Hobart and William Smith Colleges

by Brian P. Hall

When I first started writing about my experiences growing up in an evangelical household, I wanted the form of the essay to reflect how immersed I was within the religion. When I was younger there wasn't a day that went by when I didn't read my own Study Bible and create sermons by using the Bible's cross-referencing system, which are the footnotes that connect one scripture to another scripture. I found it very interesting to see how prevalent a particular scripture's theme was throughout the Bible.

As I began creating my essays, I wanted as many of my essay lines to connect to actual Biblical scriptures. Some of the scriptures I reference help explain the religious zeal I had as a child, some show the blatant hypocrisy of Christianity, while others are meant as examples of passages that can create fear in a child. I use my format as a way to show that the Bible can be seen as nothing more than a collection of stories that can be connected to other Biblical stories, or to our own story.

Brian P. Hall earned his MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and he currently teaches English at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland. His Study Bibles have appeared in Blue Mesa Review, Memoir, Shadowbox, and the NewerYork. In addition to nonfiction, he writes and illustrates picture books.

 

Originally appeared in the online supplement to the Beyond Category issue 43.2 - 44.1