The religion teacher without a faith
L.D. Russell has taught religious studies at Elon University for over 20 years. His original career path of Baptist pastor led him down a very different road. Now, rather than a pastor, Russell is a preacher of all religions.
Victoria Traxler
03/21/2019
“I remember thinking if there is a god, I want to kill him,” L.D. Russell said.
It was a strange thought from a would-be pastor who has now taught religious studies for over 25 years. Russell is a senior lecturer at Elon University and is one of the most renowned religion professors on campus, but his relationship with religion has been tumultuous in the past.
At one point a devout Baptist, Russell has had a journey with religion that most could relate to, but no one would expect. As a seminary student, his track towards pastoral leadership was derailed after experiencing the unpredictablity of death.
“I just felt utterly betrayed by the church and the church's teachings and all this promise about, ‘oh, death, where is that victory? Oh, grave where is thy sting?’” Russell said. “I knew exactly where it was, it was all over me.”
Now, after a 60-year long journey, he describes himself not as the Baptist preacher he thought he would be, but as a preacher of all religions. Russell’s career teaching has been therapeutic, as he now finds himself with opportunities and connections he never imagined .
Creation
L.D. Russell was born in Union, South Carolina in 1955. His tumultuous journey with religion began in the Tabernacle Baptist Church when he was around the age of seven. His family found the church by a matter of directional choice.
“At the end of our street, if we had turned left, we would have been Methodist,” Russell said. “But as it turned out we turned right, in more ways than one, actually and became Baptist.”
Russell’s home life was chaotic and uncertain. When he was around the age of eight, Russell's mother attempted suicide. This had an immense impact on how he later would deal with the chaos and uncertainty he encountered in his life.
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L.D. Russell (right) with his brothers Frank (left) and James (middle)
L.D. Russell in 1st Grade
L.D. Russell with close friend in 1973
L.D. Russell (right) with his brothers Frank (left) and James (middle)
The culture of the Baptist faith surrounded him, but as he went into high school in 1969, religion had yet to take hold. Russell was a hippie going into high school. He experimented with drugs and was turned off by the cliques that focused on sports or academics.
The first step in his spirituality took place in the summer of 1972 during a youth group beach trip at an old military fortress called Camp Caswell. The week-long camp was filled with intense evangelical preachings.
At the end, the youth group ran the Sunday service. During this service is when members could come down to the front, in view of the pastor and entire congregation, and formally devote their lives to Jesus.
L.D. Russell (center) at Camp Caswell '72 / photo courtesy of Russell
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He sat in the pew thinking about what his peers were saying about how Christianity had affected them and felt lonely. With the mental health issues Russell’s parents grappled with affecting his home life, the comfort his peers felt with religion became more appealing to him.
Russell sat there contemplating all of it. He held the wood of the pew in front of him as he wrestled with conflicting emotions, ultimately deciding to join the others.
“I can still feel the wood, not wanting to go down to the front and not being able not to,” Russell said. “It just felt like a force bigger than me.”
After that day, Russell felt he had found the family he was lacking at home, and an absolute truth. He decided he wanted to serve his God full-time and began to consider seminary school.
His pastor and father-figure at the time, Rev. Hayne Rivers, would later help Russell get a full-ride scholarship to Furman University to study English, co-sign on his first car and inspire Russell’s characteristic generosity.
“I try to pay forward that grace every day because he changed my life,” Russell said, “because he did that thing that he did not need to do.”
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Fall from Grace
At Furman University the seeds of doubt about the Baptist faith were planted. There, Russell learned about other religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Daoism, and became curious about the ways of spirituality he was unfamiliar with. He felt guilty for being intrigued and curious about other religions.
“I encountered some really serious cognitive dissonance,” Russell said. “What I believed and what I was learning did not match up, and I didn't know how to get them to match up. It started a crisis of faith for me.”
After graduating from Furman, he married a Methodist preacher’s daughter and went to Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary school to complete his studies. During his three years there, everything Russell had built into the foundations of his life would change.
While his marriage began to crack, Russell was confronted with a new reality. He received a phone call that his grandfather, his childhood hero, had passed away. Not long after, another call came that Rivers was in the hospital, deathly ill with liver cancer.
Russell remembered Rivers telling him and the rest of the group of boys he had mentored over the years that he would get out of the bed and walk with the help of God. A few weeks later he and the others were carrying his casket to the graveyard.
“That faith that I had, I think, was buried with him,” he said.
Russell went back to school shortly thereafter, where he was taking a class about the problems of evil. This course looked at the question of why bad things happen to good people. A few weeks after Russell had returned to school from his time with Rivers, the professor of this class died in a hit and run.
“That was three strikes and I was out,” Russell said. “Part of what was happening to me, I realize now, is that I was realizing that death is unavoidable. That no matter what your religion tells you, you’re still going to die.”
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Russell said he remembered thinking if there was a god, he wanted to kill him. He was left with more questions than answers.
Henry Carrigan, one of Russell's closest friends since their time at seminary school, speculated why these deaths drove him away from religion, rather than seeking comfort in it.
