At birth, my father (Herman Huston Hays) was a minister of the Southern Methodist Church, a vocation he took up to make his mother happy. At her death 4 years after my birth, Dad went back to his real love, in the parks.

When I was six, Dad was caretaker of Reed Park in Tulsa, OK, where many of his relarives lived. Neither Dad nor Mom (a dressmaker) attended church. A block away was College Hill Presbyterian Church. I became friends with Bobby, grandson of the church's minister, The Rev. William Nichols. When I was 7, I joined the church wih Bobby. I enjoyed very much attending College Hill. One thing I liked was that I didn't have to go to Sunday School, but joined Bobby in attending the Men's Bible Class, conducted by Bobby's grandfather.

However, when I was 9, Mom dragged me back to Springfield, MO, where many of her relatives lived. I continued to go alone to Presbyterian churches. But when Mom dragged me to visit her sister, Myrtle, on the other side of town, I was dragged to Myrtle's church, which was "hardshell Baptist", and dragged to Sunday School, which I'd been able to avoid. elsewhere.

I reacted by asking provocative questions. For example, in Genesis in The Bible, God created Adam and Eve, who created sons. We read that the sons had children. But where did they find wives? No mention of any new creation of women for them. Did they commit incest with their mother or sisters? For asking such a question, I was dragged to and locked in the room's closet, with pencil and tablet, to write down my "Sins for the Week". I recognized an opportunity for creative writing, and handed the teacher some shockers.

Dragged to attend Myrtle's church and its Sunday School on a later occasion, I interrupted the account of Noah's family when the Flood waters were receding. I'd read about this thoroughly in Genesis -- not the expurgated version for Sunday School. So, before the teacher could prevent it, I regaled my little companions with the story of how Noah's daughters got Noah drunk on wine and took him to bed, to help extend the Earth's only family. And I said, "Seems this is the second time that the Earth was replenished by incest." (Long before Steve McQueen, in The Great Escape, I was "The Cooler King".)

Thus do reputations "get built". Dragged again to Myrtle's church, I was dragged (as usual) to the front row, where the minister could "keep an eye on me". The minister was preaching a sermon about his favorite subject, Predistination.

This is the theological doctrine that God permanently predetermines a person's destiny. The doctrine is implied only twice in the New Testament, in Romans 8 and Ephesians 1. "For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified" (Romans 8:29-30). These verses imply "single" predestination: only predestination to life with God.

Double predestination was deduced from "single" predestination: If some enjoy God's presence by his eternal decree, then others must then be eternally separated from God, by his decree. If salvation and glory are predestined, condemnation and destruction must also be predestined. The first theologian to enunciate a doctrine of double predestination was St. Augustine in the 5th century, but Roman Catholic theology returned to "single" predestination. The best-known "double-predestiner" was Swiss reformer John Calvin.

And John Knox, the Scot "founder" of Presbyterianism, was influenced by Calvin in many ways, including "doubling". But "singleness" seems to have prevailed in the Presbyterian tradition. I'd read about it, but never heard it mentioned in a Presbyterian sermon. And, apparently, it isn't a "show-stopper" in Baptist tradition, except among some of the "hard-shells", as with the minister who was now glaring down at bedraggled me. I suddenly realized that I was starring in "Show-and-Tell".

"And some are predamned to eternal Hell! Such as you, Sonny Hays!"

"Me? Whadidido?"

"It doesn't have anything to do with what you do. God decided it before you were born!"

"But that isn't fair!"

"Don't you question the will of God Almighty, you little hellion!"

Two ushers dragged me, screaming and kicking, out of the sanctuary.