As I peered out the screened-in window of my tent, the Arkansas night seemed to douse me. Beaded with sweat and shaking with excitement I saw the point. Looking at the tangle of drooping trees on this moonless night, crickets chirping all around, I now understood. I gave myself to Jesus.

About two months prior to this life-changing experience my parents, divorced in all ways but for the love of their children, decided it was my last chance to experience a summer camp. I would turn fourteen in August and would have essentially outlived my time to be a summer camper. Without much reflection, they enrolled me in an Arkansas-based outfit that a few of their friends had recommended. What neither my parents nor I understood was that in sending me to such a place they were sending me to be brainwashed. Such a word is strong, of course, but so was my experience. And a summer camp in Arkansas? How could such a benign group be involved in brainwashing? After all, brainwashing occurred when cults got their grips on naïve youngsters, not when good Christians took in your children for the summer break. Also, Christianity is not a cult—or so the world seems to think. I myself see no real distinction between a cult and a ‘religion.’ As far as I’m concerned, when someone tells you to deny what you think and perceive and believe what they believe, it’s a cult. That a cult has millions of believers and paid-television advertisements (so-called televangelism), does not make it any more reasonable, or safe, than the Moonies, Mormons, or God-forbid, the Scientologists.

I was shipped off in June to the rugged, moist woods of central Arkansas. I left a chubby and dare I say ‘cool’ adolescent. I returned a sinewy, lean, fire-eyed Fundamentalist—the laughingstock of my family and friends. "Are you saved?" I asked everyone I knew or met for weeks after my return. And if they said no I could talk on and on about the enlightened state of modern Christianity. And if that failed, I discussed Hell.

Among the day’s program at the camp was reveille at dawn’s light, meager rations, a dozen or more hours of heavy physical labor, and firelight prayer vigils—all under the watchful and stern gaze of Jesus luvin’ Bible-belters ("no cussin’, no kissin’, no foolin’ around"). Though any true fun would have been had only by the grace of God since the boys and girls were separated by every possible barrier, geographic and otherwise.

Among each night’s program were long theological talks, detailed discussions about the length and breadth of the nails that crushed through Christ’s wristbones ("not hands, that’s just a myth, hands could not hold up a corpse"), the salvation of varied peoples and nations ("no, the Commie Chinese would not go to Heaven"), and a sharing of our leaders’ personal convictions, sins, and ultimate redemption. The many confessions I listened to that summer would have shocked Jerry Springer fans. My thirteen year old mind was pumped so full of fear and confusion that when it finally ruptured the issuing protoplasm was channeled in the direction of Christian salvation.

I recall the very instance of my Ascent, or Fall, depending on your persuasion. Halfway into the summer my tribe was sent off on a three day intensive. During this sojourn one lived with the smallest amount possible of food and water, out beyond the pale of any modern conveniences, adrift in a world of insects and uncertainty. We were led on long marches through strange forests to return nearly dehydrated and batty long after nightfall. Then the campfires would begin. They were engineered to reflect all the painful intensity of Hellfire. And we were to sit as close as possible. One night the speaker (he was the one that finally broke me) caused us to imagine eternity. Of course I had glimpses of the notion, but now I would understand. With the dramatic tenor of a showman, arms flailing, he encouraged us to imagine that the entire Earth was made out of sandstone, a common feature of our nearby terrain. Now imagine that every hundred years an ant stumbles along and removes a single grain of sand from the planet-sized stone. When the ant, century after century after century after century, finally removes the last grain of sand then a fleeting second of one’s eternity would have ticked away. As the speaker went on to describe, each of us would live this long, and longer, and unless we took Jesus as our Savior we would spend that eternity in the most incredible pain and hopelessness, drenched in the heat of Hell’s belly. The lecture on Hell was the following evening.

That’s all it took, I had been carefully prepared for many weeks before, and would be preened for many weeks after this conversion experience. That night, after a few hours of anguished wakefulness—go figure, I couldn’t sleep—I finally understood. The meaning of existence, the whole cosmic drama, opened up before me. I understood my tiny powerlessness before all things large and I joined the team… I took Jesus into my heart. The security, the blessed peace of knowing I could never after (and still can’t) go to Hell because of this innocent offering of myself to Jesus—the Way, the Truth, and the Life—removed the terror from my racing heart. Now excitement kept me up. I was the first to face the dawn of that Thursday. I was rushed to the hospital around noon.