E.V. Un-Free #1
“E.V. Free” stood for Evangelical Free. Freedom was in the name. Freedom was preached from the pulpit. Freedom in Christ. Freedom from sin. Freedom through salvation. But there was very little freedom to be found.
By the time I was six years old, I already knew I was a sinner. Not because I had done anything particularly wrong, but because I had been born that way. Every Sunday morning, sitting cross-legged in a tiny classroom smelling faintly of crayons, Elmer’s glue, and instant coffee drifting in from the fellowship hall, I learned that sin wasn’t simply something people did. It was something people were. And so was I.
I didn’t think I was listening to a story. I thought I was learning facts about the world, the same way I learned that two plus two equals four or that rain came from clouds. Every Sunday, we learned the same truth. My twenty-something Sunday school teacher, Miss Nancy, her curled feathered hair framing her face like Farrah Fawcett, the tiniest nod to pop culture in an otherwise carefully guarded world, stood before the flannel board.
From a worn basket she pulled out Adam and Eve. Next came the tree with its bright red apple—even though no one in the Bible ever called it an apple. Then the serpent, coiled around the trunk with a sly stitched-on smile that somehow made him seem both mischievous and terrifying.
“Eve reached first.”
Miss Nancy lifted one eyebrow as she peeled the felt apple from the tree and pressed it into Eve’s hand. Then she moved it into Adam’s.
“And then Eve tempted Adam.”
The room fell quiet.
“When they disobeyed God, their eyes were opened. They realized they were naked, and they were ashamed.”
From the basket she pulled two green felt fig leaves and gently pressed them over their bodies. Someone always snickered. We all knew what the leaves were meant to hide, even if Adam and Eve were nothing more than smooth, featureless felt cutouts. Then came the sentence that quietly settled into my bones.
“Because Eve disobeyed God, sin entered the world. Every person is born a sinner.”
I didn’t hear it as the story of humanity. I heard it as the story of me. I remember looking down at my own little hands and wondering how I could already be guilty when I’d barely had time to live. I hadn’t stolen anything. I hadn’t hurt anyone. I’d probably argued with my sister and forgotten to clean my room, but surely that wasn’t what she meant. No, I was a sinner because I had been born. Somewhere, long before I existed, another woman had made the wrong choice, and somehow, I was paying for it. Because of Eve, I was told I would one day suffer in childbirth. Because of Eve, I would submit to my husband. Because of Eve, my very nature needed correcting. Before I had learned long division. Before I’d had my first kiss. Before I understood my own body. Because of Eve, I needed forgiveness before I had lived enough life to know what forgiveness was.
Even at six years old, something in me resisted. I couldn’t have explained why. I only remember thinking, That doesn’t seem very fair. Looking back now, I realize this story didn’t begin with Eve. It began before I could speak. It began when I was carried into that church as an infant and dedicated to God, long before I had any say in what I believed. Before I could ask my own questions. Before I knew there were other stories to tell about women, about bodies, about goodness, about God.
This was the first story I inherited.
It would not be the last.
