Reply #10: I was a Nazarene preacher's wife. [View All]

Still married to him but he left the ministry 20 years ago. I was raised with a fairly fundamentalist upbringing - not really strict at home but the church was along those lines. I think I really gravitated toward it as a teenager because it was black and white - and I was of course scared to death of burning in hell. It was security, someone in charge, because my home life between two step-parents and a nasty divorce with my parents was so insecure. Went to a Christian college, married my guy who was a preacher's son and did what was expected but after a few years in it decided to get out. We were always liberal politically and saw no conflict between politics and religion (before the Christian Coalition bunch hijacked it). Hubby said he was in the pulpit one day and looked around the rural church we were in and thought "I wouldn't be friends with any of you if I was not your minister and you are hung up on these stupid issues of tobacco and pants wearing and couldn't have an abstract thought if you tried," and it was not long before we made an exit. There were always more ministers than positions available and he decided he should not take up space when someone else really wanted that space. So that is my fundamentalist story...