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Frederica Mathewes-Green, a native of Charleston, South Carolina, is a regular commentator for National Public Radio's Morning Edition and other media outlets, a columnist for Beliefnet, and a regular contributor to Christianity Today, which she formerly served as a columnist. She is also a contributor to the Christian Millennial History Project. Her books include Real Choices: Listening to Women, Looking for Alternatives to Abortion, Facing East: A Pilgrim's Journey into the Mysteries of Orthodoxy, At the Corner of East and Now: A Modern Life in Ancient Christian Orthodoxy, and The Illumined Heart: The Ancient Christian Path of Transformation. Her latest book is Gender: Men, Women, Sex and Feminism (excerpt), but we talked to her about her spiritual journey and the ideas in The Illumined Heart.

You've ended up in what is clearly a minority religious expression within Christianity in the United States. Which branch of Orthodoxy are you in?

I am Antiochian Orthodox, but I'm not so sure we're a minority. I recently heard that if all the Orthodox churches in America united we would be either the third or the fourth largest Christian body in America. But we have a low profile because it is an immigrant church.

Where did you start out?

My mother was an unbeliever — and still is. My father was a nominal Catholic. We would go in to church at the last minute before the gospel reading, take Communion, and walk right out again. We were taught, as so many Catholics were then, if you were to miss a Sunday and get hit by a truck you go straight to hell. It was an attitude towards religion that probably harked back to early days of Greece and Rome where you placated the gods.

And you broke away from that during your high school and college years?

I wish I could pinpoint exactly why I began to lose faith. When I was around eight or nine, I went through a spurt of having very strong faith. My parents didn't think it was entirely healthy to be that religious. When I'd say that I wanted to be a nun (because we didn't know of any other way of giving your whole life to Christ), they said that was neurotic and that I was running away from life. So I got the message that it wasn't good to be too religious.

When I was 12 or 13, I began to doubt the entire Christian story. I felt almost as if I'd had somebody try to cheat me. They had fed me this long, complex story about virgin birth, born in a manger, died on a cross, came back to life — it just sounded preposterous to me. I thought that it was something that no normal, sane person could be expected to believe, and I'd been made a fool.

I began then to consider atheism, agnosticism, and various other religions. But I rejected Christianity with vehemence. Initially I chose Hinduism because it seemed to me the most intriguing and colorful of all the different world religions.

What ultimately led you out of Hinduism?

Well, it was a strange experience. I was with my husband on our honeymoon, hitchhiking around Europe. He was an atheist who had been assigned in one of his classes to read a gospel. And he kept saying, "There's something about Jesus. I've never encountered anyone like this before. I know that he's speaking the truth. I'm an atheist. But if Jesus says there's a God, there must be a God."

It was a very scary experience for me, because I didn't want him to be a Christian. He was not ready to make a full commitment to Christ at that point, but he was curious and wanted to study more. The more liberal theologians were the door that he was able to walk through, and then into a more traditional faith.

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September (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46