and sincere follower of the John Birch society, he saw the hand of Satan in everything, and believed America was great only because of its Judeo-Christian principles, a bedrock that had greatly and perhaps irreversibly eroded by the time he met us. Rock ’n roll music, everyone in Hollywood, the international banking system, much of the scientific establishment, and many more powerful institutions were in open conspiracy against us, and we would prevail only by holding our Christianity tightly.

Our discussions at recess and lunch grew into deep theological, philosophical, and often scientific debates, and I thrived. He tried to convince me that my father’s church was victim of a terrible Satan-inspired lie that hinged on some subtle Biblical wording. Similarly, he taught me how science was polluted with demonic lies about the nature of God’s creation; Evolution of course was the worst offender of all, insidious because from a purely scientific standpoint it made a mockery of the scientific method. How could anyone be fooled by such obvious falsehood?

I learned so much from him that year, and from my fellow students, as we debated these great issues. For the first time I was forced to confront how my father’s religious beliefs were distinct from other Christians, but I was able to do it in a friendly environment of people who treated the Scriptures as sincerely as he did – the only difference being that they had found an alternative interpretation. Although I didn’t get to debate Evolution in the same way – we were on the same side on that issue – I learned to respect the skill of delving into facts, always looking for holes in my arguments, to be prepared for a debate with eternal and life-or-death consequences.