I Don’t Feel Comfortable as a Vegan Activist Because of My Evangelical Upbringing
A spiritual experience is what led me away from eating animals, but I stopped evangelizing for anything when I left the church.
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Church was a major part of my life growing up. I went to both church service and children’s Sunday School on Sundays, choir practice on Tuesdays, and a kids’ program on Wednesday nights aptly called “Wednesday Night Kids’ Club.” Every summer, I’d spend a week of mornings in someone’s backyard for Vacation Bible School along with a full week at a Christian summer camp.
I loved church.
Church was like school, which I also loved, but with better food and cooler activities. We listened to adults tell stories and watched videos like McGee and Me! about a real-life kid who learned lessons from his skateboarding cartoon friend. We ate snacks and played silly, Double Dare-style games. We sang and prayed. Everyone was happy and everything we did felt fun.
In middle school and the first two years of high school, I attended youth group on Sunday nights as well as occasional Friday night youth events. Instead of quitting the Sunday School, Kids’ Club, and Vacation Bible School I’d aged out of, I became a teacher.
Naturally, I invited my school friends to church. I wanted to let them in on the good time. Most of my friends were Catholic, and they were amazed at how different and fun my church was compared to theirs. I’d been taught that although Catholics prayed to the same God we did, most hadn’t been “saved” because they hadn’t accepted Jesus into their hearts.
When I was in middle school, I began asking friends to accept Christ after church leaders suggested it. My church didn’t preach fire and brimstone. They essentially said anyone who hadn’t accepted Christ wouldn’t get into Heaven, a place they described as perfection itself. I wanted the fun I had with friends to extend into eternity.
Shortly after, our youth pastor took me aside to congratulate me on making two of my “secular” friends regular youth group attendees. They’d both accepted Christ recently, and he praised me for being “calculating” in leading them to this decision.
