1. we were taught creationism. In fourth grade Mr Beckman told us that as a child he saw paleontologists dig up what he knew was a horse that knew was buried there. And turned it into a T Rex.
2. And to my eternal shame, we were worked up to believe that Roman Catholics, Jews and Muslims were going to Hell. Children were taught to be judgemental. Children have to be taught hate and discrimination.
What I am ashamed of was the afternoon I waited for a girl from the neighborhood returning from Catholic school on a bus and told her as she was stepping down out of the bus she was going to Hell. My heart sinks when I think of it.
There is a third event. Like Catholic kids, we had Catechism classes. We were required to memorize Luther's Small Catechism, one morning I was asked to recite a portion that I had polished down and when it came to speak, I froze, my brain went blank and I had a breakdown in class bad enough that my mom had to come and collect me. And I had my first experience with a therapist.
When I went to my first Catholic services, I was surprised (as well was my Catholic girlfriend) that I knew the Order of Mass with a few differences: no reference to saints or Mary.
As a kid my grand-father, also Lutheran, and a Mason, would listen to Catholic mass on the radio ever Sunday morning and I did too. I learned the Rosary and the Hail Mary (which gave me comfort when I younger by repeating it) before I was six.
I also watched Bishop Sheen on TV. I can't say why but I liked his talks a lot.
Missouri Synod Lutherans rise and sit and kneel. The Church we attended in Cleveland also had the stations of the cross and and altars piece that would have fit well into any large Catholic church. I've also attended other Missouri Synod churces that had nuns (more accurately, what a Lutheran might call a nun), and brothers, these were unmarried. And in Tempe attended one that parishioners crossed themselves.
I remember in the 60s there were talks to reunite Roman Catholics and Lutherans in some manner and I know some segments of the Old Roman Catholics have some connection with the Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church of Norway.
But I condemned a little girl on the near westside of Cleveland to Hell.
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