Primal Theological Memories

Steve, in his comment to my last post, tells a story from his faith journey when he realized that there were Christians beyond the borders of his faith tradition. I have a similar story. But before I tell it, I'd like to try to start my first internet meme.

There are some psychologists who suggest that our personality and worldview is influenced by and symbolized by evocative childhood memories. Primal memories often loaded with emotion, good or ill. Some have suggested that these early childhood memories affect our theological beliefs. For example, W. Paul Jones makes this claim explicitly in his book Theological Worlds. Jones suggests that early childhood memories set up and represent our obsessio, what we find perplexing about life.

I don't know if this is true and I don't want to get all psychoanalytical on you. But I do think there is some truth to the idea of primal theological memories. I think most of us can look back at childhood or adolescence and recall a time when our worldview opened up and was changed in ways we didn't appreciate at the time.

So, here's the meme. Tell a story on your blog (or here if you don't have one) that you consider to be a primal theological memory in your life. The rules:

1. This should date from childhood to adolescence.
2. It should be a memory that you think symbolizes or has directly affected your theological development. And this could be theological movement forward, backward, sideways, or just different.
3. Encourage others to share their memories.

To start, here is my memory:

I was raised in a very devout, church-going home. We were members of the Church of Christ. And, obviously, as a child we sang "Jesus Loves Me" almost every Sunday in Bible Class:

Jesus loves me this I know
For the bible tells me so.
Little ones to him belong
They are weak but he is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
The bible tells me so.

One day, and I remember this vividly, I was playing in the neighborhood and I heard a girl singing. She was singing "Jesus Loves Me." I remember walking closer to get a better look at her. Obviously, she had to be a girl from my church. Because that was a song I learned at my church. But when I got closer I realized that she wasn't from my church. And then it hit me. Other churches, non-Church of Christ churches, are singing "Jesus Loves Me." How can that be? My little mind swirled. How can they know this song if they don't go to my church?

Looking back, I think in that moment something started inside of me that is still growing and moving. From that day on I never looked at church the same way again. I thought "Jesus Loves Me" was MY song. OUR song. Owned by my church.

But, apparently, we didn't own it.

Others knew it and sang it.