"He experiences things very close to the bone and close to the heart," Carrigan said.
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Russell carried with him a culmination of deaths, not just of life but of relationships, that lead him to ask questions his religion was unable to answer, Carrigan believed. After the final death of Russell's professor, Carrigan eventually realized Russell felt he needed to search elsewhere for comfort and resolution.
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"There's nothing that can comfort you after [death], there's nothing to return to," Carrigan said. "Religion really doesn't have an answer and [it is] something we're all struggling with."
Russell finished the seminary master’s program empty-heartedly while his marriage fell apart. At the time, he felt like the world was ending. And it was, at least the world he had known for so many years. He often contemplated suicide during this time. The impact from the experience with his mother gave him this idea as an option, a way out from all of the pain and anger he was experiencing at the time. Life had lost its meaning.
Enlightenment
Russell reached a turning point with the help of his brothers, Frank Jr. and James, and became acutely aware of the finality of death (see sidebar).
He married a second time, to a woman who would eventually become his “favorite ex-wife” who encouraged him to go back to school at Wake Forest University.
“I described myself at that time is as hippie trapped in a Baptist body,” Russell said.
He was constantly asking questions about life and religion that his wife knew he would never be able to answer alone. At Wake Forest he met a professor, Dr. James Martin, whom he could confide in passionately about his frustration and confusion with religion and spirituality.
Russell remembers a particular day that shifted his way of thinking. While in Martin’s office, he expressed frustration about life and was met with an answer that changed him.
“I'm railing about the meaninglessness of life that I don't understand it, I don't know what to do and I don't know how to live and it's just meaningless,” Russell said. “He said to me, and I will never forget, he said, ‘Larry, just because there is no overarching meaning in life, that does not mean it is utterly meaningless.”
Moment of Enlightenment
"He just suddenly pulled off the side of the road, middle of nowhere, pitch black darkness, " Russell said.
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Russell was driving with his younger brother James, and older brother Frank one night while they were back in Union, S.C.
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Both Frank and Russell struggled with suicidal thoughts and depression. James felt there was a direct way to deal with this.
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While Russell and Frank discussed their internal crisis and the difficulties of depression, James made a decision that would impact all of their lives.
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"He pulled a .45 pistol out of his glove box and handed it to Frank and said, ‘You keep talking about killing yourself, do it.’"
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Russell realized that James was offering him the same decision too. Eventually they got out of the car and all fired the pistol into the darkness.
He said understanding finality of the gun changed him. It could be a moment enlightenment for Russell, but that night turned a light on for him.
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"I just knew that I was not checking out," he said. "In that moment I decided to live, I just decided to stay."
Russell then realized his world had been deconstructed. He now had the ability to reconstruct it in a way that he believed.
“I realized the problem’s not religion, it's the way that religion is practiced,” Russell said. “It's the way that religion gets understood.”
Russell read authors like Albert Camus and Miguel de Unamuno, who wrote about existentialism and the role of religions. After completing his Masters at Wake Forest, he engaged in a doctoral program in religious studies at the University of North Carolina and began teaching religious studies at Elon College.
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It was at Elon where Russell was truly able to engage and indulge existential and spiritual questions that he constantly pondered. Now, every semester Russell can ask his classes and collegiate peers the same questions he wondered about for years. He said he grows from all of the different perspectives.
“All this time I'm basically getting paid to ask the questions I would be asking you anyway,” Russell said. “When I walk out of a classroom and I am utterly exhausted and absolutely exhilarated, and that happens fairly often, I know that I've had a good day.”
Russell's novel "Godspeed: Racing is my Religion / photo courtesey of Russell
Jeffrey Pugh, a former professor of Religious Studies at Elon for 32 years and mentor to Russell, said he related to Russell’s journey with religion. Pugh said he walked a similar path as Russell, and even joined a cult during his search for spiritual truth. Russell’s world has been broadened by his life and he uses it to help his teaching, Pugh said.
“He walks that line between ‘here was my experience, here are my experiences, here’s the information- you guys pretty much have to work this out for yourselves,” Pugh said.
Now, rather than identifying with one religion, Russell identifies with parts of all religions. He said so many things in different religions have enlightened him and inspired him. They have all helped him move away from the anger he felt as a young man and develop confidence as an educator.
Nitya Fiorentino, one of Russell’s closest friends of almost a decade, said she has seen him grow into himself and become more confident in his abilities as a teacher and as a person. Fiorentino said his “unquenchable desire to keep learning” helps make Russell a great educator.
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“I think that LD has used his life, you know, to cultivate a very healthy tribe both with the students as well as the ones that stay year after a year,” Fiorentino said. “He changes people's lives.”
Russell now reflects often about his life and the changes he experiences. In his darkest moments, depression and suicidal thoughts left him hopeless that life had meaning. Coming out of that, Russell feels he gained much more appreciation and gratefulness for the life he now lives.
He is grateful for all of the opportunities he has had here--study abroad in France, London and Hawaii, building his “tribe” of students and faculty and mentors, and learning from his students.
“I could have made a lot more money in my life,” Russell said. “I could have had a lot more possessions, but I could not be happier.”