History, up to 1984.

I'm going to leave some details fuzzy, since I'm giving you my real given name (my Christian name, as it were).


My name is Christian, and I am an atheist. I'm 27, and currently a college senior, majoring in Economics. I've lived in Michigan all my life, and if you allow for a fairly broad definition of West Michigan, I've lived in West Michigan all my life too. (I'd say everything west of Jackson, Flint and Saginaw is West Michigan. The state really is Detroit and Everything Else.)


My father was raised in a (programmed, unfortunately) Quaker church, and my mother was raised Episcopalian. They met in college. At some point my father started going to my mother's church - he said he liked the ceremony of it particularly. It's pretty pomp-and-Catholic, so I can see where he's coming from. He was a religious studies major, my mother was a teacher candidate, and Dad was considering seminary.



(I was really disappointed when I found out, at maybe age ten, about their original career paths. I had decided that the coolest jobs for your parents to have would be preacher and teacher. I was really disappointed that they turned out to be a secretary and an insurance underwriter.)



So Dad didn't go to seminary, but they did name their firstborn son Christian, after Mon's grandfather, and also (I suspect) as a nod to Dad's road not taken. And I've been Christian, no nickname or abbreviation, ever since, with the exception of one nametag-and-hairnet job where they decided my name was Chris.



I learned to read before my third birthday. This is not to brag, but to set up the next story.



Dad's grandmother died shortly before my fourth birthday. (And, alas, as a lifelong Tiger fan, eight months before the Bless You Boys beat those mustard-colored National Leaguers in the World Series. She didn't even get to see them go 35-5 in their first forty games.) We went to the local Friends Church for the service, and as we shuffled into the pews, I noted the cross at the front of the room.



Well, not really. I didn't know it was a cross, or what the symbolism of the cross was, nor that I was in a place where I was supposed to be particularly quiet. What I said was, "What's that 't' for?"



My mother started taking her two young sons to a Methodist church in town shortly after that.